Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Say yeah. We

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: are live. We

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Live. The agenda of appropriations is January 23. We're going through budget adjustment and I think we're on maybe our last one, which is the Vermont Veterans Home. Thanks for joining us online. I'll let you introduce yourselves for the record and then let us know what your one request is in the VA.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Thank you. Good afternoon. I am Melissa Jackson. I am the CEO of the Vermont Veterans Home. I am here with Stephen McLafferty, our Finance Director, and Gary DeGasta, President of the Board of Trustees for the Vermont Veterans Home. Actually, we do not have an actual request for an increase in funding. It's more just to clarify some budget line adjustments. Our Medicaid settlement was actually larger than we anticipated by $963,267 So that has resulted along with our increase in our rehab revenue increase of 71,000, an increase in our total special funds of $1,034,567 So we are happy to report we need less general funds. So, we're reporting that we're reducing the general fund line by that $1,034,567 and increasing the special fund line.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Where is it in the sheet? Is it on that sheet? B-three 42. B-three 40 two. And then you also have some slide on ground. Guess there's one slide that does the math part of it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Yes.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Well, that's good news.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: And

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: what word does did you say that maybe I didn't hear you, the special funds, which is the settlement funds?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: It was

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: the settlement dollars and an increase in our revenue related to physical, occupational and speech therapy, which are Medicare dollars.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Well, great. Anything else you want to update us on what's happening at the Veterans Home?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Sure. I want to share that it's been another incredible banner year here at the Vermont Veterans Home. The staff has received the Silver National Quality Award from the American Healthcare Association. We are the only nursing home in the state of Vermont to receive this award. We also received The US News and World Report Best in Class Nursing Home for Long Term and Short Term Care. Again, the only nursing home in the state of Vermont to receive both of those. We were just recently recognized by Google as one of the top 10 nursing homes in the state of Vermont. We're especially proud of that last award because that is based solely on reviews provided by our customers. We don't apply for that award, so that is directly done by feedback from our customers. We just passed a VOCA inspection without any deficiencies. The team down here is providing high quality care in a really safe environment, and I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: am really proud of this team and everything that they do. The state of

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Vermont is very fortunate to have probably the best state veterans home in the country.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I know you definitely do great work down there. And how are you doing as far as staffing and the use of visiting nurses and things like that?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: So we are making progress in that department. In July, we hired a new director of nursing, Sarah Sigsberry. And since her arrival, she has hired 16 members to our nursing department. That has been her number one priority. And we have had three LNA classes. One is graduating next week with eight LNAs, and then the other two classes, we have had four LNAs start from that. So we are making progress. Still have

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: you remember the number, Steven? I don't have it off the top of my head. Think we still have about 25 agency staff members here, but we are slowly whittling that down.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Out of the total, what's your total nursing staff? 25 out of how many?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Out of hold on. I have that on the slide over here. Give me just a minute.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It could be a round number. Like, I don't need to use this.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Think of that of since

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: The.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: We just talked about this yesterday. You think I would have remembered? I think it's out of, like, 65 or something. Right, Steve? Does that sound right? That number is in my head for some reason, but that could be our total open positions.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I

[Steve McLafferty, Finance Director, Vermont Veterans Home]: think open positions were, like, 40

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Right.

[Steve McLafferty, Finance Director, Vermont Veterans Home]: Six, forty eight as of the eighth.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: I don't have the current number, the current total number of nursing positions right in front of me. I can email that to you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah, I'll see when you get us guys. That'd be interesting to see. And your full as far as patients, I assume, as always.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: So actually, no. We still have the 30 beds offline. We were very close to being full, and we literally had four deaths in forty eight hours last week. Yeah, so ebbs and flows. We still have a long waiting list. We had an admission yesterday. We have one next admission next week and then another the following week. So we are moving through our long waiting list and working to refill the beds.

[Steve McLafferty, Finance Director, Vermont Veterans Home]: As of January 8, this is Steve McLafferty, the Finance Director. As of January 8, we had 44 open clinical positions, nine registered nurses, five licensed practical nurses, and 30 licensed nursing assistants.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Those are the openings or those are the That's the opening plus the staff. Those are the staff positions.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Are the open positions. We'll get you the total staff numbers.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Right, well that's, so is that why if you had more staff, you'd be able to have more bed?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Well, have the one unit offline partly because of staffing and partly due to the fact that there are several rooms that cannot be used due to some plumbing issues. We do have the design work done to have that unit torn down and rebuilt. Now it's a question of working with the VA and the State of Vermont to make funding determinations to have that unit rebuilt.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Was there some other tactical project that you guys did? Or maybe I'm thinking of another veteran, the veteran's garden or something.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: So, there's the Veterans Farming Initiative where the Board of Trustees leased land to the Bennington Conservation Corps, and they are leading a project to offer a co op farming program for veterans who have just gotten out of the service. So we're offering the land, they're running that project.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right, but it's at your location, so I can be behind your field.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Yep.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Any other questions for the let you know? All right, well thank you for your care you provided. We appreciate it.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Thank you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We'll see you when the budget comes around.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Okay. Thank you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Have a good day. Bye. Jill, do you want to talk to us about you yet?

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Okay.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Wow. You for coming. I don't think we've had you in this meeting before. Do you know if people are on there? We could do a quick round of meetings. Sure.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: That'd be great. Anne Watson.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Auburn, Franklin County, and the town of Elmer, again, Randall, Phoenix. Rich Westman, in Well County, Point Center.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Andrew Perchlik.

[Sen. Ginny Lyons (Member)]: Ginny Lyons, Chittenden Southeast.

[Rep. Pat Brennan (Clerk)]: Pat Brennan, Grand Isle, except for Alberta. Good

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: afternoon, so my name is Jill Remick, I'm the Director of the Division of Property Valuation and Review at the Tax Department. I was asked to sort of shoehorn in with the presentation about the various reports you're expecting. So we do our PBR, our property valuation review annual report. It is not out yet. We are putting very finishing touches on it. That will be out in two weeks next week. I did, as I was leaving my office, I do have a bunch of copies of last year's, so it's all very much the same information except for

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah, we got last year. Great. Based on the prior year, Grand.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yes. So essentially this is the culmination of everything that happens in the year prior. As you folks might be aware, a huge role that property valuation review plays, working with municipalities to do everything related to administering the statewide education property tax. The last half of the year is we're doing what we call the equalization study. So we do this sales verification study, sort of data review with each municipality and that's what actually culminates in the CLA, the Common Level of Appraisal, and the COD's, the coefficient of dispersion. So then those pieces lead into tax rate setting. That's So why this report is due to folks all in January and it has all the grant list information. There are a lot of also significant amount of supplemental data that comes out with this report. Property tax credits by town, homestead information by town, current use information by town. So the report that we put together, and I'm not sure how in-depth you folks want me to go, I didn't need to word in on.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, thought you

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: could. Sure,

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: no, I appreciate that. So, this report is helpful. It sort of has a one stop shop of all the different components that our division does. So, we have, like I mentioned, we do the equalization study. We also have information there about different grant list categories, statewide and by town, and then the educational grant list values for each of those categories, statewide and by town. We have municipal tax rate information in here, Personal property value, and then like I mentioned, sort of longitudinal information about statewide CLA, and then CLA's buy year.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah, there's one town that hasn't had a reappraisal since twenty twenty five, two thousand and five, so twenty years.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Right.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And they're not required to do it, they just, unless they hit under the CLA, if it's a certain mark, then they're

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: As of, I can't remember which of the two acts in the last two years, there is now a six year reappraisal cycle in effect. So, that prior to Act 68 of 2024, I think it is. Right. So, we would do the equalization study, and based on the results of that study, we would issue a reappraisal order, basically saying, Hey, town x, you are now required to reappraise because your CLA and your COD have gone beyond the bounds.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do you remember what the bounds are?

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Is that the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: right dose?

