Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Good morning. Here we

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: are in the Ways Hi. Here we are in the Ways and Inn Committee. It's 09:00. It is April 22. We are beginning our work on S-two 55, an act relating to establishing a pilot law enforcement governance council in Windham County. I asked Tim to start today, not with a walkthrough of the bill, but an understanding about how county taxes work. And then we'll go into the bill from there. And then we have some witnesses. And ideally, we would also vote today. Tim.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you very much for having me, committee members. For the record, my name is Tim Devlin, Legislative Counsel. Providing a brief oral summary of county governance, I think starts with, let's say, a reminder that there's not much county governance in this state. There's a handful of positions, only three of which are elected. That's state's attorneys, sheriffs, and I bailiffs. The other two are three county officials being county treasurer, county clerk. It's escaping me from the wrong

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Side judges.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Side judges. Side judges, sheriffs, state's attorneys are elected, others are appointed. County infrastructure is, for the most part, limited to certain courthouses. The provision of some spaces for sheriffs, some position for sheriffs. And it's good to remember that sheriffs, for the most part, have a hybrid funding system where they raise some of their own funds through contracting with mostly municipalities. But I think it's fine to generalize and say that the judiciary takes up the majority of county budgets. The county budget process is pretty straightforward. It's limited in these three, or it can be found basically in its entirety in these three statutes right here. That is, we're entitled 24, which is where we house the statutes regarding municipalities and county government, and then chapter five for county officers, powers, and duties, and then we'll find these under subchapter one, assistant judges. Let's see. So type into let me pull up all the language quickly, and we'll go through 24 BSA one thirty three, one thirty four, and then one thirty five. So here we are. We start off with one thirty three county tax amount and assessment. I won't read through the language here. It's a little bit I don't want get bogged out in too much detail, so I'll just kind of briefly elaborate through it and please feel free to stop me, ask for it to delve into language or just more detail in general. So, assistant judges, also not side judges, will propose a budget for the following year. By January 1, they will have a public meeting which has to follow certain notice requirements. Based on any feedback they received during those public hearings or meeting, not a hearing. Sorry. They will adjust the budget accordingly. The budget has to be let's see. There's a cap on the budget at 5¢ per dollar of equalized grand list of such county, and then the budget will be apportioned on town two different ways. One, according to the ratio of the equalized grand list, or two, the total equalized grand list of all towns to the county. And then also the last factor, one thirty three, is sets the fiscal year for the county budget to be beginning on February 1 and ending on January 31.

[Unidentified committee member]: That's a whole lot. So

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Then that's all this. Then we just quickly move to the two brief sections of one thirty four, one thirty five. One thirty four requires the county treasurer to issue a warrant by March 1, requiring the tax to be paid in two equal installments by July 5 and by November 5. And then section one thirty five will require the select boards to order town treasurer to pay that tax and also states that the tax shall be assessed by the select board upon the grant list of the town. And that's it.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So the county tax is essentially paid by I just wanna make sure I'm understanding it. Paid by each municipality, not paid by each individual and each county. Yes. Okay. Is that how other places do I'm not in no way interested in changing this. I'm just asking, is this how other states do it? I don't know.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: My one comment would be that most of the states have much more robust county governance structure. I think we're amongst let's see, maybe we have a very, very limited one. Connecticut doesn't have any county government, or they support regional, so the county based on the board of governors kind of applies that. I think Rhode Island has a similarly weak county government structure, but this is just to say that I wouldn't be surprised if it's different, because there's a lot more money involved in other states. But could be similar, depending on where you live. I'd have to look at it.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: But essentially, I mean, you had further up with the voters.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: You're the voters? Let me see here. Hey. Okay. So we are

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: You ever been

[Rebecca Holcombe]: to home nowadays, Captain?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: No. Anyone? Has anyone here ever been to their county budget meeting? We are involved citizens.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: We don't know who these vote

[James Masland]: these meetings exist.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Fascinate. Okay.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry. Guess, voters is an interesting term here, because it's the meeting for discussing the budget. It's not as opposed to vote by the bodies.

[James Masland]: Okay,

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: it's not the voters in that context really are talking about all registered voters throughout the county. It's not a separate set of municipal representatives. Okay. And then the budget as to how it's shared is then reflected in the town's budget, and then that goes through into the property tax rate for the municipal rate. Yes. Or other sources of food. Sure. Okay. But there's no as the chair was speaking, there's no ability of the county to have a direct assessment on property taxes. No.

[James Masland]: Yeah. And

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: again, folks, this is like a level of curiosity and engagement and understanding of county taxes that is not necessary for the bill we're gonna look at. It just seemed like helpful to learn about this little corner of statute while we were close to it. Nothing in the bill we're gonna look at changes, any of this at all. Right?

[Carol Ode]: I know there was that working group that sort of collapsed that was looking at county government. Is there It's been restarted and there's a

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: bill that maybe we voted on already?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: The bill is or is it right now? It's in the Exactly. Senate,

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: But we voted on it and it went to the Senate, yeah?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: It should go to the Senate for tomorrow. Okay, good. That will continue the life and reporting requirements for that committee for until '27. As a minute, it will actually if it passes the senate, will come back here because there was disagreement on the date of exactly how far things should be pushed out.

[Unidentified committee member]: I was actually appointed to the summer state of F-two million.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: How was that for you?

[James Masland]: Interesting.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Representative Redding? So this in this case, voters are, as in other things, the voters are not necessarily the people who pay the bill. They don't have to own property to be a voter. So a voter can go to the meeting, make comments, and could even influence their outcome through his comments. But he doesn't pay the bill, only the property owners, because it's based on a brand list, pay the bill. Yeah, it's not only this issue, but that is a, I believe, fundamental flaw in our system. But whatever, doesn't matter. That's the way it is, and probably it's constitutional. Has anyone ever challenged that to your knowledge?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: You're saying that only landowners should vote, Rebecca? No.

[Carol Ode]: I'm saying that that's the way it

[Rebecca Holcombe]: is now, that landowners pay. That's what I think is fair, that it's not equal, and that's They all have say. But I'm so glad I asked and clarified. Yeah, okay. But school texts, yeah.

[Woodman Page]: Regarding property, I guess for most, counties, I think you mentioned courthouses as a major property that these counties own. Who actually owns these courthouses? Is it the county itself? Judiciary? Good

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: question, I don't know. I can say that some portion of the warehouses are state buildings in which the judiciary kind of leases space within them. Some are wholly controlled by the judiciary. I don't know the answer. That'd be a great question for the assistant judges or perhaps

[James Masland]: Judge Zonay or

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: be able to provide you

[James Masland]: with all of that information.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We did extend the government building tax exempt status to county government two years ago because it wasn't formally exempt. Municipal properties were and state properties were, but county properties weren't.

