Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: We're still

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: in the ways and means room.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: Lost introductory language at this point

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: in the week. It's Friday, February 13 still, 10:30, and we are working on our miscellaneous tax bill. And, Kirby, do you wanna join us? Or will you please join us? Thank you. My hope is that we can all get our heads around everything that's in here. I've invited witnesses for next week to testify on various sections of it that are relevant to other stakeholders. So if you could be listening with an eye towards what you want to hear more about or any technical corrections to it, that would be Thank you.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning. Kirby Keane, legislative counsel here with a new draft miscellaneous tax bill with some things added to it. Did the chair like me to I did prepare for you a section by section summary. Was the chair like me to use that at all or just walk through the billing language and just know that the summary therapy was?

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Is this the summary you are talking about?

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I did not make that. Mine looks like it's on the QINI page for today.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Do I need to refresh?

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: I was able to pull up something.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: It looks like maybe the department made that one.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Let's Does anyone have a preference? Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I don't have a distinct preference, but I'm gonna read through that section by section, because that's the way I keep track of things.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: So whatever it's I give you the Bill English. Keep the for things that we've already gone over, I'll keep it quick. We do have fifty secondtions now.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: It's been a while since we

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: were last here, so we might need to slightly take I'll it

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: move moderately fast.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Haven't any of it, but I feel like it's been three years since we last discussed it.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, I'll move moderately fast. We have 50 secondtions fortunately for our endurance. Half of those are the grandmas change from April 1 to January 1. We essentially have twenty five secondtions of substance to look at. And let's begin. Section one on page one, line 12 is a repeal of the denial of tax credits for S corporations. I think Rebecca Semros gave us the history on going back to the nineties how this was this this thing not allowing us corporations to do this. That's in the law seem to have come as revenge out of the department losing a case at some point. She reminded us that's not their core mission these days, revenge. Section two is related to the transfer tax. This grants the department authority to investigate whether a bona fide landlord tenant relationship exists for purposes of applying the higher property transfer tax rate for second homes and short term rentals. We had talked about how a bit of a loophole exists where you could avoid paying that rate under current law by renting out the property that you're purchasing for thirty days in the upcoming year. And that's really all you have to do because it's tied to having a requirement to file a landlord certificate, but that's only for thirty days or more. So the department's approach is to have the ability when performing compliance work to look into those transfers to determine if there's an actual landlord tenant relationship, or if this is just a landlord certificate set up to avoid the tax. And yeah, I'd commented that it's I don't know if it came through, but it's I thought it was commendable that the department was willing to say, hey, we will put in the work to do a good job with this. So I think I made a joke about last time, but I do wanna make it clear that I thought that was commendable. Section three and four relates to PVR conducting valuations for unenrolled parcels and current use. In certain cases, this is when a portion of a parcel is unenrolled or developed, there has to be evaluation done on the value of that portion. In cases where municipalities fall behind, it gives the department the ability to come in after thirty days and do the evaluation.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: Yeah. Again, Kirby, I'm sorry I may not be asking you repeat what we've already been told, but That's why we're here.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Don't apologize for it.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: Okay. So the land use case that's current use. So somebody who claims to be enrolled, but isn't enrolled. Is that what we're talking about? A misunderstanding?

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: No, it's when the evaluation has to be done if you want to enroll or unenroll withdrawal, like not necessarily pay land exchange tax at this time, but withdraw a portion of your property because maybe you've got some future plans or you just don't want to use it for farming or forestry anymore. That if you're keeping a portion of the parcel enrolled, the land use change tax gets applied based on portions. When that happens, so evaluation has to be done. It could also happen if there was development, say two acres out of 100 has something built on it, that would be considered development under current use. And in that case, land use change tax will become immediately due for that developed portion. And so in either of those cases, you have to have evaluation done. And that's done by the municipality, by the listeners and assessors. There are situations in the real world where the listener or assessor can't get out and do that valuation soon. Because this is something that kind of comes up, it's not part of their ordinary work. And it's also just a kind of evaluation from scratch, because a portion of a parcel isn't normally what they do. So it's not as easy as maybe some other things that they could be asked to value. So for all those reasons, sometimes, and of course we know that some municipalities have trouble even getting staff to do this stuff. So there's just cases that come up where it doesn't get done. And then so the landowner who's saying, I'm trying to unenroll this government, please do something so that I can proceed with my plans. So the resolution for that department's proposing here is to give PBR the ability to come in and help out in that situation and do evaluation.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: The whole parcel, not just the