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Changed a few times. It was like, so if the CLA went above or below 80120%, I think that it got moved to eighty five and one hundred fifteen. But basically saying the grand list values that you have on your grand list based on our analysis are too far removed from fair market value and therefore you need to re appraise.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So if your town doesn't have a lot of sales or just the value is holding steady, then you don't have to get the rate.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah, and even ones with really small sales, they might be able to look at other sales that are comparable. I mean even the very small towns do get a CLA every year, Right, but there's certainly one

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: that hasn't done one in forty years probably doesn't have much sales. Or maybe just held out, held steady.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah, there's a few reasons. I think in a large part, it's really hard to find reappraisal firms to do the work actually. And the firms will argue that it costs more in some cases to do the smaller accounts, and especially the longer time between reappraisal, the more the data is going to need cleaning up. So that's another reason why the six year cycle is supposed to kind of help us get on a more regular cycle, get everyone on a level playing field.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And is that a six year cycle that requires within six years? Or what are you saying to your

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Right, so every six years have a repraised grant.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Every time. Regardless of their stance.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Right.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: There was something in that 73 that created reappraisal of districts. Each one of those is going to get from reappraisal that we're going to do, the state's going to do?

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: No, that's one possibility. That hasn't happened yet. We're right sort of in the transition. We coming next week to do our We have a report to the House of the Means about the reintegrate district structure. But, yeah. So, we're in a state of transition from the orders that we had already ordered, and some of those towns have been under order year after year after year after year, and they may not be able to find anybody.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Oh. Or they might, they're You have the discretion on, maybe there was some discretion around that because if the town is gone out and looked for an appraisal company and they can't get to anybody and it's gonna take four years to get it, the tax department has been lenient with tax. That's right, thank you.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Right, so the theory is if we all get on a regular cycle, we have just, can plan ahead for that, the firms can plan ahead. But we realized pretty quickly, especially over the summer, we had a stakeholder working group on this with municipalities and firms, that We're coming back around to their supply and demand capacity. We don't have enough assessors to do the work, either on the municipal level for the year by year grant list and also for these firms to do reappraisals on a regular basis. So our report that we're presenting next week is a lot more focused on how to build career path and that pipeline of people. Because we've created the six year cycle, we've created the regional assessment districts by county, but there's no bodies to fill that work. So that's sort of what we realized. We need that kind of foundation before we

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Can build

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is why

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: the per amount is up so much? Which per parcel amount? You do the payment to the towns based upon per parcel. Most communities save that money off over time to be able to do the appraisals you want. Right. The proposal from the governor's budget is becoming that that per person amount be taken out of the pilot fund at 3,400,000.0. In your report from last year, it was too many to pay the per person amount. So you're up 600,000, and you haven't really, unless they changed it because of the six year cycle, That might answer why it's up. I'm just trying to understand.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah, thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: By that, they saw 600,000.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: I see. So up in the proposed budget, I apologize. Right. So because I was going to say for many years it's been flat. It's a statutorily determined number. Don't think it changed anything.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: And as can see on parcels and the number of parcels doesn't move okay.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Exactly. So for a very long time we've been sending out this per parcel payment to towns per parcel meaning literally how many parcels.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: So as

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: you can imagine, some of smaller towns aren't getting very

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: much

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: of But the idea being that they are set aside for reappraisal, but also it was reappraisal and grand less maintenance. So, it's been really hard for us to sort of extract what the true cost of the reappraisal is versus the grand less maintenance, which is all the work that happens every year. Equalization study, homestead, transfers, things like that. So, great. So in the proposal, we not only tried to bring it up to today's dollars because that pay us $8 per parcel and then a dollar per parcel for the equalization study had not changed in long time. So just based on inflation alone, it actually should be closer to 12. And then also trying to separate using it for the grand list versus using it for reappraisal. And then the other component is that proposal payment has just gone out year after year after year after year. And I think the goal was when Act 60 and Act sixty eight first passed is that the state and the town kind of had equal skin and nickname for this reappraisal happening. So the idea was that the state would pay that amount every year. This town would set it aside so that between their municipal budget and the money they'd gotten from state, they'd have enough money to pay for reappraisal. But for some, had gone ten, fifteen years. We're continuing to send that proposal payment out. So part of the new proposal is like, okay, we're going to a six year structure. We need to increase that to today's dollars. We need to have it be genuinely reflective of what it costs to be a reappraisal. But then after the six year cycle, that's your pot of money you're getting from the state who wants to continue to send it out year after year, so it is a significant change. The

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: town will still do the contract, will

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: there At be this a separate point, right. So part of our report is we were asked to consider the state for being these regional assessment districts, which are currently by county except for Franklin and Grand Isle and then Essence and Orleans, where each one to be one just based on parcel count. Theoretically, that could be a new entity that shared reappraisal with contracts. Again, we're finding there's until we get some of these sort of more foundational, maybe less exciting pieces done, like establishing certification program on a subsequent career path for folks, removing any barriers for towns to work across boundaries already, then we can't just simply impose this stamp and say, It shall be done. Like there's not a board right now that could sign a contract on behalf of Regional Assessment District. Those sort of things have to get worked out. So for the moment, we are trying to be more proactive in getting attention on those smaller towns doing that their due diligence. They're putting out requests for proposals and they're not hearing anything and they really, really need their reframe done, which you can see by some of the CLAs and you'll see that again for the poor command acts. Mean, there's some towns strikingly low common level appraisals. They really do, and it really does impact their tax rates.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right, it freaks people out. Like in my school district, one town is getting eight percent, and the next town is getting 24%. Yes. And people, they don't need to talk to them about the CLA and their eyes are over and they're like, just fix it. Right.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Part of the other reason we ask that is the shift in the governor's budget is to the pilot fund, and I would suspect Monique hasn't caught up with this yet. I'm sure. And so I think it's helpful to know exactly where the money's going and why, and why there's an increase there on that. Was helpful.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Thank you. Right, and just for bonus notification, on page thirty six and thirty seven, you sort of outlined those person payments and where they come from. So right now, the majority come from the general fund. So that the reappraisal currently comes out of the general fund.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: that's, I could go on about just reappraisal alone for a long time, there is no, currently basically the way that it works is the state approves a list of firms that can do the reappraisals. The towns are still individually contracting for those. And regardless of what happens in the transition, if we can find ways to get towns to work together, if we can find ways that we need to target support for those smaller towns. So, example, could PVR hold a contract, and then if a town, by a certain period of time, says, I still can't find anybody, then they can say, Hey, we're gonna pay for this town. Just because we can't continue to have CLAs in the 40% level. So we're in a bit of a transition right now, but I think it's moving in the right direction that's going to take a long time. We're already I mean, just for an example of how in demand the firms are and how behind we are in that sense, we are now proving contracts for towns that are happening for reparations in 2031. That's that's the line. They're getting in line, and that's some of the students. So the firms need people. They would love to find more people who are interested and qualified, so we're trying to get the word out.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, I've heard some constituents that wanted to get into it, but there's, I think there's an apprenticeship part. You had to work with somebody that wasn't appraiser, but then the appraisers didn't have any apprentices, the wannabe apprentices thought it was just they were purposely guarding the profession. And so this is something I assume your recommendation is to fix that.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah, we've had great conversations lately with Community College of Vermont and the Department of Labor. We do have a certification program that PVR, our little team, does host that is now required for listeners and assessors to take. They have time to take all those courses. So, that does not require apprenticeship, but if you're going to become a reappraisal firm, right, the current administrative roles do require apprenticeship. So, we're also trying to see is there enough appetite, need, reason to have it be another license like a real estate appraiser is with Secretary of State's office, for example. But it's true that finding an apprentice and then training your replacement can be challenging.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: What do they feel as they're training their competition? Competition, yes.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah, sorry.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: The other problem comes in that you have some specialty errors. So, know, for years had problems with who's gonna appraise a dam and we've gone back and forth with all of that. In my community, it's very different appraising timeshare units in a resort community than it is a regular home, and there are specialty firms that do that. So and it it, you know, held us up for an appraisal was that. We couldn't find that because they were so few.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah, and we do now, thanks to the legislature, the CALIF program, is our commercial assistance litigation, commercial appraisal litigation assistance program. Very new, think this is our second full year in business. But basically, PBR recruits a stable of those specialized contractors and can actually help towns with those appraisals if they meet certain qualifications. Have What we're finding, we're having to do a lot of those more unique properties, actually close colleges, which is of interesting when you sort

