Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: We are live.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We're not making a lot of amendments. That is appropriate. February 18. Never mind. You might be too busy. We're going through we're live. So we're going through FY twenty seven budget address report. Gonna take a little break to talk to Eric Miller from the NCS. And I'll try often so don't look at us at NSCF. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Don't know why I wanna put the s first. Well, I'll let you introduce yourself to the record and talk about NCSL.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Sure. So I'm Erica McKellar. I'm with the fiscal affairs program at the National Conference of State Legislatures, and I also have the privilege of being NCSL's liaison to the Vermont legislature. I think you all are familiar with NCSL, but just for the record, we are a bipartisan group that's dedicated to strengthening the legislative institution through providing research, hosting meetings where you all can come and exchange ideas, trainings, some advocacy work in DC, different things like that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: How would you differentiate it? Or is there a difference between the other association with governing CSG? CSG, yeah.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: CSG? Yeah.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: So one of the big

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: differences, CSG does more regional work, and then also the biggest difference is that legislative staff are also members of NCSL. We're the only organization that includes legislative staff as members.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So that's an outline for our district fiscal office to participate. We talked to other budget staff and

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: services around the country.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Yeah. I'm also the liaison to the National Association of Legislative Fiscal Offices, which is our professional staff association for legislative fiscal staff.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Because my up and down Nancy is telling me, I do. It was not just because you're here today.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: I like it. Good promotion. Yeah. Okay. And I think you asked me to go through some of our most recent budget work. Is that

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So I'll let people know that I did go to a conference that they had for the budget subcommittees and subcommittee or just committee?

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: The larger group is called the budget working group, and then there are three subcommittees that work on and the the overall goal is long term sustainable budgeting, tackling issues around that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So there was bipartisan chairs of appropriations committee around the country, some staff, maybe a few vice chairs. I think I was vice chair at the time. I found it very helpful if you're ever interested in learning about budgets and how other states operate. So yeah, lot of resources that are out there.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Okay. I did send out just a quick list of some of our upcoming and most recent things that I think might be helpful for the committee. So I thought I'd just go through those quickly. Mention a few other areas that we cover and take any questions that you might have.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. Your hand, your two page handout is up on our website under Erica's name. Okay.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: One of the first resources that I think will be helpful over the next couple of years is we created a state actions to close budget shortfalls database that's available on our website. You know, we know that revenue is tightening and budgets are tightening for states. So as states look to cut budgets, raise revenue, use rainy day funds, we're gonna be tracking those sort of proposals and enacted measures in the states. It's something that we did during the Great Recession, we did during COVID, and we think it's a useful tool. You can search via state, via type of revenue increase cut. You can search by program area. So I think it'll be hopefully a beneficial tool for you all as you continue your work. The second coming, hopefully this week, is a state budget update report where we surveyed legislative fiscal offices about how revenues were performing relative to the latest forecasts. And so that should be coming soon, hopefully this week. The main takeaway from that is that most states are on target to meet their revenue estimates for now, but I think there are definitely, like, concerns about these spending pressure pressures that'll still make maybe some tough choices for you all. We also surveyed them around fiscal notes and what's included in fiscal notes and the process for those, and that will be coming hopefully within the next two or three weeks here. And then you mentioned the budget working group, which is a group of legislators and legislative staff that focus on long term sustainable budgeting. And they have subcommittees, and based on discussions that those subcommittees have, we produce reports. And so far, there are three reports available. One on data management, one on exploring maintenance for state owned facilities and deferred maintenance, and one on a one time versus recurring revenues and expenditures in the budgeting process.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'm just describing those two, one time in return, one time in space we call them here.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Yeah. It's not not not every state distinguishes between them and their budgeting process. So it's sort of about the importance of that and different definitions and kind of the different ways that states approach that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So your question about the shortfall database. Yeah. Absolutely. Are you finding all states, most states are are facing shortfalls?

