Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Good morning. Senate Agriculture back in business. We're going to spend some time talking with VHCb. Had asked to come in and to express some changes they'd like to see or something they'd like to do. I'm gonna be very honest. I'm not quite sure. Just reading it, we're gonna be educated on some of the stuff, some of the language I was unfamiliar with, so please don't be afraid to be very descriptive with us, and welcome. The floor is yours. Okay. For the

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: record, I've got Selig, Director for the one thousand Conservation Board. With me?

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: Liz Gleason, I'm the Apartment Forest Viability Program Director, which also includes the Rural Economic Development Initiative, which we're here to talk about.

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: So, Mr. Chairman, I think we talked about this with you and I can't remember if we talked with this committee or we talked about it. The other committee that you sit on, the Rural Economic Development Initiative is a program that this committee put into statute probably about 2017 or '18. And the thinking of the committee at the time we needed a way to help small towns and businesses in small towns compete for all kinds of grants and it's been enormously successful. What you see here in this slide is East Callis General Store, which had been the longest operating general store in Vermont. It went out of business around 2019, and the Rural Economic Development Initiative was among the ways that community group was able to attract grants that got impacted operation. We've spent about $1,000,000 on this program and helped communities with about $32,000,000 Statute provides us to do this in small towns and rural parts of the state. And what we're here to talk about today is broadening our authorization a little bit and focusing more on the definition of rural communities, but also saying to you that Colchester is not a rural community, but it has farms in it. And so we want to be able to assist people in that community, not just the exclusion of anybody, but we're actually, this program's been so successful that we're going to hire a second staff person to work on it this year. We don't do the grant writing ourselves. We help communities identify people who can do the grant writing for them. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Liz to talk a little bit more about programs impact and show you the language we're going to speak.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Before we go any further, and you may answer this within, and you probably will, since you're trepidating it. When you say small towns and rural communities, is there a population threshold?

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: In the statute, it's 5,000 in one place, and then it says rural communities as defined someplace else, might refer to a farm that sits in a community like Colchester. Sometimes there are businesses in the larger communities that are supporting enterprises in the smaller communities. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Liz to walk us through.

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: Just need to give a little bit more background on the Rural Economic Development Initiative, REDI. So we started working with communities in 2017. This program was really formed out of work that we had already been doing that Senator and other people really wanted to elevate. Since the Farming Forest Liability Program was started, we had been helping farmers access federal grants, things like the USDA Value Added Brewster Grants, which can run up to like 50 to 100 pages long. They're very complex. So, we'd already been working with people to access grants in agriculture. And there was really a recognition that there are a lot of amazing agricultural and community based economic development projects around the state, but they were being led by people who didn't necessarily have the skills or the capacity to successfully draw down. Particularly hard to get federal dollars, but also other critical funding sources. So READY was established to help small municipalities, organizations and municipalities, agricultural businesses, and other community based economic development to get the skills and help with accessing capital. Most of what we do is focused on federal grants, but we'll also sometimes help people with harder to get state grants, philanthropic grants, things like that. So, we've spent about $1,200,000 on grant writers and folks who can help with that access to capital. And those communities have drawn down to $35,500,000 So, that's grant money directly going to communities to implement projects. The statute lays out some priority areas for us that include agriculture, things like dairy processing, other They include co working spaces. When this program was started, we were asked to look into whether there was any school reuse happening that needed support. And one of our first projects actually was a school reuse project in Bridgewater that then turned into a community center in childcare. So, we've since done other childcare projects because those are such critical drivers of economic development. Parents can't go back

[Unknown Committee Member (Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: to work if there's no childcare.

