Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Good morning again. Wednesday, 03/11/2026 here in house transportation. We have agency, Joel Perrigo, is here in chair again along with Jeremy Reed. We are talking about transportation alternatives. Big part of the conversation and the feedback and the pieces that we had gotten through as a committee. There seemed to be a fair amount of agreement about looking at the transportation alternatives programs related to also how it relates to requirements about a certain number of water quality projects being funded. We heard testimony about a significant amount of projects being canceled that was in this arena. We have some federal funding that we're concerned about whether it will or won't get used up and then out before we lose it. And then I also understand that puts us in a position to additional rounds of federal funding that we may or may not be eligible for because we have a backlog in this arena. And I think that I understood the committee would like to try to do something about this potentially in this T bill. So that's why we're on this subject for right now this morning. With that, if that hopefully makes as clear as mud, it's all you can us move forward in relation to that topic.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: So for the record, my name is Joel Perrigo. I am the Beatrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager. So the Transpictional Alternatives Grant Program is a program administered through my group. And so just sort of laying the groundwork here. These are the statutes that we're most specifically looking at and the proposal that you heard from Jeremy. Yeah. Oh, I didn't share. Yeah, I'm sorry. Let me do that real quick. Thank you for that before I got too far.

[Mr. Camara (Local Motion representative)]: I can

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: also tell you what you meant. Sorry

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: about that. So again, just laying the groundwork of the statute that we are proposing to make changes to. You heard from Jeremy, I think, about two weeks ago now. They're they're codified in 19 BSA section 38. Currently, it reads that the agency is allowed to make grants in the maximum award of $300,000 There was a provision in the fiscal year twenty three t bill that was notwithstanding language that allows us to make awards up to 600,000 through fiscal year twenty seven, but that will sunset at that point. The other statutes say that we are required to make the awards between January and March. And furthermore, that 50% of the grant funds are reserved for these environmental mitigation projects, with the remaining 50% eligible for all other activities with a preferential weighting on bike pet projects. And so the proposal that Jeremy had laid out a couple weeks ago was to increase that maximum grant allocation to 1,200,000.0, preferably in statute, reduce the reserve funds for environmental mitigation projects to a maximum of 25% and retain their preferential weighting of bikeped projects.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: President Pouech, have a question for you.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Just the preferential weighing for Bike Pet, that means that it's not only with the environmental side, it's the other side. There are other categories that go into like what

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Suburban preservation, scenic overlooks, we don't get a lot of applications in those, but those are the others. I get into that a little bit further on.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: This really is just proposing a higher cap and instead of fiftyfifty, it's 70 fivetwenty five and continuing that '25 will still go to environmental mitigation. So that has nothing to do with bike pad. But the other 75, if it's a bike pad, it tends to go have a higher weight. And

[Chief Engineer Rutland (VTrans)]: if I could share, General Rutland, Chief Engineer, and we threw out 25% as a starting point. If the committee had a preference to actually reduce that to 20% or 0%, we absolutely would not object. We're seeking the most flexibility that we can.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, and I would ask the committee to consider even going farther. I think I've heard anecdotally from other committees saying they really don't rely on this funding for a lot of the environmental mitigation projects. This is a very small piece anecdotally, I think they wouldn't care if we went to 100% long way. And we are allowed to do that by the federal funding.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Correct. I think it was when the Clean Water bill passed that this started. Prior to that, it was 100% was sort of all eligible categories.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative White and Representative Lalley.

[Candice White (Member)]: Yeah, thank you. And just to ground us in the budget, we're talking about $4,500,000 for proposed fiscal year 'twenty seven. Does that sound right?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: So the budget, of course, is going to show spending for this particular year, but our annual apportionment under the federal program, it is 4,300,000.0 ish. But the spending may accumulate, depending on the way the projects roll out and go to construction.

[Candice White (Member)]: It's more

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: from last

[Candice White (Member)]: year. Right.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: There's sort

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: of a buildup.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: I understand. It could show 9,000,000 or $10,000,000.

[Candice White (Member)]: For simplicity, though, we're looking at 4,500,000.0 proposed for this year. There may be some leftover. Might be some carrying forward. Yes.