[Carol Ode]: It's like it's their own local, but the state frequently pitches in for

[Rebecca Holcombe]: that. Do you have something?

[James Masland]: Yeah, usually the upgrades to the courthouses is in the capital bill.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Let's continue with our Sure.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Turning to the bill.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think was that everything you want talk about? Great. Okay. Anyone have any other questions about this process? Cool. Yeah. Go to the bill. Thanks.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Let's start with the as passed by bill. The House Government Operations Committee did offer an amendment. It's minor. It's requiring an additional check back from the pilot. And also, I should state that I provided the committee not too long ago. I don't expect it to be necessarily closer right now, but with a bill overview as it came out of the Senate for the most part. Not that there necessarily needs to be an overview. It's a relatively short bill, but nonetheless, it's there for the curious. General, the bill proposes to create a pilot program named the Windham County Law Enforcement Governance Council, and this is to provide orchestrated law enforcement and state related services to participating towns within Windham County through the period of 2033. Specific services are to be determined by the council, provided by the Windham County Sheriff's Department, and funded by a special assessment of member municipalities in proportion to the population of each member. Would the committee like to know anything about the council governance or its duties or anything that would you like me to just kinda skip down to the like section?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I'd love if you could do a summary of those sections, but not read us Absolutely. Best word for word.

[Unidentified committee member]: So If you

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: scroll to those sections as you're discussing. Absolutely.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Section one is just definitions. Section two has to do with authorization establishment. This creates the council for the purpose of providing regional law enforcement and related services during the pilot period, and states when it can begin, operations and taxation on either 07/01/2026, or the date on which five or more member municipalities have voted to become member municipalities, whichever occurs later. So then we turn to membership in section three.

[Carol Ode]: Yes, it represents a population. We may say taxation. Are they talking about that council having taxing powers or member states are allowed to tax locally to raise funds to

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: It's about the council. Yeah.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So three I'm sorry. The council having direct taxation or the council being able to raise funds from each municipality the way that the existing county government does? So I know the latter is fine. Okay. Great. Thank you. So

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: section three, member and we'll get into that section five. Yeah. Representative Page.

[Woodman Page]: Do we know whether these there's five or more member municipalities that have decided to join?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We have two witnesses that can tell

[Carol Ode]: us about that in a moment.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Question.

[Unidentified committee member]: I don't

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: know. Mhmm. Section three has to do with membership, and let's see. This will enable municipalities of Windham County to join and exit the council by vote of the town's legislative body. Each member of municipality shall have one representative with one vote on the council, and council representatives shall be see, a serving select board member of that municipality will be selected by the municipality select board. We go to section four, governance, and this sets forth the governance structure of the powers and the duties of the council. Council will meet at least quarterly and at other such times necessary. No meeting shall be warned to conduct an accordance with the proper open meetings law. Counsel shall have the powers of duties to, one, adopt bylaws, the operation of the council, two, determine the annual budget for law enforcement and related services to be provided to member of the spouse, Three, establish the level and scope of services to be delivered to the member municipalities. Four, develop standards and performance metrics for delivered law enforcement and planned services. Five, monitor service delivery and evaluate program effectiveness. Sixth, submit the approved budget to the Windham County Assisted Judges for inclusion in the county budget. And seven, enter into agreements necessary for the provision of services. So here we turn to probably most interesting sections committee's purposes, budget and financing. So this will detail the fiscal elements of the council that the section does. Council prepares an annual budget and submits it to the Windham County assistant judges who include it as a separate line item in the larger county budget. County treasurer then levies and collects a special assessment of the municipalities in proportion to each municipalities population. Non member municipalities should not be assessed or charged for council services. The council's finances will be annually audited and fiscal sorry. Financial reports will be provided quarterly to member municipalities and the assistant judges. And I'm happy to get much more to it than that, but I can read line by line if could do a line.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Oh, that's an assessment, Shannon.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: It's an assessment there, but

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: it's taxation above, so that's why I'm confused.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, sorry. As far as the vernacular, yes. Textation I was reading from my summary, perhaps I if it was my words, ill too hasty.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: No. But it's in the it's in the content of the bill. So we're we're at point, it says taxation. I guess it's is it term of tax taxation versus assessment?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Let's see. So oh, and the powers. Right? So we have taxation. So this is two councils should be established in associate the associated operation sends taxation, and then pays proportion that later occurs in membership. Pays proportion share of the cost of the accounting tax mechanism. And then see here we have this is under sorry. The financing cost of each member and his spouse shall be determined by applying the accounting tax free and necessary to the council's budget and then the congressional taxes. So I would say we are using them somewhat synonymously throughout.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: If we use the word

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: assessments instead everywhere that it is tax, how would would that change the meaning at all?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I have to think about that a little bit more. Maybe consult with our tax attorney too. Really, it's plugging into the existing mechanism that the assistant judges use.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And in the underlying statute, it says tax sometimes and assessment other times?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I don't know. That's a good question. I could look into that and see if this is the appropriate way to be using these terms vis a vis each other.

[Carol Ode]: Did this go to Senate Finance?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think so.

[Unidentified committee member]: What was the question? Sorry.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Did it go to Senate Finance?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't remember testifying that, so.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, thanks.

[Carol Ode]: I guess it's, so if I'm understanding, it's a tax of member districts. It's just not a tax of individual residents, which is usually described as an assessment.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thanks, Thomas.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Let's see. So that's meat and potatoes, but then we go on to section six, service delivery. This lays out the parameters for which the Windham County Sheriff's Department provides law enforcement and related services to those member municipalities. Then section seven, reporting and evaluation, directs the council to provide periodic reports as well as a final report. This is where the House Government Operations Committee offered an amendment to sort of have annual reports and then an ultimate report on the annual reports that speak to the regular operations of the council throughout the pilot period. The final report weighs in more on the whether to explore expanding this to different counties. And so the House Government Operations Committee also installed a check back mid pilot period versus just the answer about latter of reform.