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: It also includes outdoor recreation and a couple other focus areas. We think those focus areas really make sense, and we don't want to change the focus areas of Ready, and nor do we wanna change the intent at all. We really still see there's a capacity challenge, there's a skills challenge for these small communities, agricultural businesses, and accessing complex project dollars. What we are seeing is that sometimes we'll have farmers who are located in towns over 5,000 come to us and ask for help, and we've had to turn them away. We don't want to do that because we think that there's a farm is a farm, whether they're in a community of 4,900 or 500 or 6,000 or 7,000. We also see that there's some projects that really fit Ready's focus areas that, like outdoor recreation projects, that might be happening in communities over 5,000, but those projects still need the help. We work really closely with RECs, RVCs, the state. We don't want to supplant any of that work, but sometimes, even when those support systems exist, those folks are oversubscribed, or a project doesn't hit their priority areas. So we would like Ready to be able to, in some cases, when other services are not available, to be able to help organizations and businesses in towns over 10,000.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: The 1.2 that you've used to capture the 35,000,000, is there a way for, as in grants, I know on grant writers, they're allowed to keep a percentage of the grant. Is there a way for you to replenish those funds so that you can retain that 1,200,000 to keep it a perpetual fund? Are you able, of the grants that you actually help win, are you able to get a percentage of that back?

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: We looked at that early on and thought it would be, to some degree, a barrier to participation. What we have done, because you have been supportive of our overall budget, has been basically to increase the pace appropriation of the HCV to support Farm and Forest Liability Program and the REDI program. So we're not here asking for additional monies for the program. You know, the return on investment we think makes a lot of sense. And so haven't chosen to try to make those arrangements. That was an idea that we did kick around quite a bit the early days and just came to the conclusion that it was better to get the dollars in. You think about, you know, a small town that doesn't have staff needing to go after funding and, you know, bunch of

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: the work we've done in

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: the last year is going to help those communities apply for disaster recovery funding. And we didn't want anything to impede a really quick opportunity. An opportunity that needed to be taken on quickly because the funding is there in a case of disaster recovery, and then it's gone. It's good at what time that develops. Do you want to add to that?

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: I mean, there are communities that do need that ongoing help with grant management, and sometimes they will work with their grant writer to write in time for the grant writer. So, some grants allow that, some do not. We don't see everyone do it. Sometimes the community group really needs to take over that role. It depends, but our statute does provide for support around that ongoing grant management. So we definitely see that as an aid in some small cases, but we'd rather have that be, the person doing that be selected by the New Rubber rather than have that be like income that goes to BHCB.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Sure. Perfect. I

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: kind of went through most of the things on this slide already. One example of a project that came to us recently was Chelpern Vineyards. They were considering applying for a USDA value added producer grant, and that's not an activity that, like, their municipality might have a good amount of capacity and staffing, but providing that kind of support to an agricultural business is just generally not within the municipality's barkeep. So that's an example. I don't believe they ended up deciding to go for it because the value added producer grants had sort of a stop start issue this spring. And so had they moved forward, this would be a multiple of a project that we would have loved to work with because we had a small amount of flexibility to occasionally go over the five months. So, we brought some, like a suggested addition to the definitions within the statute, and I can go ahead and share that unless there's more questions on how the program works.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yes, Without a question, I've cheated and I already looked ahead. Proposal is entitled 10, which would fit with this committee. Gus mentioned hiring someone new to administer the grants. Is that funding gonna come from the grant?

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: No. That it's it's gonna come from the base budget of the Housing and Conservation Board. So a few years ago, you you know, you underfunded us for a number of years. Statute calls for us to get a certain amount of funding. The appropriators said, Notwithstanding, we're going to give you less. For the last six years, you've actually given us more because you've given us that plus one fund funding. And so we've invested more in the Farm and Forest Liability Program. So we're not here asking for more money. We're just saying this has been so successful. The demand is such that we can use a second staff person working with the lead person who manages the programs. It's not a financial request on our part. Is

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: that already in the governor's recommended?

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: Yeah, yeah. We're not asking for additional money for the program. We're just saying within our agency, we're gonna allocate more money because this has been so successful.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So we would just redefine kind of your area of jurisdiction in some fashion.

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: Yeah, yeah. And just to think about this a little more, if I would, one of the great successes we had was with Carl Cushing's business in Ferrisburg. And if that business were located in Middlebury, it wouldn't be eligible. And that's what I mean about, so that's why this language you see about community development initiatives, if it's some of that's a meat processing business serves the whole ag community and whether it's located in Ferrisburg or Middlebury, it's gonna be a dissystem. So that's why we're saying, like, fraud. And

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: we would stick this in a miscellaneous item.