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

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The award for whatever. Yeah. And then it has x amount of time to spend it, so it cannot fluctuate when it actually Exactly. I'm sorry, Rutland, why was Addison?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Think we have heard a lot of testimony about the need that we cannot meet for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure relative to the demand, high demand for it. And also the. The fact that a lot of towns are deciding that they the funding is insufficient for those salt sheds. The fact that there are other buckets of money in other places for those larger infrastructure projects. So for me, this is a no brainer to go to just give you guys a leeway to use it all for bike and ped and the other things.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: And to be clear, these changes would not make it so that those projects are not eligible. They're still eligible under the program. They still could potentially score high and get funded as an environmental mitigation project. It would just be a slight disadvantage given the preference of waiting and no reservation funds.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: So then what we're talking about, the $4,300,000 annual appropriation, that's 20%, hence 80%. In other words, we multiply that times 80%, is

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: that That's the federal portion of the

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Right, That was my question. The 4.3 annual apportionment isn't out of state funds?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: No, those are the federal funds component and requires a 20% match on top of it.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Gotcha. Thank you. And that 20% is out of low. This isn't taking any state transportation funds, really.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: No state fund programs. No state funds are within this program.

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

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: fixed. I'd say zero. The only thing is there's a small portion that matches our payroll that's outside of this conversation.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And you review it and you reward it. You award it and you make sure that the 20% is collected from the Right. It's a reimbursement. It's joint administration function in this piece. Yes. We are looking at changing the parameters from which you're allowed to give these awards. Awards, correct. Our goal to be, perhaps, I think our goal is to be more flexible. But either, I know there's some concern around the maximum amount if that's now the time or we need go a little further for it.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: We'll have some substantiating data that may help with the conversation further in if we could. So of this we've already talked about, but the federal requirements, it's approximately 4,300,000.0. I think it does change throughout the life of Bill, but not dramatically. Again, it's 80% of federal requires a 20% local cash match. There is a requirement that we put this money out through a competitive process. It's the only way for products to be selected. And as the chair alluded to, we only have four years to obligate these funds. When it comes in one federal fiscal year, we have four years to obligate those funds, otherwise risk those funds lapsing and no longer being available to the law. There's a little caveat, we obligate them and the project doesn't spend them all and it comes back in, we have like an extra fiscal year or something like that. PA, this is the eligible project types. So on road, off road facilities, B is similar, but it's more related to non drivers needing to access daily needs and sidewalks within downtowns and things like that. Conversions of rail trails, constructions of turnouts, the community improvement activities, which historic preservation, I think is the only thing we've ever received an application for in that category. And then f is the environmental mitigation category that we fund the self sheds and the stormwater projects under. It was pointed out that it doesn't explicitly say that Safe Routes to School projects are eligible here, but they are eligible as infrastructure type projects through We just don't have a dedicated Safe Routes to School program as part of our GA book.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is

[Unidentified Committee Member (Safe Routes to School questioner)]: this it's Safe Routes to School is eligible under a line about infrastructure, but can it cover non infrastructure related technical assistance?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Two So different things. I'm hearing two different things. Technical assistance related to a project itself would be covered under this. If it was more like educational components,

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: it

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: is eligible. We are not doing that through TA right now, but our folks in highway safety are actually, they have a program project right now in the book, HSF 8,023 to basically, because the highway safety funding is also eligible or Safe to School is also eligible on highway safety funding. And so they're implementing a strategy right now to basically bring back the Safe Routes to School program, start doing some more of that educational outreach, the non implementation side of things. The implementation side, still eligible here, would always be eligible under this program.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Safe Routes to School questioner)]: But only if it's like infrastructure.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Correct. Under here, yes.

[Candice White (Member)]: Okay. Because my understanding was that the education component was also eligible under TAP?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: It is eligible. I'm trying to say is that we're going to fund that component under Because it's also eligible under highway safety, which is same group or active transportation group that sits in, it would be funded with bare house instead of here. Okay.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I understand. Okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Keyser, were you

[Chief Engineer Rutland (VTrans)]: I didn't. You didn't know.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Just how it shows. Just

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: a clarification on the 75%, 25%, which is on here, but it sounds like you guys are flexible on that. If we left it like that, then it would absolutely, you wouldn't have any leeway to say, oh, this year it's going to be eightytwenty. And, know, I mean, it would have to be that. So if we wanted to increase it, we can do one or two things. We could come up with a number, one hundred percent zero, eighty percent twenty, or we could also say, this is giving you the flexibility to choose and say, hey, we're focusing on bike path, but that would be another possibility. And it sounds like today you would tell us if we had that opportunity, it would be more than fiftyfifty, it would move in that direction.

