Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Here we are still in the Ways and Means Committee Room. It is Tuesday, May 5 at 02:10. We are continuing our work on H933, and we're going to hear from Kirby.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Can you hide yourself, please? Thank you, Teddy. Bill. I

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: think I was Carol, didn't you?

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Thanks. Figured it several times in a row. I'm so sorry. Just say Erica, the floor is yours. We're all going

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: to pay attention to you now.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Good afternoon. Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel. I'm here to walk through the Senate Proposal of Amendment for H. Nine thirty three in the language itself. Note, it is not posted on the committee webpage because the Senate is in the process of posting it right now and it just hasn't come up. If you want to search H nine thirty three and refresh throughout, maybe at some point while I'm talking, it will pop up on there. Otherwise, I have this version that was sent to me for just review before posting. So it's not the official official thing, so I've not shared that. But it's the language, so it works for our purposes. You have

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: this passed by Senate protection by sex and abuse. Is that accurate?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: You have that and that it's accurate and updated. There's summary chart that I updated this morning for you. We just don't have the bill language public yet.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: You're talking about the bill language, But not

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: if you want to follow along on that, that is up to date. And we'll probably be walking along through that anyway. So with that, we can go through each section. I'll plan to go since since they're 71 pages, I'll plan to go over things pretty quickly. I understand that Cath has covered a whole lot of ground already, so I won't start going into details.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: Did you lose me?

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: That's not how that should look. One more time.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: I

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: rewatch any of Listen, we

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: believe you.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Should I stop sharing and try again?

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: I don't know, but this seems to work now.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: It happened last week

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: too. Who

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: knows?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Hard when we have to look at our own faces, though.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Section one repeals the denial of tax credit for S corporations for taxes paid in other states. Section two addresses the loophole in the administration of the transfer tax, high transfer tax rate, the higher transfer tax rate for certain sales of properties like second homes. Which the the fix there is

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: just the

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: department the ability to look into those situations on audit type basis. Sections three and four are the changes to land use change tax and current use to give PBR the ability to do evaluation when a portion of a parcel is unenrolled? Section four a is one of the new ones. The first one allows one owner or a forester working on behalf of an owner to sign a forest management plan when it comes to enrolling forest land in current use. 4B extends the date at which certain parties can object to an appeal to PVR for property valuations.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Kirby, can you go back for a second? The whole thing about the current news plan is that were you in the room when they were talking about why? The 4A?

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: Yeah.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: It was a request from the department and the gist of it was, it's very difficult when there's cases where there's multiple owners, apparently, and if you look at the language that's being changed, apparently the department was interpreting the language, a management report of has occurred signed by the owner. And so they had apparently interpreted the owner as all the owners when there's more than one. And due to that interpretation, it was getting arduous. So they asked for a change of words to allow an owner

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: And

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: that committee over there, the ASH committee, did discuss this.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Okay. Makes sense. So

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: there could be conflicts, multiple owners, maybe some of them don't agree with the forest management plan or the enrollment Okay, so the objections to appeal we covered. Four c is to include just in this bill, that's the same repeal of the grand list content section that's being replaced in September. So this is being appealed in two places, which is fine. Section five relates to the municipal grand list stabilization program and using the tax rate from the preceding year for the calculation for grand list stabilization. Section six had some changes from the Senate. One change is to add this clarifying language to the definition for communications property in the statute that has PVR, using inventories, evaluation for communications property, specifically to be very, very clear that one way broadcasters are not included. This section also was changed in that the effective date for this was put out a year. So this clarifying language was moved out a year and so were the penalties that PBR had proposed to add. So both of which will be effective in 2027.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Representative Ode, can you, when things are moved out a year, I'll try to understand why, why was that moved out?

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: Do you want to

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: just give you the background of everything that's happened in this section? So when it came to Wastes Means in the first place, it was one of the tax department requests. They had requested for this section of statute that's fairly new because recently PBR took over the valuation of communications property for two That's way because this process was started and took place of something called the telephone personal property tax or telephone business property tax. So there used to be a tax that was just for telephone companies. That stand alone tax was repealed and it was changed so that PVR started doing the valuations on that property instead. So that happened, and so what this request was for that new statute to include the $100 for violations in cases where a taxpayer does not provide the inventories or work with PVR to do the work they need to do evaluations. So they just ask for penalty provisions to be added. That's what you did. When it went to the Senate, there were concerns from one way broadcasters, like radio stations, that came up because they were sent inventories by PBR recently, because this is the first, right now, the time that PBR started doing this for the first time ever, and they sent out apparently a lot of inventories to a lot of potential taxpayers. And so those that were one way broadcasters were not happy because they were like, we are not telephone companies, what are you doing? And they were So they reached out to legislature and said, we want this fixed. And Senate Finance said, we are willing to add this clarifying language in, and we're also willing to push back the effective data here so that within the next year, at least PDR won't have the power to fine you if you don't cooperate with them.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And we got an email from the Broadcasters Association in support of this language on Friday. Does that sound right? Yes. Okay, cool.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Section seven, released the equalization study, for purpose of equalization, CHIP sites are to be treated the same as TIF districts. That was when when the CHIP,

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: That's not a change, it's just that we never specified.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: When the CHIP program was put into law, there were other things to think about than the equalization study. So in the interim, occurred to PBR to say, you want us to treat this the same as tips, right? And that's what this change does.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Yeah, just want to mention that last year the CHIP districts took $9,300,000 out of the info, scooped it out before it even got to give. I got that from fiscal people. And chips, does that mean we're giving them permission to use that equal amount of money, or is this just a totally different thing we're talking about? What

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: are

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: the advantages we're now giving to chip? Another point, no?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: This this is this is just to make sure that when the equalization study is done, that, the real property that's part of the chip site is it's taken into account that it's part of the chip site, just like you would do with a TIF for equalization.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: The permission has already been granted under the legislation we passed last year.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: This is to make sure that the equalization study doesn't have something funky about it because of lack of recognition of that shit.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: This is the

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: market value, not the original taxable value for the equalization study.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: So is money going the other way from what I think it's going? It's going