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: of had a rash of

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The fortune area is terrible.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah. But also, like, ski areas, wind farms, you know, all those kind of unique high value commercial properties that are significant value for that municipalities brand list and it's very niche, right? Methane digesters, things So, like we do now have a program that we're standing up that some towns are taking advantage of if they qualify to help with that, because that can also be costly.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I assume that methane digesters would be in current use under a farm mill.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Maybe some. There's a couple now. They used to be my example of unique and now they're not as unique. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We were the state was encouraging them for a while. So we were building new place. So one of the other things that we talked about this report was around current use. Yeah. I think it was mentioned like this is where you go to get information on current use. So it looks like that the page is

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: That's right.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: '22 to '26.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: And I presume the report coming back to you is gonna have very similar page number and look and feel. You know, we're updating it, obviously.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And the trend is just like this, February, more parcels, more value. No. There's not a different trend or anything happening, but it's currently just

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: No, there's a new category, and I would definitely refer to my colleagues at Forest Parks and Recreation for reserve forest land. It's having a very small impact, at the moment, but there might be a sort of an uptick in forest land because of that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Because you don't have to have the management plan for that, that's what it is.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah, well, yes. Or your management plan is that this is reserved for land, you shall, again, try So, not right, so what we have a lot of happening is not, there's only so many acres in Vermont. Yeah, well,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: 200, when do we

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Sort of plateaus, but what we do have an increase in enrollment parcels because there are parcels that are sort of being broken up and shared and sold that remain in the program, for example. So, there's a lot of transfers, there's a lot of trusts or LLCs being established, and the parcel might be moving into one of those. But yeah, there is a bit of a plateau for our community acre cities.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And is it fair to say that, well, guess total tax savings to rural landowners, part of those municipal suburbs. We're just looking at the education fund, that would be the $55,000,000 is kind of what the current use is costing the education fund.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Right, and this is as of, right, so this is reflecting 2024, so that would be little bit

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I wonder if you have more in years of higher property tax increases that causes more people to enroll. They start thinking about it again, when they get their property tax bill, What was that one program that my name is?

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: It's possible. I mean, it's yeah. I it's possible.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: And I

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: think, you know, for some folks, it's hard to stay in the home, right? If you a lot of the moment is, you know, you're leasing to a qualified farmer, for example. Well, if the farmer is no longer able to farm and is not able to lease your property, well, now your property's not eligible. There's so many of those kind of arrangements to try to keep as much land in that regard as possible.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can you remind us what the penalties need to get out?

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Right, so if it's developed or the lien needs to be removed, and there's lots of different ways that can happen, must be voluntarily removing the lien, right? If I buy a property that's enrolled and I don't want to be in this program anymore, there's something called the land use change tax. So that is basically this, yeah, there must be a

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: page Thank 20

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: you. I think it's 2015. I think I'm still the ages of education when the legislature passed the change. Land use change tax is essentially a 10% penalty on the value of the property that's enrolled. And if it's a portion of the title, then the lister or assessor values that piece that's being removed as a standalone parcel and the land use change tax is 10%.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: 10% of the value.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. And was that, instead of 10%, was that trying to get at what they thought the tax benefit was?

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: I think to some extent, prior to that, it had been a 10% penalty on sort of prorated value. That could really be helpful for some very high value parcels and maybe not for others. And then it was a 20% penalty if it had been in for less than ten years. They were sort of putting it in, taking it out, putting it in, taking it out. The idea

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: was to sort of

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: keep the parcels as perpetually involved. So that must have played some part as well, I think. And we've bandied about over the years. Is there a different way to kind of automate that stand alone parcel value? Can you still sort of get at the intent? Yes, some states definitely do a, like, based on benefits received. But

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: it's hard if you're subdividing it because of like how much do you give to that parcel? It could it could it be a very valuable cars Right.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Parcel or not. Right.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But, yeah, I could see you do us doing it or why I stayed with. I just think you you received $4,000,000 of benefit over the last twenty years, you pay $4,000,000 back.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: But when you subdivide a piece, so it's more than likely as you subdivide a smaller piece, the value is much higher. And so the 10%, it has shed about Right. You break a building, lock, or a 200 acre piece, and you do two acres. It's 90 from the surface. Right. You on 22 have parcel numbers, and the parcel numbers are relative. And somewhat with owners, then you have the total acres. But it would be really interesting because when you do get those smaller acres, a lot of larger plots of land. You've got 100 acres or 150 acres and you break it up into four pieces, and then you have the house in two acres and a smaller piece of current use. And because the system works, its first acre is the most expensive and then goes off. The bigger lot is appraised with a lot less value than the it would be helpful to try to figure out what that road in more persons and viscosity. Because I'm, you know, if you figure that managing a piece of forest land, it's more advantageous to have a 100 acres because the trucking come in and you can do a lot of trucking, you can do all of that, and we manage them. If it gets broken up into three thirty three acre pieces, it costs the program more, but it's less, you know, manage it, it's less valuable because you probably can't fill a log drop in 33 acres. So if there was a line that I could figure out and got appraised value, it would be helpful. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: So, the land use change tax, that also go to

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: the end fund, or does that land? Yes. 50% of it up to $2,000 goes to the temp, because the town is doing that balance. If it's a $10,000 land exchange tax bill, the town keeps 2,000 of that. The rest is split seventy five, twenty five between the general fund and the education fund. I might have that in here somewhere as to where those two pieces go. Should know at

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: the top of So the smaller portions go to the

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: end fund? I think the smaller portions go to general.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, okay. I think the majority we go to this, but that's worth a loss. Yes. Yes.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: I'm surprised

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: then he goes, why would we get to be

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: because you have the municipal

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, but the general fund paid when we pay the municipal a difference. 50%

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: up to 2,000.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, only up to 2,000.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah, so I mean another possibility for the general fund piece is the hold harmless payment. So there's a payment that goes from the general fund out to the municipalities to sort of hold their budget harmless for having parties enrollment so that the town isn't penalized by forgone municipal rights.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: And I think that's a good advantage.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yes. That makes it is. Yeah. That makes it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Okay.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: And it's not a lot of money, but the idea is that it is deterred and it is a penalty and there's something. And it I think it is growing. It has ticked up over the years. On page 26, the land use tax that's assessed. Granted, it can get assessed, but if you haven't actually developed the property, if you just want to be removed from the program, the land use change tax is determined. The amount is determined at the time that the parcel is removed, it can sit there. That sort of liability can sit there until you either want to remove the lien or you've developed a parcel. So, is land use change tax that has been assessed on properties that hasn't been collected yet, but once they have to, then those become active liability. Just to add to the complexity of the program.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: We've been debt by many times and we've got, we've financed over that. We had a piece of land in Morristown that they subdivided the piece. They put in driveways, but they hadn't gone the final step. And the question was, when you go for the subdivision and you put a driveway in, have you not tipped your hand that you're not interested in being in the program anymore for the long term meeting? And we weren't able to get it through. In my book, once you go for a subdivision and you put a driveway in, you tipped your hand, you should be out.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: And I realize this is appropriations committee, maybe you're not, this is a little too in the weeds, but it also, the lien runs with the land, and the land use change tax runs with the land. So if I sell you my property, and I, and there's a lien on it, hot potato, you sign that, that liability is now the new owner responsibility. So most of the time, obviously that would hopefully come up in title search warrant, know, amicable negotiations, a lot of people might build that into their, you know, closing costs or something. But there are some every year that are like, woah, I didn't know that I was gonna owe this land exchange tax on this property.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: If I wanna take it out.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: If I wanna take it out or remove my lien.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Right. Well, it's really not about the individuals that own the property anyways, because what you do is you sign up to manage your property in a certain way. Mhmm. And it's managing the forest land. So it really is about the land, not the individual.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But if the individual doesn't know when they buy it, especially an example of like, oh, look, already has a driveway on it, and it's subdivided, that they didn't actually pay the bill. That's admire to be aware of it. Yes, your honor.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Which is something that, so we've talked about this in a prior year, but just to bring up on one of the things that I have had, just so you all know, had some interest in is the possibility of a category for current needs that would be something akin to floodplain management or repairing area, just as a that these lands have a value in terms of staying open, and how do we recognize that and encourage people to keep that open. I think like it is a tool, maybe not the tool, that could accomplish that goal, this feels like not the right year to do that. But just putting it out there is like, this is a thing

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: I have been thinking about.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It would be similar to that forest the new forestry category in wine.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Mhmm. Yeah. But, you know, if you're doing on and they've, we've gone for years right carrying buffers, and you extend those buffers, you know, that should be a legitimate use. Yes. Well, and it also may in terms of management plans, it

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: it just may have a different, management structure.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Are these the property tax exemptions? Are they in the tax expenditure report? Those

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: expenditures are in the process.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Do we know how many towns have voted to give veterans a tax exemption?

