Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We are live again in house transportation on Wednesday afternoon, March eighteenth, marching to the end of the T bill. Legislative council is gonna bring us back to version 5.1 of the mileage based fusion fee. We had some corrections from the last time we met. We're looking to see if we are ready for finalized language to move over to the T Bill. It's all yours.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, sorry. I just realized I clicked the wrong Zoom meeting link. So I'll be in You're going to education? I I clicked Gabby's link instead of I Matt's link. Like, wrong one again. Sorry about that. There we go.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Alright.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: That's the one. House education.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: House education. House education. House transportation. Wednesday afternoon. TikTok. Alright.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Okay. Pulling the draft back up here for the record again. I'm Damian Leonard from the office of legislative council. We left off on bottom of page seven. These are this is the refund provision for the assessments. Upon occurrence of a terminating event, commissioner shall issue a refund for any amounts paid by an owner or lessee that are in excess of the amount due pursuant to this chapter. So that captures both the assessments and any interest on past due amounts, let's say.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's true. Comments from the agency? Are you comfortable with this language? Yes. Anybody have any questions about it? Okay. Thank you for your work and for matching up what we're looking for. Let's go to the next one.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Next one. This is in the interest. Page eight, the maximum amount of interest that may accrue pursuant to the subsection shall not exceed 18% of the amount of the unpaid fees. In other words, you're capped at one year.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Does that capture what you were Yeah. No. Perfect. The agency like to make any comment on that? Are we in agreement with that language? Represent what?

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: So we also have a section about interests of 1.5%.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: That's the preceding sentence. So it's one and a half percent month per month, the maximum amount. So the one and

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: a half, which is multiplied by 12?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Comes out to 18. Yeah. K. One thing that had come up in the meeting I had with Logan and Patrick on Monday that I forgot to mention in the prior walk through was that there wasn't a time around when the failure to file a report or have the electric vehicle inspected. So I've added this language bracketed because you haven't considered it, but it would basically say within a reasonable period of time after the report or inspection is due, allowing the commissioner to give folks some sort of grace period. I'd had a note in there to mention grace period, and I missed it or mention the possibility of a grace period. I missed it during this morning's walk through. So this is doesn't have to go in, but it does provide some leeway for the commissioner.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. The reasonable period defining statute?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: It's not. That would be up to the commissioner to determine what a reasonable period is. In other unpaid fee instances, it's been set up. The commissioner is currently operating at thirty days. So that's for if you bounce check on your registration or something like that, they they give you thirty days to correct the error. Yep.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Any concerns? No, I think that seems reasonable. I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm supposed to get my car inspected, but I'm living in another state for six months, going to school. I don't And then, you know, you could say, oh, wait. No. I'll get it done. Yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Any concerns?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: We're good. K. The next is just a section change because we deleted all of the collection, the court tax lien, and the collection agency provisions. The next change after that adds the is the rework transition provision. So there are two versions here in talking to Patrick after you all adjourned at lunchtime. I've realized that I may have not have captured the agency's intent, so there's a version here that captures what they had suggested better and then the prorated language we talked about. So I put both out there for your consideration. So the pro rated language would provide for both of them, it's transition into the mileage based reporting fee or mileage based user fee by and it would commence your first mileage reporting period at your first annual inspection after 01/01/2027. And then the question really is how are you credited? The agency's proposal was that you would receive a flat credit equal to $89 towards the first initial mileage reporting period. I had had it set up as different instances when you would receive a credit or not. The the language we discussed this morning is what I'm highlighting now, which is a prorated credit based on the number of months in the reporting period that are covered by the most recent annual infrastructure fee paid by the owner or lessee pursuant to the registration statute. So that essentially says how many months are within this period and are already covered. So and they're in this case, you won't have anyone being overcharged with either instance with the flat fee. You may have some folks who get a little bit of a lesser charge when they transition in. So that but the flip flip side of that is that it's administratively easier for the agency. So but those are the two different options and whatever the committee wants to proceed with or if something different altogether, I can make those changes.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I think we've, you know, made it fair with both of these options. And my understanding, the administration would prefer the simpler one that might give somebody a little extra credit for a couple months, but it would be easier to, and I think easier to explain too. So, you know, with that, I'm happy with both. I'm certainly happy with what the administration is looking to do. And this is just a temporary thing. And within a couple years, we'll be out of this. So as simple as possible, as easy to explain as possible, it's already gonna be a challenge to explain to EV owners what a knowledge based user fee is and how it works.

