Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And we're live. Okay. Friday, 02/27/2026 here in house transportation. Floor has gone longer than maybe was planned for. So the presentation that was scheduled for eleven is bumped until a future date. And we're going to move forward with what was on our first part of our schedule, which is the start of our markup on this year's of the 2027 T Bill. Damian Leonard from Ledge Counsel in. The goal here is to go through the original submission, check off and agree to the parts that we are certain of, and then potentially add a couple of the other pieces that we've looked at or that are hanging, that have been proposed for addition. Well, with that, I'll hand it over to you.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great. Thank you. For the record, I'm Damian Leonard from the Office of Legislative Council. I'll pull up the first draft of the T bill that we looked at all the way back at the January, I think. And what I'm gonna do is I'll go through if you have notes on the sections, I'm gonna make notes in the draft here so that I can start amending it when we return from the town meeting break. And then once I get through it, we can start talking about other things that should be added to the next draft. I'll make a note of that, and I think that'll get us through. So the first section here, this is just the standard transportation program, adoption and definitions. This is in every T bill. The only thing that might change here depending on what you put into the bill are the definitions. What I've done for purposes of this draft is just to cut and paste last year's definitions into here. I would suggest that we revisit this later on the final draft just to go through the definitions, and I'll let you know if I've added or taken any out at that point. But right now, depending on what we add in or or move forward with, the definitions might change. Any questions on that?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: K. Pretty comfortable with the idea that this would get checked off as standard operating procedure and a thumbs up.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Just with a and with a revisit to

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: check those definitions later. Revisit if any changes or any additions. Yep. Otherwise, we're good to go.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So the next is the municipal heavy equipment loan fund, which is actually now the municipal equipment and vehicle loan fund, which tells you how old the rules are that are being repealed here. So if all of you can think back to when we talked about this last, This is a program that's been administered by the treasurer for several years, but the statutes were not updated to reflect that. So this provides loans to municipalities to purchase highway equipment and vehicles. Originally, it was designed for heavy equipment like road graders and that sort of thing. There are rules that are still on the books from the I believe it was the transportation board who used to administer it. And those rules are outdated and have been superseded by updates to the statute that occurred in last year's big bill that were supposed to be technical amendments clarifying the rulemaking authority. Unfortunately, when the the secretary of state and were contacted this past summer with notice that the rules were going to be repealed by operation of law. We reviewed the statute and the Administrative Procedure Act for how that's supposed to occur and determined that the language in the big bill last year did not actually meet the standard to repeal the outdated obsolete rules. So this is a technical amendment to repeal those rules. I'm seeing some confusion. So the transportation board adopted rules for a program that back when they administered it, they no longer administer these loans. Might be longer than that. These rules are outdated and obsolete. There was language put into last year's big bill to clarify who had the authority to adopt procedures and what the requirements were because the the treasurer's office has been administering this loan fund. The that language, unfortunately, did not include language saying the rules shall be repealed or this shall supersede the existing rules or other language that would have operated to repeal those rules, in the t bill. So we need to have cleanup language in this bill to repeal the rules because, essentially, you have obsolete rules for a loan fund that has changed its scope, changed its name, and changed who administers it. So these these rules are no longer consistent with what's actually happening. We just need to put language in the bill that actually gets them off the books. The fund is still there. It's still there, and it'll continue being administered the way it has been for the last several years at least. Treasurer's office will continue administering it. And this is one of those things that slipped through the cracks when we were working on language for the big bill last year. I believe that I reviewed that language but didn't realize that there was another set of rules. And so it wasn't until this past summer that we made the connection and realized that the language hadn't done what it needed to do in terms of repealing the rules. It did clean up any technical discrepancies on who's administering, who adopts procedures, etcetera.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I have also spoken to the JFO about funding as T fund related. I talked to the agency that's at the T board request with the support of the pledge counsel. It's my summary, guess is what Bennington is saying, when I've been talking to the JFO and talking to the agency and talking to the pledge counsel, They thought they had corrected a technical correction, now we have to correct our technical correction to get the language out to a fund that hasn't touched the T fund in over ten years and is not managed by any of our staff or any of their staff or people. It's entirely within the Treasury Department. They do still loan out money, it has nothing to do with transportation and the T Board sitting there. They thought they'd clean it up and they didn't, and now they're trying to clean it up again. I know there was questions about the fund itself and whatnot, that would be information only in terms of the treasurer, sort of where I left off that.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's no proposal to change the loan program or the funding or how it's administered, and nothing will change with that. What this is doing is taking obsolete regulations from back when it was with the transportation board off the books. So they they thought they'd accomplished that last year, but, unfortunately, we had a miscommunication in the the about the language in the big bill. And I'm pretty sure that I reviewed it and said, this looks fine to me, not realizing that we were also trying to repeal the rules by operation of law. So Job security.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's not

