Meetings
Transcript: Select text below to play or share a clip
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Hello, ways and means. It is still Friday, April 24. It is 10:35. We are picking up h nine zero two, an act related to approval of amendments to the charter of the city of Barrie. And we have Tucker Anderson here with us in the Zoom to talk about it. Tucker, the floor is yours.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning, Tucker Anderson, Legislative Council. I believe that you are scheduled to start with H902, which is the city of Barrie charter amendments, And I will pull them up. They're very quick to explain here. That looks great. So there's two operative sections to the charter amendments. The first adds some signatory agents to the section of the charter that authorizes the sale or lease of city property, and all they're doing here is adding the city manager or members of the city council as agents that are authorized to sign those sales agreements. And then the second instance of amendment. You may remember last year this committee did some work on unassigned fund balances. You incorporated that into the general municipal law that's available to any municipality to carry over unexpended funds in a special balance at the end of the fiscal year, and then to put that fund to any purpose designated by the legislative body in the future. Well, the city of Barrie already had that authority in their charter, but you'll notice here that it's limited to, under the current terms, 5% of the city's general fund and the amendment here increases that to 10% and then add some language clarifying that it's 10% of the city general fund budget expenses for the most recent voter approved fiscal year. That's the cap for this unexpended fund balance and current charter terms. Any amount remaining in excess of that has to be used in subsequent budgets to reduce the tax rate. And that is all that is within H902.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thanks. Any questions for that part? Would the representative from Variety like to say anything?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: He doesn't have questions. Is
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: there any fiscal impact to the state?
[Cameron (City of Barre representative)]: There is absolutely nothing.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And what is your
[Cameron (City of Barre representative)]: name? Cameron.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Have any questions about this charter? Anyone need anything before a vote? No, Chair. I would make a motion to find H-nine zero two favorable, eligible. Thank you. Representative Lawson action wants H-nine zero two favorable. Any discussion? Seeing none, a quick to please call
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: the roll. Representative Branagan? Yes. I'll vote yes. Is Representative Burkhardt? Representative Higley? Yes. Representative Fulco? Yes. Representative Kimbell?
[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Yes.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Representative Masland? Yes. Representative Ode is not here. Representative Page?
[Jeff Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Representative Waszazak? Yes. Representative Canfield?
[William Canfield (Vice Chair)]: Yes.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: And Representative Kornheiser? Yes. We have found the votes favorable ten-one. Thank
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: you. Representive Waszazak, what do you like? Report this. That would be my sentence. A little something. Great. And then moving on to S-two 32, Tucker Anderson.
[Mark Higley (Member)]: Oh, he's back.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: All right. S-two 32, a little bit more lengthy than H-nine zero two, but we can still move through this fairly efficiently. So, I'll actually start with you all, page two, section two, and I will pull my screen up again since I know that's the committee's preferred procedure here. So after designating Vermont Libraries Day as the third Monday in the month of October, S-two 32 starts to move into some grant program and funding language. In Section three sixteen VSA Section 51, which is the Universal After School and Summer Special Fund, I believe that the committee knows about this fund and what it does and what purposes it's assigned for, What the amendments to section 51 do here primarily is to call out public library schools and volunteer mentoring programs as eligible recipients. So all of these programs are already eligible recipients, but it was not clear to those in the world, particularly those who would be applying as libraries, that they did qualify. And additionally, there was apparently some complicated application processes that also took a lot of time to complete. So the amendments in this section call out the libraries and some of these other programs require the agency of education excuse me, allow the agency of education to allocate a portion of the funds annually to the Department of Libraries for the purpose of providing sub grants to public libraries, and permits coalitions or groups of public libraries to apply for grants under this section of law. In a subsequent subdivision, the agency of education is mandated to create a simple application and reporting process to reduce barriers to the grant program for community based organizations such as public libraries. The state librarian is added as a member of the advisory committee that advises the Secretary of Education on the use of the grant program funds. Finally, there's a new requirement for public input in the advisory committee's process.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: When you say similar organizations in E, would small rural elementary schools constitute similar organizations, or are we creating a different standard of care for different sectors?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Fantastic question. I don't know if they qualify as community based organizations, but certainly something that I can circle back with you on. The exemplary clause that follows calls out non educational nonprofit organizations such as public libraries and the mentoring programs. The way that that clause is stacked and structured, it doesn't expressly include schools, which would likely fall under the existing program guidelines in all of the subdivisions that proceed D and likely would also fall under the existing application process, which is partially governed by federal law requirements and are slightly more complicated and are used by the educational corporations in the state. And I can send you the information that was submitted to the Senate Education Committee by both the Agency of Education and the Advisory Committee, if that would be helpful.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Are you aware if they'll be held to the same accountability for outcomes? Or is this a different
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, provided that those are the statutory requirements that you're talking about. So the proceeding subdivisions all still apply to the programs that are eligible for the grants under this section of law. That would be subdivisions A through D. Nondiscrimination being an example that's called out in the contracts for the summer and after school programs. The requirements that are built into the application process largely relate to simultaneous federal funding. No. Because the libraries in these small community based organizations would not be going through that federal grant process. They would be applying exclusively for these state based funds.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Can you tell us, how is the funding in this particular funding stream, how has that changed in the last couple of years compared to, say, the funding available for the school based programs that have to comply with the 21 seat requirements?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So, if you take a look at the report that the advisory committee and AOE put together, I believe annually, and it was submitted to some of the other committees of jurisdiction, the state level funding, all the same pool for these organizations. Another thing that I would note for purposes of your question is that almost all of the grants, at least from what I could tell in the report, went through educational corporations anyway. Even if the program was eventually administered by a nonprofit corporation, if you go through the list of grant recipients, it appears that all of them are school districts.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you, Tucker. Tucker,