[Unknown committee member]: So I'm okay with that.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Both of these only apply to the initial mileage reporting period. After that, there's there's no credit after that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Anybody else?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: What's the committee's preference?

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Say and make the motion that it's the administration's language to simplify this transition period.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Bless you. And all in favor of that, in terms of direction, Mollie S. O. T. Here's your instructions, sir.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: K. That is it for the changes in mileage based user fee. I mean, that section gets a number now or whatever. Those sections can now get a number if you move them into

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the Tavil. Are there any other questions or comments or concerns about mouth based user fee language? Does the agency have any more on that? I make a motion to include the language and variables for the Nambuf, be included in their trifurcation. All those in favor of moving the Nambuf language into the bill? All those opposed? You aren't so instructed.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: K. I'll move over to the t bill next.

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: They're dropped on what?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Updated so the draft we were just looking at for the mBuff is 5.1. It should be posted. And then the t bill draft is

[Unknown committee member]: Three point

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Should be 3.3, I think. Yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's on me.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Oops. Yep. K. And this doesn't have the m buff in it yet, but once these changes get the thumbs up, I can move in the MBOT. I'll make a draft 4.1, which you can then vote assuming there are no other additions or changes. So the first changes on this bill are just adding in transportation alternatives, speed limits, and drive electric Vermont to the subject listing. Is

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: oops. I'm sorry. Give me back. I just wanna make sure. Sure. I'm not where is the Caledon is Caledon where's the airport extension language in that listing? It's Caledonia. Hold on a sec here. Is it covered by one of the other?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Caledonia Airport is not in the script. Let me add that. Thank you.

[Unknown committee member]: More than welcome.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: I I missed that being added.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I know that most people don't think I'm paying attention. Certainly, ghosts and the other spirits of the world think that I have no idea what I'm doing. I just like to pretend once in a while. Appreciate the setup on that one.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: All right.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You need a minute? I don't mind covering something else. That's Okay. So fun to work in public. I know that. Although you do it all the time. You're very good at it.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: I still turn bright red, but Alright. Let me pull the draft back up. And so we've got Caledonia County State Airport added to the list of subjects. Let me just go through section by section. That way, we can ensure I haven't left anything out. And if there is something that the committee voted to put in that I've missed, just let me know.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I think we should I know I know we straight through is okay. We haven't seen the drive electric. Let's get to that one first and then come back through the sections, but we haven't seen that likely. If I imagine it's not very long, but I we haven't actually seen that one. So we didn't look at it before we moved into the year. Alright. Process wise. That's okay. So

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: this is based on the Drive Electric language we used last year in the transportation bill. This would appropriate the sum of 292,000 from the transportation funds to the agency to support continuation of the agency's partnership with Drive Electric. The money shall be used for programs and activities that support increased ownership and use of plug in electric vehicles in the state through stakeholder coordination, consumer education and outreach, infrastructure development, and the provision of technical assistance and support to Vermont municipalities and businesses desiring to electrify their vehicle fleets. This is apart from the appropriation amount and where the money is coming from, this is a cut and paste from last year.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So Which is basically the same thing we did last year. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And and and prior years before that as well. So yeah. Are there

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: any concerns, comments, questions? Is that what we were trying to do? Representative Byrd?