[Woodman Page]: I have a question regarding service delivery. Sure. And it has to do with the Windham County Sheriff's Department providing law enforcement related services to member municipalities. Doesn't the sheriff's arms, don't they already do this? And are we not adding on another level of administration, I guess, over these departments in this particular

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: area, encompasses, I guess, Windham County. The Windham County Sheriff is going to join us for testimony in a minute, and he might be better

[Woodman Page]: It just yeah. It just seems like sheriffs are already doing this on their own.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah. I think it would be interesting to have him explain the difference. K.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So then after, let's see, reporting and evaluation, we go down to section eight, and we are in limitations and protections. This explicitly preserves the rights of nonmember municipalities, but they will not be assessed on costs related to council operations. They will continue to receive state police services as currently provided and do retain all rights to establish their own local law enforcement agencies or otherwise contract for law enforcement services independently, even with the sheriff's department.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And so to be very explicit, if Brattleboro did not want to participate in this Windham County pilot, Brattleboro would not be affected in any way, would not have any increased taxes, would not be obligated in any way, would be able to stay completely out of it, if for instance, Brattleboro did not wanna participate in said pilot. Right. Okay, thank

[Rebecca Holcombe]: you.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Let's see. Section also makes clear that the bill will not affect the constitutional and statutory duties of the Windham County Sheriff or the Department, and it will not alter the state police responsibilities to coverage nor will it impact existing municipal law enforcement agencies or modify existing mutual aid agreements. What what's the constitutional or statutory duties? Oh, sure. Let's see. You'll find these also in title 24. There's under chapter five, there's its own subdivision outlining the various duties of sheriffs in general. Constitutional duties of sheriffs don't really exist. There's provisions in the constitution about entering and exiting office, that's about it. There's a lot of historical and common law duties, mainly because the office of sheriff came around before most other forms of law enforcement agencies, and that comes over from our legal inheritance from English jurisprudence, but largely their duties reside in statute under the constitutional provisions. Again, this

[Unidentified committee member]: might be a good question to ask the Woodman County Sheriff in regards to that, because I know that, at least in some of my towns, they may reach out to the Juris Department first, if they don't have a contract with them, then they pass it on. Then, so what are the actual obligations, especially if the state leaves kind of available at the time? People certainly get frustrated with the lack of attention that they get regardless of whether they're going

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: to contribute. I think that's a lot of the problem that they're trying to solve with this, some inspiratory pilot for the rest of the state. Thanks.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So then we turn to section nine, where we have sunset termination provisions. And let's see, this section will sunset the council on 06/30/2834. Alright. Yes. Or in the event that the number of member municipalities is reduced to one, whichever occurs first. At the time of termination, any remaining funds shall be returned proportionally by population two, current and prior member municipalities that were member municipalities during the current fiscal year. Section 10.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: That's a question.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Carol Ode]: It's this is defined as Windham County, and only Windham County keeps Is part of there anything that precludes partnering in in our area, all the mutual aid is across the river, but New Hampshire towns. Is there anything that precludes the Windham County Council from collaborating in creating municipal arrangements as well?

[Rebecca Holcombe]: A few questions. District, I mean, state lines.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Let's take a look at their powers and duties. That's where we find these things. So powers and duties, not bylaws, budget, establishing the scope, develop standard performance, that monitor service deliveries meant entering to agreements as necessary for the provision of these services. So arguably there.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And also a good question for Chair Anderson. With the mechanism for expiring if membership falls

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: to one municipality, is there

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: any sort of clock that starts or something? I'm imagining Putney and Guilford both opt in, We're working with West Princeton, we just haven't got there yet. Putney says, Never mind, we're down to one town.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: There's no grace period. As written, that would automatically trigger at that point, and it's all, even if there's a scramble to add additional municipalities to raise the number up to two. Then we have

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And I would say for details like that, like, GovOps has gone through this and built this on it in the house and

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Section 10, conforming amendments. This will clarify that the Woodman County assistant judges are authorized to levy differential tax rates on member and non member of each spouse, regardless of any provision, and 24 BSA Chapter five to the contrary. Those are those three statutes I started off with this depiction. Again, apologies if tax is perhaps not the right word. Then section 11, effective dates, the bill will take effect upon passage.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Could

[James Masland]: you elaborate a little bit on differential tax rates?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I believe what it's meant there is that usually the county assistant judges will be including all towns. Yep. And assessing a bit sorry. Go ahead. When they issue sorry. I'm losing my train of thought here. Their But budget will include all towns within the county. This contemplates a situation where not all towns will be included, so that's the differential

[James Masland]: aspect of it. The tax rates come from the side judges, but they're portioned differently depending on municipal participation. Is that what you're saying here if I get that side

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So much is either situation where x number of towns will participate, y will not, y will not have to pay actually additional money to support this pilot project, and the intent of section 10 is or effective Section 10 would allow that, where there are any questions, not saying it's necessarily not permitted in the current law, but if there's a question, this provides clarity that the two different tenants within some county can be treated differently along with lots. On the on your

[James Masland]: bill over here, this it seems to me the second bullet bullet. Collect a special assessment on proportion each member municipalities population rather than grand list. So they're changing, a portioning basically based on citizens, not on real estate.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. That's true. Okay. And that's And so that's also part of the discussion.

[James Masland]: Big deals, I guess. I'm sorry? That's one of the big deals in this pilot. If I if I I mean, that's what I would that's what I think this says.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think that the sheriff can explain to some degree why that was decided be because and, I mean, he'll get used to this, but, like, policing costs more money with more population, not necessarily with more grand ness.

[James Masland]: I understand you, Madam Chair. Some of my questions will be better directed to this.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: No, I'm just saying that

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: you will Tim is answering your question, and I think you'll get more answers to that question in a moment.

[James Masland]: Thank you.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Yes.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: My answers are usually one dimensional.

[James Masland]: That's fine. I'm just, that's what we do here is we ask questions and then we try to figure out where we're headed. That's all.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Nothing in here that says that the council can own property, take on debt or any, it's not a right?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Not own property. Take on debt. I don't think so. No. I think of whether this would allow I mean, there's contracting provisions, so there's certainly legal obligations that can exist within the time period of the pilot project, but there's nothing inherent that believe would So is capital projects.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It's a

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: body politic period as we've seen in

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: the Right. Right. Right. Not a true political subdivision in a permanent sense. Got it. Just a question. Yeah. Nothing's jumping up soon. Thank

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: you. Any more questions for Tim?

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Thank you. Chris, what was the

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: fiscal impact to the state of this bill?

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure, Chris, joint fiscal, there is no fiscal impact to the state as a result of this bill. You all have this as a result of our goal 35A, because there's a bill that has a material impact to the revenues of one or more municipalities that also comes to waives and deans, so this is really a purely municipal matter in one county, so it's an interesting concept that Chair Mayerton and I have spoken about in the hallway a few times and it essentially leverages an existing financial mechanism in place for the county based assessment structure to try to more efficiently gather revenues from the participating municipalities to support the sheriff's work. But this is really limited to one county, this is not a statewide thing, and this really is this really isn't sort of a sheriff's bill per se, like it doesn't change the existing powers and duties. This is really about governance and about the financing mechanisms in this one county. So just no physical numbers, there's no impact to the state revenues.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Thank you.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Chris, if the council incurs, runs

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: a deficit, the delivery of services, who bears responsibility for that? That's a great question.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'm not sure the council would be the ones bearing that. It might be the sheriff's department, but it might be the council part

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: of the sheriff. Okay.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I Sheriff Anderson, hello.