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: So no. I think that revenues this fiscal year are fairly steady, but I think that a lot of

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: states are looking to tighten budgets kind

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: of as a precautionary measure and looking ahead, especially some of the federal changes and things that are coming down. I think the federal changes, we'll see how that ends up impacting. There are a handful of states that I think are facing some fairly significant shortfalls. But by and large, right now, things seem pretty stable, but I think, you know, we'll see Okay. How that progresses.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Sounds similar to our situation.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Other thing that we are watching really closely are, you know, those federal changes that are coming down to you all. There is a webinar on February 27 if you're interested on how states are approaching the state health what are they called? Am I blanking on the name? The health funds that the administration put into going through CMS, the State Rural Health Transformational Fund. Oh, RHD. Yes. Sorry, was blanking on the name. So we'll be talking a little about that, Some of the more immediate changes to Medicaid and how states are responding to that. SNAP, particularly the shifting administrative costs, and then a little bit about some FEMA changes and how states are kind of approaching those issues. So that's on February 27 and it'll be recorded too. Then our Children and Families Program and some of our DC folks have put together some helpful resources around some of the changes to SNAP that I've linked to. Our Medicaid team has put together a couple of different reports that I think are useful, and they also did a webinar series that's available, recorded, that I think might be helpful. Because those I think are the two biggest pieces of the federal changes that we're hearing from states on right now, but interested to hear if there are other areas that you all are kind of interested in or working on. And then the last thing I linked to is just sort of a couple of different ways to get involved. If any of you are having trouble with your NCSO login or anything, let me know. But if you go to our website, you can log in and if you go to the news tab, I linked to, you can sign up for various newsletters and different policy areas. We in fiscal put out a budget tax newsletter that goes out every Friday. And then we have MCSL Today, which is a more broader policy area. We also have NCSL's Budgets and Revenue Committee, which Senator Perchlik, I believe you are a part of. And that's a large committee that meets and decides any directives that NCSL advocates for on the health. So then additionally, we also cover budget process issues, which are a little more perennial. So we have information on late state budgets, fiscal note report that I mentioned, just kind of the appropriation structure in states, things like that. We also do tax policy. So there's been a lot recently done on the tax conformity piece that we've seen. Then property taxes have been another big issue that we've been watching closely. Economic developments. We also have a lot of resources on economic development, tax credits, and things like that. So just a few other issue areas that I I didn't wanna, like, overwhelm this document with things, but there are other categories

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: that I'm interested in. It's just finding the time to make use of them. Yeah. Same window. Some of the conference calls Yeah. During the day or in here. I looked at some of them, I think that what other states are doing about budget cuts or new revenue. It would be interesting to look at as we face the same questions here. Any other questions for Erica about in CSL or what their resources that they have? There's a lot there. And there's there's you're here because you're budget, but there's transportation work with and there's every sector of state government.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Yeah. Absolutely. So I know, I think several NCSL staff have been testifying for various committees and things, so that's another service that we're always happy to provide.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right, know in transportation, I've talked to the transportation guy or team for several times. Who is that? I can't remember his name.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Doug Schenkel, I Yeah. He's been around a long time. He From has a lot of NCSL. Oh. He's our lead on my transportation.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do you have a chair of that committee?

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Do have, like, similar to the budgets and revenue committee, we do have a transportation committee. I don't know who the chair is. But if that's something that you're interested in getting involved in, I'd be happy to send you information.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. I thought she has been very helpful when we were dealing with issues a couple of years ago. She's very responsive. I just called them the COVID back back that day. Tell me this is what other states are doing.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah. We had a

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: really good meeting this fall with the NGA and NCSL on recovery programs. Okay. Substance use was very it's very helpful. I work with myself. Yeah.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Yes. Well, thank you all very much for being involved and for your support in CSL. We appreciate it. Yeah. If there's anything that you need, please don't hesitate to reach

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

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: I know you have other words to get back to you, but do you have glasses, wipes, and pens if anybody wants? Glasses, wipes. Okay. A

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: little bit different time to this year.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: I think

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, my phone's a mess. This I'm doing some other trips. Let me let me know if you're going. Yeah. I'll get baseball tickets. For NCSL? My

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: next yeah. He my next

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: neighbor owns the concession at Field. Nice. He's always He

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: wants all the con he wants the concession at Wrigley Field. It's like, you know, he keeps saying, let's go to a ballgame, and it's like, no. I don't do it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's cleaned up pretty good. That's been Okay. To work. So now we're gonna hear the budget proposal from the Vermont Communication Broadband Board. We have JB and Christina here. And Christine is online, I think. So is Christine running the No, thought

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Christina will be taking the lead. Her Heron will be running I assume Heron will be running the slides. But I'm I'm here to answer any additional questions you might have.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. I didn't see you there for a second. Well, welcome. And I'll let you introduce yourselves and introduce your presentation.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Thank you. Thanks for having us today. I'm Christina Sweet.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I'm the director of regulatory compliance at the Vermont Community Broadband Board.