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Above the 10,000? Yeah. I don't I can find that really easily. I'm sorry. I don't know. I I think it's quite a few.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: That's fair.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah. So, there's sort of a, we get a list every year from the veterans folks across the street of eligible veterans that are receiving that $10,000 exemption on the value of their property and the towns can vote to expand that to up to 40,000 per person. I I should be able to get that rate, but I'm sorry. I think quite a few do.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Would assume it's a lot.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: And it's on the value of the property.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. So tax.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Alright. Any other questions? EBR? That's Yeah.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: And yeah, apologies for not having We just found a couple little things in like, or in the town numbers that we wanted to fix and just have this be fully baked. So that will be next week. And I do think you also get a TIF specific report from the Pepsi. And then, I'm sure when we publish this, we publish all the supplemental data, a lot more deeper dive into things like the property tax credits. And I'm sure someone from tax is happy to help.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, great. Thanks for highlighting the report for us.

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: Okay, yeah. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Now we can move to our TED Talks. I will

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: be probably talking for

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: a lot longer than the fourteen minutes or whatever they give you for a TED Talk. You know, unfortunate bad news for y'all.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Okay. A night the school office. Happy Friday afternoon. I'm gonna run through three two reports and one issue brief. To start. It's gonna we're gonna start with the pilot issue brief considering there's a number of changes to the pilot special fund or revenues going in and out of the pilot special fund and the BAA and the 27 gun rack, and then we'll talk a bit about fee report and the tax expenditure report. So I provided the link in the slides to the pilot issue brief. This came out last year. It's on our website. It's on the website. This is going to be a review of what's in the issue brief with some updated numbers and new figures that we've gotten since we published the report last year or the issue brief. Very high level. This is probably a review for you all. HILET stands for payment in lieu of taxes. The two programs are designed to compensate municipalities for property that is otherwise exempt for state owned property that is otherwise exempt from property taxes. You have the general pilot program, which compensates municipalities for the value of buildings within their municipal borders. And the ANR pilot program, this is gonna focus primarily on the general pilot program. I know ANR pilot had a very high level of how that operates, but we'll stick with general pilots in the most part. Last year, there was a change. Local option tax revenue, 30% of local option tax revenue used to go to the pilot special fund. However, in Act 57, in 2025, that was reduced to 25%. But that's also minus a nearly $6 per return fee administered by tax to make sure that money is going to the right municipality tax. If you want more details on how they do the actual administration of the thing, Rebecca Sameroff has a great presentation that talks about a lot of the challenges there. These things don't line up with ZIP codes or or other forms of administration. So at the 20,000, 30,000 foot level, the ANR pilot program compensates towns for the value of property that's purchased for various purposes, a lot of conservation land. 80% of the funding for that program comes from the general fund. There's a 20%, which is an interdepartmental transfer. And then so in total, between those two sources, the 27 includes a $2,700,000 appropriation for A and R pilot in section b seven zero one.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is that 20% from Department of Fish and Wildlife? Is that safe funding that's underwater, so to speak, in that particular, trying

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: to do the new stands to go use for state parks? I don't even know exactly how they pull it. We could reach out to Andrea and Jason there to get more context, and I imagine that some portion of it is their fee revenue.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is it 20% of, from 20% is, is it always eightytwenty, or is it just based on, like, how much is fish and wildlife land and how much is other A and R land?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It's my understanding. It's always the 2,700,000.0 or whatever the appropriation is. It's 80% general fund and 20% from Fish and Wildlife through a transference.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right, and maybe they had at one point determined that 20% was fishing bottom left.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So I could see if there's any someone No. That's alright. That's been around for longer than me, may know the answer to that one.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: There's, like, $540,000 that comes out of Fish and Wildlife performance for next year. Okay.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So even though I promised a very high level radar pilot, we're gonna get it all the way in the basic mechanics. There are two different calculations for different property depending on when the land was acquired or when the land was acquired. So if acquired before 04/01/2016, there you take point 6% of the fair market value of the land as of 04/01/2015, and multiply it by the land's value, so that gives you the base payment. So all of these are are getting to a base payment. If the land was acquired after 04/01/2016, they determined the base payment by using the land's fair market value and tax rate at the time of acquisition, which you'll see in the example down at the bottom. There is a process for updating these base payments. So the ANR pilot the ANR pilot payment stays constant. These base payments are fixed unless there's an adjustment as outlined in '32 BSA, thirty seven zero eight. And so from time to time, ANR secretary will recommend an adjustment. The last adjustment occurred in 2022, so I think you all are pretty due to see an adjustment in that amount. Yep. So I I do understand that there that that's probably seen next year.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: And I don't know if pigments are low.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: They are yeah. And seeing with the adjustment, the last adjustment was 1.29%.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Low compared to their value? If you have a skier rate up on state land, they appraise it as if the skier rate doesn't exist.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So I picked this particular example of how the ANR pilot calculation will work because I feel particular I love this state park. It's down in Hobarton. The Taconic Mountains. Randall State Park has a nice Japanese garden. Highly recommend, but it was bequeathed to the state in 2016, so it's an example of this second type of base payment calculation. So you have the land value, which is it's at $232,000 divided by a 100, and then multiply by the tax rate in Hubbardton at the time it was acquired in 2016, and that was 85¢. And so they received nearly a $2,000 payment, Hubbardton does, for the state park. How big is the state Park? It's very small. Don't know the amount of acreage, but I don't think it's more than 100.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: 1,900 is not very much money for a 100 being. I lived there in the '92. I lived in. Lived state park.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It's not a good place. That's a good place to fly.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: I thought you were saying you lived in the state of Illinois. No. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Most from Mount Independence over the federal.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Moving on to an area I'm much more familiar with, general pilot payments. There are payments for the value of government buildings. They're made each year as a part of the annual appropriations bill. The general pilot payments let's see. In fiscal year twenty six, Act 27 appropriated 12,200,000.0. It's the same amount in the gov records for '27. This general pilot payment includes the $750,000 statutory cap for VPN buildings, and then it also includes two correctional payments. One is $40,000, and then Newport and Springfield have a $102,000 payment for correctional facilities that they host. And, generally, I know there's a very different conversation going on around Pilot given the surplus that's in the fund, but the it's relatively recent history that they were fully funded. The first year Pilot came with two towns were fully funded was in 2024. Previously, had been prorated by some percent. Since it started. Far as I understand, I went pretty far back and as far as I understand it, they've always been prorated.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And now it's just under appropriation decision saying, we don't have to let them?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: There were there were enough revenues, and a lot of the time, they were, I would say, a little conservative on the appropriation amount, making sure that they weren't overbug any revenues. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: How much is the surplus in the I'm

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: gonna get into that a little bit. It is at the close of '25, it was a touch over 15,000,000.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And the annual appropriations here, isn't it?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Well, the overall appropriations spoke for 2,000,000. And

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: money going on implement fund? Stuart, do

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: you have a slide on? I have a yeah. I'm gonna go into the revenue expenses. Maybe sometimes trajectory.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's probably how we're really gonna

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. This is

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: not that's good.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Fair enough. I do I will kind of gloss over the calculation. Yeah. We don't need to get in the weekly calculation. If you don't want to, I'll spare you all the math. It's Friday afternoon. I do find it's interesting. Sometimes you find some really fun stuff in the state building inventory. On the tax website, they publish their spreadsheets, which goes to the pilot calculation for each town. There's a tab that has every state owned building on it, and you can go through and see how much it's valued, and sometimes there's fun nuggets. So I included three. One is that 115 State Street, the building we're sitting in, valued at over $34,000,000

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: through court Do really think they could rebuild this building for 30?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I don't think they could I that's a question for AOA's contractor who buys these insurance replacement values. The sky ship yeah. So it's implying that the state house is, you know, valued three times more of the Skyship gondola, which is part of the Killamtonski area through the quirks of ski leases. The state ends up owning We own the building. We own the the lift.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah. Really? Uh-huh.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So there's certain