[Sheriff Mark Anderson (Windham County)]: Good morning, Madam Chair.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Good morning. Thanks for joining us.

[Sheriff Mark Anderson (Windham County)]: I appreciate the time.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Floor is yours to

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: share whatever you'd like.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And then as you, I'm sure, heard, we have many a question for you.

[Sheriff Mark Anderson (Windham County)]: And I was writing them down and I think I have many of the answers. So, for the record, I'm Sheriff Mark Anderson of Windham County. I do not believe that I've testified before this committee before. So, I do appreciate the time. I'm happy to go into all the policy stuff if you want to go there, but I know you focus more on the money stuff. So my testimony is geared more to the financial side of this. Am I able to share my screen, Madam Chair?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: In one moment.

[James Masland]: Now you can. Great.

[Sheriff Mark Anderson (Windham County)]: So this is testimony I prepared from a couple of years ago. I'm no longer the president of the Sheriff's Association, but, this is a a quick way for me to show you what the Sheriff's Department is or isn't. And most people, when they see the Sheriff's Department, they'll see me the sheriff, they'll see my deputies, they'll see my facility, they'll see my vehicle, and to them that's the sheriff's department. What they don't understand is just how convoluted our systems of funding are. And so, with this, the state provides for my salary, but it doesn't provide for my equipment or anything related to me being able to perform my job. The county itself through the county tax provides for our facility but they're not allowed to pay for staff with some minor exceptions. They're not allowed to pay for staff that most people interact with. And then through contracts, which is a provision we're allowed to do under Title 24, we're able to hire staff, buy equipment, pay for fuel, insurances, etcetera. I have a list and I'm happy to provide this slideshow to the committee but this basically breaks down how things are managed or who's responsible for what. And this is a list of what the county or state cannot or does not provide at all. And so with this, and I don't intend to take your time reading all of these items, but with this, basically what I try to say is we have a very interesting system of funding. The second part here, this is a diagram that shows flows of money. And this is from a couple years ago, but basically what this breaks down is sources of revenue. So about $1,100,000 of my department's revenue at the time this was generated came from contracts. That is either working with towns, working with the judicial system, working with construction companies, the Department of Mental Health, Department of Children and Families, Department of Corrections, Department of Public Safety, like everything we do on the service side comes through contract revenue. The county is paying for certain expenses such as the property that our office is housed in, the electricity, heating fuel, but they are specifically prohibited from providing funding for anything that my contract covers. So, we're not allowed to double dip. And then the state, again, provides a series of things that cover my salary and the salary of what's now four employees, but in this number two other employees and those are known as state transport deputies. So through this, we basically have a variety of funding sources that then turn into what are we spending money on to do the things that people expect us to do. One of the questions that was posed that I think actually ties into this graphic pretty well is who takes on debt or who's responsible for debt? When we talk to accountants or auditors, they describe our funding system as an enterprise system. And so ultimately what the cost of the service is becomes how much we raise to pay for the service. And so everything you'll see balances out. Similar methods for enterprise systems are in fact things like town water and sewer, where the amount of water, that a person uses or disposes of into the system, is then distributed across the use of those systems. So, it's an ironic system applied to a public safety service because it's not there's no thing that ties dependency to the service. And so what we see is a fluctuation or increase in services over the years where towns will increase the amount of service they want or decrease the amount of service they want on the basis that budgets are tight or communities are safe or communities are not safe or whatever the various things are. So with that, we started a project about four years ago, actually about three and a half years ago, where we approached our towns and basically said, what do you want? How can we help? We recognize some issues and how all of this works. And so I currently contract with 15 towns in Windham County. There was a question of how many towns are interested in this. Windham County has 23 towns. Three of those towns have police departments. One town does not have a police department itself, but does have a village that has a police department. Of the 23 towns, we weren't trying to solve the towns with police departments issue. What we were trying to solve was the towns that don't have police departments issues. So of that 17 towns are supportive of the concept of this. We wanted to create this as a voluntary program. So if they wanted to join, great. If they said they couldn't afford joining, we don't want to push them to do it. So we started with a series of meetings with select boards, town managers, town administrators, basically to say, how does this work for you? This is what we're talking about and trying to provide better, public safety law enforcement services to their communities. Some of the reason that this bill exists is because for sixty years, this problem has been studied by the legislature. There's a variety of studies that I'm happy to provide. They generally all come to similar conclusions, which is we need to have regionalized government, of some form. Some of that regionalized government can be labeled as county government. It could be labeled as a regional government. There's discussions around councils of government. There's discussions around the state being responsible but at a regionalized level. And so we can always come back to this concept of what's an entity that's bigger than a town, but smaller than the state that's able to do things. As you may be aware, there's a variety of these contemplations of government throughout the state. Communications union districts, wastewater districts, municipal union districts, school districts, fire water districts. Like we can start going through all these different layers and what we start to find is that the map is not consistent on any of the services to any of the communities. So that was one issue. Second issue that we were working on is how do we prevent the destabilization of access to emergency services when towns make decisions that are in the town's best interest, but maybe not in the interest of their neighbors. Where this has been most prevalent in the last couple of years is around flooding. When one town has to replace a box culvert or something like that, it causes an additional flow to a community south of them, which then causes more flooding in that community, which then causes other issues. So these are all tied together, but we're not trying to solve any of those problems. It's just these are places where you've probably heard discussion in the state around regionalization and this is a common theme in almost every single committee with the conversation of regionalization. What we're navigating in this is what I call a variety of landmines where we are trying to not step on any of them And there are a number of interests that we cannot solve today. What we did was we worked with our towns to say, how do we make this work for you? We worked with the league of cities and towns to ask how we make it work for them. We worked with the assistant judges to ask how we made it work for them. And so what we tried to do is bring all the stakeholders together, say, there's sixty years of studies that we want to try to do something that moves away, that moves the sheriff's office away from what I'm going say is a for profit business model construct, I. E. A contract, and provides a more reliable service to people in Windham County. Windham County, aside from some specific communities like Broutebro, is recognized as having a similar layout to the Northeast Kingdom for the nature of ruralness. So, in these 15 communities I provide policing services to, the reason they're looking for these services is because what the state police provide is not enough for their interest and they cannot afford to have a municipal police department. So, that's where, this enters. This is, an interesting build, because in about 1975 to 1976 there was a Supreme Court decision called Stowe v. Lamoille. It's the town of Stowe v. Lamoille. And one of the major outcomes of Stowe v. Lamoille was that the Supreme Court said the county is not able to