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the way I want to earn job security. Anybody

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: have concerns or if people okay with it, give your thumbs up or anyone to hear more your Just

[Unidentified Committee Member]: a quick question. Just so I can understand, has this always been administered by the treasurer, or was that a change that happened

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's a change that happened a number of years ago.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And so their last year's language was supposed to clean up some of the remnants of when it had been administered by the transportation board, and this is the last remnant that was missed by last year's legislation.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Other questions, concerns about this? Are we thumbs up with leaving this in the bill? Yeah. Thank you, Keyser. All right. Moving on. For Make a note, though. Let's make sure for presentation, we find out the date that the keyboard transferred over to the Yeah. Keyboard over to the treasurer's office. If you could find us a date for whoever presents this section, we'd be ready to answer that section or answer any question of when that happened just for our presentation portion. I think we all have a lesson of making sure that if you take a section, you wanna make sure you know everything about it. You may never get asked, but you might get asked.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Basic tickles wrapped up. Stay

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: on your toes.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Went into the floor action this morning, I didn't say that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Didn't say that. Next.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. So the next section three would update the language around the standards and guidance for design of the roads here. This is essentially a technical change. Here, what we're saying instead of develop and implement is maintain state standards and guidance. And then the language in the second sentence that's being struck is redundant with the third sentence, which also says design speed's lower than legal speed. So it implies that design speeds may be lower than legal speeds, may be used without the requirement of a formal design exception if appropriate warning signs, signals, markings are used, which essentially does exactly what the provided appropriate warnings are posted did with a little bit more clarity. And this is already we were talking yesterday about the MUTCD. This is already laid out in that, and the Vermont state design standards will reflect those requirements. So when you have a highway that's 45 miles an hour, but you have a 30 mile an hour curve, you're all familiar with the yellow and black chevrons and then the curve warning sign that might have a different speed limit, etcetera. That's what this is talking about. So you don't need an exception for the design if you're just warning drivers ahead of time that they need to slow down, that you have a sharp curve or whatever it is.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: In the note, in the testimony, we discussed with the agency, and I think we had a little bit of discussion on it, was presented before. There was a note about, this sort of shows a little bit about the incremental improvements and changes over time, because back when the language was written, there weren't state standards. And now there are, they weren't related to these pieces and now there are. And they're continuing to be updated and revised again. So the agency's view on planning and things has changed. Phil's got a thumbs up? Does anybody else? Representative Pouech has a point it out. Anybody else have a thumbs up or down? A question. Anybody have a question about this section? Representative White?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I do.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's why we're here.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay, so Damien, I hear So in situations where there's a sharp curve going from 50 to 35, get that. Would this also apply to school crossing? Just like when you're coming into a school zone.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Yeah. So this is the same thing if you're any place where you need to lower the speed because of the road conditions, including what's happening around the road, traffic, trucks entering. For example, if you have I'm thinking of a spot near a sand and gravel location where there are trucks entering that I've driven by, where they lower the speed so that you have more reaction time because of the sight lines on the road. Anytime where you have that sort of the engineering requirements based on the conditions around it indicate that you should lower the speed, even though the legal speed on that highway is 45, 55, 35, whatever it is, this allows you to do it with proper signage instead of having to go through the process of getting a design exception.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And and this change, it's not changing any practice. It's just kinda cleaning up some language.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm all set.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And the design exception is an exception to the National Highway System, right?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Or to the Vermont State Standards, etcetera. Yeah.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: We have the limit. There's the limit, but this is not to be not.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. This allows you to go below the limit without asking for a formal exception to the specific designs for that type of highway. So, and this is something that So if you think about cemetery curve over here on Route 2, as you're leaving town heading towards Dairy Cream, That is an example of this here. The road width doesn't change. The shoulders don't change. The lane painted lane width doesn't change, but you do have a lower speed through that curve. You've got the chevrons and a speed warning on the curve to slow down because it's a sharp 90 degree curve on what is a, I believe, a 35 or 40 mile an hour road at that point. And so there there are instances like that, I think, you'll find where the road is built to the same design standards, but you're changing the speed and lowering the speed there for safety purposes.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is there like, can you go down to five miles now? Or does that, like, get into, like, the lower of the speed?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You still get into the the

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So you get into the traffics.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. The same sort of traffic and engineering study required. We're talking about the This is really just saying that you can it's a statement of policy that we're not going to require a design exception to lower the speed limit below the legal speed limit. You still have to go through the process that's set out for setting speed limits. So and this