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Do we get the revenue from the Lyft?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: There is. I don't

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: I know there are negotiated agreements with school area, but if we own it, we could get more.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I will. I don't remember off the top of my head how the difference We don't get

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: more riders. Slow the lift.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Yeah. We get free rides.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: But it is often based the the leases are based on a percentage of lift ticket revenues. Yeah. And if the if there are buildings that are selling concessions or whatnot and stayed on land, then we get the revenue for that as well, broadly speaking. Right. Yes.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And no connection between that and the pilot into the into the light end?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: The ski leases would be independent, but there are towns who receiving the point here is that town Killington is receiving a pilot payment for this the Exterior Gondola. That is not on us. Yeah. And That is not US force. It might be US force. Yeah. I know.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yep. I

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: know. Super strict.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: So we should get the pilot money.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: So there's an ENR pilot, which is the land and on Mhmm. And then that that you're saying that the lift pays into this pilot. Okay. Yep. Exactly. And separate from that, it's the 10% on the lifting.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We pay the filing for the value of that.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Right, they should be paying us.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right, but

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: not all the property. Yeah, depends on the, yes, Whether it's state land, federal land, kind of how the lease is structured, whole set up. E leases are a whole separate

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We're all getting

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: area to that you can really dive into

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: or see How much was the Bennington money? Did they get paid for the Bennington money?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I'll look at the inventory. So the Ethan Allen money is Yes. This is in the I think this is in the Burlington one. Yeah. The Greenmont's in Burlington. Yep.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So I thought it was interesting.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: But, yeah, I can look up the pendulum on here and

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: see how much it's valued. Yeah. Well, they say it's falling down, so maybe the value has gone down. Or it's long water logged in this. Center Watson?

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Well, just on the Ethanol Monument. So we're paying to Burlington something for just the for the cemetery or for the, know, monument in the cemetery?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: For the monument that's in the cemetery. Because I don't think the cemetery well, it wouldn't be the land anyway. It would be right. The monument is considered a state

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: of Yeah. Mhmm. Is that

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: every year? Just this is every year. And these are I will write these in the values of so $772,440 that converts into a pilot shipment.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Right. As a as the input into the formula. Yep. Yep. It's interesting that that counts.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right. Is it my mind that counts as a bill?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: As a bill. Yes.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: But or as a structure. Yeah.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: We I will say, I I was cruising through the state owned building inventory, and I thought it was interesting that I included it here. It didn't go fully down. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Truce.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yes. So one fun quirk about pilot payment calculations is that they're the CLA is used to multiply, which is unlike how it works for education property taxes, right, in which you are essentially using the CLA. You're dividing it to bring locally assessed values up to a common statewide value. Here, I think because the math is the opposite, we're using a statewide isn't the intuition as I understand it. There might have been another reason of why it was structured this way, but you're taking a state a common state value through insurance replacement and converting it to its local value, and so you could it's working in the opposite direction. So I'm gonna skip over some calculations. If you wanna review them at your own leisure,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: this is how they work. Okay. You know what I mean? One

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: of I I I do, when I talk about pilot, often get asked about why we use insurance replacement values as opposed to locally assessed values. The key thing is that there is some administrative ease to this. It could be a bit of a nightmare to have individual municipalities providing and updating and maintaining the list of state owned buildings and their property and having them assess it and send it over to the state, and the state has to do the payments. There is also some of I'm glad Joe Reyna Remick mentioned methane digesters because I have the exact same three examples in this presentation, but there are some of these are relatively complex valuation tests that the state owns, and so by AOA would likely have to maintain these values for insurance replacement as a part of their work anyway, and so it makes the program easier to administer, but that does, it is a consideration and something we talk about quite a bit of why we use insurance replacement in the programs. Since pilot payments are being multiplied by CLAs, part of the recent trend in the overall pilot in pilot payments and in the overall appropriation, why it's level between fiscal year twenty six and '27, is that the decrease in CLAs are mitigating the impact or increases in local pilot payments. So Johnson is an example here. Even though the amount of state owned the overall value of state owned property in the borders of Johnson increased by, it looks like, a little more than a million and a half dollars because their CLA drops so substantially between fiscal years '24 and '26. Their overall payment decreased over that span. In addition, I wanted to talk a little bit about there isn't obviously a perfect relationship between the towns or municipalities that are raising, generating local option tax revenue, and the municipalities that are receiving payments. So I took a slip a snippet of the Department of Tax's local option tax finder, and so you can see at a glance who has which type of local option tax and then compare that to the the set of municipalities that are receiving pilot payments. There are more municipalities that are receiving pilot payments than are those who are generating revenue. A lot of and so you there's a wider set of municipalities that you'll see a lot of lean tos and kind of smaller park structures that are generating these payments. I do wanna note that the vast majority of payments that go out are for relatively small amounts, but understandably, Randolph because of DTC, Montpelier, Linden. Right? These are the places that are receiving large amounts of pilot payments. And then kind of outside of these large concentrations of state activity, you see a lot of smaller pilot payments in across the state. And then here's the slide you're looking for, the money slide. Over time, between fiscal year seventeen and fiscal year twenty one, revenue and expenses were pretty well matched for pilot those pilot special funds. This really speaks to the constraint on revenues. And expenses are payments. Our payments. Not, like, administrative. Yes. Exactly. And so the ending balance stayed relatively steady between just the year '17 and '22. The where revenues really started to speed above expenses, there's two reasons behind that. First of all, on the slide I provided, the number of municipalities that have local option tax on meals and rooms or sales and use, and those have increased pretty substantially over that time. Almost the doubling of the municipalities that have a meals and rooms tax, quite a few substantial increase in the number of municipalities that have sales and use tax, local option tax. Yep. So that's a big driver.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You know what the second time was that doing an SCT on jet fuel?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I emailed Chris and Logan about that. So I'm glad we we figured out it's probably Berlin just did a local auction tax in Nap 0. Airport sells jet.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Because that that came up and Yep. Somebody said they didn't think that airport had jets, but they honestly didn't.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: That's that's the best that's what we came up with. Yeah. Pretty sure it's Berlin.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Sorry. SUT? What was that?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Sales and used tech. Sales and used Yeah. Yep. And then the other piece is that in the wake of the pandemic, the other reason for the the increase in revenues is consumption taxes had a strong rebound from the pandemic. Sales and use, a lot of folks during the pandemic were at home. They were also receiving stimulus checks from the government, and so they were at their house. They were looking at their furniture and saying, maybe I need an upgrade here, and so there was more spending on goods to post services, so there was a substantial increase in sales and use during and post pandemic. And then we also benefited, I think, a bit from having a stable kind of COVID management, and so and when folks were limited to more domestic travel after military tax really took hit, understandably, during the pandemic, but they rebounded quite quickly during the pandemic. So strong consumption taxes post pandemic and an increase in the number of municipalities with low volume tax means that there's much more revenue available to the pilot special fund. Then once payment for a fund is at a 100%, there's no further room for them to grow. And so revenues increased quite a bit. Once you hit fiscal year '24, you can see that the expenses level off. And so Right. We have a substantial

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: So I just wanna make sure that I'm understanding. So it's are the the increase in revenues that we see there, is that because more towns were adopting local options

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: type taxes?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I would say that's the primary driver. Strong consumption tax revenue plays a part. You can't rely on that going forward. So as there are various proposals on how to maybe address that fund balance, right, a consideration here that local option taxes do rely on consumption patterns in the economy, and I don't know, you know, that I'm I'm not the legislative economist, but

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: When a child does this, sales and use, can they do it on only certain things? Or they'd have to just do it on whatever the state is doing, as far as administrative. Yep. And tax takes some money. Right? Or is that what you Mhmm.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: They do. They have a $5.96 per return fee. So when a retailer submits their sales and use tax form either monthly or quarterly, $5.96. That's for tax to administer and making sure that revenue is going into the right place.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Mhmm. Yep.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: In this table shows all the appropriations from the pilot special bond in act 27 of '25 2025. In it woah. Woah. In addition to this list yeah. So in total, in act 27, 14 and a half million dollars were appropriated from the pilot special fund. The gov rec BAA would add a $500,000 appropriation to the division of property evaluation for revealed to help maintain and develop the statewide inventory communications property. I know Andrew Stein was in this room. I'll talk with you all about what that might mean and the and the progress on on that front. And then yeah. So generally speaking, these appropriations, right, support municipalities in various different rates. And so even though the list is beyond general pilot payments, yeah, they all have municipal use. And then looking at the twenty seventh gov rec, the $12,200,000 for the general pilot payments that was in fiscal year twenty six. It's carried forward into point seven. As I mentioned, that's a lot to able to maintain the same value because there's not upward pressure in