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I'm JP Ladue. I'm the financial manager at BCDB.

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: And I'm Christine Hochlik, the executive director for the Vermont Community Broadband Board.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Thank you. All right, we'll get started. Heron, next slide please.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: This slide just gives you a summary of our progress toward getting every Vermonter connected to broadband access since we began this journey in 2021 with the establishment of the Vermont Community Broadband Board through Act 71. JB,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: would you mind hitting that?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: At that point, 21% of locations or addresses across the state were defined as unserved or underserved. So they did not have reliable broadband access. And today in 2026, less than 1% of those locations either have access or there is a plan to provide them with access. So there's really a funding source for that location to receive access within the next few years. Yes.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: It sounded like maybe you unintentionally reversed it. So you said there was there's 1% left without broadband or who are underserved.

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

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: So there's yeah, there's 1% left without a funding commitment. So it's sort of some of those, some of the locations that we set out to reach in 2021 have been reached. Some of those locations have a funding commitment. There's 1% left that don't have a clear funding commitment.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is that the reds on the map?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yes. Those are the And actually, I will let Christine tell

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: me if she has clarified anything I'll provide some clarity. In 2021, about 30% of the locations in Vermont had access to fiber optic internet. Today, as of July 1, 72%. So we've gone from 30 to 72% fiber, and today we have less than 5% that are underserved. So if you look at 21%, we're down to less than 5% underserved and the majority of those have funding commitments and will get served within the next few years.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Does that answer your question? It does. I was just those two don't use the same metrics.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I agree, yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The color, the legends are different. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: But that was clear. Thank you, Christine.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Next slide, please.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: So over the past year, we have continued our progress towards providing Vermonters with universal reliable broadband access, and we also responded to some major federal funding shifts. Prior to last year, we had completed a digital equity planning grant that was provided by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration or NTIA. That was about a $518,000 grant that allowed us to develop a Vermont digital equity plan. The next tranche of funding that we expected was a digital equity capacity grant to actually implement that digital equity grant. We received that $5,300,000 award just around December, January of, I think it was January 2025. And that grant was later canceled in May. So we did lose that funding. We were able to request the small amount of funding we had spent, a little over $200,000 That pending drawdown is, well, as I said, it's still pending actually. JB diligently follows up on that every few weeks to see where that is, but that grant was canceled as were all of the digital equity grants nationwide. We also responded to some new policy requirements for our larger grant program, the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment or Bead program, and that is our program for broadband deployment. As we were wrapping up our sub recipient selection process for grants under that program, we received a restructuring policy notice from the NTIA that required us to basically run that sub recipient selection process again with what the NTAA specified was neutrality on technology. So rather than saying that we in Vermont had a preference for fiber optic broadband, we needed to run a process that said that any broadband provider that meets the definition of broadband in the infrastructure investment and jobs act would be eligible. So we reran that process and now we are finally able to, or we will be very soon able to execute those subgrantee agreements.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: What is the definition?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: The definition is a 120 or a 100 over 20. Is that right, Christine? A 100 downloads and 20 meg upload or

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yes. That is correct.

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

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: lastly, we launched what we're calling the affordable long drop program with some of our remaining ARPA capital projects fund dollars, and that is helping to improve access to broadband for lower income Vermonters who would otherwise not be able to afford what providers would call a nonstandard or a long drop. So someone with, for example, a really long driveway where there would be an extra charge to cover that distance. Next slide. So these are some further details. I won't go through all of these. Again, it has the definition of broadband meeting that federal standard of 100 over 20 megabytes per second. The vast majority of addresses that we are awarding under the Bead program will be served by fiber optic, with our remaining locations served by hybrid fiber cable and a smaller percentage of locations served by low urban work or LEO satellites.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Can I ask what company is it that operates those?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: The LEO satellites are operated by Starlink or SpaceX, and we did initially have applications from Amazon Kuiper. I believe they've since changed their name for Amazon Kuiper to something else. They are not yet in operation and they ended up withdrawing their applications and they have withdrawn from several other states as well.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: So Sterling

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: was the sole option? Yes, for those LEO locations.