[Chief Engineer Rutland (VTrans)]: We would welcome as much flexibility as you would give us. We quite frankly didn't want to appear greedy and ask for 100, but there's a consideration that we would welcome that because, again, as Joel said, it doesn't preclude environmental mitigation, but it gives us that flexibility to ensure that we don't last petrol fonts while still being the greatest need.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: These are the eligible entities under the federal program. Probably 95% of our projects are with local governments, but you will see that, again, going back to state school, school districts are eligible as well as RBCs. I'm sort of getting at the concern of funding all going into one pod or one area of the state. I'm trying to just demonstrate here like this is sort of the cycle that we've had over the last five years. We have projects in the smallest of towns as well as the biggest of towns. There's a breakdown of the funding here in a pie chart. There's some rounding things going on showing like the Lemoyle's at zero, but they truly aren't. There actually was some projects, but just trying to get a sense of the distribution of projects across the state. This starts with the state fiscal year 2018, which I had to remember the full history here, but again, back when that was right about the start of the clean water days, this program at one point, 2018 and '19, was fully dedicated to those environmental mitigation projects, as well as we had the stormwater municipal mitigation stormwater program at the same time, and we were funding that at like $8,000,000 So there was a tremendous amount of investment in those projects back in those days. And then the statute opened it up 2021, and then starting in '20 sorry, in '22, it said 1.1, and then starting in '23, it said we had to reserve 50% for environmental mitigation. One thing I wanna point out here is in these two circles, and I'm gonna get to it a little bit here, but we've had a tremendous amount of cancellations, mostly in the environmental mitigation side of things, and we've had a backlog of funding, and that's where the potentially lapsing sort of comes in. And so our only way to help and make up for that is to award more money. So the CSTA 5024, we actually awarded 8,800,000.0 when we only had 4.3 coming in from the federal government for that particular year in an attempt to make up for those cancellations. But we're having cancellations faster than we can even make up for the dollars, to be quite honest. And again, in '25, we awarded 6,200,000.0. '26, we're just about to award. And I can tell you that we have we left money on the table, again, that we would have awarded to projects had we had enough applications. So On the environmental side. On the entire side of the house. So all the projects that were applied for will be funded, all the eligible projects will be funded.

[Candice White (Member)]: I'm assuming, Joel, that all these cancellations came from substantially increased costs that are disallowing municipalities to move forward. Is that a valid assumption? Yeah.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Moving on actually to the next slide, it's right So these are the projects that we've had canceled over the, from it says '19, but it really there's only like one or two projects in there from '19. There's none from '20. It's mostly more recent than '23, 2425. You can see the numerous salt sheds that were canceled just because the costs are somewhat prohibitive given the federal aid project development process, the local match goes up. So even when you see change in priorities, could argue that that could potentially be a cost consideration when the local match went way above what was expected. But again, 35% cancellation rate for environmental remediation projects, which is an average of 1,900,000.0 annually or 44% of that appropriation. So it's difficult when we have all those cancellations, we only had four years to turn that money around. I'm

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: not sure if I can formulate this correctly. Think it'd be but an increase in the max, the amount of local fund increase is also higher. They if they don't have the money, does that how does that help, I guess, increase in the max versus the max? Am I getting ahead of my

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Sort of getting ahead of the presentation. That's another piece of it. We actually let me go to the next one. So yeah, right here.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm sorry. Representative Lalley has a question here. I'll hit that first, and then we'll hold off on my

[Candice White (Member)]: Yeah,

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I guess I'm wondering what is the percentage of just amplifying the costs of projects of some of our NEPA processes. I know this can be quite onerous for FICA PET, but I imagine for a salt ship that can be even more impactful. And is that something that you've noticed has been cited as a barrier?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: I mean, it's always something that's discussed, but it's the same it's the red tape that the agency needs to cut through. I mean, single federal aid project has to go through it. I can't sit here and tell you that there's any sort of like specific costs associated with NEPA itself. You know, quite honestly, a lot of it is just the time that it takes to go through the process and the project takes time and costs are escalating during that time.