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: portion? No, just on the portion. Just for the purposes of current use for land use change tax is what they're doing us for.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Thank you.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And that was a proposal from PVR, and Jill is available if you want to work on. And

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll try to remember that as I go through where things are coming from. Give you a pressure on that too. So far, everything that we've gone through has has been a department proposal. And that's also the case for the next thing, is section five, which if you recall, it's the addition of grazing rights to this provision where usually this comes into play when a landowner is trying to enroll a parcel that's less than 25 acres into current use. There's these special ways to qualify. This is specifically for agriculture. There are certain ways to qualify for acreage that small. One of them is that if the land has produced an annual gross income from the sale of farm crops, and then in one or two or three or five calendar years proceeding of at least and then there's three different ways to go from there.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: The ad committee is looking at this language, and the natural resources committee will probably look at this language, and they are thinking through some clarifications that might be helpful, and they'll bring them back to us, I think, next week. One of them being what a head whether we should get more specific about a head, for instance. Yep.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Thank you for that, because I looked into it a little bit myself and heard me tell me, but this came from PVR, is that correct? Yes. So it didn't come from, actually, to the department, I heard it was based on one individual's experience, which I don't think could get right legislation around one person's issue with situation like this. What else? Anyway, there's some concerning aspects to this particular provision.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: When we talked about it last time, I think we sort of hypothesized a number of loopholes, even just around this table with yeah, it's very little. So let's, we'll hear back from Ag and then see where we go from there. Yeah.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: I just had a question for you. You had just one person's issue. What was your first issue with it? Your first concern? Didn't hear the first concern.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Just that at the time, AG hadn't taken it up, actually, and I also heard too that it isn't going to go through the current use advisory board for consideration. So, that's another concern for me as well.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We can have Jill back in. Once we hear back from Ag, we'll have Jill back in to answer those kinds of questions. Thank you. So

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: just to summarize this change, for certain agricultural parcels, would be expanding the ways to enroll that parcel, expanding it by allowing grazing rights to or income from grazing rights as a new way of qualifying for the program. Okay. Next change is also from the department section six. This changes the calculation for payment to municipalities for municipal property taxes lost due to flood or flood from properties taken off the grand list. The change is to change the calculation from using the municipal tax rate for the current year to the immediately proceeding year. And if I remember correctly, the departments had pointed out that this this way this is how the calculation is made for the pilot payments, and and they're aligning they're aligning those two with this proposal.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: I'm having a slow day today here, but

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: it just has been nice to meet Me too. Sometimes.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Me also, so maybe I'm just not explaining it.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Same mom, at least.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: So, okay, so we have a flood, somebody goes to the port Of Abatement asking to not have to go to their cash just because their property was made unlivable, they couldn't live. Tell me what's happening.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding of this program, which I didn't write the underlying law here, my understanding of the program is is it's a case where municipality purchases the underlying property because maybe the property has been severely damaged and it's been flooding or maybe it just continues to be flooded and policy decisions made that it's better if this is not developed. That's what this municipal grant stabilization program or what the program overall is doing. The part we're specifically talking about is, are there some provisions where the municipality gets reimbursed for the lost municipal taxes for that parcel for a period of time? That's ten years, I believe.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Is this a new thing? No.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: It's relatively new.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: Can I have the conversation?

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: Yeah. Just talk to lot.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Representative Branagan, I'm gonna actually ask representative Waszazak to answer some of your questions because it was a lot for Barry.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Do you want me to do that? Yeah.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: So basically, when a property goes through the FEMA buyout process, the structure that is on there gets destroyed and the municipality loses the grand list revenue that came from the original value. So working with the administration last year, we designed this program so that the municipality gets reimbursed for that lost property tax revenue.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: For ten years, you said?