raise money unless the legislature specifically tells the County they can do that. So the question about why taxes or why assessments, some of this is to, recognize that the legislature is permitting the County Of Windham to do things. But what we're trying to do is use existing systems, even when they do frustrate some people, use existing systems because the people frustrated at least understand how they work. There's an acknowledgement that there could be future work on those, but we need to at least understand if we can deliver the service and if it solves the problems, which is really what we're trying to do with this pilot project is take those sixty years of studies and do a study in the field. So the goals that we had were to make this voluntary, make it not cost towns that do not receive the service any more expensive than what things currently cost. Towns that received the service, we wanted to divide it fairly. And so, one of the interesting issues for towns is that they would prefer there be a per capita assessment when it comes to emergency services. And the reason they want that is because it ties more to the need for the service. Grand list doesn't generally reflect, need of the service, but it does, reflect the ability to pay. So the county tax as an existing structure, works a little bit differently. And so the reason why we have this special assessment is to allow for it to be assessed to the participating towns per capita. And like an enterprise fund, the cost everything that I do is in the expense column. Everything that the town does is in the revenue column. And so in that context, what this does is it creates the ability for me to secure revenue from a town that pays for the services that they're then saying they want. So this is kind of an interesting way to say, can we at least pause some of the discussion on the things that can't agree right now amongst the stakeholders to at least see if we can wrap our ability and need around the service that our towns are saying that they need in a way that might actually provide a solution to some of the decade old problems. Some of the questions I also heard before who owns the courthouses. So there are two structures. There is the County Courthouse, which is what the assistant judges are responsible for, and that is owned by the County in each or in each County. So the Windham County or County Of Windham owns the courthouse in Newfound, whereas the State of Vermont through BGS owns the courthouse in Brattleboro. The council does not have direct taxing authority. What we're doing is saying that the council defines what the budget is for the services that they agreed to. So, this is similar to a council government's model. They pass that along to the assistant judges who use their existing authority and restraints to implement this for the towns that would need it. So, town of Brattleboro, madam chair, you asked if there would be an impact. They say they don't want to participate. Their bill when they get it from the or the warrant from the county treasurer will say the county assessment is X dollars and that's just what it is. Whereas the county Putney who I'm making this all up because nobody's committed to it because the bill hasn't passed but County Putney says they want to join. They'll have the county assessment based on the grand list and then they'll have that differential assessment rate, the participation in this pilot project as a second line item that says, it's going to cost this percentage based on your number of people that you have. The part of the reason why and certainly I'm not an attorney and I would defer to Legg Council or JFO staff, but why is it a tax versus an assessment? It's what the towns wanted to reflect how they are able to raise their budgets. For me, I thought it would have made sense to do a different formula and when we presented the formula, the town simplified it for us. So you might hear from the League of Cities and Towns on why per capita makes more sense, but we also acknowledge trying to change how the county tax works and all the things with it is one of those landmines. So we just said, let's pause on that issue for now because it opens up a different set of issues. There's a question about the differential budget. Again, that's really just saying some towns will have those two line items and some towns will not and that permits the county to do it. There's a question about do sheriffs already do this type of service? Yes. Under title 24Secondtion291 A, that's the section that says sheriffs can contract and it says, in layman's terms or or paraphrase, the sheriff can contract for all the things the sheriff does and it's that vague. So, in my county, we contract to provide towns animal control services, dispatching services, police services, and what we're looking to do is eliminate having 15 separate business relationships with towns and use the existing contracting language to enter into an agreement with the county which then keeps all of the system that we currently understand and know intact And so that solves questions around who owns the property, how are some of these disputes negotiated. It's all set out in Title 24, as well as in Title nine. As far as that goes, for who owns property or who is responsible for it, it would still remain with the legal entity of the sheriff's department or with the county and we would have to negotiate that in the contract. But generally speaking, the sheriff's department buys our equipment, the county buys their and there's a separation for those purposes. There's a question on what the statutory duties of the sheriff are. So, primarily the sheriff is responsible for serving a civil process. If you don't pay your credit card and, the credit card company files lawsuit, it's the sheriff who's serving the paperwork from the judicial system, to the respondent, to initiate the entire civil, system. A variety of other places, but that's probably one of the most tangible things that people recognize or have seen. So we serve those papers. We're responsible for providing transports for people who've been incarcerated for crimes, mental health patients, juveniles who rise to such a significant level of, either harm to others or themselves that they require secure transportation. It's not a common thing, but we do it. We are responsible for assisting parties and relief from abuse orders, getting access, to their property if ordered by the court. And we also provide court security, in the courthouse through a contract with the judicial system. What's interesting in that Supreme Court case, Stoe v. Lamoille, is that one of the contemplations is that the legislature has, recognized that the state of Vermont has a responsibility for policing or municipalities have a responsibility for policing, but that's never conferred on the sheriff. You heard legislative council speak to, years, and years worth of common law. The sheriff is office that is a constitutional office that comes from England, where generally they did a variety of things including public safety. Much of that has carried over from England to The United States and in Vermont. But with it has also as the legislature started to do certain things over the last hundred years. Some of these things have not been updated to reflect that the sheriff should continue doing it and might suggest that the legislature is saying the state police should do it. Part of the reason we're coming back to the legislature with this proposal is because our communities are recognizing increase in need for public safety services. And generally speaking, they keep coming to my office to say, can we help? And we keep saying yes. So this is not to change the state police. This is not to change a town's authority or their autonomy to do the things that town should do, but rather we're trying to come up with a new way that delivers the service they're asking for in a way that they can afford. I do not see this to be an expansion of services, but rather a change in the components that lead to how we get funding. We currently raise about $750,000 towards the law enforcement functions that we perform. I suspect that that will remain largely intact if this bill were to move forward. I think that covered all the questions I heard. Oh, I'm sorry, there's one more. Does this add another layer of administration? Not really, because it's already existing. And, at the end of the day, we're following a process that exists. We're not really adding any new thing to the system. And the other part is that all of this is session law. We're not changing any of the statutory laws because we're not trying to say we have solved the problem. We're saying we believe that we have found a way to navigate some of the tricky issues that a lot of communities have identified and accomplish it in a way that might allow us to have conversations on the harder topics at a future time.

[James Masland]: Thank you. Yes.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: So, Mark, I see the biggest shift you're talking about is instead of you having independent contracts with each town, that essentially the council will have contract or services provided to those towns and it's billed by the assistant judges instead of billed by your office. Is that?