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, I wouldn't go that far, but no, it's creating calculating the delta between what it's worth now and what the original taxable value was. So the increment.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Thank you, guys. 9.3.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think, so what I would say, I mean, yes, owe CHIP. But what I would say about this and the equalization study is that it's not allowing whatever's happening with CHIP deteriorate valuation of the statewide grant list, which is helpful. Because it's still

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Specifically, I apologize for you giving me this too much. But specifically, what this is doing is when they go to do the equalization study, they have to look at the values for the property. And it's really a clarifying provision saying that the fair market value will be used for equalization, not the original taxable value, which is what's used in So we're saying for the equalization study, we're going to disregard CHIP and we're going to treat this like regular property so that because if you did it the other way, it could cause a distortion that's not helpful for equalization.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The fair market value, the taxes on that fair market value, they do go back into the education part, is that not correct?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: After twenty years. Yeah. Well, takes a while.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We have time to re litigate if you want to participate in that, Kirby.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No, but I just want to be clear.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: So the legalization doesn't affect the taxes paid. Just want

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: to be clear about that.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I mean, it sort of does in a secondary way by leading to the CLA, which affects taxes paid.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, the ripple effects for everyone, you mean? But not on those specific

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: properties.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Section eight also deals with the equalization study. And this is a change that instead of using a calculation, PVR will just end the year after a master reappraisal, provide that municipality with a one point zero CLA and move on. Sections nine and ten extend the health IT fund to 2031. Sections 11 through 14 are in the education finance areas of law, changing the inflator from NEEP to NIFA.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Is it fair to say we're talking about doing inflation metrics?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Holcombe, I don't I promise the second there is a study, you will see the study. I think the staff's under a lot of pressure to do things. There's no okay.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Section 15 is the request from the taxpayer advocate relating to property tax credit and how it's calculated in situations of divorce and separation so that a claimant can receive 100% of the credit in that situation when the other owner does not live there.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: There's so much on this bill. I'd really forgotten little pieces of it.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Section 16 is the filing threshold for estate tax, where the filing threshold was moved up to the taxable threshold. Section 17 is

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: I don't mean to interrupt, but is there a paper copy that people are looking at? It has these sections in it. Mine only chose as far as

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: section 13. So we're You would not have a paper copy of this because we are looking at the senate proposal of amendment, and it's as far as I know, it's not public at the moment.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Okay. That's fine. I just wanna make sure I wasn't missing something.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: This will be posted on the committee page today.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's very good. Thank you.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: The summary does have this. Okay,

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: thank you.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And I don't see any paper copy before anybody else. Okay, thank you.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: We're on section 17 that extends the down payment assistance program to 2,030 1 and it increases the maximum total award for a first year credit allocation from 250,000 to 350,000. So for this period between 2027 and 2031. Section 18 is the findings for the SGO contributions, the new federal tax credit relating to scholarship granting organizations. The findings remain the same as always, which is in this case stating, basically making a case that Vermont, we can do what we want here with these findings. And then 19 goes on to say, but we're going to give it to the governor. So if you recall from our conversation on Friday, subsection A here allows the governor or does me every December to prepare a list of scholarship granting organizations that can be submitted to the US treasurer for purposes of making those organizations ones that people could donate to during that year that starts in January, and then be able to claim up to $1,700 income tax credit at the federal level for that donation. Subsection B creates some Vermont specific requirements for those organizations. The first requirement is that it has to meet the definition under federal law. The second is that it is a nonprofit organization with the core mission of providing educational opportunities to economically underprivileged students through after school programs, summer programs, tutoring and similar programs. Number three, that all grants and scholarships provided by the organization are to students attending a public school or an independent school capable of receiving public tuition. Number four, all grants and scholarships provided by the organization are for students to attend a program that is partnered with or approved by a public school or an independent school capable of receiving public tuition. And when determining whether to award a scholarship, the organization does not discriminate based on all of the characteristics that an employer would not be able to discriminate on. Subsection C states that annually on or before January 15, each scholarship granting organization listed in the previous year has to provide a report to the education committees here, a lot of information relating to the amounts of scholarships, the numbers of scholarships, the number of scholarship recipients, a list of all of the programs that their scholarship recipients had attended, and the amount of funds received by each of those programs, total number of individuals who made donations, including the zip codes for those individuals, the total number of money received as donations, the total amount that was spent on administrative costs, with a description of those costs and accounting for any unspent funds that are currently held, analysts identifying all employees, officers, board members of the organization that includes their position and the compensation they received. It also has a provision saying that in the governor's discretion, the governor may audit these programs and also a provision that the governor shall not list an SGO that does not meet the federal requirements.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And we spent quite a bit of time on this last

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Friday. We went over on Friday. I'm going over it in more depth right now because it's a new thing.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I was more reminding the committee than asking you not to continue.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Understood. Was going to go ahead anyway. No, I'm just kidding. Subsection E is that there's some provisions added here that are meant to not allow the governor to submit a list of SGOs if any of these provisions are overturned by federal law. And representative Kimbell pointed out that this word should be sectioned ideally instead of having this provision applied to the end all of h nine thirty three.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yes, Representative Higley.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: Question in regards to the Attorney General's piece there. So, is the Attorney General going to be aware of their duties in regards to this and is there a timeline at all?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: It's supposed to be something they monitor. When Senate Finance asks for a provision like this, there has to be some entity that makes that call. I chose to make it the attorney general because I'm aware that in the past, the attorney general has had a role like this before in past laws in Vermont, where there's supposed to be a trigger if something happens, the federal level especially, and requires legal knowledge of the attorney general. I think in the past, I'm not remembering specific details, but there was the federal changes either really in the income tax or sales tax, where the AG's office had to monitor that as well and inform the general assembly when this federal event occurred. The way that this would work, would think is that there's people who work in the AG's office who specialize in tax. Some of the people who work with the tax department are actually, know, just AG's. So imagine one of them would be maybe charged with, you know, checking in on making, you know, whatever developments happened at the federal level with this tax credit and then letting the AG know if they think that this has been triggered.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Okay. Great. Did the AG review section of line?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: No. This is I mean, this is way behind your feedback.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think it is. I

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: don't think so. I mean, I think the tax department would be in contact with them, and they're monitoring this. I don't know that they haven't Since this was included, I don't think that they've testified. Representative Ode? I think I had the same question as I had when we went over it the other day. But I'm just wondering, why is the governor in charge of this

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: and not the auditor, or why is the governor audited and not the auditor? Maybe why is the state tracker not taking this as a job for the state treasurer's office? And originally, he said, we're going to wait for the federal regulations. So I am And if we're giving all this power and then decide not gonna, take it away and then people might be disappointed. Someone would be given and taken away. I'm just, that's about this whole thing.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So, I guess I would say I feel curious about all of those questions too, including the fact that there are people who seem to be assigned tasks on this that haven't weighed in on it, which seems like a good idea. So I personally don't want to concur with this section. Why not pivot? Let's pivot to that part.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: I think you'd want to consult the AG before we do. Yes, think I just Yeah, Okay. I'm affirming that they have to be legally represented. Stay with the state and sued.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Anyone else want to say anything about this section?