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'll talk about that. So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you remember yesterday, the first statute I talked about was state speed zones. Yeah. A speed zone is one of these instances here where it's different from the legal speed limit for that type of highway. And you've lowered the zone. So this could be a school zone, could be a sharp curve, it could be a densely, you know, an area that's dense with driveways and crossings, and so you wanna lower speeds because there are a lot of vehicles entering, etcetera. Could be an area where steep grades, So you have limited sight lines, things like that. But, yeah, this is this is covered by the state speed zone language. This would also be the sort of thing that a municipal legislative body could do, and then they can lower their speeds. And this is it's just a general statement of policy. The actual mechanics are all set out in title 23.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. So that's a flashlight. That's correct. Yeah. I

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: was wondering if we need another definition because this is for projects not on the National Highway Speed System. So I'm wondering that I think that would include some state highways. So some state highways are part of the National Highway System and some are not. To be So thinking about yesterday and all the discussion about what applies where and how do you know, that sort of thing.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is basically everything that's not on the National Highway System. So it would encompass it would encompass, like, all of the we're we're in two different titles here.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is title 19 talking about general highway construction and highway projects. So this is basically this is not how do you set the speed limit. This is what you do when you're building a road and you have different speed limits as you go through the road because of certain conditions. And this is a statement of policy guiding what you do in those road projects. So when you do a project, say, you're resurfacing Route 2 on your way out to Dairy Cream to deal with the heavy traffic for creamies, when you redo the signage after that resurfacing project, how are you setting out the signage? And this is saying that you can set out signage for a lower than legal speed, and all of that setting the speed limit is out in title 23. So the process for doing that is in title 23. But here, you can use those lower speed limits provided you have appropriate signage. And so this is really talking about what do you do when you're putting the road together when you're constructing it. And so now as the engineers are laying out specifications for the projects, they're going to say, we're going to install curve warning signs here. We're going to install the chevrons. We'll have a speed warning sign for that lower speed zone, whatever it is that they might have. If you think about Route 2 going further out as you come into Middlesex where you get through the curves there and it's densely packed, the speed drops from 50 to 35 As you go through there, there's a warning because there's also a rise, so you don't have a sight line. So there's a warning there that tells you and a curve tells you you're about to enter a lower speed zone. Then you have the speed zone sign that starts it. Then as you come through the curves, there are other type curve warnings with chevrons. And then as you're exiting the speed zone, you now have new speed limit signs. And the same coming the other way where there's a rise going up to the on ramp for the interstate and then it drops down a hill. You have speed zone warnings there. And that's what this is talking about. So as you're constructing that and the engineers are laying that out, this is telling them use appropriate warning signs, signals, markings. And as long as you do that, you don't need to get an exception from the design standards for this lower speed zone area. That's what this is saying. This is not saying this is not getting into how the traffic committee or the legislative body of the municipality sets their own speed limits. So I'm not sure we need a new definition here. This is just really kind of setting out what's our policy for projects that aren't on the national highway system. Did did everyone follow that? Sorry. This is all very clear in my head because I drive that road about six times a week. So but not sure how familiar the rest of the committee is with the throwed sections.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Can you talk about all the other roads too? Okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Alright. I mean, representative Lalley, this is an area that you're always zeroed in on? Are you Yeah.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I'm I'm I'm good.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Representative, teaser's a thumbs up. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Patricia.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: K. Next, we're getting to the duties of the agency of transportation. And the first change here on lines two and three is just a technical change to get rid of the old fashioned language, just the sum required by the agency. And we're talking about sureties here, which is basically a bond or other deposit that's necessary to guarantee that conditions in the contract are followed. So it's it's money to ensure that the amounts due in the contract get paid. And what the agency had asked for the substantive change is down here allowing the secretary of transportation the discretion to waive the requirement for a bond in contracts of 250,000 or less. This would be an increase over the current amount of 100,000 or less. And then the next change in Subdivision B during an emergency event, giving the secretary discretion to waive the bonding requirements for immediate temporary stabilization work related to public safety or state infrastructure providing that any permanent work. So the permanent work to make repairs would still be subject to any of the bonding requirements.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So it's implied here that no matter what the cost of the contract, a bond is required. And then the secretary can for anything under 250,000.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So secretary can make a determination if it's under 250,000 or if it's an emergency. So and my recollection of the agency's testimony here is they're looking to simplify contracting when we have a flooding event or something like that, and they need to get work out there to prevent the road from deteriorating faster.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: 100,000 is a little bit of fire.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Has the agency, so in past emergency events, without this language, have they been bonding for work or have they

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that's a better question for them. I think they've had discretion to waive it below 100,000. But in this case, they're asking both to raise that cap and to just provide a blanket. And so my understanding is that they're asking for the emergency event language because there are instances where there's temporary stabilization work is costing more than that cap. Yeah. And they're still required to get a bond, which can delay being able to contract for that. I