[Unknown committee member]: Good to meet.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay, any other comments? The only comment I would add is, should we swap the funds that fund this from the MBUF, and then take these funds and then put it towards whatever we want to do with the tax. Just because you get in the argument with the buyout funds, should we keep funding to drive electric? Is it more in tune with the MBOF funds, or more in tune with the pilot funds, you know what I'm

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: saying? Okay,

[Unknown committee member]: Is this a drive electric warranty?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah, well, is a drive electric, the question is, what source of, what bottom line should we fund this with? And I'm thinking it should be part of the $900,000 opposed to those are electric vehicles. As opposed to the pilot funds, then you get in the RDBMS to go back to towns. We'll say, all right, we're gonna put it back to town. We're gonna give it to The fact that it means more work and a delay really bothers me, but your logic is certainly more I just don't like getting the argument clear. We have a mileage based user fee coming from electric vehicles and we're gonna use some of that money to a fund to drive electric activity. We had pilot money that didn't get paid back, and because it didn't get paid back, we wanna put it on the town highways. Highways. Yeah. I I certainly see that connection much straighter than crisscrossing them. Yeah. But I don't know if that's a lot of work. May I just Go ahead, Representative Pouech?

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I I think that makes total sense, but the timing is not the same. So the Drive Electric runs out in September and those MBUF funds aren't gonna be ready till the end of, into 2027.

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: So I can speak to that. Sheldon Howard, Agency of Transportation. Because the funds will be collected in '27 and they'll be allocated to something in '27, that works. The actual movement of money is less of a concern because we deal with that with cash flow all the time across different programs. So I think that's okay.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So it would be okay to have corporate the same? So

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: I think what he's saying is you would use the pilot money for the towns, you would use the first three twenty five of any MBUF funds and then the balance of any MBUF funds to then go back to the towns as well. Is that what I'm hearing?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah, I I know you're sticking with the governor's position. Yeah, I just, I mean, it's cleaner iron ore. We don't have to go down this path. I just think it avoids a potential argument saying, you're taking functional locals to fund drug and by drink. Then they would be opposed to that just The logic makes sense also if we put the $100,000 that's shorted by the change in mileage based user fee out of that, it would be well to our number.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, yeah. So from a drafting standpoint, you don't actually need to change the because

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: language doesn't identify It just says transportation fund. If you want to be clear where the money is coming from, you can add a paragraph at the end of the mileage based user fee that says allocation of funds from mileage based user fee collected in fiscal year twenty twenty seven and just say the first $325,000 of mileage based user fee shall be allocated to the Drive Electric Vermont and and the bank five. Or two ninety two. Sorry. There's two numbers going around. That's that's that's the that's last year's number. Yeah. The the first two ninety two would be allocated to Drive Electric Vermont and any amounts over and above that would be allocated to the transportation fund for other purposes.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Or the.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: You don't actually need the language in here unless you wanna call it out.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, I mean, it's gotta be identified somewhere in the appropriations budget, doesn't it?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: It all goes into the transportation fund. So the transportation fund is made up of motor vehicle purchasing use. Alright, we don't got a debit. And so forth. Yeah. But you, I mean,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: you can. Well, when we present it, we we could.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can present that this is, know, money that will be additional money that's coming in.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It makes me feel a whole lot better about it. Really, I know it sounds silly, it does make me feel a whole lot better as somebody voted against it. It's coming from electric vehicles to sport electric vehicles. That can't I feel a lot better about it than where I was two seconds ago. I still don't

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: It's not going package.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You still want to know, but at least it's putting the money from the place where you're getting the money. The logic is certainly stronger. Representative Pouech.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And then the other so some of the money's coming from Bambauf, and then the other money that's coming, that's still there coming to us that we sort of discovered. Is that in the bill too saying that that?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: That's not in the bill. It's in the we know the money's there.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's allocated in, it's embedded in the budget that was presented. It was a payback, it's reimbursed. Right,

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: so one of the things that's happening here is in the transportation bill, the T bill, we prove how the money is going to be spent. The actual accounting occurs in the big bill, similar to what happens in the capital bill, where you're approving how the money is going to be spent. But for the most part, the appropriations and the accounting for where the money is coming from all occurs in

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the big bill. But, typically, you still have to address the box. You're gonna have to reduce that line item. Wherever it is, we have to identify that this line item is no longer gonna be directed towards I said, am I incorrect, Michele, that we have to identify where that's embedded to say this is where your ground up from?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, yeah, so if we're Sorry, the question's for you, Michele.