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: Yeah. It emerged out of this committee. Yeah. Was sure. In fact, our original statute emerged out of the ag committee. So anyway, you can speak to the language.

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: Well, I'll just give one more example. We had been trying to work with Lindenville, which was a separate distinction from Linden, and since they recently merged, now we've got some co creating a relationship with Linden Bell, and now all of a sudden they're technically So not that's kind of another more administrative example of things that can hold us up under the current definition. So, this is just the very first part of the statute. It goes on to talk about focus areas and activities and things like this, but the only changes that we're suggesting are to the definitions and one little addition to B under establishment. So, we are suggesting adding number three, community development initiatives, these projects located throughout the state that support agriculture and historic preservation, outdoor recreation, and other critical economic development needs to be supported when state resources or staffing assistance are not available. So, really speaking to the intent of Ready is to help when there's really low capacity, but a great project. We don't want to supplant work that's happening in RDCs or RPCs here. We want to work together with them, help fill gaps, meet more community needs needs on the ground. And those examples of agriculture store preservation outdoor rec, those span to existing REDI priorities and PHC priorities. And that's really what would give us the fair view to occasionally go above the 5,000. And then just echoing that dominant establishment, wanted to add as well as supporting community development initiatives as. So that's our original original crack at this. And we'd love to hear feedback and hear what we've We're fine.

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: That's more to

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Absolutely. Your ROI is pretty impressive. I have a question. Other critical economic development needs, what do you what could that be? That sounds like it could be literally anywhere. That

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: is broader. Again, we get referrals from the RTCs regularly and other parties. We did help, was it Wilmington, with an infrastructure grant?

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: Yeah, for your refund. Yeah.

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: One might argue that that sort of thing is critical to housing development, to manufacturing that might be related to a food business or some other kind of business related to that.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: I guess my real question is with broadening this scope, is there a concern that you're gonna be inundated with applications from Middle Burlington, and that this will just subsume the entire rural or small town? That

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: would not be our goal. Yeah. And we would want to maintain a strong majority.

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: And probably an overwhelming majority that continues to serve rural communities, because I wouldn't want to come in this world or sit on the appropriations committee and say, we're just focused on rural. Right.

[Unknown Committee Member (Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: And with

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: that being

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: said- We noticed your reference in Chitin and Kelly, none of the five of us are front break.

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: Yeah, but, yeah.

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: And I think that's also why we put in the language around to be supported when other student resources are not available. We already work closely with ACDP, RDCs, RPCs, to sort of make sure that we're all in alignment.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So that limitation, from your standpoint, is something that will be sufficient to make it so that you're still focused on the purpose of the statute, but also opening up to the authorities that you wanna help and

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: it makes sense. And we do provide you guys with a report, both from the board and from the viability program and employees, so I would expect that if we wandered off to the wrong direction, we would hear about it pretty quickly. It's true. So when it says, when other assistance is not available, who's gonna determine that? Your award? We do make that determination, but the principle that's embedded in our statute is we're supposed to leverage other resources. That's separation. That's in our base statute for, so if there are other resources available, we want people to use it. And you may have to direct them to that first before finally coming into your house.

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: And that's already what our staff person, Brian, spends a huge amount of time doing. So, she does the long intake call with interested parties, make sure they are aware of other resources, might be coordinating with different agencies or planning commissions or RDCs. So that's already very much shown in my overview. And I think what we'd be looking for is when there are subjects that are not able to access resources and meet the goals of Ready and our existing focus areas, that we would be able to support them even if they were not in the county. And

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: how many calls do you think we get

[Unknown Committee Member (Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: in here? Do you know exactly? Like that would

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: or fit into overall? Overall, overall then. I certainly could point out how many calls we get, but we've gone from working with about one communities to like 60 to 75 since the program started.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, cool. We're in, I think, reading committee. We're in favor of this. As you probably heard while you're watching our testimony that we're getting ready to wrap things up, so it'd be important that you get the language to us And maybe ship it to Bradley Sheldon. Do you know his email and all of that? If you could get it to Bradley Sheldon, and we'll get it incorporated into our miscellaneous bill. We would have to add it to the house, Ed. House, So it's not as 323. So you 941? Yeah, 941. Addison District, our eight to nine forty one miscellaneous agricultural bill. How does Brad spell his last name? S H O W M A N.