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Great. Yes, sorry, representative Ode. Were you there when this was being discussed? So you recall any of the discussion? Was this

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: So subsection E, it has to do with the concerns of moving forward with a version of this where Vermont is trying to add additional requirements, but they're concerned that the IRS regulations that have not been released yet would undo those requirements. That's what E is meant to do is to is to stop, put the brakes on if part of it's overturned.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Get the E part, but all the rest of it, E is the best part.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: It's the rest of it.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, can tell you the history of all of it. Subsection A came out of S-three 12, which was a Senate bill out of Senate education that originally was going to have Vermont participate in the SGO tax credit program and have the governor be the designee for identifying the SGOs. So A came from that, B came also from that except Senate Finance added some extra requirements that were Vermont specific in four and five here. Subsection C was of S312. No, C was not, sorry. C was added entirely by Senate Finance, which is all the reporting requirements for the SGOs as a way for the General Assembly to keep track of the SGOs and the programs to get some information yearly about how this is going. Subsection D was in S312, which is kind of administrative stuff, and then E was added by Senate Finance out of the concerns we're talking about with the IRS

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: regulations. Thank you.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Good definition. How much more do we have?

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: 44 sections. We

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: are on page 20 of 71.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Have these other pieces here to talk about other stuff.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: There's a large chunk of moving the grand list date in the middle of But there's still a lot of substance to go as well.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Are you supposed to be somewhere else?

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Do I get one?

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: So we could go, let's hang out with

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: HL3. Okay.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Section 20 is the change to definition of a parcel that I don't have a note for. Don't have a section by section.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Same as we can talk about.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: That's you.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: It's like a hotel where there's a floor on the elevator that's missing, but it's the haunted section. So anyway, so section 20 has to do with grand list contents and is the mapping for contiguous parcels language has continued to hang out for a long time. That's what this change is. Sections 21 through 23 Yes. Are the

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: I have a grants list and I got contiguous parcels. What else? What else? Else? This

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: is for the GIF office.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: It's yes. It's it's for state mapping, and it's so there's some extra information collected for mapping purposes, but not in a way that would affect the property valuation or taxation system at all.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: And why does it get this bill?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: It's miscellaneous.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: A good

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: place to move rocks.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: A version of this was in Act 73, and it was problematic, and we repealed it many times over. And so this is this, if you remember the repeal that was in 4C above, it was a version of this. Okay.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: The effect of vague off a shot on this one, will note. I knew there was something I was forgetting. Tax had come in to Senate Finance to say, we're not going to be ready for this change, and they pushed this out to 2028, I believe.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: So

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: only the GIS-

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I'm sorry, patient.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Sections 21 through 23 are the fish and wildlife besetting authority sections. The compliance did not end up changing these.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Which is a miracle.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: It almost happened once or twice, but

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And then appropriations almost changed once or twice, but just all

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: But it's remained intact as it left the house. And if you need a refresher on this, this is starting next year repealing the regulations and part of the fee setting authority for fish and wildlife, keeping their statutory authority to issue licenses for research, academic study, commercial use or use by their regulated facilities and to set tuition at the Green Mountain Conservation Camps. So nothing to do with hunting and fishing fees, which is something that comes up because that's already in statute and and not part of this. This is about fee for use of their lands and facilities. This language will result in Fish and Wildlife having to readopt regulations, And they'll have to report back next year on recommendations for statutory fees that the general assembly could absolve. Section 24 is the start of changing all of the dates for the grant list submission to January 1, and that takes us all the way through section 48.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Chris, can you sign Representative Holcombe that presentation that you did about the purchase and use of the meals and rooms growth trajectories? Sure. Thanks.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Section 49 removes the statutory language and cowering the director of PVR to supervise collection of delinquent taxes by municipalities. This was on their request stating that they have not done this work for a while. There is a new section 50, which is the change to allow a 5% increase in the municipal share of local option taxes collected in fiscal years after the pilot special fund had a surplus of 18,000,000 or more. And we talked about the many payments that are made out of pilot special funds and how there's new ones being added in other bills this year.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Representative Waszazak.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: Just on this piece, I think that there is I don't love the way this is structured. Think that there are

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: a lot of folks who

[Rep. Edward “Teddy” Waszazak (Member)]: have concerns with the structure of the pilot payments themselves, and before we start to

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: go very far down the

[Rep. Edward “Teddy” Waszazak (Member)]: road of how much surplus is there or changing percentages and years that do or do not have a surplus, I think we should have the conversation about the

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: payments themselves.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: That sounds great. I also recently learned that we might be expanding stormwater utilities and that the state might be on the hook for payments for stormwater. But it seems like if we're doing that, that should probably come out of pilot as well. So I don't even know what's going to happen with pilot. So I think we should definitely take more test 20 on pilot.

[Rep. Edward “Teddy” Waszazak (Member)]: That's an interesting idea. Thank you. It's not three inches up.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'll wait at the party.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: I have a little tutorial on how the

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: state would be on the book.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Oh, gosh. That would

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: be fun. Let's do that too. Regardless, we don't this is a funny thing they did, and we should talk about it more and not concur with it.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Sections 51 through 53 are still deleted from the House floor.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: What's the aviation thing there? Is there something about aviation?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Jet fuel? There's provisions within within the low box you've asked about jet fuel. Fun trivia.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: Section

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: 54 is the JFO ten year tax study. It was not changed.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: It's part of the It's a section.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Section 55 is the decoupling changes.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Representative Ode. I'm thinking a lot about this. But what?