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the payments because we have

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: the CLAs involved and that's decreasing. Yeah, it's safe to have that amount of $12,200,000 the same way the payments to correctional facilities is the same as last year. There are, however, two changes in the govrEx. First of all, there's a piece that would change. There's $100,000 that's normally paid for by the education fund that supports education of assessment professionals. So the government suggested changing that funding source from the education fund to the pilot special fund. And then as you discussed with Joe Remick, the proposal to take the per parcel fees, the 8 and a half dollar and $1, and change that funding source from the general fund to the special fund, and the estimate on that is $3,400,000 in per year. And that's the number of parcels times 9 and a half dollars. Yeah. I did some batting the envelope math. Yeah. We got it at the same price. K. We won't know how much revenue go to the pilot special fund. We're kinda waiting until March and municipalities. We could certainly do the math on where we're looking at now with the the towns that currently have local option taxes, but, yeah, still waiting to see who's gonna vote and put it on town ballots in March because whereas before it was more constrained, towns don't need to go through y'all to do a chart change and do a lot. So, yes, there's we're seeing more accounts considering the local option packs. So that's it on the pilot special fund.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: $22,000 water. Okay. So I'll leave it to you for a minute. They're gonna.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Other piece that I work on, talk through annual fee reports. They do come to you all, and there is a new or relatively new process. We're in the third year of it that has JFO more involved in looking at the submissions from agencies departments. So talk through what the old process was, what's the new process is like, and how you can work with myself or Amy to get to see reports in more detail. But, yeah, I'll kinda go over that. General sense, maybe this is the most, like, TED talk y slide that I have in this whole presentation, which is, like, why do we even have fees? Getting more philosophical here. Right? So fees are generally we're thinking about them as supporting specific services for specific users. There's the connection between user and service. Right? For DMV fees, they go into the transportation fund because you're paying DMV fees to use the routes. Right? Like, that's that's kind of the linkage there. Hunting license fees, hunters are paying those to support game wardens and conservation work and wholesome things that fish and wildlife are doing. But sometimes, right, you have a split between there are some activities that feel like they provide a public good, and they support specific users who are paying into it. So the example I used here is the land use review board. Right? Their funding sources both pay for your permitting fees, but they also receive general fund recognizing kind that dual, we all benefit as a state for administering the Act two fifty permit process.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: We were talking this morning about boat registration fees that go to the DMV and not to the you know, supporting the fishing exits. Exactly. Yeah.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Kiosk. Yeah.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Okay. That'll now. But just it was interesting.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Like, but DMV goes for registrations. Right. Right. Yeah. Mhmm. You can pull off books on the road to get to the waiting. Yeah. Pull down.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. This is very contemporary philosophical. Right?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Yeah.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Although they don't call boats. They call them vessels. Oh,

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: it's technical. So

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: the old I'm calling this the old system. This is current the the the the system that's outlined in statute. And so in '32 BSI six zero five, there was there's this fee report that is developed by the executive branch, and they basically had different areas of government set up on a three year rotation. And so in 2021, you would have a group of folks present their fee report, and then the next year, the Human Services and Natural Resources in 2011 at that 06/2005? That's when it started the rotation. Yeah. And then, yeah, the third piece is the the wide universe of protection of persons and property. The last and so this fee report was usually used as the basis of a consolidated fee bill where ways and means, in particular, would be spending a lot of time with folks who had submitted their fee report to understand what fees they were looking to increase or change or modify, and there would be an annual fee bill. The the last major one that I saw was during 2019, not to say that there haven't been changes, didn't fees along the way and since then, but that was the last time there was a real large fee bill that hit multiple different agencies and departments.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Since the there hasn't been compliance with 32 b c six zero five. That's what people say, but I don't know if that's true.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I'm not this is more of that, like, a I don't wanna get you trouble. Yes. Yeah. I but one thing I'd write is, though, there could be a request to not change fees. Yeah. And but I don't that's all I will say about that situation.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Because I thought the fee report wasn't whether they wanted to change it or not, but, like, here was the cost, and here was the revenue.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So 6 this does the language does specify submitting fee report and request. I understand it right, those Has the fee report been issued?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can you tell me that?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: The fee reports were issued kind of going long, and

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: we so what will 2019, but today, they have during that time frame, did they still do the reports?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Still do the reports, but haven't Done Yeah. Included a request. Yep. Yep. So recently bills, this was so the the process started in it would have been fiscal year twenty four. There's a new fee report process that's included in session law, and it took the what was in 32 BSA, what is in 32 BSA six zero five, and included a few extra pieces of information. So whereas fee reports only included information on revenues, Fee reports now have information on the number of fee payments, so we're seeing numbers of units, which greatly help our ability to understand more of what's what's happening in terms of transactions for specific fees. The session law language also include requires calculations of inflation adjustments, and this means so a fee was last adjusted in, let's say, 2017. Mhmm. What has been the amount of inflation over that time? What would the fee be if it had increased along with that inflation rate over time. And then this has also been super helpful for me in looking at reports is that agencies and departments have a wealth of knowledge about how their fees compare to what's going on in other states, Some of the market considerations so thinking about I often go for the Secretary of State's office when they're considering nursing fees. They're mindful of the state's need for nurses and other job that's right. So the so the fee reports included requirements that folks provide information about these in comparable jurisdictions. A lot of times, it's our neighboring states, and also just any specific context or information they thought was relevant to the specific fee. So those reports are developed in consultation with JFO. It's usually me. I try and rope in other folks to join in the fund. And so they submit a draft report, and so we go in and spot check the data and and and look in and see make sure that everything is submitted according to the guidelines, and then folks submit final report to on December 15, and they're all in the general assembly reports page. I will talk a little bit about what they look like there, but this was the third year of this new process. We basically took the rotation from 2011, and when we started it, we tried to figure out who would have been on and kinda continued in that cycle. And so in the third year, we started getting Yes. Maybe this is in this area here, but we had testimony yesterday. It was from DPS Department of Safety in reference to Jeff Wall, VCIC. It appears as they're losing or they're subsidizing this program for Vermont record checks. The background checks? Yes. Who would be responsible for the fees that are possibly raising those fees? Not to make money, but not to subsidize the program. That's certainly a consideration for you all. I know they're $30 just, Michelle Childs helped me find this out. They haven't been changed since 2007, and I think that was effective in 2009. There's a little bit of a later effective date, so it's been fifteen years about since those fees have been adjusted. But, yes, that could be a consideration. I know they've seen from what I understand, there are fewer folks who are getting background checks more recently. And so I think it was in couple years ago. They're receiving about $3,000,000, and now it's down to about 2 and a half million. And so, yes, there is a So we do this, or who does that? The general assembly can adjust that fee.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Usually, finance would do

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: all fees. And she she doesn't.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: No. GovHub does the fee bill.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do the the fee bill,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: but any kind of tax or fee has to go to Yes. That's right.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yep. She said it has to go to judiciary. I'm just trying

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: to find that word. No. P l goes she she said it had to go to judiciary. It's a judicial thing. The judiciary well, I guess they want your view on it, but I think by rule, it's been

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: It would come, the original request would come from the administration. So, yeah, we're not making them up enough, so they would put it into, they could put it into a big fee bill, they could put it into a small legislative.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So like a few years ago when we raised the DMV, the governor didn't propose to raise the DMV fees, it was clear that the legislature that the DMV needed to be raised. People at DMV, quietly off the record, said that you should probably raise them, but the governor opposed it by signing the bill. So we did that in transportation without a fee bill. So I think it could probably happen anywhere, but if the judiciary did it, it would have to go to. I'm just looking for the starting point, though. Yeah. But we could we could do it if you wanted to