[Chief Engineer Rutland (VTrans)]: Sure, if I could. So it's not just NEPA, right, because generally we satisfy NEPA by going through our state regulatory framework. So yes, NEPA is a component of that, but even if we said, we couldn't, we don't have to beat NEPA, we'd still have to meet the state regulatory requirements. So there is a time component, but we're probably not doing anything above and beyond what we would need to do just to satisfy our state environmental regulatory requirements.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Going back to the point that you were making, Chair. So there's plenty of projects out there that would fit the mold of the $1,200,000 or even more. And I know you can't read this and I'll provide this as a separate attachment. What's happening is we're giving out these 300,000 or $600,000 grants in the and then towns are coming to us under the LIPED program for supplemental funding. And as we've had 40 of those projects since 2020 that we've had to administer two separate grants on for the same exact project. So still the same requirements, eightytwenty, but because we're capped TA, we're only getting them 600 there, but then we have flexibility to bike ped programming and we add on to those projects. And because of that, we, you know, there's a lot of administrative burden. Towns have to submit applications twice. They have to, we have to review them twice. There's programming with Federal Highway, it's reporting.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, think Heinzburg's had a couple of these that have come through. One, we get the approval, got an estimate, get the approval, by the time you get the approval and whatnot, you find out, oh, it's gonna be a lot more and we go through this process again. I would guess a lot of that in the last five to six years is due to construction cost increases. And now that those forget the last two weeks. Now that those seem to be somewhat settled down, you're still looking, hey, let's increase this cap. Because I'm guessing with the cap before, didn't ask for more than that.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Right. And they know they need to be competitive in nature when they're submitting their application.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I just wonder how much of it is because of the post pandemic surge in construction costs is more of a problem or, and I would make that mind up on whether this is the best way to go forward.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Something we haven't done in the past, but certainly the flexibility that could be considered as part of that is is sort of a contingency fund. But when when towns are asking for the maximum amount, we're giving them that. And, like, to be honest, $300,000 is what's written in statute. It's gets you next to nothing. You know? So with this, we might consider something like that where we serve we we save some funds that could be in a situation that you're saying a town goes out of bid, needs a little bit more money. We could we could consider that. But with the cap being so small, it's not realistic to me.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: We're weighing a small cap allows more towns to have something. But at the same time, if it's unrealistic cap, like you said, that's not gonna get you an heck of a lot do or best to maybe up that cab so that these things can fly out the door rather than get all muddled up and require two applications to finish a project. So it seems to make sense.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: No, I got an opinion, mean, I was on that push for the cap and the reason why I suggested it back then is because we knew what the amount was at 4.3. Prior to that, I think it was half. Right. You know, we don't know what Congress is going to do this fall, but it go back to half. So, you know, if it's 2,000,000, we're doing 1.1, we're having two projects, what the heck is the point of this broken game? So I just wanted to know the amount of money that we were dealing with. So I would be really reluctant to go up to 1.2 without knowing the full picture. This is something that we could revisit the budget adjustment. Hopefully by that time we'll know what funds we're dealing with. I have no problem going to 100% or anything like that. I just I'm very concerned about having that cap two. If the cap's 1.2

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: then you're looking at three projects.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: And then we don't know what the reauthorization is going to be. So

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: yeah, that would be my guess. Yeah, was just in Senate and they were asking what the average cost of the projects were. And I would say, and I can I can back this up, I think? But, you know, just under $1,000,000 typically for, like, a standard and I'm talking about bikeped projects, really. I mean, that's the the main customer here, really. Yeah. Certainly something I can I can dig into a little bit more? The one thing I'll say too is that we're holding $2,000,000 back right now. And that's $2,000,000 that's gonna potentially lapse if we can't get it out there and no longer is available. That's what we're really struggling with. And I don't think anybody wants to

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: see Well, has to do with more with not the cap, it has to do with the 50% side. Well, all sheds because that's what, 35% cancel rate.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: It's all sort of related, but again, we're awarding 19 applications within days here. And I can only guess that out of those 19 projects, some of them probably could have used some more of that money, but they were capped at $600,000 You could only get in $600,000