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: About just step and I'd like to know, I just want to give the directive, careful, about what should be, what question should we be in this study?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I believe we did that here in this section of statute.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: That's what

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: it is. Do mind me to go through the items that they are to study?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah, mean, is something that we passed in the Senate, left intact. But yes, that's why we're here.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Number one, starting with 2015, analyze historical trends comparing Vermont taxes to the tax systems of other states, including a comparison of the percentage of Vermont revenue from each state level source to the percentage of revenue from each state level source in other states. That will be interesting because we don't have all the same taxes as other states. Number two, analyze Vermont's taxation levels and tax responsibilities per capita, per income level, and by incidence on typical Vermont families of varying incomes and on typical Vermont business enterprises of varying sizes and types?

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Do you say? Vermont families of varying incomes, is that when I'm just family by queer, I mean, us your individual will change. Do you mean children? I don't know what that means.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: There's room for interpretation there for JFO. They would have to interpret it. It could be based on average household size, for instance, be considered a typical family as opposed to a family that has many, many children.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Is that guess. I would want to know about a particular tax.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So, Representative Ode, we did, we've had the flag bench already, but we can talk more with JFO about it instead

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: of others. Can't the topic.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We can't. So this is an area of agreement, so it probably wouldn't be open for the conference.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: But we could What?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I didn't hear you, but you just So

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: we can talk with them. Absolutely. They love to talk about them. Sorry,

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: but I'm Sorry, I'm hot. I'm getting sillier. It happens. Yeah. Yes.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Do you want me to keep going, or are we good with the study?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I think we're good with the study. We'll talk about it later, actually.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: So Section 55 is the decoupling from federal income tax for particular things. We've talked about this a lot, and Pat already thoroughly went through this earlier, so I will not repeat it. I will just flag when we get to get to section 55 a, that this is new from the Senate. It has moved the decoupling for gains from qualified small business stock to its own section, because this section will be effective a year later. This is, I've walked through this before. So this change would be effective for tax year '26. The other decoupling and conforming changes are to tax year '25. So you have the actual decoupling language, and then you have what tax and I had to come up with for the partial exclusion for capital gains. And then we make the same change for our states and trusts. Section 56 is the update to personal income tax apportionment to plug in the statute that Vermont's additions and subtractions will be used in the calculation for apportionment. We talked about how that was an issue that came up when we were looking at this, as was pointed out by the tax department. Section 57 also makes changes for personal income tax apportionment along the same lines to take into account our additions and subtractions. Section 58 is the increase to the research and development tax credit. This is effective for 2027. It's not immediate. Section 59 is the increase to the downtown and villa center tax credit. The senate did change this. You had set the increase up to 4,000,000 and the senate brought that back down to 3,500,000. Section sixty and sixty one are the link up to federal income tax laws for tax year '25. And then in '62, section sixty two and sixty three are the changes to the deposits of revenue for meals and rooms tax and purchase and use tax so that the amount of meals and rooms tax that is deposited in the education fund is increased to make up for the loss of purchase and use tax, which is being moved to the transportation fund. Sections 63 a and 63 b were crafted lovingly by John Gray over there to address an issue with the Burlington Waterfront TIF. 63 a is a recitation of

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So it's okay skipping this. We just reviewed it in-depth last week.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Good. Okay.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: That's so many starky things to say. Section 64, collective dates, I would like to walk through this if it's okay, to make sure everyone's aware of the timing of things. So a lot of the technical and housekeeping changes are effective on passage, so everything's effective on passage except for the following. The S Corp tax credits is retroactive to tax year 2025. The current use of interest change tax changes are to take effect 10/01/2026, which is for the application deadline for current use in 2026. The communications property effective date, as I mentioned, was pushed back to 2027. The section 20 grand list definition relating to mapping and the contiguous parcels, as I mentioned, was pushed to 2028. The Fish and Wildlife fees change, that rule will be repealed on 07/01/2027, so it's not repealed immediately. The idea is that that will be put into statute before the rule is appealed.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: The

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: grand list date being moved to January 1 is set to take place in 2031. The R and D credit, as I mentioned, is for tax year '27. Most of the decoupling changes are for tax year 2025, except for Qualifies Baldness and Stock Decoupling, is tax year 2026. And then the local option tax change, there was a new addition to section 50, set take effect on 10/01/2026, which means that the first time that the commissioner of taxes will look at whether there's a surplus will be at the end of the fiscal year in 2027.

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

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: All.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: Representative Higley has a firsthand there. I'm assuming that because it isn't specifically mentioned, section eight, the proposal of the equalization study that the DRF use 100% of the CLA when determining tax rates for municipalities have to be completed and that's reappraisal. If Chittenden had it appraisal last year, his supervision would go into effect this year, correct?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: It would be effective on passage, so it would be put into effect or be applied the first time the next time PVR does an equal patient study. Which

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm not remembering that's the following sprint.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: They've already done latest equalization studies. Wouldn't affect that one. Okay, thanks.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Thanks, Ed.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Representative Ode.

[Rep. Carol Ode (Member)]: I wondered if you could just talk about the local option to tax with the dates.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: The way the effective date works is that the next June, when I say next, I mean in 2027. So the June 2027, the commissioner of taxes will look at after paying everything that's required by law to pay out of the pilot special fund, determine whether there's more than $18,000,000 in excess in the Iowa special fund after those payments are made. If so, they'll announce it to the world and for the next year, the municipalities that collect local option tax would get an 80% share instead of a 75% share. But only if there's an excess of 18,000,000. And then they'll start doing that every June.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: One more

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: background question on that then.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: So that happens, we go

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: to eightytwenty, the following year there's only a $17,000,000 surplus. Does it revert back to 75? It does. Which could also be scheduled for talents to pledges. It was originally proposed in Singapore as having a continuous tax rebate,

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: where once it switched to 80, it stayed there, and

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: they had issues, and this was

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Yesterday, was happy, Longo's been

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: a big fan of sending more monies to town.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: I just want to do it in a better way.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah, and I don't want to pretend that we've solved a problem that

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: we haven't solved very much. Yes, Representative Bridget. I think the one I'm concerned about is Section 49. Does this have anything to do with our local tax collectors? It's delinquent tax collection and they make a percentage of that when they're collecting. Will that continue, or does somehow the director of PDR get paid for that?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: No. What you're describing will continue. There

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: was a

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: point in which there was some state oversight of those people, tax collectors. Decades ago, yes. Probably decades. The PBR has not thought of itself as being the regulator of those people, and it's not done that. And so this is just taking out sections of statute that relate to PBR managing those people. So this would remove any question about PBR being able to manage local tax collectors.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: They're not going to manage them at all?