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I don't if this helps, but the comment from the notes that I wrote here from the discussions, but also from one of the presentations from the agency. During any particular event, they would use about a dozen have used up to a dozen more contractors than they would use during their regular time per event. So envision it that you have an event, an emergency, and the AOTs, everybody's out doing their things, and there's still a problem. Done Jim's excavating is in their town. They will grab them and put them to work right away for up to a bit of portion because the rest of the things are going on, and they'll use about a dozen of the Jim's excavating in areas during an event, and if they had to wait to do this, then they couldn't use Jim's excavating. But if it's going over a quarter million dollars, then we probably need to make sure that Jim's excavating has got the bond behind them to do the work, but we need to be able to respond, but the agency wants to be able to respond more effectively. That's what he said, or the comments they use about a dozen of these every time there's an emergency event. If it's a declared emergency event, we're not talking about a brainstorm, we're talking about emergency events. And they have used about a dozen per major event, and that is the way that I understood the situation. That they would just be able to the secretary can just declare we're using them, and then we'll figure out after we get to a quarter million, we'll the emergency or whatever that we'll get back to the way we normally bond. I've got some time to think that $2.50 might not be enough in today's world, but you know, we're gonna go with what God liked to go with what they requested. Representative Paul?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I know what they did in 2011, twenty eleven, eleven, because they got that load built in three weeks. They just didn't, there were no bonds, or they just wanted to do that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, they knew it was an executive order, but Yeah,

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: that's what he said.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's It's what

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: That's what what he he said, do we need to do?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty stacked. This says that they do projects coming out to bid, right?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, so this is the

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The emergency part of a fairly two fifty, they don't need to bid that or does that have tie into that?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would have to look at the requirements for when we're required to put it out to bid versus when you can give a sole source.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah, so I'm just wondering, like, that chairwoman said, well, raising was a good idea, but I'm just wondering if that coincides with what has to be tied together. Make a note.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. It's I can't remember off the top of my head what the threshold is for when you have to get a contract.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Other questions on did we get to the full end

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of the we did not. So, that's for those bonds are for compliance with the terms of the contract, including payment of subcontractors. This next one is an additional bond for payment of labor, material men, and others executed for the execution of or for the for those payments, including for material merchandise, labor, rent, higher vehicles, etcetera. So this is basically ensuring that the state is not going to get sued as the entity that's contracted for this work. So it's basically when we pay you as contractor, you're guaranteeing that you're gonna pay for the any equipment that you rent, any material that you purchase to do the job, and you're not gonna leave us on the book. The other technical change in here is the contributions to the Vermont Commissioner of Labor. The only contributions that are made to the Vermont Commissioner of Labor are for the payment of unemployment insurance. I've clarified that in here. It's everything else as workers' comp is paid to your insurance company, etcetera. So and then the we are renumbering until we get down to again increasing from 100,000 to 250,000 and adding language in here for during an emergency event. For immediate emergency stabilization work related to public safety or state infrastructure, you can waive the bonding requirements identical to above. They're just two different types of bonds. One's for execution of the terms of the contract. The other is for paying for any material labor or rentals.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Questions? Yeah. It's at least one thumbs up. Questions? Okay. Representative Keyser, you got there? Anybody else have concerns? We did go through a few of those. Alright.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're at noon. Do you wanna keep going, mister chair?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'd like to Okay. Yeah. I don't know if we can get all the way through but I wanna make sure

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that we We're almost there. Yeah. So, the next is the bridge inspections, posting enclosure. So this is a new section. This is bringing us into compliance with the national bridge inspection standards. So we're defining bridge to mean a structure to which those standards apply under federal regulations. The agency shall inspect bridges on state highways and town highways in accordance with those standards. For municipally maintained bridges. The agency would advise the municipality of their findings and any noted deficiencies notify them if it requires posting or closure and require the municipality to post or close the bridge upon receiving the notification, and give the agency authority to immediately post or close a bridge if it finds that there's an imminent hazard. Then finally, provide that the municipality, because it's a municipally maintained bridge, is responsible for all costs and expenses. For agency maintained bridges, the agency has the sole responsibility and authority to determine whether it shall be posted or closed, except that a municipality may close it during an emergency. And then if a municipality becomes aware of deficiencies or structural conditions, they're required to promptly notify the agency. Agency is responsible for all costs. And then the enforcement and penalties, in addition to any other penalties provided, person that violates the posting or closure shall be subject to a civil penalty of up to $1,000 When we spoke about this last, there were some questions about municipal authority to post and close roads and bridges already. There is already existing authority. I don't have time to run through it today, don't think, but there's existing authority. We adopted new authority with respect to covered bridges a few years ago to give municipalities more authority to set, for example, height, weight, and length limits so that you can't have vehicles on there that can't make it across the bridge or might damage the structural supports of the bridge as they cross. There is also municipal authority to set weight limits in town. And then statewide, there is a chapter. It's about forty five secondtions long or 35 long. I forget exactly how many. It's quite lengthy That sets out everything from per axle weight limits on highways to how you can adjust those weight limits, where overweight vehicles can travel, differences in weight limits between the interstate and other state highways. They're lower on the interstate than they are on other state highways. So I can I can do a presentation on that, but it there's quite a lot of material to get through? So there there's already a lot of existing authority. What this does is it brings us into line with the requirements under the national bridge inspection standards, which go to things like if you're doing a bridge inspection and you realize that one of the metal tensioning pieces has snapped because it's become brittle over time, you can immediately close that bridge. Or if you're looking at the bridge and you determine that there's enough deterioration to warrant lowering the weight requirements or prohibiting trucks, you can do that under this in compliance with those standards. And so a lot of this is, as I understand it, reflecting existing practices, but adding language to ensure that we come into compliance with the federal requirements.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So as I said before, this is exactly what happened to when we did the municipal bridge closure. This is exactly what Yeah. The addition here is the addition of the