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: Yeah, for the first five years is 100% of the value. The preceding five years is 50% of the value for ten years of total support. And this is just a technical change for determining which tax rate is used to calculate that municipal reimbursement.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And so I do think the Department of Taxes considers this change really like a technical correction. Yeah, yeah. Because the payment is

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: supposed to go out

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: on January 1 of each year, but the tax rate

[Unidentified Committee Member]: is set by that point.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: That you just said, because that was kind of key.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: The payments go out the door on January 1, whereas tax rates are not typically set until school budgets and the yield bill and all that stuff is passed. So it's just cleaning up the calendar basically.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: You.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Back to you, Kirby.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so our next change is in section seven. This adds provisions addressing cases where a communication service provider fails to submit an inventory to PVR for property valuation. I don't think that this penalty language is based out of anything in the real world. Don't think PVR is just starting to do this process, take over this process of valuing communications properties as there's a transition from the telephone personal property tax right to having PVR to the values. So I believe that they're just noticing that new law does not account for cases where a taxpayer is cooperating. So they suggested this language in case that happens. So what it does is if the service provider fails to submit the inventory, that is an inventory of their property for PBR to base its value on. If if they fail to submit that on time, the commissioner may find the provider not more than a $100 for each violation unless the provider's failure is due to factors beyond the provider's control. That $100 is based off of some an older current law. That's why it seems like maybe a relatively low penalty. And then in cases where the service provider willfully admits to make swear to and submit an inventory or to answer any interrogatory therein or makes a false answer, the consequences are the division shall ascertain. They'll make their own estimate of fair market value and the taxpayer would not have the ability to appeal that estimate.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah,

[Mark Higley (Member)]: thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: With regards to whether a $100 is high or low, you know, I'm unsure, and you're the the text of the bill gives us a way to wiggle towards an answer. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying I don't know if I understood or not.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: And I only brought that up because it came up in testimony, by the way. I wasn't trying to make any I

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: think the last time

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: we discussed it, I flagged that I didn't think $100 would change anyone's the type of provider that is being fined here, I can't imagine $100 is going to make a big difference. It makes a difference for me, but I don't know if it makes a difference for a ton. I don't know if it's something. But we can ask PBR about if they think it'll make a difference, if anyone needs to. Yeah.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: That communication provider may have multiple properties on a single report, so that $100 would add up fast.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Good point. I don't how are you defining each violation?

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: So the violation in this case would be a failure to submit the inventory on or before April 15 in the form prescribed.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: How does that look? I'm wondering if it's different kinds of drug. This kind property, so you would add up or what?

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I think that is a good question for the department because I think there are some different ways to interpret this. It could be that each day that it's not submitted, that could be considered a new violation. And it could also mean for this could be interpreted to mean $100 for every time that the entire inventory isn't submitted or is it a $100 for each thing missing from the inventory? So I think that's a good question. I think that they're since they're basing this off of something preexisting, I think they will have some more context for how that other thing is done, but I'm not sure.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: If they give us that context, would you then we could think about whether we should have better, more clear wording in here or what? Yeah, let's think about it after we hear the testimony.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And if someone can remember to ask property valuation and review about that, that would be great. We'll have them back in.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Equalization study. This is more of a clarifying provision. This is new, by the way. We have not looked at this before. It's in clarifying language that when it comes to equalization study that the new CHIP program from last year that for the house sites under CHIP that they will be treated like a TIF district when it comes to equalization study. No further questions we will move on.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: So that's a minor section eight completely?

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: That's a new section eight for this bill. Yeah. It's amending existing law, the equalization study statute.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: So all the other one's down. It's in the

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: It's also from the department.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: And it's just addressing an open question under current law now. What do they do when they go to do the equalization study? Now once there starts to be chip projects, I think the department thinks he probably wants to treat this like TIFF, right? But it's not actually in the statute.

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: That's what 24 VSA Chapter 52 is. That's chip. Yes. Gotcha.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know if you need to know this, but I had I had John Gray look at the language, and we tweaked it a little bit from what the department suggested. This was so this what what you're looking at is John's suggested language.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Excuse me. Said chapter

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: 53.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: You said 52. Were you correcting this?