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

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yes. Any other questions before we move on from this slide?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And then when you talk about the plans in place for 99% for Mount addresses, how far out? Is that like a ten year plan or a five year plan, three year plan?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah. Our hope is that the these locations will all be completed by the end of our bead award, and that is currently ends in 2032. So I would say the next what would you say, Christine? Four

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: years, right? We have a four year construction build out. So by 2030, the data is, you know, 83% of the addresses will have fiber with another 16% hybrid fiber cable. And then actually 0.3% will be satellite.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And then would we go to your site or would we go to our local community access board to find out the maps and the dates? Like if we have a constituent that says I keep being told it's going to come and then it comes. Is there a map? There are maps. I've seen them in the past. I can't remember where they are.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: We have an ArcGIS hub that you can access from our website. Then you can also contact the local communications union district, and they will have details on what funding source and timeline that particular location is on.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They have maps? Yes. The CUDs do it?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Okay, thanks. Okay, next slide.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: We already discussed a little bit about our digital equity, which we're also calling our digital empowerment work. But we are continuing that work through the affordable Long Dot program into a program that we're currently piloting on a very small scale, which is a device donation and refurbishment program to reach formerly incarcerated Vermonters with devices that they can use to access the Internet.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Next slide. Okay. Yeah.

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

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Curious of where the donations come from.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah. At this Is it mostly just individuals or is it like schools that are recycling out?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Or Yeah. Right now, it's just we're piloting this with we're starting the pilot with, like, 20 devices that are donated from the United Way.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Okay. Good

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: job. Yeah. But we're really we're looking at all kinds of angles for future donations. Just thinking about when there's a a new, you know,

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: purchase and old generations are are, you know, headed out the door for various institutions that might be

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: in Yeah. I hope that we're able to maybe work with the agency enough that we focus well on that recycling aspect of that program. So to just touch a little bit more on the bead program, overall nationwide this is a $42,500,000,000 program. And we finally received our approval of what we're calling the final proposal, what they call the final proposal to deploy 93,000,000 in infrastructure funds to build out Vermont's broadband. So this was in response to the program restructuring that happened in June 2025. And that final proposal approval was really critical for us because it really does unlock this 93,000,000 that we can now begin awarding to sub recipients across the state.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do I remember Ms. Hall of Quest at one time saying that it was gonna be more like 200,000,000?

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: So then we thought it was gonna be more, right?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: So our overall grant, and it is in our current notice of award is 228,900,000. That is our overall allocation under the BEAT, that $42,500,000,000 BEAT program. We thought we were going to be spending a lot more of that money on deployment. We already have spent up to well, we're in the middle of spending $5,000,000 within that grant of what the NTA calls planning funds, we use to build up our team. And now, because we're only spending $93,000,000 on deployment, we thought we would spend a lot more, there will be additional funds that we will use for what are called non deployment funds. However, we haven't unlocked those yet, and we are going to receive more information from NTAA on how we can provide a proposal to use those funds. We have a lot of really great ideas that Christine has been working on, and the NTA recently held listening sessions for all of the states and also the public to gather input on how those funds may be spent.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: But it is it was unusual

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: in that we thought we were going to be spending very little, if any, on non deployment, and now we will likely have a significant amount of money that we'll be able to use on non deployment. Is there anything else you want

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: say on non deployment?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: What would be an example of non deployment for if you're going to spend another $100,000,000?

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah, I'll be glad to take that. What we're proposing in non deployment really falls into three areas. One is workforce development. You know, we've got a very successful pre apprenticeship program where we've been able to provide technicians to the to build this network. So, that has a 70% placement program. We'd expand that program to include training for Vermonters to move into the digital skills fields such as smart farms, AI, and other things. So, workforce development is one. Building resilience and redundancy and security into our infrastructure is another, building rings around the state so that when the storms occur, we don't lose the networks. And then the third part is economic development activities such as smart farms. So, for example, farms, you know, using topical application of nutrients, you can reduce the application by greater than 30%, which of course helps reduce our phosphorus runoff and and other economic development applications.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Okay. Thank you. Next slide.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's on your line.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Yeah. So one of

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: the questions I was gonna ask a little bit later, but maybe it's

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: now given the the money that you're talking about. Once all of this is in place, then who's responsible for the upkeep?