[Mark Higley (Member)]: again, going up to that number two where it talks about the agency may allocate a portion of the funds. That's pretty open ended as far as what a portion means. Was there any discussion about that?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, Representative Higley, in fact, there was. As this bill passed out of the Senate Committee, there was actually a required percentage that had to be dedicated specifically to library programming. So Senate Education passed out a version of this that required 5% of the monies in this fund to go to libraries and library programming. And the Senate, ultimately in the Senate Appropriations Committee, changed this language to make it discretionary, to not name the amount that would be used. And instead of requiring the money to go to the libraries, it allowed the Department of Libraries to essentially stand in place of the library applicants to apply for perhaps a larger sum of money than the individual public libraries would be applying for and then to grant subgrants. But there is no mandate here that the agency allocate any amount of the funds to library summer and after school programs. There's no minimum amount. It's discretionary and uses the phrase a portion.
[Mark Higley (Member)]: Just to follow-up on that. So I'm sure there's a limited amount each year and is it on a first come first serve basis or is it up to the discretion of the agency?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know the answer to that question because I don't understand the nuance just because I wasn't a part of those presentations and conversations that came from the advisory committee when they were in Senate education. You can take a look at the report. I'm happy to send it to the committee once we're off and see some of the decision making process.
[Mark Higley (Member)]: Okay. Thank you, Tucker.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: I'll also send the bill Tucker.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Oh, I'm so sorry. Represent Page has a question.
[Woodman Page (Member)]: Yes. Section five, page five on number two, item two, a digital or physical collection of federal documents. Could you describe that? Tell us a little more about it. Is there a cost to maintaining such a collection? How large is such a collection? I'm just curious.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, I'm happy to get there. I will just quickly note that there's another grant program in Section four that we haven't gotten to.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah, let's Jeff, it's so far ahead. I apologize.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: It's okay. There was only about ten seconds of walkthrough that was skipped there. All I note is that the amendment is in a section related to discretionary grants for early education programming And that there's no substantive change here. It adds including clauses for training for public library staff as an eligible use of these discretionary grants. And in subsection B expressly calls out public libraries. And this is a theme of S-two 32. They already qualified under community organizations and other public agencies, but express call out so that the libraries know that they are included as an eligible applicant.
[Jeff Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Can for the ask a question
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: about Hold on one second. So you have a question about Section four? Yeah. And your question represents page about Section five?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Okay, great. Before you go on, what is a voluntary early education program? I've never heard that phrase that you've used before. What's an involuntary early program? It's another way to ask it.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: It's something that I'm not familiar with. Happy to follow-up with you afterwards to find out if there's any definition around this section for what a voluntary early education program is.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And that's existing statute, Tucker?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, it is. Thank you. Section five, hot topic, the digital or physical amendments. This entire section relates to duties of the Department of Libraries, And the update here really just ensures that digital collections are contemplated within this entire section related to the duties of the department. So it doesn't add a mandate for preserving everything as digital and physical. It just allows the department the flexibility to maintain these collections in either a digital or physical form, depending on what is appropriate. So that's really all this language is doing. And an example of digital or physical collections of federal documents, when we're taking a look at, for example, copies of the federal code, it is perhaps less expensive to have a subscription access to the federal code through a database like LexisNexis or Westlaw or another digital service than it is to order copies, physical copies of the federal code on an annual subscription basis. So that's the type of discretionary authority that's coming into play here. The the only other thing to note here, and I'm shocked that this wasn't the question that had come up, is that service by mail or book wagon is struck later on in the section and replaced with references to interlibrary loan.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I bet that was fun for you, Tucker.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: It broke my heart. I was a book wagon addict in Sandersfield, Massachusetts when I was in elementary school. So alright.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And then section six?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Section six. This is a statutory construction update to ensure that the definition of public libraries for purposes of this section is not construed to allow legislative bodies of municipalities to appoint the members of privately established, chartered, or incorporated libraries. Section seven, a little bit of money involved here. It doesn't change anything substantively, but it ensures that libraries are called out for purposes of municipal bonding. Public libraries and municipal libraries already were included and eligible as bonded debt for purposes of infrastructure improvements. But this provides an express call out so that municipalities know that they can bond for improvement of their public libraries. And then right at the end, a fund is repealed, the audio visual revolving fund. I know Ted was in the room. I still don't know how much money was in here, but this fund only contained the receipts from postage for mailing certain audio visual materials from libraries, and that was DVDs, CD ROMs, things like that.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Can
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: imagine it would be a lot of money.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And the vote of the committee, Tucker, do you happen to know that offhand?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Which? It's made many stops. But I believe in house education, it was a unanimous vote for the members who were there.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Thank you. On the Fonzi language, did they ever discuss a clawback mechanism for any public investment in a project facility?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm actually not sure about that. Most of what you're looking at in the bonding structure is existing language and existing authority. I can take a look through the current section of law related to privately established public libraries and whether there is any sort of clawback that is involved there, if that would be helpful.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Thanks, Tucker.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Any other questions for Tucker?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Thank you, Tucker.