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Nope. No, it wasn't on the screen and I was trying to remember the numbers.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Oh, wow.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: So I was

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: 52.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I understood. Understood.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: I thought there were problems.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: Okay. Sorry.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. So section nine is something we've looked at before and is another suggestion from the department. This, if you recall, was the issue of what CLA to use.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: This was my suggestion to the department, but then they offered back as a suggestion. So I'm not sure how much they would have come forward with it on their own, so I don't wanna entirely put that on. But they're 100% fine with it. Yes, totally. They really did submit the language. Just sort of

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: a medical department. Yes, absolutely.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: When we talked about It

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: was meant to be for one year, right? Is there any language and it might be addressed elsewhere in the legislative language that's not included on the specific document? Do we need to specify that it's just for the immediate following year?

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: No, because the subsection that we're the subsection that we're amending here is specific that it's only for education tax purposes.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: And

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: only for that single year.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: But, yeah, so the change here is that instead of using the calculation in existing law to make up a CLA that could be slightly different than 100, that PVR will just simply use a 100 CLA if the municipality had just finished a mastery appraisal. For education type purposes specifically, that's what this is about.

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: It's also specifically about the certification of it right, from PVR, what that means, certifying the values.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: That means that not only has the municipality just finished a master appraisal, but PVR has done something to make sure that that's actually true.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Think we've talked about this, but the effective date on that is

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I think I think this one This is gonna be on passage. We we heard back that from Rebecca Sameroff that rather than try to remember it, I'm gonna quickly pull that up to to get let you know that info. Basically, she she gave her response that, yes, this will happen. I have everything covering my search bar. Okay.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Okay. Sorry.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Rebecca wrote effective date is on passage as written. That is true. The department confirmed our understanding that the 100% reappraisal CLA would apply to upcoming twenty twenty six to twenty twenty seven FY '27 property tax year, unless we change it here to delay the effective date past July 1. I did respond to Rebecca saying, my understanding is that you're fine with us leaving it the way it is. She said yes.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thanks.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: The next two sections, ten eleven, extend the health IT fund, subset five years to 2031. I think the last time we looked at this, it was written as two years, but it's been changed to five years to push that out more.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I haven't officially heard from anyone in the administration that they have directed it yet. So if I do, I'll let you know. This is from? The administration, I think, said one. It's in the budget. We talked about it. Yes. Was that yesterday? Yeah. Wow. Well, perfect. They had one year in the budget, and a one year sunset is just a lot of paperwork.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: So that wasn't specifically a department ask. It's the first thing we've run across, I think. It was not And then the 100% COA thing. That's an important thing, too. So yeah, so the Health IT Fund sunset was not a department ask. This next thing we're looking at it was also not department ask. Are we okay to move on? Yeah. If you remember that there was the addition that we did look at last time to the way that 05/29 plan distributions can be used. So a subsection is being added to allow a special rollover to a Roth IRA. We have talked about how this is something that's allowable under the federal version of five twenty nine plans and Vermont's language decouples us from the federal quite a bit. So for any changes that are made at the federal level, they don't flow through to the Vermont credit. So in this case, this language adding that back, it does add one additional requirement though. Is that the plan would have to be maintained for not less than twenty years before that rollover could take place. Under federal law, it said the requirement is fifteen years. So this is just making it so that the account has to be maintained for a little bit longer for Vermont to allow it.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And to explain where this one came from, it was an email from another member's constituent that got forwarded to me. I'm sorry, don't even remember who the member was, let alone the constituent. And I thought it was an interesting idea with the idea that this constituent had a child who had had their entire They had a savings account for the child. The youth then had their entire educational experience paid for with various scholarships and then had this account that they weren't sure what to do with. And that is the extent of the research I have done on this. I've put it in here so that the committee can have a discussion about it. It is interesting to me. I'm not going to call it a proposal from me, and we're going to have VSAC come in and talk to us about it next week. Because the implications of it are I have absolutely no idea.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Yes. 20 versus 15 coming from that email?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I really don't even remember that. I'm sorry, representative voting. These were thoughts way back in December, they are now gone. Okay, thanks. And I you know, the one quick question conversation I've had with VSAT, they had a question about, is it from the point that you create the account? Is it from when the account you know, is that no one touches the account for twenty years and that can roll over? What's the timeline of that? I'm sure Vizak will have a lot more content to add to this topic.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: So moving on sections 13 through 16 are inflation index updates. If you remember, we had we had talked about how the New England Economic Project Cumulative Price Index is something that does not exist. The NEET inflator does not exist. It but it is written into current law in a few places. So updating that to NEPA is what the language does. That's all it does. Don't think that this creates any substantive change actually from what's already happening, but it does make the statute align with current practice.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes. Do you

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: know when the inflator report has come?