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: They're not doing it, and then this even makes it even less likely that they would ever do it.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Very good. I don't remember that I had a itch. Pretty old. Don't get it, I don't. Thanks for being old. Get it? I don't. You're all there.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, guys. Given where we are in the session, I don't think it makes sense to send a version of this back to the Senate. So I'd like to do a straw poll to go to a committee at a conference, discuss the minor differences that we have.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Can

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I just finish my whole sentence? Do folks want to take a straw poll on that now, or would you rather we wait until the team are up? No. But we have

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: questions beforehand. Yes, more for everybody. I'm gonna do some discussing about how we feel about things before we go off the conference committee.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Well, the conference committee wouldn't be scheduled for a while, and we could continue taking testimony on it. But it's up for action tomorrow at one So we have to make a decision by then. But we can absolutely, we'll have more than enough time to continue taking testimony on it to inform the work of the conference committee. Does that sound good?

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Okay. Are there things that you're really concerned about?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: There's a few things, yeah.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Representative Wilson? I think we should not concur, but my question is more, I don't know how, I mean, I'm not sure how we talk about this belt, the yield belt, without talking about the Ed belt, because I feel like there's interactions between all three of them at this point, and I just, I'm very uncomfortable with letting the ship sail before we met coming down.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I That's a good reason to go to a conference.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: I'm 100

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: agree. Organize them in the harbor.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Organize the ships in the harbor.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Yeah, a mistake to let them go.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's a skillet.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: I got it. I remember you were telling me.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, let's wait a moment for Representative Waszazak to get back, and then we can do that before we finish today. But before we do that, let us pick up S-three28. We'll do the shuffle after S-three28, so we can all be here. Is that okay? It's like confusing to just jump back and forth between things.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: It is confusing now, other than that.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, let's do the straw poll now without Teddy. All those in favor of going to

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: a committee of conference? Please hold up. What? All