[Sheriff Mark Anderson (Windham County)]: That is a correct representative.

[Carol Ode]: Anyone else? Yeah. Representative Nelson.

[James Masland]: Thank you very much, sir. It's very helpful. A paragraph or two back. You mentioned I can't remember the terminology in there, probably simple, but basically, council of governments. And there are some states, think Connecticut, that is enacted or trying to work with council of governments to effectively effective to, in effect, carry about carry out many of the things that you've talked about. We've sort of some entities in Vermont have thought about that, but it's never gotten very far. And I wondered if you might feel comfortable on just commenting on that concept council of governments if you have or want to elaborate. Seems to me that something that we might look into more specifically too late this year, but in another year.

[Sheriff Mark Anderson (Windham County)]: Thank you, representative. So happy to speak to council governments. This is for those not familiar with the concept, basically it's bringing towns together or I should say legal entities together to share services. There is a council of governments that operates in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts that runs their public safety dispatch center. And so that was the towns that came together to say, we need someone to answer the phone when you call 911. So they share that cost. There's some, you heard legislative council speak to the nature of Wheat Counties in Vermont and other states. Generally, is true in New England and that goes back to the '17 and 1800s where New England states did not like the corruption that was seen in Southern states and so they generally did not follow the same model the strong County governments in the South had. As we see urban planning push West, you start to see County governments being sized more to the services that the County provides. That makes sense when you're sharing it across a group of people. And so while I'm not trying to propose that we make any changes, that is one of the reasons that the House passed the Regional and County Government Study Committee, which is another study to add to the sixty years worth study, I'm sorry, fifty years worth of studies that starts to address some of this discussion. That is a very interesting conversation because again, it's been brought forward in all of the issues related to flooding, but there's a variety of issues that all tie back to it. And so we saw this as an opportunity based on a very real need right now in Windham County to say, well, let's talk about and show what it can do for public safety on a very similar threaded conversation. We tend to avoid council of governments and language because to different people, to different States, it means different things. But at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is say, how do we bring stakeholders together to solve a common problem in a way that they can get behind? So that's what we're trying to do with this. It does resemble council governments. VLCT might be another entity that you'd want to hear from on their thoughts on it. But we're also not trying to commit to any significant change in this bill because we're not trying to say we know the answers. We're just trying to take those decades worth of studies and start to get answers on the things that have been identified academically, but never in practice.

[Carol Ode]: Thank you. I really appreciate your explanation. And I'm hoping that we can expand this model north as well. I noticed in this, this is very similar actually to what our education committee recommend we do with respect to school districts. And I know on the education side, we have model bylaws. And I know that you're required to adopt bylaws. Are there models that you're looking to? How are you going go about that process? Because presumably what you do will be used as a model for other counties in the state.

[Sheriff Mark Anderson (Windham County)]: There are other models I mentioned, Childbren Falls, Massachusetts, they do have a council of governments model. We're working with VLCT on this. And so if it does come together because they represent all the towns that we believe would be members of this program, we'd be working with some of their staff as well as they're willing and able. Some of this, while I'm pushing this initiative and this legislative action on behalf of the towns that I work for, I also have to acknowledge part of this is intentional to be what I believe would be an improvement around accountability for sheriffs. So to that end, there might be a degree that it's inappropriate for me to be the one identifying what the bylaws are because I do think that there's an accountability measure built into this, which is the power of the purse, which then the entities would or this council would have the authority to say, Sheriff, you did something wrong and we have an issue with it and they can limit my action based on that.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you so much, Mark. Really appreciate your time and all your work to get this done, even if Rutland Bureau is not going to participate. Senator White, I understand you've been helping Sheriff Anderson with this.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Yes. Am I there?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: You're almost there. Missing your chin, but I think maybe that's okay.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Oh, that's my camera. It's we have a weird setup here.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We're very glad to have you here Thank in both ways and

[Sen. Jeanette White]: you, Madam Chair. And it's nice to see your faces are really tiny on my screen, but I recognize many of you and I looked up who was on the committee. And I think over the years I've worked with almost all of you on something or other. So it's really nice to see you. And in all the twenty years I was up there, I don't think I ever once stepped foot into the House Ways and Means Committee. So here

[Rebecca Holcombe]: I am. Our loss, Senator White, our loss.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Or maybe not. So I'm going to, first, I just, I would like to, before I forget it, give a little answer to representative Ode's question about the bylaws. I think the the way we anticipate this happening is that at the very first meeting of this council, that we would have a facilitator who would work with the members on what how what they wanted and what they wanted out of this and how they wanted it structured. Then the bylaws would work would come through that. I don't know if that answers it or not, but that was what we anticipated.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, thank you. That's great.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Some of what I'm going to say is a duplicate of what Sheriff Anderson has said, because he did a really good explanation of what we're doing. So for those of you who have been working with law enforcement in any capacity, I have been working with them with law enforcement for some time, twenty years in Senate government operations and now with the sheriff on this project. And I can tell you if we put 10 people in a room and ask them to come up with the worst law enforcement system that they could think of, it could not be more illogical or incomprehensible than the one we currently have in Vermont. The coverage is unequal, the funding is unequal, and in fact, there really is no equity in the system at all. So the towns of Windham County, along with the sheriff, have been working on this for about four years now. Studies since the sixties have told us that we need a more regional approach for those towns without their own police departments. The concept has been hanging out there and hanging around in the air, but until now, no one has come up with a workable solution. And some people might say this is a great idea, but it it shouldn't be the sheriff that's doing it. Well, in sixty years, no one else has come up with any kind of a solution that's even possible. But our towns are very smart and our sheriff is very smart and they listened to each other over the past four years. And this is the result. Remember, this is a very limited pilot. It is time limited. It is only in Windham County. It is only for law enforcement and it is only in session law. So at the end, if it's successful and we need to adjust the green books, that's what will happen. But if it isn't, it's only in session law and it goes away. It creates a governance structure made up of select board member from each member town, and it creates a funding structure. During the next five to seven years, many questions will be answered. That's the nature of a pilot. We don't even know some of the questions to ask yet, and that's what a pilot is for. This pilot will be done in real time with the folks that are impacted, not in a committee room using hypotheticals. At the end, it will either success, be successful, it'll fail or it'll change. And it could be all of those. It's not meant to tell other counties how to do this. It is if they do their homework, they can do something similar or they can learn from what Windham County is doing. But remember, the sheriff has and the towns have been working on this for four years. This has taken four years of footwork and community work to get to this point. So for another county to just jump on, it might be a little bit premature. But I know you're the ways and means committee and your main concern is how to raise the money. Some may say this is a new tax and the governor has said no new taxes. This does not affect anyone except the member towns. They will create the budget and then assess themselves through a special assessment from the county based based on population. And they're very, most of our towns are very, familiar with doing it based on population. And as Sheriff Anderson said, that's the way they chose to do it because population determines how much public safety you need, not the grand list. And they're very familiar doing this because that's the way our emergency medical system works in our area is through Rescue Inc, and that is based on population. Each town pays an assessment based on the population of their town. Towns are already paying property taxes to pay the sheriff. It is just not equitable and it is unsustainable for a number of reasons, and Sheriff Anderson told you most of those. So just as you would not necessarily review a county bond or a special county assessment because it is only the county and does not affect the revenues of the state. This also is purely a county issue and it is only the member towns that are creating the budget and then putting the assessment on themselves So it won't affect any other town or any other area of the state. And they're using the county's tax structure to do that assessment. And this bill is necessary because as the sheriff pointed out, current law does not allow the county to assess for law enforcement except for very limited. In very limited ways, and because there's no provision for the proposed governance structure and center of Senator Representative Masland, we purposely avoided the the term council of government because, that has a very specific meaning to because we're right on the border of Massachusetts and very near Connecticut. Those states have very, very specific meanings about what that definitions about what that is. And so that doesn't resonate well with a number of our population. So we just called it the governance council. So I hope you will pass this as it is and allow the towns to that are asking for it to begin the work. They need to begin the governance work before they can set a budget. So as you heard the timing from legislative council, the timing of the county budget is very specific, but the towns need to begin the governance work before they can come up with a budget and do that. So they need to get started. The towns will be very grateful if you do this. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions. And again, thank you all for all your hard work. I know these are very trying times, and I appreciate you sticking in there and fighting the good fight. Thank you.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you, Jeanette. Represent Russell.