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: penalty, which is adding another penalty that can be levied on top of other penalties.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I have to note here, is this new penalty? I just have

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: an answer written here. Yes. It is. It is a new penalty.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That'll have to be do I need to run that by by anybody else? Does anybody have to run that by as employees and means? We'll see it. Anything else we have to do? It is a new penalty. It is a new penalty. Is there anything we have to do

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to any other You might ask judiciary if they want to take a look at it. It's a civil penalty. So the penalty would be enforced. If you're going to collect a civil penalty. That's through a court action if it's not paid.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I also wanted to let people know that I had requested to fill the cities and towns, wanted to weigh in on it. I believe that my note indicates that back in early February that they didn't see the need to respond. I went to the Truck and Bus Association, really the trucks and weights, they said that they were Okay with it. They didn't think that it was more of a need for them to come in. But that doesn't mean we have to take that. I'm just saying I did reach out to both of them out in this section, made sure they were aware of it. And Bill Smith actually did come up to the committee one day from a truck and bus association. Those are my notes. And the agency also testified this can happen up to six, they say sometimes six to 10 times in a year. So that was a lot, I thought. You mean a plenty? I thought that the bridge issues where they end up with emergency repairs and closures, six to 10 times a year, that's a lot. It tells you something about the condition of our bridge and why we need more money. Yeah,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm not sure you can answer this question, but can you remind us who is inspecting the bridges? AOT inspecting? Even if it's a town bridge, they're doing the

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: AOT is doing the inspections.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Okay, on an annual basis.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then they're notifying the town if it's a town maintained bridge.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Didn't Yeah. We talk about having a higher fee with a thousand dollars? Mean, was this for the whole thing with public purchase, right?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We did, but then I believe maybe we need to get further clarification. My memory on that question was that we wouldn't really be in the judiciary because there's this thing of what the reasonable and fair and reasonable punishment or something to that effect.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: You can't just do it because you feel that we ought to be able

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: they deserve it. Yeah. They're still I'm not saying cruel and unusual, but there's a reasonable Okay. Whatever. There's a there's another standard that goes with cruel and unusual is also reasonable in something. I don't Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So you're yeah. Just unreasonable or something along those lines. It's under the same part of the constitution. So the basically, a civil penalty has to be proportional or reasonably related to the gravity of the offense that it's punishing. So the most obvious case on this one, most one that's cited a lot is there is a statute at the federal level that requires you if you're taking more than $10,000 in cash out of the country to report it to US customs as you're leaving the country. There's no tax on it. There's no nothing like that, but you have to report it. And they want this reporting because they wanna be able to track if there is potentially something else going on when a large amount of cash is leaving the country. An individual paying off a debt in their home country was leaving The US with a 130 or $140,000 in cash. They did not report it to US customs. So the federal government moved to seize the full amount of that cash for failing to report it. And this is like twenty years ago, thirty years ago, something like that. The Supreme Court held, the $5,000 penalty in federal statute would have been appropriate, but moving to seize the full $140,000 of cash was not reasonably related to a reporting violation when there's no they weren't importing drugs or anything like that. No, it wasn't harming public safety. So they went through this whole list of considerations. So with these considerations, we kind of look at like, what's the risk to the public? What's the risk to harming infrastructure, etcetera. We have a schedule of penalties already for overweight vehicles that increases the more you go overweight, thus increasing the risk to infrastructure in the public. And then we have additional specialized penalties for things like harm to a covered bridge. So there are special considerations because of the nature and historical importance of covered bridges, things like that.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Does that mean, in theory, if you were to do something, these could get smacked with a couple of different lives. Okay. So cumulatively would be maybe not a very pleasant build to have to

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And it depends on the gravity of the offense. But generally, most civil penalties are upheld as long as they're reasonably related to the gravity of the offense. But it's same thing like life in prison for shoplifting would be on the other side of this accrual and unusual punishment, but a fine or other short sentence might be appropriate depending on the amount that's stolen.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Just trying to protect our towns that are so cash strapped. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. A lot of these penalties are also not going back to the towns necessarily, but we could get into how how this gets broken out when you've got a a civil fine that's levied.