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: I guess I'm not sure. Be honest.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: In past years, we have when we have when we're shifting around the money, so whatever your budget is, if you shift $500,000 from maintenance to town highways or something like that, you reduce the amount for town highways by $500,000 and increase the amount for or or increase the amount for town highways and reduce maintenance.

[Unknown committee member]: We go.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: And you you do that. In this case, I think we're talking about two pots of money that I'm not sure if they're in the yeah. They're not programmed into the budget. So the $2.92 is additional money that was supposed to be paid back to the pilot fund, but is no longer being paid back. So it's not programmed in. And then the other pot is potentially an additional 500,000 that is not programmed.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's clear.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. That's yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah. I don't need to.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. If if anything there, you know, you could potentially see program changes to shift money around and put a little more money in places, but you may not wanna rely on some of these amounts this year and instead do carry forward a budget adjustment when they're more sure. So but that that's what typically has happened in the past is when we're moving program allocations around, that's when we account for it in the T bill.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Well, the language doesn't identify the money.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. It just says transportation fund. It's the giant pot. It doesn't identify which revenue stream to the transportation fund is being tapped.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Come back in the as well. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: K.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Just because that pot, whatever it is, it's now grown by a little bit because it's

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: a little

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Here, go ahead.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I guess you're obstructing this one. No, I think we're fine, yeah, because we don't really need to change that. That language doesn't identify a pod. Yeah, doesn't.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: It doesn't identify the revenue stream. It identifies the pod.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: There's a lot. It's clear that we are making it from, we're not taking it from a pile of funds, but it's not even embedded in there,

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: so you can't really address it.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's a little bit unique in that way.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: It really becomes a question of, do you want to call out where you're allocating the money from, even though it's it's blended. The money gets blended when it goes into the t funds, and then we'll come out for all the different things you've called out. But you can say we're allocating these revenues for this purpose, but it it'll still be the same pot of money at the end of the day. Yeah. Alright. Let's move. Okay. I'll go back to the beginning. So section one is the adoption of the transportation program. There is one change in here. I've taken out the definition of mileage based user fee because we define it in the mileage based user fee program and nowhere else. So that's been pulled out. And yeah. So that's that. Section two, as a reminder to everyone, this is the old rules for the municipal heavy equipment loan fund, which used to be administered by the, I believe, the transportation committee. It is long, for several years now, been administered by the treasurer's office and has a different name now. And so these rules were left on the books. And the thinking had been that there were some updates to the statute in last year's big bill that they thought had repealed the rules, but they hadn't done that. And so this is just cleaning up and getting those rules off the books.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Back on February 27, we went through it and checked it all off as the committee thumbed it up the whole section.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Next is the section three goes into the state standards and guidance for design of highways, and it's a technical change clarifying appropriate warning signs, signals, markings instead of provided appropriate warnings are posted. Essentially, this is when you have a lower speed curve or section of road on a road where the the speed limit is otherwise set at a higher rate. So think of your 20 mile an hour turn when you're on a 45 mile an hour road.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And took down the twenty seventh. We checked it off. We thumbs upped it as a group already.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Next. Next is the duties of AOT with respect to bonding of contractors. The first is a bond to ensure that the contractor complies with the statutory terms or not the statutory terms, the contractual terms. And this increases the amount below or the contract size below which the secretary can waive the bonding requirements from 100,000 to 250,000 and gives the secretary authority to waive the bonding requirement for emergency stabilization work during an emergency event and then requires that any permanent work to repair the damage done during that event would still be subject to the bonding requirements.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Impacts about a dozen vendors a year per major event, or a dozen per major event, not per year. It was about a dozen vendors that were impacted during major events. That's what the average is. It also checked that one off as one that we've been through back