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: in here, but they would we wouldn't work with others. So Just so but he he knows if they're doing and we ask for the list of what background checks they were doing. If they're doing the background checks for people that are delivering Meals on Wheels meals and people that are volunteering their time to do medical transports and things like that, I'm not inclined to be sympathetic to- We did end paying it ourselves through Because it will come back around, and I certainly don't want anybody volunteering in their time to deliver meals Meals on Wheels as an individual paying for them.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But they're gonna provide us a list over. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: They've been need to provide us list because I'm afraid that I I'm very sympathetic to somebody that's volunteering their time to deliver meals through Meals on Wheels or driving for medical transports. That's a good idea.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yep, and this discussion goes back to what I had on the slide earlier philosophically about it being whether background checks should be something that's understanding that it doesn't break enough revenue to cover the full cost of that system and whether it's General Finder, whether it's a B. The exactly. Yeah. So to the usage of these few reports So why like, on the fish and wildlife be

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: and on your amount of use, the reports Yep. I'm missing. So is it just the Commissioner Field of Commissioner Lyle, or all the Commissioners, all agencies have a disability?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Not all, it depends. It really depends on specific areas. The Commissioner can adjust sufficient bodily fees, but I do say that their ability to adjust fees through the rule is relatively there are fewer fees that can

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: be adjusted through the rule than

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: through your all's per field. There are some. Yeah. So, yes, these reports have been submitted to the general assembly reports page. One unfortunate limitation of that page is that they have to be submitted on PDF. And since we asked for much more information, the number of columns that had to fit on

[Jill Remick, Director, Division of Property Valuation & Review (VT Tax Dept.)]: a

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: PDF, either the reports, which, like, this is this is not enough on folks submitting the reports and the frustration that, like, I also feel, is that the reports are either you see them, they're microscopic by the time you get all the columns to fit on one page or the columns spill across multiple pages, and they're just not the most user friendly. I, like, totally understand. And if we were to continue this process again next year, I would spend some time thinking about how to make it easier and more accessible for y'all. That So that would be both

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: in Excel and in PDF?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So we have the Excel versions.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah, they do send you this.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: They do send us those. And so I think for the way I've been talking to folks about it, if you have questions about a specific if you wanna see transportation submission, I'm happy to provide that to you. But since there's no way to get it out to the general assembly through the reports page

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: We're hoping yeah. We we have access to those. Feel free to reach out to me about a specific line item or a whole agency or department. We're happy to provide you with that information. Elle has all those links to the GA submissions. So if there are ones that actually work on PDF, we can provide those to you. But, yes.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Okay.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: That is the status of those, and I'm thinking about how to how to make that more accessible. And I did wanna note that although this fee report process is happening, because it is working through consultation with JFO, what that now means is the budget is including so in the governor's recommend, there's a proposal to remove farmer operating fees for large feeding operations, medium feeder feeding operations. So those are they support water quality work at the agency of agriculture, replaced by general fund. It's about $230,000, I think, of general fund. It was part of the gov rec, but that's submitted as part of the budget, and it wouldn't it doesn't show up on our BE reports we're just getting information about the fees. So that request piece that was in 06/2005 is happening separately. Mhmm. And so flagging two of the things that that I've seen thus far that are fee associated that will come across or not, but will be talked about in the building. Yes. There's also the fish and wildlife fee confirmation fee proposal, but that is something the commissioner can do through rule. So they say. So they say. And so, yes, one thing to be mindful of is whether your Department of Fish and Wildlife has has excluded those revenues in their budget request. So when they come in, could talk with the office, flagging that as a piece of the determined. So those are a few reports. Does anyone have any questions on paper reports?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And the commissioner, Patricia, wanna create a new fee by the rule?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Does this change? I mean, this would be a new fee. The way they phrase it in their presentation is that they have the ability to, but they may need to consult with you all on a specific will follow-up on what specifically it looked like for new fees, but they referenced it in their presentation. They did a presentation of ways and means a week ago, ten days ago, some version of that. There's one slide that referenced. Thoroughbeakers? Yeah, Thoroughbeakers.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Tax expenditure? Tax expenditure report, I

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: understand I have ten minutes. Primarily, I will talk broad level about the tax expenditure report. One of the things I did in these slides is the tax expenditure report goes through line by line every single tax expenditure that's on the books. It's 86 pages. So what I did is I copy I snipped we have summary tables for each of the major each tax type and the tax expenditure in that tax type, and I've pasted them throughout the presentation. So if you wanna get a want to get a high level overview of all the tax expenditures, see recent history and the actual or estimated cost in those expenditures, and then what the forecast would just be your 20. They're scattered through the latter half of this piece.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Why is it '22, '23, and then '26? Because not all of them are done every year?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It is because we are doing the tax expenditure report. So this would have been in '20 the 2024. And so the last full yeah. You're you have to go back. There's a bit of a, like, data

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Continue it every two this year.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: We do it every two years. We don't do it every year. And so looking forward, but when we submit it in January '25, it's the next year thinking forward to this year.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And does report list any other information about tax expenditures, like if they expire or anything from their credit, or is it just here's the lost revenue?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It has. So they have the summary tables, and then they also have the statutory purpose, what's included in the statute for why that ex the expenditure is on the books, And then some information if there is salient information about their history or whatever, but they're usually pretty short. They're not comprehensive. Up until 2023, each tax expenditure report came with review reports. And so these were deeper dives into, like, earned income tax credit, kind of these larger the downtown and village tax credit process, the sales tax expenditure on residential heating fuels. And so these were deeper dives. The they they expired in 2023. And so and at that point, a lot of them a lot of the major ones have been cycled through. But if you're looking for more information about kind of the larger ones, that information can be found in reviews report. But if you're interested in one, I'll try

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: to find if there was if there was a sunset on it, that would be listed or just may or may not,

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: but it sounds like there's It may or may not be. If it when I went through and kinda looked at each one, if it looked like it was gonna expire in the near future, or I could see some evidence of that, I'd like to include the information, but I can't promise that it happened for all forty some odd sales tax expenditures. Right. Yes. So this is interesting. On this slide, gonna breeze through a lot of the information, but since we're close out of time, right, the reason why the tax expenditure report comes to you all is that, fiscally speaking, tax expenditures have the same effect as direct appropriations because you're not receiving that money. It's foregone revenue. You don't have to spend it. You don't have the ability to spend it. And I do wanna note, there are certain things that are not considered tax expenditures. So one big example is the current use program. It's not included in the tax expenditure report because of the second bullet. It's outside of the normal structure of the education property tax. It's still you're still assessing property taxes on that land. You've just made a decision by creating a current use program that that land should be valued differently. So it's not an expenditure, so it's not included in the report. There are other ones that are not included outside of the taxing power of the state to be if it was preempted federally, generally speaking. So it's not everything.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Can you explain that third bullet point? Revenue for Gone is undelivered in some

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It would be we wouldn't consider maybe let's say there was a specific tax that may have some compliance issues, for example. You wouldn't consider the revenue that you lost because you weren't able to fully administer the tax. You wouldn't try and estimate that revenue that you've lost because there wasn't a formal compliance system like in the instance. Yes. Unduly burdensome to administer. So the report goes over one, two, three, areas of tax expenditures in the big so between individual income, sales and use, and property tax, there's nearly $900,000,000 in tax expenditure. Personal income tax, this slide includes, at a very high level, the full list from the report. The big ones are your standard deduction and personal exemption, EITC, child tax credit, and capital gains exclusion. Those are all the ones that are above $10,000,000. Sales tax expenditure, the larger ones are energy purchases for residencies. So that's $55,000,000 of store ground revenue. Sales of food is the big one, then the sales tax that is expenditure estimated for fiscal year twenty six. Including footwear, it's like there's just not