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: Soon.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think every committee there are many committees that are drawing the attention of the staff that's currently working on this.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Section 17 is changed to the homestead declaration section and property tax credit section. This came from the taxpayer advocate report. It was suggested that you allow the PTC to be calculated using 100% of the property taxability of a party to a separation or divorce who is living in a homestead, even if the other party to that divorce or separation is still an owner. So under current law, you were to follow the letter of the law, if you have a divorce separation situation, one person's living there, another person's living elsewhere, but they're still a co owner, basically the amount of property tax credit would be reduced based on that split in ownership. So this is a correction to not have the tax treatment done like that.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And the tax payer advocate's coming in next week, if anyone has questions about it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: What

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: kind of behavior is this thing caused?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think it's something that they are correcting with commissioner authority on a case by case basis right now. But he can tell some more about it.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Next section relates to estate tax. This is the change that did come from the part of taxes requesting that the filing thresholds for the size of an estate match the tax liability thresholds. Currently, for states that are between two two hundred and seventy two point seven five million and five million have a filing requirement, but they don't actually have any tax liability for Vermont. So the department has said that they receive a number of these, what they call zero returns as in someone goes to all process filing of the return, the department goes to the process of processing that return, and then at the end of the day, no taxes due or paid. So they'd like to get rid of it and change the threshold to 5,000,000, which is the threshold at which tax liability would start. Section 19 extends the down payment assistance program to the year 2031 and it also increases the maximum total award amount for first year credit allocations from 250,000 to 350,000. I believe you heard testimony on this. Sections twenty and twenty one is the language from h seven seventy that we looked at a couple days ago. This is about the federal tax credit program for contributions to scholarship granting organizations. This language would preclude Vermont from participating and also assigns the general assembly as the entity making that choice for Vermont.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: It would be helpful for me to hear from members about who else they would like

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: to hear from on that one.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Section 22 amends the definition of parcel for purposes of the grand list so that it means a separate and sellable lot or piece of real estate, but only for purposes of mapping and the per parcel payments. There was some language that that thought of this in act 73, but that would have had impacts on property valuation that were unintended. So the goal or the plan is to remove what this was attempting to do in act 73, replace it with this language, which gets at what works best for the Department of Taxes and BCGI. But the reasoning behind this proposal is that BCGI would like things to be done a little differently so they would have access for mapping purposes to contiguous parcels under the same ownership.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And this was from the department? Yes. The correction, but And

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: sections 23 through 25 are new issue that that is new to miscellaneous tax bill. What we're looking at is a repeal of the Department of Fish and Wildlife's fee setting for public use of Department Lands and Properties. So section 23 is the repeal of the fee setting authority. Section 24 is a repeal of a regulatory, or a rule on fees from fish and wildlife. This was drafted by the way, by my colleague, Mike O'Grady, who works in this area, not by me. And I would, if you have deep questions on this, I would certainly convert up to Mike on that and we'll try to show some restraint and try to answer that. And then in section 25 here, it's succession lot for Fish and Wildlife to report back and to recommend the fees that should be charged. So replacements for the fees that are being repealed.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: So is this speaking back to the presentation we heard from them earlier in the session? You needed it.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: So the effective dates for this would be the repeals effective 07/01/2027. So the fees as they are now would continue until then. And then and then in anticipation of that July 2020 07/01/2027 appeal, it's repeal, it's written that, you know, they would report back before then so that the so the general assembly can put into place some statutory fees.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Representative Masland or take