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

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: yeah. Sorry. That was a long explanation. I know it's getting late.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Questions on that section? I got a thumbs up from a ranking member. Any thumbs up to follow around? Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Traffic violations. The so Subdivision 11 And 12 here, this is not new language. The additional language in here is throughout the rest of the section, we explain what all of our cross references are referring to. I just added in the explanations to make this consistent. Subdivision 13, though, is new, and it's just cross referencing back to that penalty for using a bridge in violation of the posting or closure of that bridge. So this is just relating back to the last section.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I have no seriousness. Just technical. That's rule in nature. Not new policy, technical.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, goes hand in hand with the previous section. Yeah, the new sign.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay, does anybody, I mean, I don't want to feel rushed, I think there's any questions on this at all.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: How come you're in section 11, you have to add the operation of prohibited vehicle and smugglers' notch?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just for consistency with the rest of the section. For whatever reason, in subdivisions one through 10, we have those citations, and we tell you what it relates to. In subdivisions eleven and twelve, we don't. And so just for consistency, and this also adds a little clarity for the reader.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So that violation is just for Smuggler's Notch.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 1,006 b b is a violation for Smuggler's Notch preview of coming attractions. The penalty is being proposed to be raised in the motor vehicle bill. We'll see that in a couple of weeks here. But this is

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I think a million dollars. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So anyway, my guess is that as we've gone through different motor vehicle and T bills, we add a subdivision every time we add new penalties to this list. And that's why there's three listed in 11 and just one in 12 and just the one in 13. So, at some point, we might wanna go back in and clean this section up. But for now, this was just to make it consistent.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Other questions? Anybody with a thumbs up? Ranking members got a thumbs up. Anybody else? Okay. I

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: guess almost said. Public Transit Advisory Council. This the community of Vermont elders dissolved. So this is replacing their spot on the council with the AARP. The representative of private bus operators and taxi services, they haven't had a taxi service represented on the council, My understanding is in quite a long time. So they're proposing to get rid of that and then to replace intercity bus operators with private bus operators who provide most of the intercity service in the state. We took testimony from the AARP. We took testimony from Murphy and Burke.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's reasonable to me. Yes. I'm aware that Not so.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I think we were all pretty the private bus operator also mentioned that piece.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Alright. And obviously there's more members. These are the only ones that

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: have the chance. Yeah, they were 15 or 20. I'm sure

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: AARP is very happy to be included. There's 17 members according to my notes from the testimony, but these are changes. I didn't hear what you said there, I'm sorry. Did you add something?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I said I'm sure AARP is very

[Unidentified Committee Member]: happy to be.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And they did testify, Kelly, right? I don't think we'd make any headway if there isn't, right? We're good. That's a thumbs up from ranking member and all the way around. All good? Yep. Good. All right.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then the extension of the public private partnership sunset from 2026 to 2029. I think AOT testified that there's a potential for another public private partnership, and so they were asking for an extension to the sunset, which would otherwise be this July 1.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. We're continuing to explore the possibilities of public private partnership?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Represent what?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It wasn't that specific to that the purchase of the airport or am I am I confused?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: No. It's It specifically mentioned the potential welcome center at the Northern EI-nine entrance. But they could use it elsewhere. The Berlin one is the one they're currently using. Considering it for they could consider it for other places. But yes, they did mention potentially the welcome center of Interstate 89.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Are there any right now?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The Maplefield, well it's called Maplefield, but it was maple, some wood, and then became Maplefield in Berlin, up behind the Applebee's, it's the only And current that is, you can see all the pamphlets and information and all those. And they that quite frankly is over the size and scope of That's special. Concerns, questions? Thumbs up on this then? I sort of expected some of these to go quick.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. And the last is the transportation board appellate review for eleven eleven permits. They are proposing to limit it to applicants or permittees, and I think they testified that they were experiencing some appeals from neighbors over things like a driveway or something like that, and they wanted to limit that.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So I think in this case, maybe somebody gets their 11 permit and somebody didn't want it could then say, wait a minute. Yeah. There's