[James Masland]: Jeanette, nice to see you very much. It's also very helpful, also your description of the nuances of words to avoid in counsel, you know, models that have been trained here and there. I don't have any other specific questions right now, but I hope as as they arise that I might contact you online or some such and ask you what about this or what about that. Nice hear an old hand here. You know?

[Sen. Jeanette White]: That would be fine. And I will say that at this point, as I think I pointed out, we don't even know what some of the questions are that this governance body should be should be addressing. The questions will come up over the next five years as they begin to meet together and figure out what they do and how are they going to do? How are they going to do coverage? Are they going to share? Are they going to have an outpost for the sheriff? These are all questions that the are intended to be answered, asked and answered in the pilot. That's that's what a pilot is for is to ask all the questions and hopefully come up with some answers and change it as they go along.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Sorry, I just have one question for you in the sense of this seems like a simpler construct and easier to administer than an interlocal agreement with 15 communities. Would you agree with that? Is that kind of the goal here in many ways?

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Then the way he's doing it now with 15 different contracts?

[James Masland]: Right?

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Yeah, of course that what what the sheriff has to do every year is go to 17 towns to see if they want to and presented at their select board meetings and see if they want a contract And then the select board each year has to decide how they're going to do it and how much they want to contract for. And and then sometimes select board says, oh, we contracted last year, but next year we're not going to contract because we feel we can't afford it. So then the the staffing for the Sheriff's Office has to be different. And then the next year the town says we want to contract again and then he has to change that and so it it really is a lot of administrative work and it's pretty unsustainable And the other the other thing is in this, the council will determine what level of coverage they need across the the whole whole area. Instead, have some towns that have a lot of coverage and then pay for a lot of it, and we have some towns that contract only for. Speed control on certain roads, and then when they call the residents, the sheriff's office because someone is breaking into their house, the sheriff says. I can't do that because don't have any contract for that. So this will even out both the access and the funding mechanism. You're right. I couldn't tell who asked that. Was that representative Kimbell?

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Yes, yes.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah. The improved service is also yeah. That part is huge.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I was saying, even if it's not individual contracts with

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: the town and the sheriff,

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I mean, you could have an interlocal agreement with 15 communities. It's just too cumbersome to

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Oh, yeah. Oh, and and the VLCT has supported this the concept of doing it this way because there are so many

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: As the sheriff pointed out, landmines in some of the other structures. So this is a very simple structure.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Yep. Thank you.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Sorry. I didn't mean to go on.

[James Masland]: Senator White, is there projected any full time employees to take care of this for the council?

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Excuse me. What did you say, representative? Was that Canfield? Was that

[William Canfield (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Is there gonna be any full time employees taking care of this for the council?

[Sen. Jeanette White]: You mean, the council have employees?

[William Canfield (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. No. We gotta do the do all these contracts?

[Unidentified committee member]: No, no,

[Sen. Jeanette White]: no, there isn't, it's just one, it'll just be one contract. The sheriff will contract, it'll be one contract for the entire area. Is that what you were asking?

[William Canfield (Vice Chair)]: Oh, so the sheriff's gonna contract with the council. That's what you said.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Council will set the coverage and the budget and then they will have the services from the sheriff's office. So instead of 15 different contracts right now, there will be that one. So

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: less administrative work.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Less administrative work for both the sheriff's offices and the town, because currently, he has to have an employee doing seven 15 different potentially 17 contracts. Mhmm.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thanks. Thank you so much for joining us. It was very good to see you in the Ways And Means Committee Room.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: You're welcome. I wish I could be there and see you all in person.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I know. I thought you were both going