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Representative Ode, you may help me out with this, but Elkhart has took testimony from Fish and Game in regards to a lot of their fees for their camps, summer camps, and good things. So this is outside of all that, very, very inscribed.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not familiar with what you're talking about, but it could be the same, I'm not sure. There's fees for the Green Mountain Conservation Camp. That's part of what's being repealed. Agency's ability to decide what those fees are.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: But not the fees themselves.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Not the fees themselves. The fees as they are now would stay in place 07/01/2027 is when the repeal would take place and before that the General Assembly would have heard a report from Fish and Wildlife about what they think the fees should be and the General Assembly would have decided what the fees are and put those into statute before that talk.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Represent Bethlehem.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Absolutely. When we finished hearing from where we had a conversation recently with the Commissioner of PET having to do with fees, that I'd like to bring up when we're not interrupting your work here.

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: And this had to do with the fishing access fees, as I recall, and we do not care for the idea that the commissioner can set their own fees at this time. Is that correct? That would be implied by this change? And who's this? Fish and Wildlife is not proposing that we change this back, right? It's not a proposal from Fish and Wildlife. Should we help you?

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Me. I

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: would say I'm not doing

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: this in isolation. I've had a number of conversations with folks in this room and throughout the building about this. Very With folks feeling a lot of discomfort about the move by Fish and Wildlife to create a public access fee eventually without consulting us.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: So, as I mentioned before, sections 26 through 49 are the change that we talk about in other contexts. This does relate to classifications and RADS. Changing that the grant list assessment date from January 1 to or from April 1 rather in current law to January 1. One of the biggest advantages is that gives that time period between January and April to do appeals processes and to do other work that's needed. So it's in some parts of the property valuation process, it creates more space and less time crunch for the people who are doing work on various things. Some background on this is that this was proposed and considered last year. What ended up happening was in Act 73, you included a provision that the department spent last off session going through statute and deciding where it was appropriate to make these changes. One thing I encountered when I attempted to do this during the session last year was places where I was not sure whether making the change from April 1 to January 1 made sense and whether it would cause administrative problem for the department. So that was part of why the department took on this task. They did a wonderful job and I'm very thankful for Abby Shepherd who did this work and provided this this language. So so this language came from the department, and it came from the department because the general assembly had asked for it.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: And it's not contingent on it. Right? We're just making this change?

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: It's not contingent. It takes effect though. This change is written to take effect 07/01/2031, which means that the classifications and the RATs are going to be set up before then. So, you might want to talk with the department about what is the most appropriate effective date to set. This date, I set it for this because that's what the RAD report had suggested. But, yeah, it could be worth having further discussions with them to make sure that things line up.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: I think we should

[Mark Higley (Member)]: have that discussion.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah, absolutely, and it might make more sense to move this section into the Brad language, rather than just hanging up here all by itself.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: I think we've heard from the field, or at least I have a very certain role, I just don't know why we need to wait till 2031 to

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: do that. Yes, I agree

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: with you to move it, because can you imagine explaining this on the floor? I mean it's just like, now I'm going to tell you about reds.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: I'm going

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: to tell

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: you about when this section

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: is good.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Representative Higley? Could we go back to the tuition fees again? I just brought up in a dog by me, I can't, so much going on.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah, no, no, my memory also. So, what we did in LCAR was through

[Mark Higley (Member)]: a rulemaking where for thirteen years the fishing game department hasn't raised any of their fees for things like wedding venues going from $3,000 to $5,000 Conservation camps going from $250 to $300 Facility day use, 300, dollars 600 for private entities, and the list goes on. So I just want to make sure, with the wording in this, I don't see how we can be touching any of this. Correct?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So what I just wanna make sure I'm understanding what happened in Elkhart. The administration proposed that they could increase all those fees and Elkhart approved that? Yes. Okay. And my intent with the language was not to mess with any fees that are in that are happening right now. It was to remove their authority to set new fees in the future without coming to us the way most every other department does. But we should Can you clarify that that's what that does, Kirby, and or tell us to talk to Michael more?

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I think that the best person to talk to would be Michael Brady, not myself. I can pull up the fee that is We

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak (Member)]: can just

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. And I can leave it at. Okay. I I can pull up I can pull up that rule, but whatever.