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right. So, they grant an eleven eleven permit which you need at any time you're working in the right of way whether it's to put up a sign to update a culvert to widen your driveway or to add a driveway but there's also if you're adding a driveway or adding an entrance or increasing traffic, very likely you're going through zoning and other review. And so there are other avenues for neighbors to appeal the project. And I think what they're

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Do not use this. Like Yeah. That's what I was

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was trying to think of how to characterize this.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Doesn't lead to another process.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. There's there's still process to appeal development. So if you have a new development going in that needs an 11:11 permit for the entrance to, you know, the 40 housing units, you can appeal those housing units in the zoning process as a neighbor you have.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Beat up the ALT. Right.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Any other questions about this section? We got thumbs up all around?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. That brings us to the effective date. The other sections other things that I have on the list as potential ads are the Caledonia Airport. Do you wanna talk about these now For addition to the next draft, or do you wanna wait till I

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: think we want looking for a motion to put it back in.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Potentially, that's that one.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So if you you wanna just tell me what you'd like added for the next draft, I can put that in. There's language

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: where that was submitted as a potential for the Caledonia County Airport if you could bring it up anyway. Yep. I can.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: It's just an extension, right? Yeah. I think

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: when you discussed it, you discussed potentially leaving it open ended if they continue working with the current potential buyer. I'd have to figure out how to draft that, but it's Okay. So I I rewatched that testimony this morning.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Great. Alright, representative.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Since there is somewhat of a transportation nexus, this really that's would be happening with the option. You're not supposed to. So

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: These are all potential ones that we're those are all potential ones that we're going to work on over the next two weeks. Okay. And the ones that we're doing right now are ones that I think are pretty well universally understood and testified in here. But the local option tax on the 2%, there are advocates in the building that would like us to get that into the T Bill. That's what

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I was wondering, whether that might be happening or

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And you're a proponent of that, and I am still getting on board with the idea that whether we want to try to get it in the T bill or have the Senate who's originating the idea put it in the T bill and for the House to respond. That's You're working that out. But I think that there are some others in power the side in the house that would like to see us move forward and there's others that are very warm perhaps in the administrative side or maybe not even warm at all. So the question really on that is gonna come down to are we gonna push to try to figure it out and put it in? Or are we gonna have them put their idea in and send it back to us with an app that they add it there? And so advocating an opinion on that over the next week of break, He wants to advocate that to me. I think I know where you stand, but I think other people have an opinion on that. Feel free to share it because that'll be part of what we do or don't set up for the agenda. What your what was your question? There is a proposal being that we in the joint session that we had with the senate discussion about local option tax. Oh yeah. Yeah. Of if a town were to go to 2%, there's a proposal to split it fifty, forty, 10. And then you heard some testimony about the city's town that we don't need more money in the pilot fund. Splitting some of that money, the town would get some in town highways or structures or other overall, with the originating town, would get some. And then potential town highway money or town purchase would come out of that. There's some work to do to vet that out and to hear from multiple sides. Whether this a direction we want to go and get it into the T Bill. It originated it, the ideas have mostly come out of the Senate. And whether we should have them do it and then us be in a position to respond or whether we want to do that work, Because you can't just put it in there without hearing from the TED affected area, the tax department, the needs of cities and towns that it has to go to ways and means soon. Would that come from that originate? Well, we put him

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: in T belts, but we'd have to have

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I've talked to the chair. She would have to I believe she's on the idea, she's boring this idea. That's what I gathered from last night. But we want to finish this. That is not one of the things that we're going focus Sorry, I was asking

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: because We I were discussing what might go

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And I know we're looking at it. So for what we want to know that's for certain in, I'm hope we can finish the two more items that I think everybody's in agreement on, and then everybody will work on the areas that we might want added.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Did you find your language? Here's the Caledonia Airport. So I've scrolled down to the first change. They the agency is proposing striking this condition or this requirement. If I recall right from the testimony, this has caused a bit of a hang up with the federal the FAA over how they would ensure through 2050. So they've proposed taking it out and just contracting around this issue with the proposed buyer, keeping it open for public use. And then the other piece in here is the extension of the sunset by eighteen months. And then I think there was discussion at the very end of the hearing about possibly leaving it open ended or getting rid of the sunset provided they work with the existing buyer. There are a couple of different ways to do that. I'm not sure how to condition the sunset date on moving forward with a specific buyer, but I can always work on that. Another option is to require them to notify you if the existing purchase and sale agreement falls through and then revisiting it at that point.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's fine. That's in eighteen months. They seem stream won't copy it. Okay. Yeah. Just just a couple of things.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we can leave it.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah. I I would make a motion to approve this current draft for the transportation bill. Anybody else have it? I haven't communicated with Representative Tomlinson right now. I just made a motion.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Then

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the other piece.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, what the other language was that we were