[Jeff Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Good morning. Jeff Barnett, joint fiscal office. So not much in the way of direct fiscal impacts. What the fiscal note does primarily at this point is provides context on the amount of Canvas sales tax revenue that goes into the universal back to school and summer. Universal Afterschool and Special Summer Fund, so showing those revenues estimated through the January 26 consensus revenue forecast. It's about $10,000,000 right now. It'll be about $11,000,000 in 2031 estimated way out there. And the language, as Tucker went through, specified that the agency of education may allocate a certain portion of those revenues to the Department of Libraries for grant funding. Provided a note a tiny bit of context on grant funding through that program. I can't speak too well to the process representative Higley, but I do understand it's more of a competitive process that they run every year. And in fiscal year 'twenty five, they awarded $2,400,000 to the programs and centers. And each, they refer to it as a cohort. So in each fiscal year, they choose a certain cohort of awardees, programs and centers, and those receive funding over multiple fiscal years. And so if you stack cohorts every fiscal year, the amount of funding that will be obligated will increase. But with the first two cohorts, dollars 10,500,000 in funding is obligated in the year 2030. But absolutely, between Tucker and myself, we'll make sure you get a report if you're curious about more specifics on how that grant program operates. The two other pieces is we did check-in on the early education grants in '16 BSA forty-forty one emailing with Sean Cusino. He said that it's not currently an active grant program. It's a voluntary grant program and they don't make grants through that section of statute. So, although it expands scope, it's not currently an operating program. And then the audiovisual revolving fund is not a state special fund, so we don't have visibility into how much money is left over, but we feel it's postage.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: You don't know how much
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: money is in there?
[Jeff Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I could ask the Department of Library, but it's not a state special fund, so I don't have to ask them directly.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: What point of expanding the scope of
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: a program that doesn't operate?
[Jeff Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I am not sure. You'd have to ask folks who are earlier in the process. But yes, we just wanted to make sure that there wasn't any granting being made for that section.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Any other questions for Ted? Thank you. Representative Brown is here, who's the reporter for the bill from education. Do folks have questions for her? I can ask her to come sit here. Okay. Seeing none, thank you for making that trip up the stairs. Donna, could you repeat it?
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: You must do some fairly check. Okay. That's cool.
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: In my case, I would love a motion to find this favorable. That's true. If Representative Waszazak gets I'll take a motion. To find it as too favorable of Thank you. Representative Waszazak finds looks that we find SB 32 favorable. Any discussion?
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Seeing none, the clerk can please call the roll. Representative Branagan? Yes. I'll vote yes. Is Representative Burkhardt? Representative Higley?
[Mark Higley (Member)]: Yes.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Representative Holcombe? Yes. Representative Kimbell?
[Jeff Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Representative Masland? Yes. Representative Ode is not here. Representative Page?
[Jeff Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Representative Wazak?
[Mark Higley (Member)]: Yes.
[Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Representative Canfield? Yes. Representative Kornheiser? Yes. We have voted adults, changeable nine eleven. Thank you. Can you hear breakfast? Thank
[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: you everyone for a solid week. Next, we will be back here on Tuesday after lunch. Our work for next week will include whatever bills come from other committees. I have no idea what they are right now. Please do be following your bills in the Senate. We should be receiving the miscellaneous tax bill and the yield bill late next week from the Senate. Please take a look at how they've amended them in committee, but the floor has not happened yet. All change is still possible. And then we'll continue work on our committee bill next week as well. Thank you. Thank you.