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Is that the only agency that has that authority?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Staff is looking into who else has that authority, but they're the ones that, in my experience, have the most of that authority. The other ones are sort of more marginal.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: Does that make sense? Yes. Okay, it's not a very well constructed sentence, sorry. Perhaps I have

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: the last one.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, so maybe it wouldn't be appropriate time to take up what I heard just very recently about fees, which is at a presentation by DEC on their permit process. The commissioner allowed us how that we got through the conversation. When they got through the process, which is largely complete, but not done and adopted, they will need some more bodies and commensurate with such, they'll need to raise fees in order to pay for the bodies, which I thought was a very helpful development. I'm the indication was no budgets right now, but we acknowledge we'll need more fees to cover more bodies to do this job. So that is good good news. Thanks.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And it sounds like they're all already doing that for Elkhart.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: See you, Mark.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And maybe we wouldn't, I don't know, maybe the opposite tact is the administration would be willing to raise fees if they don't have to come to the legislature, and we should just have it all go through LCAR, and then we wouldn't have enough revenue for the state. I'm really not sure. But sorry, that was a little Friday snark. Kirby, will you continue? Was about to call you representative Chittenden.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I know.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: So effective dates, section 50. It's currently drafted where many of these changes are effective on passage because a lot of them are technical changes, clarifications, things that don't require any setup. So that's the way we've left it for now. There's exceptions being change to S Corporation's ability to claim tax credits is going to be retroactive to 2025. So that would be immediate. And then the current use changes are to take effect on 10/01/2026. At least the last year's change tax changes, and I believe Jill testified that that date is set said that it's after the next round of applications.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah. We asked her really explicitly about it.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: Mhmm. The current use qualifying income change is for September 2 or that was probably the ones related to applications. And the grand list definition of a continuous parcel change has an effective date of 04/01/2027. That allows time for setup for that change. The Department of Fish and Wildlife fee setting authority change, as I think I mentioned when I was explaining it, would be 07/01/2027. And then the the grand list day change that we talked about is currently set at 07/01/2031. And again, that effect is based off of what how was written in the RAP report. I haven't had any follow-up with the department about how to feel about that. There's miscellaneous tax bill. Exactly fifty secondtions so you can't add or take out anything. Fifty which can keep it

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Well we can add something as long as we

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: As long as you take something else out?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay.

[Kirby Keane (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll allow it.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Any questions that anything anyone wants to go back to?

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: I'll hear more on all of these sections.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: From stakeholders. I'll tell you the stakeholders I already have, and then you can tell me who I'm missing. How does that sound? A lot of paper on these steps, folks. Give me a second. We have VLCT for our Collins, the Sierra Club. Sorry. We have VLCT, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, the Sierra Club on the fee thing. Various staff people, don't have Michael adding Michael Brady. We have tax, including the taxpayer advocate.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: BSAAC is good. We have

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: a BSAAC.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Want somebody

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: from And we probably want someone from Fish and Wildlife.

[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Doctor. Jason Bechtel, Durkhardt.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Maybe the Lynch Council from LCAR so that everybody can understand what was on LCAR based on your comment because there's limits to what LCAR can do.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Who

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: is the LCAR attorney?

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: It used to be Damian. It keeps being switched. We had another Okay, we'll find it.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, great. Thanks. And then Michael O'Grady as well.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Who's who's the LCAR attorney now? Damien switched to something.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Right. Yeah. I can't think of his name.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: It's okay. Sorry. I couldn't find it out. Thanks. Okay. So if there's someone else that you would like to have in, let me know. And there's no way we're gonna get Michael O'Grady in the next five minutes. Right, Sorcha? Michael O'Grady doesn't okay. It'll be

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: hard to get him next week.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay. Great. Okay. Okay. Think with that, we're gonna stop until 01:00, and then we'll pick up whatever we're picking up at once.

[Carolyn Branagan (Member)]: Cool. Bill. Thank you.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And we have a vote.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Not an Elgar. Vote.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Drop that

[Unidentified Committee Member]: in helpful.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Just one more minute over here. Thanks. We have a vote warrant for 01:00. Great. Great. And we're gonna look at a technical change language we looked at before. Okay.