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: Glad I asked. I asked Schulman.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yeah, I've had any- I not sure turning Schulman, but it's Yeah, yeah.

[Liz Gleason (Director, Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, VHCB)]: So,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: yeah, we'll we'll be happy to do that. Okay. You know, I'm gonna appreciate what you guys do. You know, I think Gus is gonna as much as I praise this committee, Gus is gonna get sick of hearing me praise him. But I've always been thankful for what he's what is what he's been involved with. And what I would like to know more than anything is that they move. When once other people don't seem to be able to get things done, they get things done, they move. And through COVID times and good times and bad times, I don't see that your projects get diminished as far as starting starting to finish. It just seems to get done, and very appreciative of that. So I think it helped a

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: lot of communities, and everybody in this room has been helped in one way or the other where you've touched it. Thank you. Well, thank you for saying that. You're more than welcome. Often say that our work is really because your constituents have good ideas and we're just sending the tax dollars back to support them. And on that note, I'll just close on this. Senator Collamore, we had a delightful call with Jamie Lee from yesterday. She said that she talked to you was to drop your name in the conversation. So I'm dropping back that this is the sort of program that if anything can be done with that campus, maybe can help with the kind of grant writing thing. I did indicate you would be a good person to talk. Yeah. So she has a lot of energy, a lot of ideas. Hope something good can add to Me too.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Okay. So good. Well, get that to us or get it to Bradley, please. And I'll Bradley is probably gonna send me a note to make sure that it's all good, I'll reply back to that so don't get alarmed. He'll say that's who? I don't need it, though. Thank you

[Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: very much. Thanks for coming in.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Thank you for being patient. I appreciate it very much. Committee, we are, again, getting close. Tuesday, we're probably gonna have a long floor, but I have to ask Rob. Should we have to look at the language that Bradley's gonna send us? Rob can do that. I'm sure that if we are here on Tuesday and that language is true, we're off getting out the language on what we've just been asked for. I don't have a, there's no wish list for me to, I don't have a timeline other than the fact that we would have worked diligently in here to get our work done and I don't see any reason why we should hang on to everything. I did ask the pro tem if there was anything that he wanted us to hold back because sometimes we are on the committee with the last bill out and he just said I see no reason why to delay anything. Just in the spirit of just getting good work done, I'll be looking to without a timeline, within our timeline, I would say that of of getting our work done. So I think next week at this time, we're gonna be finished. You guys got any thoughts or anything? If you think we missed anything? Again, we're not rushing, but we're getting close. So yes. Yeah. No, I think it is important to leave at least a week. I assume there'll be a conference committee on at least the miscellaneous bills. Don't know about, well, I guess we changed paraquat and do some, maybe those two. I think in conversations conversations that of, I've had in the hallway, I've really sat down with House of Agriculture, as you know, there's no secrets in this building, and everybody kind of knows what we're doing, and I'm not being disrespectful to the House, but as Senator Rutland is very well aware of, this is the Senate bill that we are worried about. With respect to the House I respect the work that they do but when it's not released here it's going to be a Senate bill and I feel strongly about that. So good work. You know it's just funny you always wonder whether you do enough and over and over and over again you guys make the work look easy. We've done a lot of work. We've done a lot of important work and it's only because of you know how dedicated you guys have been. We've done a lot of work. And as Bradley said, you heard him say it. Well, hey, you guys have been busy. And so we've done it in an easy way. You know, it hasn't been It's only been one time where I really started to get nervous about whether we were going to get it done, and that was the beginning of our miscellaneous bill that we sent over to the house. I started to get a little nervous. Other than that, it's been an easy timeline. We get a lot of stuff done. You guys should be proud of that. You really, really should be. So other than that, I think unless you guys have anything to add Nope. We'll call it a day. Thanks.