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: those in favor of going to a committee of conference? All those opposed? Great. One, seven, zero, one. With that, let us move to S328, with Cameron Wood. That's you. You go sit there and tell us things. Folks, we are not going to vote on this today because it's possible that the House General is going to ask us to offer some amendments while the bill is here. And so we're going to hear about the bill and then maybe spend time tomorrow on that if that is the final decision from that, if they do ask us to do that.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Take it away. For the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel. I'll walk through S-three 28 and a proposal of amendment from the House General Committee. Before I jump into the language specifically, you all recall there was a housing bill that came out of House General earlier this session, H-seven 75, that is now in Senate Economic Development. Senate Economic Development passed their housing bill, which is S three twenty eight. That went to House General. That's what we're going walk through today. What the House General Committee has essentially done is taken the provisions that were in seven seven five, taken the provisions that were in 03/28, combine them together. There were certain sections that were not in conflict. And then there were some pieces where the committee decided to go with what was passed in the Senate version and sometimes go with what was passed in the House version. And so I will point some of those things out as we do this walkthrough. So here we have draft 4.2 that was voted out of the committee. The first section here is related to common interest community resources. Don't know that we got into common interest communities in this committee during the session, but a common interest community, you may know them referred to as HOA, Homeowners Association, and statute they're called common interest communities. And what this first section here is putting in statute under the provisions governing the Secretary of State's office, says that the Secretary of State shall provide on its website or otherwise distribute to the public information about Vermont's common interest communities. This information shall include the governing statutes. Questions? None. Moving on. Okay. That was not in either housing bill, that is new for this amendment. Section two is related to service supported housing. This section was not in the house bill that went over. This was initially in s three twenty eight that came over from the senate. Last year in act what became act 69, you all passed a study committee to look at how to create a state plan to develop housing for individuals with developmental disabilities. And there was a report that was done by that committee and part of the recommendations were continuing their work. And so what this section is doing is it's putting into statute an ongoing advisory council that would live within the Department of Aging and Independent Living. And as you can see here on the subdivision A, subsection A, that it would be for increased alignment between human services programs and policies serving individuals who receive Medicaid funded developmental disability services and housing capital and support services programs. I'm not going to walk through this whole section line by line. It's a committee, the membership is there on the top of page two. The committee is intended to meet at least monthly and the council on the committee, my apologies, the council has to provide a report annually. It's on subsection F on page three. And the report has to include administrative program reforms, housing needs assessments, activities undertaken, recommendations for future legislative action and funding sources, all designed to help increase program support for individuals who are receiving Medicaid funded development disability services and to help identify areas where you can build more housing dedicated for these individuals. So it's a continuation of the work that was started in that study committee during this summer. Okay, moving on page four, section three. These next two sections are related to the state treasurer's credit facility. Now there was a version in July that you all passed. There was a similar version in S-three 28. What the House General Committee is recommending going with here is the version that was in the House Bill seven seventy five. So they've taken what Senate did and substituted what the House version was, which is increasing the current credit facility from 10% to 12.5, authorizing the state treasurer to, as part of that 12.5%, to do a 1% for the purchase of off-site for modular housing. And then that coincides with the next section, which begins on page six, which is this off-site construction accelerator pilot program through ACCD, where ACCD would look at working with municipalities to try to identify ways of doing bulk purchasing of off-site constructed housing and being able to place those homes somewhere within those municipalities. The only change to this language as it passed in age seven seventy five out of the house is when you look at the top of page seven, as part of the pilot program, the pilot is supposed to look at adopting building codes for off-site construction. And the House General Committee has now added the language on lines two and three that those codes should incorporate elements of visible and adaptable standards for building design. The visible and adaptable standards are standards to make the homes more accessible for individuals who may have a disability or be older or it's about the design of the home to make it accessible to more people.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And so they're not required to be built that way, the guidance just has to include that guidance?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The housing has to be built to meet the visible or adaptable standards depending on what type of housing it is. So what this change here is to say that as you're developing these off-site constructed modular homes, if you're going to, as part of the pilot, look at designing a building code for the state for those off-site design homes, you need to incorporate elements of visible and adaptable standards.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Would this be the same as ADA compliant?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, There are certain adaptable standards that have to be met to comply with the ADA. The Vermont Division of Fire Safety has adopted standards applicable to the state that in some instances go beyond what's required at the federal level. Then there's a question about the applicability of them. When and to what buildings do they apply to? There are certain buildings that are exempt. So for example, multiunit housing that is less than four units are exempt. If you're building a single family dwelling that is going to be built by the owner of that property, then they do not have to meet the visitable standards. But if it's a single family dwelling that is built for sale to someone else, built by a developer, they do have to meet certain visible standards, which is about the width of doorways, access to certain ground level entrance, things like that. Okay, so moving on, again, is the pilot program. It expires on 11/15/2020. Nope, excuse me, the report is 2029. The program expires 2030. All of this is the same as it passed the house in July. So that brings us to page eight, section five, making a change regarding the Vermont Economic Development Authority. This was in July, but it has been slightly tweaked, the language, to address some concerns that were raised by BHFA and BETA. So if you all recall, Vermont Economic Development Authority, they are kind of the sister equivalent to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. BETA provides funding to economic development initiatives across the state as part of their definition of eligible facility or eligible project. They are not allowed to fund housing unless it's authorized in the section. And so what you have here is we're adding into of an eligible facility that VITA can fund. After they consult with BHFA, VITA can fund multiunit housing developments of five or more units. Top of page nine here, if it's requested and jointly financed with a financing lender. And there was some clarification language on lines three through nine to make sure that it was clear that BETA can fund portions or phases of a multiunit housing development if it's not being funded by VHFA. And unless DHFA determines that the portion or phase is being developed for persons of low or moderate income as defined. What is this in here for? It was slight tweaking of the language to make sure that it was clear that if the housing development or the portion of the housing development is being targeted for individuals of low and moderate income, Vida can't finance it because that is really the purview and the universe of BHFA.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: It's If VWAP can't ever support housing development that's for low or moderate income?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Under this, correct. They shall not finance portions or phases of projects that are with the agency, if the HFA makes a determination that it's for individuals of low or moderate income as that's defined.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I'm curious why, but I think I'll ask the committee of jurisdiction rather than you.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Can't tell you why, but it was a change specifically requested by those two entities, because this is the language that they've agreed to as far as why you want that much of a restriction on BETA's funding ability. I defer to those two agencies for the committee.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you. Professor Masland, do you still have a question? Yes. Okay.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Next on page nine, the next section, we are in VHIP. And this was a change that was in July, and it hasn't changed. There was one addition. But if you recall, this is where the department currently, BHIP is a reimbursement program. So if the developer is working on remodeling the home, and then they're getting reimbursements as part of a grant or loan document from the department, this language will authorize the department to provide that money upfront if it so chooses. And so the only difference here in what passed in July is they've added a technical amendment here in this subsection j. As I was reviewing the section again, I realized that this annual report requirement that was included last year in act 69, There was no date on when the annual report needed to be submitted, but simply adding a date in here. Okay, next section, special assessment bonds. I can comment that your legislative counsel John Gray put just as much love into this language as he did in the previous bill that you reviewed. There is nothing that has changed in this section from what passed on July in the House version of the bill earlier this year. Keep moving for time. We get to section eight regarding municipal plans. If you recall in this committee, there was language that was going into when a municipality has a regional plan or a municipal plan, part of that plan has to include a housing element. And there was language being added to require that that housing element has to include if there's any things that are prohibiting the municipality from being able to meet its housing targets. And if they couldn't meet its housing targets, the municipality had to provide information to the Department of Housing Community Development. The Senate passed a similar version of that language, and the House General Committee chose to go with the Senate version of the language, which is a lot more succinct and more directly targeted in what you're looking for. So this is the language that was worked on the Senate side that BLCT supported, the Regional Planning Commission supported in that committee, and so the House was okay with going with that version. Again, bottom of page 12, top of 13, requiring the housing element to include analysis of constraints preventing the municipality from meeting their housing targets. That was actually an amendment that we made to their bill. Yes, sir. It was. Sir. Scrapping the good work that you all did earlier this session. I'm sorry. Okay, next section, section nine is related to municipal zoning and the change is going to be here on page 14. I think we've talked about this earlier because it was also in a in a separate bill. This is to ensure that the municipalities have to allow for manufactured housing in any districts that allow year round residential development. And this is just adding manufacturing into the list of homes that already are required to be allowed where there's year round residential development and then adding that clarification in. So no change to what you all passed earlier this year in July. Now we get to a few sections that are gonna be new, and these are all about reports. The first report is a report that was in S 03/28 as it came over from the Senate. So this was not in July, not in the house version. The Senate was looking at language earlier this session about these common interest communities. As I mentioned, these are HOAs. And they were looking at language that would prohibit common interest community from limiting unit owners' ability to lease out their unit for a rental. They were also looking at language that would prohibit a common interest community from limiting you from operating a I wanna get the term right. I think it's a much in home child care center. So it's the childcare centers that operate out of an individual residential unit. There's a specific phrase there, I may not be getting it correct. But there were a few different provisions that the committee was looking at limiting common interest communities' ability to restrict what you can do with the unit that you own. And there are a lot of legal issues that go along with that. And so the committee felt that it was best if they simply pull those provisions and include a report from our office to you all outlining what those legal issues and concerns would be. So that's what this report is going to require our office to review. The key language is going to be starting on line 16 here. Any legal conventional financing and funding compliance issues related to requiring a common interest community to authorize leasing of residential units, authorize commercial purposes within a dwelling unit, and permit the construction of ADUs on land reserve for the exclusive use of a unit program.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: You consented? Yes, ma'am.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: I appreciate the question. Common interest, is there any tie against in allowing or prohibiting the Airbnbs? Is there any tie over in there?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, potentially.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We'll talk more when we get the report.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Oh, okay. Just to express for the committee, there are parties out and about who are concerned about where air Airbnb's are located in. And as long as the report is gonna cover it, this is very good. Thank you.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The language that they looked at would specifically exclude, short term rentals. So it would allow the communities to continue to prohibit them if they so choose. But part of this report will also look at that because there are certain financing implications that are required potentially, whether the mortgage is gonna be able to be resold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they would require certain restrictions on both short term rentals, but also the residential ability, the ability to rent the units out for long term rentals as well. There's limitations on this, and this is one of the legal reasons they chose to go with the report as opposed So to