[Carol Ode]: to come up and I

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: was looking forward to that, but another time.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: I know, another time. Take care. Thank you. Bye.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And next up we have Samantha Sheehan.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Hello? Good morning. Good morning.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: For the record, my name is Samantha Shan. I'm the municipal policy and advocacy specialist for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. And I will do my best. It's been my counterpart, Josh, who has been following this particular bill around up until today. But the LCT is pleased to support the pilots proposed in this legislation. We understand that we have agreement and really a lot of excitement and hard work behind putting the pilot concept together amongst our member municipalities in Windham County. And as the sheriff said, this is a pilot and it's session law. And we think that given the broad interest in exploring and developing regional and cooperative intermunicipal models broadly and specifically for the delivery of public safety, that this is a really worthwhile endeavor to support amongst the interested municipal bodies in Windham County. A person could argue that law enforcement and public safety is not a municipal function, as the vast majority of Vermont municipalities do not have professional law enforcement agencies, and typically do deliver public safety services through these of one off contracts that can vary significantly from town to town, or through constable services, or through something we call extra duty contracts, which maybe I'll say a little bit more about. Seeing his work here in the Ways and Means Committee, I'll point out that this bill would not change any municipal finance authorities. So it does not add a new tax or fee authority to municipal government, but it also doesn't take one away. So the municipal authority to set taxes and fees would be intact and unchanged. It's interesting and curious, I think part of the thing to test out here is that this pilot concept creates a body, which for the purpose of budget setting is non advisory. So the budget authority really does rest with the governance council. The bill says that the council shall set the budget, and the assistant judges shall adopt it as a separate component of the county budget. But the tax authority continues to rest with the county government. So the budget authority is resting with this new non advisory body, the governance council. The Revenue Authority is staying where it is now, which is with the county. Potentially in the future, if this were to become permanent or to become statewide or to be used for the delivery of other types of public services, I think the legislature could contemplate with us allowing a regional agreement tax authority that is municipal. So a municipality could know that it has the revenue to support long term, inter municipal or regional agreements, such as, for example, a regional assessment district, maybe, or a regional law enforcement agreement with a sheriff's office or other agency. But right now, that generally doesn't exist, and it doesn't exist here. The budget authority rests with council, and the revenue authority rests with the county officers. One question I had, maybe you have it, is we have a common practice right now amongst all types of law enforcement agencies that is called extra duty. So this is like if you go to the Burlington Marathon and you see a lot of law enforcement officers who are not Burlington police officers. They may be state police, they may be Chittenden County sheriffs. They need even sometimes, I've seen Addison County sheriffs in Chittenden County. Those are typically services delivered through an extra duty contract, which is just like a one off inter agency contract where one agency provides to agree the necessary staffing for a defined scope of work, like traffic control during a marathon or a parade. And so that would still exist, and the Windham County Sheriff's Office could still provide that to local agencies like Brattleboro's Police Department if it's requested and if they agree to that. So that's good. That's a gap filler and is an important tool for any municipality in Windham County that has needs that are not met by the scope of the service agreement or is not participating in the service agreement.

[Carol Ode]: Do you have any questions?

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Those extra duty services are critical for those events. Yeah.

[Carol Ode]: I'll grab bracelet here. Thank you

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: so much. Thank you. Coming in. Anyone need anything else on this bill?

[James Masland]: Just gonna offer I'd be fair to vote on this if we're free from everybody or he's gonna offer motion.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Thank you. I see anyone, me anything? So the only reason we're seeing this is because it influences the fiscal impact on this county and the communities that are participating, or however many there are. I would just offer that any tax policy, the best way

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I would summarize it is that all tax policy that happens in the state is our responsibility and our jurisdiction. However, there is no impact to the revenues of the state in this bill.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I only had a concern about the potential deficits run-in any enterprise funds. Sometimes they run negative, but I think the council would put it back on the sheriff to figure out what

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: the budget was for the next year. Okay.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Tim, you feel good about

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: the tax versus assessment language being somewhat interchangeable and makes a state statute?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I guess. Okay.

[James Masland]: Is this similar to when a municipality doesn't want to join that solid waste district?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Sold waste districts

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: usually,

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: some are chartered, some are established via the municipal district, which chartering would be less voluntary they can be prescribed from the state town that a municipality to join if it's a Union Municipal District that would be a voluntary joinment so it depends the nature regional the salt waste management apparatus but

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: it was possible.

[Unidentified committee member]: I'm sure I guess, know, concern I have in its pilot program, think that will be good, but again, when you talk about maybe providing more service, that to me means there's got to be more money And I know that in the short time that we did talk about county governance in that group, it was hard to find, I mean, we took testimony from county government that was the size of Vermont or even larger. And it's huge when you get into the actual commissioner's fees and the whole bureaucratic process or anything with governance, it's another layer. But anyway, I guess I'm just saying that it was mentioned about the ability for them to do more. So if that's the case, then I would think that there'd have to be eventually more money put in to allow that to happen.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: From towns to the company. Yeah. And I know that in my conversation with Mark before he came in, we talked about having It was really more about just making sure that the resources were being used town town in a way that actually matched need on a week by week basis, rather than the very, very sort of literal hour by hour contracts that they have right now. Interesting. Yeah, good. Yeah, Representative Masland?

[James Masland]: Yeah, thank you. Vermont Monters have had a very uneasy relationship with county, or, you know, family, with county government, and for all kinds of reasons. Some of them are regionally specific and some are whatever. But this is a, I think, a clear and straightforward and perfectly understandable attempt to sort through just one sort of issue, and we may end up getting some other issues. But this is a start with something that's recognizable, easily manageable, I think, and I think it's a good idea. So if I might go

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think we're not quite ready,

[Rebecca Holcombe]: so I just

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: want to

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: make sure that everyone's okay. You know, I talked to Senator Collimore, and he said that it, you know, moved through their committee quite comfortably and through the Senate floor well. It seems like things were clear in government operations. And it seems like, Senator White, you wanna jump in?

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Yes, I just if I may apologize to representative Holcombe because I just made my screen bigger. And now I'm

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: going to the police center. I was impressed that you had so

[Rebecca Holcombe]: many names.

[Sen. Jeanette White]: Thank you.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I think Tim had mentioned the cap of $05 per $1 equalized value for the county to be able to charge. How does this integrate with that? Does it happen to be under the cap or is it separate? It's not Okay. Not

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So anyone need any more testimony, any more questions answered, ready to vote. Yes? Okay. Representative Masland, do you want to make a motion?

[James Masland]: Mr. Chair, I would move on the extra base means vote favorably on S-two 55 as we received it.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you. Representative Masland moves that we find S-two 55 favorable. I have recently learned we do not need seconds in committee. Isn't that funny? Especially to learn that this week. So we're not gonna second things anymore. And unless anyone has an objection and wants seconds just for fun. Okay. Great. Any committee discussion? Seeing none, the clerk has placed the roll. Representative Branagan? Yes. Although yes is Representative Burkhardt. Representative Higley? Yes. Representative Holcombe? Yes. Representative Kimbell? Yes. Representative Masland? Yes. Representative Ode is not here. Representative Page? Yes. Representative Waszazak? Yes. Representative Canfield? Yes. And Representative Kornheiser? Yes. We have voted the bill favorable as we received it, ten-one. Thank you, Representative Burkhardt. Okay, we Oh, look at that. We have thirty minutes until we are back here to talk about them.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Point of order, Madam Chair.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I don't think we Does that include the amendment from government ops?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: That's all, it's a little package. Okay. We didn't amend it, so we don't,

[Rebecca Holcombe]: I don't think that we need to.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Okay, not a separate one, but two different things.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So are, thank you for that point of inquiry.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Thank

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: you. We are back here at 11:00 to hear an issue brief on demographics with Teddy

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Waszazak.