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: in February. Yep, and then the next half of that is the surety bond, which is the bond for That's okay, Same same thing. It's the bond for payment of taxes, unemployment insurance, that sort of thing pursuant to the contract. And it's the same provision, $250,000 floor below which the secretary can waive requirements in the same emergency allowance to waive the requirements. The next is bridge inspections, posting, closure. This is the language to bring the state in compliance with the federal national bridge inspection standards as far as bridge inspections. So the agency inspects all state and municipal bridges. The agency can advise the municipality of its findings, notify the municipality if a bridge needs to be posted or closed, and has emergency posting and closure authority, but the municipality remains responsible for the costs related to the bridge. And then for state maintained bridges, agency has the sole responsibility to determine whether a bridge is posted or closed, except in an emergency when the municipality can do it. And otherwise, the municipality informs the state if they become aware of deficient conditions and the agency is responsible for those costs. And then there's a penalty for violating a posting or closure of thousand dollars of up to $1,000 that's in addition to the other overweight, overheight, over length, and other road closure penalties if you violate those provisions. That is a new penalty that did not exist prior to this T bill.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We are creating a new penalty there. When we come down to report it, that'll be a significant notation. We checked that off as well.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: And section six is just clarifying that that's a traffic violation for purposes of title 23 and otherwise making technical changes. Section seven adjusts the membership of the public transit advisory council to include AARP in place of the community of Vermont elders, which has been dissolved, to remove the representative of private bus operators and taxi services, and replace the representative of Vermont inner city operators with private bus

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: operators. That's really on that. We checked it all with the AARP. Remember those 83? Yes?

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: I'd be very nitpicky, but wouldn't the ninth member would be the representatives from private bus operators if the previous ninth was 51?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: I

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: mean, it's just like a number. I don't

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: know if that's what I was talking about.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: It could be either. But yeah, in this case, the wish was to have Vermont private bus operators called out in the proposed language. And so I I struck number nine rather than adding in Vermont and then kept 10 there. The list goes on after 10. Okay. So this happens periodically where we we just delete a member of a board.

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And, yeah, what it does in the green books is it just shows up as a list. And in the middle of the list, it says repealed and then goes on with the list. So it I I agree. It doesn't look great. It is

[Unknown committee member]: You know, there's lot

[Sheldon Howard (Agency of Transportation)]: of consequence. I just

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. The other the other option is to renumber the list. I like to leave it with a repealed note so that folks, if they're interested in who used to be appointed, can go back and look to see what the changes were. That's the historian in me. Green Mountain Transit Authority, with the annual budget and assessments in section eight, this is allowing them to include anticipated voluntary local match contributions, grants, donations, and other non assessment revenues that may be offered by a member municipality or another public or private source, and to seek and accept those contributions and to provide that guidance around how those contributions can be used for purposes of meeting match requirements or supporting programs or projects and operations, and then providing that that does not change the assessment formula if you get a local match contribution.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We didn't finish out eight and nine and then add the new languages or, like, the public private partnership?

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Public private partnership is a week down.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The sunset on? That's further down. It was

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: originally section eight. That's all I It's section nine now. Oh, Okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We just put Mount and transit in between them? That's the language from

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Yeah. I think Just making sure

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: that I we didn't lose the old eight and the old nine. Didn't

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: What do you have listed as the old eight and nine?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We did not remove the sunset. We extended the sunset to give them more time to do that. That was section eight right after the public transit council. So I see you put public transit right in right after them. And I'm assuming then, if you flip down, section nine will be the Yep. Section nine will now be the sunset.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. There it is.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I was checking.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Not

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: sure. Thumbed up the Green Mountain language to go in. We hadn't actually seen it in here. It's section seven now. Okay. I I'm I'm good now. I'm assuming that also what was section nine, the transportation board of powers and duties

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: is now section seven. Okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And they were both been checked off. I just wanna make sure I thought we were going to do them all and then add on. But that's Okay as long as they're in there.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I guess I added in the middle. I'm not sure why.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Not a problem.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: That happened, but that was a couple of drafts ago for me.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The Green Mountain Transit language is the language that we had reviewed already. And back on February 18, we thumbed it up to go in here. Just what I call for notes. I don't if anybody has any other different view or concern or issue on that. But I'm just following my notes of when we put put it up, and now I'm good. This would Okay. I would've I was expecting it to be