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: The providers are are responsible for the upkeep.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: So each each Yep.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So not the not the people at the end of the line until I

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: get No. To the

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: The providers it's built into their business plans and the operations and maintenance costs.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Okay. Thank you. Okay. So in the interest of time,

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I think we'll move on from the affordable long term programs. We did

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: cover that a little bit. And this just is a summary

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: of annual report. We have details of all of our preconstructions and construction grants that have been awarded, contracts that were executed or paid out during 2025, updates on our communications union districts, and our operating and financial statements. Next slide.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: This is a summary of our pre construction grant. We have awarded $38,600,000

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Most many of these grants, all of them will be wrapped up this year, but many of these grants are wrapping up now. And these were grants that were provided to communications union districts to help them operationally to establish themselves and to get ready for undertaking broadband construction projects. These were funded with ARPA state and local fiscal recovery funds. Next slide.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: And these are a summary of our construction grants, were really for broadband construction across the state. We have awarded 196,200,000.0

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: in broadband construction grants, both from ARPA State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds and ARPA Capital Project Funds. And these will also be wrapping up this year.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Next slide.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: These are a summary of our current contracts or contracts that we had in 2025. Next slide. And just an update on where our current CDs are. Think, I'm not sure there's a label on the big pink CD in the right hand or the

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

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yes. That has more details. Great. Perfect. Great. So these, we have nine current CUD's that's reflecting the merger of Central Vermont and NEK Broadband. And as of now, is essentially complete in our Southern Vermont CD, Otter Creek, Lamoille, Chittenden County and EC Fiber. And we have ongoing construction in Northwest, d b fiber, maple broadband, and NAKCD.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And in the in the towns that are not colored there, they're just up there being served by providers directly?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yes, the non CBD towns, we do have one grant to Wakesfield and Champlain Valley Telecomm to be CBT for non CBD towns, but those are in some cases being served by providers directly and in some cases will be served under the B program.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Okay. Next slide.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Alright, and I'm gonna pass it off to my colleague JB LeDoux to talk about our budget.

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

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: fiscal year twenty seven sorry. Fiscal year twenty seven budget is asking for special funds and and the usage of federal funds. There's no general funds being asked for. The budget pretty much is in line with the fiscal twenty six budget with a couple of changes. Can you remind us

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: where the special funds are coming from?

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah. That comes from the USF, the universal service fund. We are allotted a percentage of that. And so in the very first slide, you will notice that it seems like it's just we basically moved a lot of funds from the special funds to the federal funds. That was last spring we looked at how we were expensing personnel and other things and we kind of write it up to make sure that we were charging the federal grants everything that we could be. So there's a lot of just taking from one pod and putting it to another on this slide. And all of the increases are due to just personnel increases that you would expect year to year, benefits, things of that sort. Could you go to the next slide, Karen, for me?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And JV, what was your overall change? Do you know if you have a representative, like, you stay within the governor's Yes.

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Well I think it was a vote. Yeah I think it stayed within the governor. That'll be on the next slide after Basically the only thing that increased any major amount was the indirect costs which we hadn't been expensing to the federal grants. And other contracts and third party services which we increased by $500,000 federally and $60,000 special to account for the contractors that were going to be helping us with the bead now that we have

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: the bead funds. So the next slide has the totals.

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: We were about $719,000 over the governor recommended or the target, sorry. Not much under on the special funds because of the reclass that we did last fiscal year.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Is there any questions on that portion? I'm just not clear on the difference between governor recommended and governor recommended target.

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Well, the governor recommended target is the same budget as the previous fiscal year Mhmm. In in this case. Mhmm. So they they wanna just they give you that target even though no one ever needs that target,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I don't believe.