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: that's the same question a little differently. And in this language, we allow Airbnb, but they're currently not allowed.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Nothing in this language is gonna change the current framework of the common interest community government and how operate. Excellent.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Thank you very much.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Yes, sir.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. So now we get to page 15. This is also new. It was in s three twenty eight as it came over. And there were a few minor language tweaks that the committee made on behalf of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. Back in 2021, the Housing and Conservation Board actually conducted, they contracted out for the conduction, they contracted out to do a study on farm worker housing needs assessment. And that housing needs assessment had a list of potential kind of recommendations for future actions to address certain concerns with the housing stock of on farm housing for farm workers. And so what this language here would do is saying, by 01/15/2027, BHCB needs to submit a report to the general assembly identifying the progress that they've made towards addressing the goals that were outlined in that needs assessment. And then the next section 12 is a report from the Department of Housing and Community Development. There was a bill that was introduced and referred to the House General Committee that was going to put a limitation on the ability of certain real estate investment groups to be able to purchase single and multifamily dwelling units in the state. There was a time limitation on when they could purchase single and two family residences. So the committee is including in this bill a requirement for DHCD to inform the committee these provisions on page 16. What bills have been introduced in other states that would put limits on corporate purchase of single and two family residences? The number of covered entities operating in Vermont, the number of single and two family residences owned by covered entities in Vermont, the number of single and two family residences purchased by covered entities between 2020 and 2026, and proposed methods of enforcing to ensure effective implementation of any statutory restriction on the corporate purchase of single and two family residences. I use the term covered entity there specifically because there is a definition, and it's a pretty lengthy definition. It's an institutional real estate investor or entity receiving funding from an institutional real estate investor. And it's not a nonprofit, it's not a land bank, it's not a community land trust, but it is a group that directly or indirectly owns 10 or more single family residences, single family or two family residences, manages or receives funds pulled from investors and acts as their fiduciary and has $30,000,000 or more in net value or assets under management. So for those entities asking for information on how many single and two family residences those types of entities own, how many have they purchased, and what other states have done to limit corporate purchase of homes, and how something like that would be enforced.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: This is another report in session law. My

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: understanding is from the testimony committee, the department has consented to this report. Okay. That brings us all to page 19, where there is a change in FY '24 appropriation to the Vermont Housing Conservation Board. So as I mentioned way above about this advisory council that is to support developing housing for individuals with development of disability.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: It says March 24. Okay, great.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay, and so this was an attempt to try to identify some funding to be used for continuing to develop housing for those individuals. So this $10,000,000 was provided to VHCb back in FY '24. This would be expanding the continued use of those funds to allow them to be used for individuals who have supportive housing needs, or to create housing for individuals who are receiving Medicaid funded development disability services. This language, my understanding, was included on the Senate side in the Senate's budget. It's also included here in this bill.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: Is that

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: because there's money left over? Is that what we're really talking about? That's my understanding. Yes, sir.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: How much

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: money are we

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: talking about?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I do not know the answer to that question off the top of my head.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: Chris, do you know?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Nodding towards Chris.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: Oh, sorry. Yes, I was nodding towards I could share it while I'm in the chair or share it on the sideline, whatever works best for y'all. It is from PolyMajor. It seems like it would impact $3,900,000 of their remaining appropriation. There was a project that would be teamed with federal funding and given federal funding changing around care for people experiencing homelessness, that project was less viable. So it'd be reallocating it to two different projects, one of which would be supported by individuals who would receive Medicaid funded developmental disability services. What

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: happens to the interest of $50,000,000 that's in a nonprofit for two years?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I do not know the answer to that question. I think it's probably more of a question for Chiyo.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Let's hold it for a minute. Know I'm finished up.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Effective dates, the actual take effect on 07/01/2026, and that's the end of the bill. In response to the question, what I would say is, what I don't know is how the money is moved on the back end. So if something goes to BHCB, is it going to them and do they deposit into their trust fund that they manage for their housing that they build? If so, then they would keep the interest that goes into that fund. But that's where I'm saying I don't know when you make these one time appropriations to them of $10,000,000 Does the money go to them at once, etcetera? So I don't

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: know how to answer that part of the question.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Representative Higley and then Masland.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: Edward, if you could go back to section one, so that's that common interest community resources. What was your thinking around allowing the Secretary of State to help provide on its website or otherwise distribute to the public. I guess, to me, I would think it would have to be both. Because what is distributed to the public information? What does that even mean?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, sir. So this started from the fact that there was another bill introduced and referred to the House General Committee that would require the Secretary of State to contract out with a nonprofit to develop a common interest community resource center that would advise the public on issues related to common interest communities. These entities are very difficult to navigate. They have their own title, title 27A, is the Uniform Common Entrance Ownership Act. It's pretty extensive. And they get very, very detailed when you talk about how they're created, how ownership share is distributed, what portions of the property are owned in common versus your exclusive common use versus what do you own. And so there is a lot of depth and detail there, and there's not really anywhere to go for the public to gather that information. You would need to hire an attorney and examine your own individual common interest communities, declaration and bylaws, etcetera. My understanding is that was kind of the thought process behind creating the resource center that was in the bill that was introduced. I think I can't speak for the committee, but I imagine there was concern about moving that forward and how would it be funded, etcetera. And so they worked with the secretary of state's office to come up with this. The secretary of state's office testified that they do receive information or questions from the public because the association that governs the common interest community has to register with the secretary of state, and so they do receive some inquiries from the public. That, I think, is where this came from. Now to your kinda second part of your your question there, I will simply share with you all the same thing that I've shared with the committee, which is I don't really know what this language does, if anything. It says that the secretary of state has to provide information, and it doesn't say anything about what type of information. I mentioned that all it says is the information shall include the governing statutes. The governing statutes are published by our office. We publish them for the public in the green books, and then they're available on our website. And so conceivably, the secretary of state's office could simply put a link on a web page that says common interest community resources, and you click it and it takes you to title 27 a on our website. I I don't know the the rationale behind why they felt that this was important, But just sharing again with you what I shared with them, there's not really a lot of substance to this language, and I don't really know what it is actually going to require the secretary of state to do.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Did the secretary of state testify on