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: ten or eleven, but I'm good. I know where we're going. Thank you. Alright. Section nine is that extension of the sunset on the public private partnership authority from this coming July 1 to 07/01/2029. Section 10 is the transportation board duties. We're clarifying that appeals of a an eleven eleven permit can be made by an applicant or permittee. So it's it's limiting those appeals. And, essentially, adjoiners who would be appealing the eleven eleven permit have other avenues through the land use and zoning process. And so this is focusing the eleven eleven permit appeals on issues related to that rather than to a larger zoning dispute between neighbors. K? And that brings us to section 11, which is transportation alternatives grant program. This language is new to this draft but identical to what you approved. So it increases the ongoing grant amount to a maximum of $600,000. It takes out the 50% set aside for environmental mitigation projects while still calling out that eligible activities include environmental mitigation projects like salt and sand sheds and infrastructure related projects and systems that will provide safe routes for non drivers. And then in section 12, providing a one year for this coming fiscal year increase in the maximum grant amount to 1,200,000.0. Okay. Section 13 is the consultation regarding municipal programs that we reviewed, I think, earlier today. This is the in addition to the ongoing work on the inventory of municipal roads, the agency in consultation with the league and the Association of Planning and Development agencies would continue examining requirements related to cancellation of locally managed projects, continue evaluating the state town highway aid and municipal grant programs to identify potential efficiencies, and examine provisions of Vermont statutes related to the procedures for establishing speed limits, and identify potential opportunities to simplify and clarify those provisions to assist municipalities in meeting local needs, including safety and context sensitivity. And then on or before January 15, submitting any recommendations for legislative action to this committee and its senate counterpart. K? Pilot special fund is section 14. This is the and 15. This is the language we looked at this morning, which provides for local option tax if local option tax revenues exceed the amount of pilot fund, grand list stabilization, correctional facility payments, plus any amounts appropriated from the pilot fund to the Department of Taxes for expenses related to grand list and appraisal assistance. One half of the excess oh, there is a typo. There we go. One half of the excess amount shall be transferred to the transportation fund in the next fiscal year and allocated to general state aid for town highways. So just realized we have repetitive language that didn't match up, but just updated it. Sorry about that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm sorry. Can we

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: get back I apologize. Section. I bumped bumped the wrong button. So,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Brigadier Burke, did you have a comment on this piece from what we were breaking earlier? In the pilot fund right now, dollars 3,400,000.0 was in the governor's recommended budget. And from what we understand also worked through ways and means and the House appropriations is working through them, along with the governor's recommended to spend $3,400,000 on ground list stabilization out of the current surplus in the pilot, both for this current year and next surplus

[Unknown committee member]: and take some of it

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: off. 3,400,000.0 You're this year and next

[Unknown committee member]: using that really, okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: For grand less stabilization as they call it, I believe. We had originally asked for we're going in direction of 50% over the surplus, naming just the specific pilot items, but because the deal is so far on, we're recognizing the reality that that 3,400,000.0 is going to be not there. And so our chance for money would be on money after the expense. So pilot fund, and that's where I would you say say that's

[Unknown committee member]: 2,007 pilot.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Pilot fund does not include a spot in the current language, in the current law, it does not mean that you can use pilot funds for landless stabilization. But our understanding, which the weird testimony that people didn't think that was a good idea, but it's in the governor's recommend and it's working with the House appropriations and ways and means, that that is money that is gonna happen, even if some people believe that's not an appropriate use of pilot. We're not entering that battle. By putting this language in, we are not fighting on that $3,400,000 We're not fighting for a share of that. We're acknowledging that as an expense. Somebody will for it. We fighting, well, individually may or may not, but the committee is not. And maybe all of us would fight for it separately. The committee as a whole is, putting that language in saying, we're not fighting for that 3,400,000.0 against the governor's recommended, we're fighting for half of the annual amount that's over what's required for expenses, this being a now required