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: At least the way we have our our setup because there's just increases, and like I said, in personnel costs such as benefits and things like that. It so I'm actually not a 100% sure why they don't why the chunk isn't the number, let's say, percent higher, and then we try to use that. I I could not answer that question. Okay. Actually, so it's basically a net reserve. Current budget that we are using in FY twenty six is the 45,500,000.0. We tried to hit that target. We ended up 719,000. Which we were also helped because we had some we had some savings for the physician. Lost a physician or

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: decided not to refill a position. So we had

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: some savings there and everything is in line with what was going to do. There's no major surprises or masks. The following, I think maybe 15 slides are

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: the minutiae of

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: the budgetary reports, which we can look at if you are so inclined.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is there anything that we should if we're wanting to go through it more carefully that we would

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I mean, don't think there would be any major questions. All of the ups and downs as it lays are on those original three slides I showed. So everything else either stays the same as the previous year, or is lumped in one of the categories that you can see the up up or down. And the upper ups and downs are a little bit different this year than they should be in the years going forward because of the amount of expenses that

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: we moved between the special funds into the federal funds. Yeah,

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: the 43,000,000 that we're asking for grants just is kind of reflects the amount that we would like it. Spending is already over to see what happens with the beef, especially with the beef funding.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: In the vacancy turnover savings, that's the same for both federal and because you're gonna match it?

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Nope. That is because that employee's position was split 50% between USF and federal funds.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is that you're just not filling it or did you give did you, like, not give up that position?

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: I'll let

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Christine maybe take that.

[Christine Hallquist (Executive Director, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah. We gave up that position. You know, it turned out that the split that position was displaced by other folks and staff through some efficiencies. But I will remind you that all of these, you know, we have been Act 71 allows us to use 1,500,000.0 for administrative funding out of the general fund, But we've been very careful to avoid that. So everything you're seeing here is not does not come out of the general fund.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. No, we appreciate it. Okay. I don't have any any questions. Anybody else have any questions?

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: Amazing work.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Looking forward to getting broadband on my road.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: Yes. Absolutely. Didn't know your

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: shit. No. Sorry.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Which town? Marshfield.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: Mhmm. Mhmm.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. What's the ETA on Marshfield? I don't know. I I have talked to the when when it was CB fiber.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. It's in the next couple of years.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: We are done in Lamoille.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I know. Lamoille's done. Why is that?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: We're number one. She called us the center of We're number one.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Well, thanks for your work. Thanks. Thank you.

[J.B. LeDoux (Financial Manager, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Absolutely. Thank you.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Now we're gonna move to Vermont Fairs.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: I know how Internet it moves.

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

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: When When I talk about the last mile, I'm like, the last 10 mile. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We have, like, cable on one side, and they did run some fiber on the inside door. I'll pass it down. There's just not enough houses to go to the Yeah.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: Ours goes, it goes out of Marshfield at 02:15. And it misses all the houses on the two. We have a transition line right behind us, but we can't tell anyone. Well, thank you very much.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you. We always appreciate it for you. That's fair. Yes.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: And my name is Jack Colson. I'm actually not the president. They don't elect me anything, but I am the lobbyist and the secretary for the law affairs and field aid association. I have a couple of fairs here today that are just gonna talk very quickly about what we do. I did wanna let you

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: know we are one of the

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: probably the few groups that are coming in today not asking for any money. So yes. Yeah. No. Do receive $300,000 through the capital grant. So we've visited the institutions committees and through the house through the house through the agency of felt sure they received a $110,000 in stipends, which most of the fairs use for premiums for which non insurance premiums. We've had that question for the ribbons and prize money for exhibitors that come in.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: And I do have

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: to say, there's a huge typo on this little thing that I didn't realize until I got it back. And I'm just what I'm saying is I wanna make sure you all read it and find it. So that's my reason for doing it. And one of the other really important things is people talk about the money and the funding. When you consider that we're getting $410,000 as an investment from the legislature, these fairs put $9,000,000 back into the economy of the state of Vermont over the entire year. So that's including the fairs and the extra activities that they do. But considering the the investment that we're very happy to get and then the promotion that the fairs do and the money that goes back in the community, it's a pretty good bang for the buck. So I'm going to invite a couple people up here, and I know our time is short. So I will stand to give them a hook to make sure that we don't go over for you. And they're used to be giving them a hook. Scott, would you like to start out?