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't recall if they testified. They provided feedback on the initial language that I had kind of penciled out. They don't like the use of the word website. And so that was removed at one point, and then the committee added it back in. So there was a little bit of back and forth. The secretary of state's office was a little even more watered down than what you have here, if you can imagine that. So my comment to the committee was, I understand that you want the secretary of state's office to do this, but based on what you have written, I would argue it may be just better to simply have their verbal confirmation on testimony that they will do this as opposed to putting it in statute. Because there is limited statutory space. And if somebody were to look at this, I'm not sure that it provides any real value to the public as far as what you're requiring the Secretary of State's office to do. Just two follow-up questions on that is, can someone go to the Secretary of State's website now and search by registered business names and pull up a common interest community now? Good question, I assume so, but that is an assumption. I don't know how they're listed. I don't know whether that type of search inquiry, yes sir, is available on their website. Conceivably you should be able to identify them or the Secretary of State should easily be able to identify them and make that information available. When I read that I thought, oh man, it's got to have their bylaws, their officers. I do not imagine that that's the level of detailed information they would be able to provide. Because first, you would you would also have to link to the declaration which could be filed in the municipality where the communist community exists. Right? So I don't imagine they're going the Secretary of State, I don't think, agreed to that level of information.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: Yeah, representative. Things. One is, can you tell me again, tell us again the special title for

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: common interest? Yes, sir. It's entitled 27A. 27A? Yes, sir. It is the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act.

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 6)]: And then one other thing which is with regards to the pilot, know we've gone over a couple of times, I'm actually very impressed with what it what's what the concept is and how it's laid out. And the future is, by all it can go to scale, I think, in many things. So thank everybody.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Is there anything else to build?

[Unidentified committee member (Speaker 2)]: No, ma'am.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, any other questions from anyone? We'll pick this back up tomorrow after we hear from Ed today.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Ready to go either way.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff analyst)]: Ted Burnett, joint fiscal office. I'm going to share the fiscal note. Madam Chair, how much would you like me to run through the mechanics of the increase in the treasurer's credit facility? I know we discussed it when July was here, and mechanically, I can remind folks generally high level I

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: think generally is great unless there aren't any changes to it. No.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Okay, so I will start with that. So by increasing the amount of the state's average cash balance that can be distributed through what is called the 10% Vermont program, it results in foregone interest income of up to $600,000 in future fiscal years. It's not a fiscal impact in fiscal year 'twenty seven. That's because it's going to take time for the treasurer to stand up that additional lending, announce that that money is available, receive applications from folks, and then get money out the door and then issue awards to folks and then have projects ready with shovels in the ground to actually spend down that money. The amount of interest income of the foregone portion is simply from the fact that the treasurer can earn a higher interest rate from that money when it is sitting in the state's cash balance. Usually the return in that money is about 3.5%. The whole design of the 10% for Vermont program is to provide lower interest loans to folks. The average for that is about 1.5% according to information from the charterer. So that differential in interest income, that's what's creating the foregone revenue for that piece. The fiscal note has So the difference is about the expansion of money that wouldn't be available to the state's cash balance but would be available through the credit facility is about $30,000,000 The Service Supported Housing Advisory Council Senate Appropriations took out the per diems for members to go back to council. House appropriations flipped aside, but the ad moved back in, but wanted to note that it is a council that is currently not receiving per diems as outlined in the bill. The piece that is new for this committee is a change in the state community assessment program. Essentially, this language does is it would allow all three New Town Centers generally, there are three in the state, Berlin, Colchester, and South Burlington. It would allow those New Town Centers to reach step three of the designation process if they meet all the other requirements. And so that would give these new town centers access to various funding sources, including here the Downtown Vibrancy Grant Program. The main one for this committee is the sales tax reallocation funding program. Although it theoretically opens it up for all three new town centers, currently South Burlington is the only one that meets all the requirements to be eligible to step three designated center. And so they would be the only one, but projects within that designated area in South Burlington would be able to access those programs. For a little context, particularly on the sales tax reallocation program between fiscal years '21 and '25, the program awarded eight projects in five municipalities to combine $3,500,000 in reallocated sales tax. And so the Sales Tax Reallocation Program is for construction materials that are used to build a specific project. So this could increase foregone revenue to the education fund, although I will note that the sales tax reallocation program is subject to the same cap that the Town, Town and Village tax credit program is subject to. So there's a combined amount of

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: money, and that is, and since they're linked together.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: In addition to or is included in the current $3,000,000

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: It's my understanding it's included in the $3,000,000 Can you Step one, step two, step three? So, this is the programs that are available from step one, step two, step three. New town centers would be brought in by default, absent this change, out of step two.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And then they do stuff to become a step three.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yes, exactly. This can be They have a capital plan, a local downtown organization, there's various things they have to meet to become a step three.

[Kirby Keaton, Legislative Counsel]: Oh,

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: it's not. That's why it's

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: My, wow, okay. Wow, all right. My apologies. I'm sorry. That's my mistake. Absolutely. Moving on to the appropriation from BHCb.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Good, we'll stop thinking about it.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Great, good. I'm glad. Glad we can all stop thinking about it. As I mentioned in the chair, this change would allow BHCb to use $3,900,000 in funding that was originally intended for one project to support two other projects. And one of which the indication is from BHCB, who would provide housing for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Do not have a physical impact, it would just change the allowable uses of an existing prior year appropriation.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Do you know the answer as to whether or not it's been allocated already in advance or is it sitting on the treasurer's office?

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: I don't know for sure. Since it is an appropriation, it depends on how the money gets out the door. But generally, appropriations, they are spending authority. So they sit in the general fund until they are used by a specific agency that they're appropriated to. But I will check with the budget team just to confirm if that's the case.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Any other questions for Ted? Thank you so much. So I'll repeat what I said before, that we're going to pick this up again tomorrow and might or might not have an amendment from House General to look at.

[Rep. Bridget Burkhardt (Clerk)]: And