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: I understand that. You know, it is interesting that the amount of awards that are granted is close to almost 100% a couple years, 75%. It's a lot better percentage compared to the other grants that we agreed. So we're doing pretty good in that aspect of it. But again, if that cap was to change, bet you that 70 to 100 would go to thirty, twenty. I mean, that's my concern.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: I think this, the information, I know you can't read that, I can't either right now. Those are all, well, maybe not all, but most of those are bikeped projects, And and all of those are completed or nearly completed projects like Billy going out the And I certainly, you know, can break it down and show you that, you know, the need is there. And it's not it's not to the point where we're gonna be funding, you know, I don't believe, at least two projects per year at two point plus whatever million dollars. I don't think the towns can handle that in local match and then fell asleep either.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Well, the tiny section there, I blew it up on

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: my computer.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I noticed that one of them is our project in Shelburne, which turned out to be an extraordinarily expensive project. It's a wonderful project. It's transformative and we're very, very grateful for it. But the timing of hitting just when the pandemic hit and everything else just drove those costs up. We're very grateful that the agency creatively drew from different sources. And we had ARPA funds on hand to meet the match. Hopefully that was very atypical and not what we're seeing, but I feel like we're kind of in some uncharted territories with this. There's a lot of disruption in our world right now, a lot of things we don't control. And so I'm wondering if appropriate to rethink the cap in some way, because it's overthrowsing since you're kind of

[Candice White (Member)]: for a different era.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Yeah, think maybe it would be worth me digging into the battle a little bit more now. I'm hearing some of this. We're the 300,000 game room, somewhat arbitrary, I think. Then we ask for

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: a That's not even worth it.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: And then

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: we ask for a doubling because essentially the pot doubled, But it's still like, I get, you're right, it's not really getting at what we're looking at for

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: projects. Paper in particular, it's centered,

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: it no longer works. Because he basically had the same concept that I share now, we wanted to make sure that you guys spread out. But it was somewhat arbitrary. That was the thought behind it.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: And Yeah. Then Nigel was reiterating the changes that we've requested here. Yes, ma'am.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I just sort of suggest this? Again, just upstream thinking a bit. The federal dollars, if you accept federal dollars, I know this the town's perspective, you have to follow federal and state rules about how the project happens. So we have learned in our town that if we really want to protect the character of the area and those kinds of things are important to try and do as much as possible to pay for those improvements on our own dime. So where I'm headed with this is we do have some small pot of state money, I believe, that is just great with state dollars that allows more flexibility to towns to build kind of not quite the gold plated projects that are required if you accept

[Candice White (Member)]: federal money.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Maybe we can look at this as a higher cap is appropriate if we're using these dollars for bigger projects that could be transformative in a community, for example, such as in the instance of my town, Shelburne. But this approach might lead to opportunities to have a larger pot of decentralized dollars that we could then use for smaller projects in a wide variety of communities. Often that last mile, first mile, something small can really be the thing that helps that community very much. And this could be a way to start to do some of that. I remember a couple of years ago, Charlie Baker from the Chittenden County RPC came in and said that if you really want to do more with dollars for bikeped, trying to have defederalized dollars was the best way to do that. So I'm just throwing that out there. We're going have this great multimodal guidance coming online soon, and we will have a lot of tools and wherewithal that we don't have at the moment at our disposal to maybe do this. So just thinking ahead for how we meet.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: So I think what you're referring to is what we call our small scale pet grocery.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Exactly, yeah. And

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: just something to consider there is that that program is intended to be quick hits, get it done, and it's fiftyfifty. So it requires a municipality to cover half the cost. It's only for implementation purposes, not for any sort of design.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: But the RPCs can often help out

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: with that.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Yeah, and honestly, we've had projects that are really back

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: of the

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: napkin type designs, and they hire a local contractor to do that. So there is a fit there, but it's sort of limited in scale of what they

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I'm just thinking, how do do more with less?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: But what's on the table is favorable money and

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the local match.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: The other one is the downtown fund, right, that you're referring to.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: That's big dollars. Yeah, that's big dollars.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And that's transferred over to ACC. That's small.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: You're talking about small scale bike Small scale bike pass is through municipal systems. Correct? Oh, okay. That's state transportation funding Yep. Fifty fifty share. So if you would like, I'll follow-up with some more specific data. Mean, like I said, if you do have it, I'll break it down a little bit to show you sort of more average costs on what you were getting. I mean, essentially it's about $500 a linear foot for sidewalks and a shared use path. So as long as you're not having any major drainage improvements or fire hydrants and water lines and bridges, obviously, which breaks down to about 1,500 feet of sidewalk on a $600,000 brand.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: No, I mean, I'm good. I mean, I think the question is do we change the amount? I'd be all right with going to 100% at this point. And maybe we leave the amount the way it is now because we really only have one more year to find or a year before we'll find out how much more funding you get. And it sounds like, although it's more work, you've found a way to sort of help communities who are

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: We have one more year

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: But then it's gonna go down to 300.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: We'll It's gonna go down to 300. We also have one more year to get these funds obligated. And we, like I said, we left like $2,000,000 on the table. So next year, we're going to be looking to award $6,500,000 And if you start, again, what happens when we can't make those awards? That's the worrying point.