[Scott Sheehan (Bondville Fair representative)]: Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Scott Sheehan, representative to the Bonville Fair, the part of the state you don't really know about. So, yeah, it really is most important, the capital grant program and the stipend program. It is huge, huge, you'll hear that from my peers as well. Without that, the money allows us to do is it allows us to get a lot of our capital improvement stuff off the ground and get it fixed. We had a five year plan. The first year, we did nothing but electrical upgrades and repowering and we spent $80,000 just in that. To consider that some of that is paid for through that capital program, it's just so huge. We're just like most of them, we're nonprofit, we're all volunteers. Without the continued support of the state, I do believe that it would be a tradition that would have we have to shut down. We there's no way we could continue. Our first fair, which nobody likes to hear, was in 1797. This year is gonna be our two hundred and twenty eighth year of having a fair. Each year, it does get tougher, but through your support, it's manageable. And I think that's really the key thing to all this. What we do with the money and what Jackie mentioned about the premiums. In order to get participants, you actually got to be able to give some decent prizes. You give decent prizes and payouts, then you get more participants in which draws in more people, just cause and effect. We do do a few things at our fairgrounds. We put on four concerts per throughout the summer, they're free to the community. We do have vendor spaces that we do charge. That's kind of how we offset things. We let the schools do their dance recitals for free. I mean, you have to give something back. We have approved fair is now debunked, they're no longer going to do their little thing, So they have reached out to us to possibly use our grounds to continue on with that. And I guess this year, we last year, we had a wrestling event. Then this year, we're having a country jamboree. And those are all things that, you know, you gotta keep care of your fairgrounds. You might as well try to use it as much as you can to show. And what what I my personal experience has been with being able to use the capital grant money to fix our infrastructure and keep everything looking nice, public support has gone up. They see it and they go, wow, look what they've done here. This place is fantastic. We operate on nine acres, three of its park. It's a three day event last year last on a Friday night, we were able and I don't know if you're any of you are familiar with the samples band, but they were a local band that was started in Manchester, went national global, and we were able to get them to come to a Friday and do a show for us Friday night. Things like that wouldn't be possible if we had to use all of our money just to do our capital improvements. So once again, on behalf of Bonneville Fair, thank you so much for your continuous support of the programs that help us. True. Thank you. Great. Any questions?

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: It's not a really bad spelling error.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Better spelling. Yeah. That's but is that the budget, the 9,000,000?

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: All the fairs for that's what they spend all year.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Wow. That's their total budget combined.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: So that includes extra events and storage and, you know, that sort of thing. So it's money that's going back out mostly into the community.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. True. Our fair,

[Scott Sheehan (Bondville Fair representative)]: our little fair there in Bonneville, we have one bank and one separate ATM machine and they have one in the market. We had to put two ATM machines on our fairgrounds because we wiped them out in three days. They have nothing. It's Yeah. Money's gone. So, yeah, we Money was

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: not gone. Was in the community. Yeah. It's in the pool.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's right. You got

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: it going too much.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: Know. Thank you. Lamoille State Fair.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: Good. Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lana Kintorski, and thank you for having us and listening to us. We wanna say thank you. I wanna say thank you on the outset for the stipend money that were given and the capital grant money.

[Lana Kintorski (Lamoille County Players/Lamoille State Fair representative)]: The stipend money we do use for premiums in this past year, we spent almost $22,000 in premiums alone. So the stipend does help to decree that. For capital improvements, we have an old infrastructure, a 180 years old plus. And we've had to do a lot of repairs electrically, sewer lines, water lines. We've repaired one barn. We still have two more to go. We've gotta put footings underneath these barns as well as reconstruct. Well, we're try to reconstruct them. So that's a couple of the things that we've done. Our biggest challenge right now going forward is going be the three acre rule. Can't get away from it. We do have a grant that allows us to get an engineering feasibility study done, which can be done probably, I think, for about four or five months because the engineer is backed up. But the only way that we're going to get people to understand what our situation is is through that feasibility study. We have rail tracks on one side. We have seven on the other side. We got the

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: city on either side of us.

[Lana Kintorski (Lamoille County Players/Lamoille State Fair representative)]: We have a river going through. We have a maze of it it it's just it truly is a maze underneath the grounds of wires and water lines and old water lines and old sewer lines. So the engineer will try to construct something as to what we can come up with. But that's our biggest barrier right now. We do do a lot of camping. We have events throughout the year. Is the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: camping right there on the side?