[Unknown committee member]: It's apt to be distributed to all the towns.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: To then be put through the town highway formula. And so we, if I could go a little further, they were entirely on board with where we were heading until we acknowledged that deal that it's potentially that they're vehemently opposing and potentially even putting out words against. That's not for us, that's not what we're involved in, but that's what I've heard since we broke, that they're no longer supporting this language because we moved in not fighting that portion

[Unknown committee member]: of And she didn't feel like we shouldn't be taking any money from the townships.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Without speaking for them, that's what I interpreted from their

[Unknown committee member]: Right, I understand.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And what I would say is that we as a committee are still unified in fighting for money for town highways any way we can get it. I think that that would be part of what we're trying to present as a message. Now, is it, would I, that it be substantially more if this wasn't, if they didn't take that pile of money. We're saying as a committee, we're reading what's out there and saying we're gonna fight for what we think we can get, or that's possible. The league is saying we should fight for it all, we're making a decision

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: to fight for anything.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Am I No, carrying this on too that's exactly right. Yeah, just to reiterate, is that if there was some type of inclination that we were going to get that this wasn't a closure, we would have started moving out of waste and means of our corporations. So I think the brain's on the wall and everybody's, I think this is gonna happen, you know, three, one, four. And finally, Lisa, Townsend doesn't think it's gonna happen, but that's not our fight. Our fight is trying to make our best argument of why we should get the balance.

[Unknown committee member]: Yeah. I may have already dealt with the remaining argument anyway.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, how do you position and how you vote always matters to us.

[Unknown committee member]: I'm glad that I, you know, there's always that thing when something's happening and it's moving really fast, you don't really get there in time to say, Wait a minute, stop, explain.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I would suspect there are people that left the conversation very disappointed, and the decision very disappointed. I, however, will say that I appreciate the uniform view of ability to fight for town highway and structure and town 8 wherever we, you know. Not incremental changes, I guess, of what we're trying to do with realistic. I'm going just repeat myself, I guess.

[Unknown committee member]: Thank you for the explanation.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you. Okay, we can move on.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Section 15 adds the language which would spend that money within the general state aid for town highways program as an additional amount on top of the base appropriation there, not subject to the inflator, not affecting the amount of the base appropriation. So in years where there is a surplus there, that extra money goes into the amount that's set up for that program. The way it works is at the end of the fiscal year, whatever the excess is, half of that goes to next year's state aid for town highways on top of the base appropriation. So it may only be few tens of thousands of dollars in the near term, but it could grow. And so it'll go on top of that amount. Questions on that? K. Section 16 is the Drive Electric Vermont language we just looked at. And Logan pointed out to me that we should say in fiscal year state fiscal year 2027, the sum of so

[Unknown committee member]: Yes.

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: This is a onetime amount. So this is gonna assuming things go to go as they normally do down in appropriations, this will get pulled out and put in the appropriations bill anyway or the big bill. So and then that brings us to the effective date. But at this point, if everything's all else is okay, I will insert the MBUF language and the Caledonia Airport. Is there anything else that's missing?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Even on those slope options, mileage based usage fees, ride, electric. On my other list, what is calendaring? Well, just the m buff. And the m buff, is it not in there yet? Well, mean the m buff, excess funding. Oh, m buff, so what are we gonna do? Is it loading and come back yet? Don't we

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Is it bad?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You're still in the mix, which means this story? This guy. Sorry about that. That's the last issue then. Yeah. And so we're going to I think at this point, we're gonna break for five to ten minutes and find out where Logan is and see whether we can come up with a recommendation agreement of pushing this last piece in the last Why don't

[Damian Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: we wait for Logan's pocket?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm curious about his opinion on this, whether we should or shouldn't have the amounts noted and whether they should or shouldn't notate the funds. I'd love to hear from JFOs I mean, I know what you're said, but it's weird that you don't identify I want to hear that. I want to make sure we're good there, and I want them to have a chance to put the language in, and then I want to be able to break a full piece, and the last thing to decide is are we doing this money or not. We didn't vote on that. And so I wanna hear from Logan on those pieces. So we're taking