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: a piece of what? Right?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: This is so the exemption mentions food purchased for cost on consumption. And so I said clothing and footwear. Oh, clothing and footwear. I'm sorry. Yeah. So that's another one right now. All clothing and all. No. It's on yes. In the same way. Sorry. I misheard. The like, Depending on the type of belt is either in or out. We have in our one on ones some slides about the vagaries of what constitutes clothing versus not. Yeah, tax administrators really get excited about Right,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: and there's some of that around food too. They can't be for example. We should be charging for that, we don't. Can we get some dignity? And it's maybe that maybe I introduced it to Jonas. I introduced that as to Sugary.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. I do know, right, the in a grocery store, if the piece of food is sold with, like, plastic silverware, that makes the difference of whether it's a gum versus a because with plastic silverware, it could be on-site consumption. But yes, it it'll be in a hurry. And so that's the sales tax or the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: when does it become a mean? Yeah.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So the Right. So then, yeah, you don't wanna tax things that are for on-site consumption because then you'd be double taxing. You'd have things that should be applied to the business.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'm just gonna get taxed. Just get a means taxed. 11% tax instead of six.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: Let me go back to the previous, so the red box there, the energy purchases for residences, this is fuel, we're basically not collecting sale tax on fuels for residences, is that accurate? Yes.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: For residences, and that includes electricity. There's no thermal Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: And so it doesn't it's it would otherwise be on fuel oil, propane, electricity. I may just go across the hall and talk about that really, so I just want make sure that I was referencing the correct number.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah, and I will, you will see on your chart report receipt that charging a car at the charging station has the 6% sales tax as So, a line item in it does apply in a more commercial setting. Again, provided a summary list of sales tax expenditures. There are quite a few of them. The most recent is the sales tax expenditure or is the sales tax exemption for industrial performance. A couple of minutes. So property tax expenditures, hundred and fifth we estimated, and so these these estimates were done by the Department of Taxes. It's a joint I should mention that the tax expenditure report is really a joint effort between the JFO and the Department of Taxes. So the estimate for fiscal year twenty six, the property tax expenditures was a 115 and a half million dollars. Is this the buy down? This would not be the buy down. So this is the total list of all of these expenditures that are in statute. Largest one is public highest share amount

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: of property.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah,

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: so I've listed them out. You can review at your own time. And then the rest of the presentation is

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can you go back

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: on the presentation? What is 5011? Actually, doesn't narrow it down. What is PBC pious?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So that is the PBC stands for public pious and charitable property, and it's just of that overall exemption. So for 5011, the first line, probably highest insurable property, that's the total?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: That's the name of the category.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Oh, the category, and then the variable and the breakdown. I have just never heard it called highest. Yeah. It's an old yeah. Since it feels like an older term. Yeah. For Yep. Like,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: idea of, like, going to churches. Okay. Yes. And it's a growing thing.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Why is, like, Vermont State College is not just part of the pilot program? Why are they in this?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So They are exempted. So colleges, the property is exempted. And because they're exempted, that's why we make the payment. Right. So I

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: guess if you list all those state lands, the tax exemption reports that are that are exempt from banking tax?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. These would be all the yep. All kind of college property. Like, what about all the ANR? So the ANR

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Like, they don't pay property.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: They don't. Well, that would be under public, but I don't see that as a separate line. I can figure out where

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: part of the public privacy and charitable. That that 72,000,000 includes all the state lane?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Let me I don't wanna say anything that I'm unsure about. So I'm gonna

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Make sure. Yeah. Property property tax is not my And then

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: we with the fraternity, it's already that was pretty recent. Think that we

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Mhmm. Revealed it?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Now there are some fraternities at the institution where the proton works for us. Decided that it didn't need a.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: What a sky should be coming to.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So that's why that S 5019, the ski lift, since they're making equipment We have just exempted that to support the skier industry. We're not going to we're not going to charge property tax on that.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: And part of that matches so we're depending on the lease. That makes a difference in whether the state owns that equipment, so, like, lift equipment. And so that would also be an equity issue. Right? So for the folks who they're they own their equipment, you would exempt it, and then there would be equity across the ski industry.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Senator Larvis, there's a treatment of 10,000 preventions down there. Not the number of towns, but the dollar amount. $650,000. Pretty

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: small.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Yes.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: And then the rest, I snipped in the rest the other sections of tax expenditures. The big one you'll see, and this is Pat, colleague at JFO, has been looking into this research and development tax credit because of the changes in HR one. This has some impact on the state, but I'm not gonna say anything further because that's as far as I know. Muse and rooms tax has expenditures.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So there's no federal research in the bill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Vacuum or, like, it's related to the federal tax credit?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It's related, but I don't know how similar it is.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Maybe that's what HR1 changed that, so

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: We're tied to it in some capacity, so it had the revenue impact with us.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans Home]: Yes.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Are meals and rooms exemptions, right, meals served in hospitals or homeless or nursing homes, meals served at summer camps. Why would this well,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the suppressed data fewer than we're going to figure out who approved their facades of their building and find out that they had attacks. Wouldn't we want to know why are we suppressing that Yeah.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So some of these are the data aren't available. So whether or not you know, there's there's a there's a a line for data unavailable. Yeah. A lot of these are very hard for us to get, for example,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: at the What's the suppressed data, you were to attend classes? Oh. Just seems like if they're getting a public tax, right?

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Sorry. This is on the next slide. The it is a department of department of taxes. Any tax information that's provided for fewer than 10 claimants is suppressed, And this is kind of across the department

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Of I know they do that for payment, what the past pay so this seems like a grant to the business, and when we give grants, it's all public information. Like I ran a grant program for the state, and I couldn't say, oh, we gave less than 10 entities grants, we're not going tell you who it is. But that's just my personal I know you have to sign for it. Okay.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So I think that's all I have for you. The rest of these slides were informational in terms of just having the information in roughly the same place. Yes, I did. I know Chris, when he was looking at these slides, channeled the specifying the diesel fuel exemption. This is our dye diesel, so if you're putting diesel in a tractor for offer of use, shows up here. Yeah. So you're more than welcome to spend time looking at these tax expenditures if you have some free time, and you're more than welcome to reach out to me if you have questions about any of the line items, and I will learn about them. Or Pat is the other person at JFO. I've spent a lot of time with your partners. And Logan helped us out with the transportation pieces. So Thank you. In their powers of mind.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Student housing must have been sorority or fraternity. That

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: would be yes. The team is Fraterities and fraternities are exempt. Yes.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But student housing is exempt, But then right. Looks like or before we saw that, it was repealed. So it's it's not all student housing, but I guess they're more than housing. It just it's not estimated, I guess, because it's all university.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I went down for some of these a bit of a rabbit hole. The data are just really hard to get to. I think I will spend some time this summer when we go through it again, is really being clear when things are not estimated through data challenges because I noticed it specifies that in a few places that the data are available, but there might be that data some data are available, but it's hard to get a specific number at it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So We'd look at the full report. Like, if I wanted to know what the student housing extension was Mhmm. It gives me a citation in the full report.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Correct. So you would in there. Yes. For the report tutorial piece, this is a good question. So these item numbers are really gonna be for each specific one. So if you're in the presentation and you say, yes. For student housing, I'm interested in this specific line item. If you search control f for item number four dot one zero one, there is a piece in the report that will give you the statutory citation when it went on the books, statutory purpose, you know, a little kind of two or three sentence summary of the exemption and any kind of places where they're you know, you're asking questions about sororities and fraternities versus student housing that might be discussed.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: That was an unabashed.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: They get Oh, that's a whole, that's fine. Insurance premium tax expenses. I do not, that is one. That is not my area of expertise.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I don't know either. I don't even know that they they're getting a Yeah. No. Tax. You pay a tax on your insurance premium? Yes. Could we do? Do I pay

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: a tax on my insurance premium? Very. I you know, I do not know much about insurance premium tax. Yes. Of course.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: So

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I was I would look into that before, yeah, before getting too far in the weeds. I

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: we're already there.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Before getting too far in front of my seats, so to speak. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Well, yeah. But this is we can look at the whole 80 some paid report.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yes. And if you have any questions, you can Which is yours?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Nice. Oh. We print it

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I print it out.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Alright. Very nice. Forgot I had everything up.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Good. Bedtime reading. It is

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: it is very it is an effort to get the information out there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: It's good.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It's what I will say.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yotes. Now when you're looking for revenue, it's good to look at this and, like, why are we getting your million dollar bank's expenditure? But then when you try to change it, you find out there's 50 people that are going Okay. Any other questions for Ted? Any requests for future Ted Talks?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: I like the Ted Talk format.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. You need a

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. We I've talked about we don't have the budget in the JFO for the fancy ones, so, like, making money out of cardboard. I don't think Patrick would go for, like, a $200

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: microphone or whatever. So yes.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Member)]: You can make a a giant red spot carpet.

[Ted (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. I did I did joke about, like Together. Yeah. Standing

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: up