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: making a motion. There's a motion on the table to add the Caledonia. Everybody, there's a thumbs up to agree. So, we're instructing you to add the language requested related to the Caledonia Airport.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then the was it the Green Mountain Transit Authority language?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: What about the

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: transportation alternatives? That's one of those things.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Oh, you need be ready yet. Yeah. The language and changes yes. Not ready yet. Okay. It will be on the list of potential. I can give the list after we do this one, of what at least looks currently. But there can still be more admissions. I would say that, you know, I find the right way to speak. I think the message of how you might be able to get something in the bill was received, and the actions that I'm seeing are what I need to be able to go forward to get something to the bill. I I think there are multiple of those that are happening, but I feel like people understand that there has to be language and there has to be proposed and has to be read and then has to classified. And I see that happening on multiple of the areas. This is by no means saying that we are closing the T Bill editions. This is saying these are the ones we've fully agreed on and embedded and feel are appropriate, that are ready to go to law into our bill, if that helps, where I feel we're at. Think there are mileage based user fee has a language that we've seen, but I'm pretty sure we're not settled on it. So it's not going to be brought up today. That's my take on that. Don't think we're Is that fair to say? So it's not for today. We're just taking off the low hanging fruit here. Yes, and getting it down to what we know is for sure good to go. But those are out there, but that's not ready. And I don't think that transportation alternative is ready yet. And I don't think that anything around e bikes is ready yet. The charging public's not ready yet. That doesn't mean Burlington language isn't ready yet, if there is any. So those are all out there as potentially getting in. But they're not at this point. I bet you're ready for to get the thumbs up, if that helps. So there we go. Also, I wanna make sure we go in case one. And I have one more thing before I can let you go.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So the language on the screen is Green Mountain Transit's proposed language. As a reminder, it would add anticipated voluntary local match contributions and other non assessment revenues that could be offered by a member municipality or another public or private source, and it gives the authority permission to seek those contributions and to accept them for purposes of meeting grant matching requirements and supporting programs, capital projects, and operations and provides that voluntary local match contributions are in addition to any assessment and don't otherwise affect the regular assessments.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Questions? Yeah, that was good. Moved to approve that in the current draft of the Teal. I would make a comment that I am glad that Green Mountain Transit is going in the direction of understanding that they need to market and pursue every possible angle to fill their buses and find other operating revenue. I thought you would be undone already. If you can add that. So see if it sums up. Think I already got them all the way across. Good with the Would we instruct our alleged counsel to add it into the next version of the draft in the next draft version. And everyone else is working on the sections that they've been talked about, and we will look over the next several weeks. Two other side notes. I'm meeting with the clerk and the speaker yesterday in addition to the meeting with ways and means. There is not technically a date for the t bill. It does not have to be out March 20. The t bill in the capitol are specifically exempted from any specific date.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: We can

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: work on it till July 4. But anyway, that was interesting conversations yesterday. However, the speaker is of no the speaker does not she still wants it done by the twentieth. I think we want it done. We need to have time for the Senate. It is interesting.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: It's a need to establish

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: choices. Yes. And then we've always operated that. But boy, tell you when we're around and around in that, you please go down and talk to him about it. Big bold letters, exceptions are. Deadlines are good.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Without them. So

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I do also want to, and we're going to still work to get it out by the twentieth, and we don't want to be the reason we'd be held up for things. Agency has put a huge effort to go help our neighbors in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. There's been some media and some coverage. There is also a yes, at least it's a good thing. There's also an underlying lot of I have received multiple requests, whether they're serious or not, or multiple pieces that, you know, how dare we spend all this money when we can't? Anyway, there's other negative I want to be very clear from the agency of transportation will be reimbursed by the requesting states under the compact agreement. I didn't actually give you the name of what it was called, but there is an emergency aid compact in the way that we would get return help from them. That is the requesting states, the EMAC request and other acceptance are offered to set number of personnel, etcetera. It covers personnel, equipment, rates, incidentals, room and vehicles, and any vehicle maintenance incurred during the deployment from the time the trucks leave until they return. There seems to be some assumption that FEMA would pay Vermont. That's not the way it works. The emergencies in those states would manage it all. But in the compact, they will pay us back for the peace and they will settle up their peace with their own emergency peace. But we are part of a compact agreement for the other states. We are paying them right now, but we will be reimbursed through the And I want to make sure everybody's clear about that. And we would be I'm sure that the storm comes, but I want to make sure that everybody understands that, yes, we are paying their salaries and their work right now, it will all be reimbursed. Right. A lot of people are getting that. I have multiple reps asking me that and I've gotten feedback, so I want to be clear of that. That is the official answer from the agency

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right from their director of finance. We

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: appreciate the We will all see if we can bring back. We get half and we are adjourned for today.