[Chief Engineer Rutland (VTrans)]: If I could share just, again, the split aside, there are those supplemental funding sources for a BIPED project, but not necessarily for the environmental mitigation. So if we do award a salt shed project, the cap's 600,000, and if they have $1,600,000 salt shed, that's 200,000 on top of the match for the 600,000, and there isn't really a Valdez alternative or supplemental funding source.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So we need to I think Can you raise your hand? Why don't we bump up the amount to like, say, 100,000 and go with 100%? Will that get the money out the door for you?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: You want more? It's hard to say. Mean, more flexibility we have, obviously, the better for the agency.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That comment No temporary, right?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: You need to get it

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: out in a year? What are the year and a half limit or something like that? And change the dollar amount back down if that's what we decide to do. For clarification wise, our Legis Council and JFO are coming back in right after lunch. And what they're looking for, what I'm looking for, it doesn't have to happen in the next ten minutes, either we give them direction to more specifically what they bring after lunch, or they come in and then we hash it out with them. Representative Casey made a suggestion of considering 800,000 and going with 100%, I'm looking for a sort of response either to that or to the transportation proposal over the next ten minutes so we can If we're gonna give directions to our lunch counsellor, we're gonna work on it over lunch, they'll come in ready to kind of somewhat move in that direction or we'll hash it out some more right after lunch.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: So just to add a little numbers to this, I went down through your possible spreadsheet to read, but thank God for magnification. 13 of those 40 were over 600,000. Two of them were over 1,200,000. So that meant that 11 of those were less than 1.2. So it's not as if you go into 1.2, you're gonna give away just three projects, that type of thing. You're going to incrementally, and then you're going to decrease your overall overhead administrative costs. So I don't have

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: any trouble now at 1.2

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: per year. And 75,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: 25, or 100 and go all the way to give them 100%?

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: I would give them 100%. Just because you end this one year so that you can get it out the door. Right?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Is that what we're trying to do? Yeah.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Again, just for purposes, we will be discussing again next year, because it'll go down to 300,000 the following year. We don't address the sunset, right?

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Over and above the sunset. Yeah. Got you.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Go ahead, everybody. Yeah, can

[Candice White (Member)]: we also address the sunset and push that out a

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: couple of

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: I just think we should just create the floor at 600,000 now. Go to 1.2 for a year, come back to it, go to 100% holiday gain.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And the floor was what? I'm sorry? 300,000. Was 300,000, you're saying moving to 600,000. 600,000,

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: going to 1.2 for a year. I know it's a combo. I mean, it's gonna be a headache, but that would be my comfort level.

[Candice White (Member)]: I just had one further question, which is there, does it make sense to do a secondary grant period

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: in

[Candice White (Member)]: the fall, given that you've just, I think you've just completed one.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: We started this in the fall. So it's We give a lot of time. And then we're just about to jump into our bikeped grant. And those are sort of strategically placed the way they are, they had been, to provide green municipalities a couple bites of the apple, or if they needed some supplemental funding for projects, they had two chances at it throughout the year. Mean, depending on what happens here, on what happens here, we might consider how we make changes to those programs. I don't think we can do that.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, yeah, no, we can, but I just

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Were you looking for a decision?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm looking for feedback to say where we're at in terms of cap, flexibility, anywhere from the fiftyfifty it is to now up to, I've heard up to the 100 and looking to give direction. This is not the final decision, but it's the direction to say our alleged counsel to bring it back to us after lunch of what we want it to look like if you do that in that timeframe. So I also just want to clarify, the water quality projects are not being eliminated, their weight is being, they're still eligible for these projects We're not suggesting that we're not wanting water quality projects. What we're saying is that we need to address this federal issue and try to get things out. I believe that's my understanding.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: It is. That is true. And you'll also see in the white book, there's the Missile Mitigation Program. That's a supplemental piece of this. So there is a It's not a tremendous amount of money, but it's another 1.2 ish million dollars of federal funds that is eligible for those same types of projects.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay, you were looking to comment on to that, Doctor. Mollie, or not?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I'm not sure. I just wanted to second what Corcoran has said.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So what you're saying, and is this sort of where Casey was saying, the 100% flexibility, the 601.2, or even more up to 600, map up to 1.2 and revisit in

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: a year. Yeah, just won't we know in October from there when they get the bill.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Did I miss that? Did you have a comment back there? Sorry, wasn't sure if you were getting my attention on that or not.

[Chief Engineer Rutland (VTrans)]: Mean, through what it's worth, the agency fully supports that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You have more there?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: No, I'm just thinking of the way that the notwithstanding language is currently in the T Bill. Mean, we need the flexibility in our awards this time next year. So I think the written, way I think it says that the awards are based on that fiscal year. So I think as long as it's clear in fiscal year twenty seven, that that 1.2 Gaming.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Alright. So if I tell him that you wanna understand the testimony, just listen to the last five minutes. Yes? We other concerns crossed? All right. I'm sorry, did you want to comment? Have two minutes. We can, unusually, but yes.

[Mr. Camara (Local Motion representative)]: Thank you, Chair Walker. For the record, Mr. Camara, local vote. And appreciate your testimony. Appreciate working with the agency to come to this conclusion. Just a question, especially because it seems like it's having a hard time sometimes giving away the dollars. I understand that from being in state agency for many years. Why wouldn't we want to have more flexibility for that $600,000,000 next year to go up and open up the door for Safe to School funding? The state of Hollywood Safety Office funding can fund these projects. Those fundings are very competitive. There's a lot of advantage for the communities we serve and committee members on prioritizing funding for safe routes of school. If we're having a hard time giving away CAF funding, why wouldn't we make it eligible for communities, organizations to apply to support that upstream or that additional technical assistance, especially in rural communities and rural schools that don't have the capacity to do that work.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Yeah, so I don't know that I'm sitting here necessarily saying that we've said it's not Infrastructure projects are out 100%, right? It's the education component that we don't have a good handle on, and highway safety is working on that right now to develop an implementation. That's probably not a good word to use there, but a strategy to basically implement a new outreach educational component of Savers to School. Initial conversations had said, highway safety was the right place to fund that, but good point. Maybe we should consider it through chat grants, something that we'll continue that conversation. Yeah, it

[Mr. Camara (Local Motion representative)]: just opens it up for eligibility so you don't need dollars on

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: the table.

[Mr. Camara (Local Motion representative)]: Dollars 200,000 with fund technical assistance will go a lot more way on the write back than building 400 feet of sidewalk. And

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: just to clarify, the federal requirements wouldn't preclude having that educational piece.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Right, correct. SEENUS.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Too because I'd agree with what you're saying that it could go into 15 small villages and towns and so

[Mr. Camara (Local Motion representative)]: It's spreading the love around, and supporting rural communities and not leaving fighting for their

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Would their language need to show that, that they're eligible?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: I mean, we would just have to change our sort of the way that we solicit for grants. But yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Law doesn't have to change.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: No. No. No. No.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: But we have a priority for bed, bed, bike, and we could say, and safe routes to school or educational.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Well, would be a post. Yeah, yeah.

[Mr. Camara (Local Motion representative)]: Explicitly making it an eligible thing right now on the program guidelines, the business infrastructure related and calling it out specifically would be good to say that it's all things like technical assistance like education and awareness are a lot of ways.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: If I hear a clarification, you're asking about a clarification then, and it says they are, you're saying they are eligible, you're asking to be clarified in this bid or the proposal. Making it more clear that this could be But

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: again, what I'm saying is this is another group funding through highway safety that's doing something very similar, and I, you know, would have to confer with them to see you know, we've we've sort of talked about it. They've they've implemented us a project that's in the the budget right now, and I'm just not sure for purposes of this, like, if if that's the right way to go.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Alright. That's all. So for where we're at right now, I appreciate the feedback. We'll have to somebody will have to pick that up in the. From here forward, we are adjourned until 01:15, and we're going to pick back up