[Lana Kintorski (Lamoille County Players/Lamoille State Fair representative)]: We do. We have a yes. And we've had more camping sites put in. So for example, we have a vintage rack that comes and sees us twice a year. They start bringing their trailers in, and they camp overnight for, you know, three or four days. That's an income for us. Of course, people come and camp. We've had people just come for the sake of camping, which is is not a bad thing because they take a tour of the city or whatever. We did did dump about $325,000 back into our community through events like this as well as we have do a personal donation to our local stuff of us in the Christmas month. We felt that that's very important. And our other challenge this past year was, of course, the heat and humidity. We can't control that. But it did affect us the first two days of the fair. And I guess I'll just say again thank you for what you do for us, and we really do appreciate it because it does help us get to where we need to be.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Maybe a question? No. Thank you. You're

[Lana Kintorski (Lamoille County Players/Lamoille State Fair representative)]: welcome. Chris?

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: If there's I don't know know if Thank you. No.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: I'm gonna do clean.

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: Oh, you are? Okay. Chris Vance, Caledon Income Fair. Again, talking about the stipend in the capital grants, one of the things that may not be mentioned was that every fair gets an equal share of the money. So no fair gets, you know, depending on your size, does not get anything more. So we all get the same as was mentioned, stipend is just something that's always been critically important. It amounts to about 12,000 to $15,000 depending upon the year, but that's something that, as was mentioned, last year, Caledonia County Fair gave out $71,000 in premium payments. And again, as was talked about earlier, a lot of it is due to the fact that in order to get people to participate, that's horse pulling, is your cattle, bunny rabbits, you name it. That all comes out of that premium payment to the community. Capital grants Can

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I interrupt? When I've been to parish, there's hundreds of premiums or dozens? How many would there be in a typical pair? All the animals, all the contests, all the plants. Thousands. Thousands per pair. Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: When you think about just all, you know, just in Floral Hall alone, there's probably several 100, I would think.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So even if the premiums $50 adds up because you have

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: Oh, yeah, exactly. It's, yeah, it's not, yeah, it's, it's, we're talking modest amounts, but, you know, by, you know, by the numbers of folks. And that's all I would say is, you know, things one that's easy for me is horse pulling over the years. It's really crept up because to get folks to come, you know, and participate cheap all your horses, man. It's not cheap to do it, same as cattle. But capital grants really where I want to spend most of my time. Capital grant is near and dear to my heart. It's, I think it's critically important, as was mentioned, the importance of community and County, you know, affairs. The capital grant is the seed money that we use to kind of, and more importantly, it really, it forces all of us to be very proactive at thinking about what it is that we're going to do for a project each and every year, it really forces you because you're going through the process, you're having to think about what are we doing this year, what are we going to do next year, we're to do the year after. And again, I believe that that is what leads to the fairs continuing to be successful and look the way that I believe Vermont fairs look. Although I'm a little bit partial, but I would tell you, Caledonia County Fair is by far the best looking fair in the state. But again, speaking of the capital grants project, you know, we spent the last couple of years working in our cattle department. We extended Lawrence Arena over the last couple of years. And last year, we finished that project, which, again, we added 14 feet on on each side of Lawrence Arena to move spectators outside for safety and to move, small animal and judges' booth. But what I would tell you is now Caledonia County Fair has one of the largest show rings in New England, you know, rivaling the Big E, if you will. And that just affords us, as I think I've mentioned to some of you before, but I always like to say it again, we were able to pull the New England Holstein show out of New Hampshire in back into Vermont and they're committed for another three years and had over 200 cattle all the way from Sparta as Virginia last year, so and a lot of Canadian teams are expected to come this year, God willing. So but again, in just reference, in 2002, we completed the entire Lawrence Arena Building for $56,000 The 14 foot extensions, you know, in 2025 was $120,000 So over double for just, again, just showing you what, you know, how times change. The last thing that I just wanted to mention to this group, things happening, is this spring we'll start construction on a weather monitoring tower on our fairgrounds in conjunction with the University of Vermont. They reached out to us last year. One of the things that was unbeknownst to us is that, and again, as many of you know, we've suffered a lot of severe weather issues and flooding in our neck of the woods. Because of the mountainous terrain, they were unable to really get a good look at what was happening on our side of the state. So UVM reached out to us and just asked if we would have any interest or ability in allowing them to construct a 30 foot weather monitoring tower. And again, we have gone through that whole process, we've gone through the permitting, and that construction will start in the spring, but we'll be putting up a 30 foot tower that will be monitoring the river levels in that neck of the woods, as well as many other things that should help just with better forecasting. So, and again, we're doing that all free of charge. So again, that's just something that we're doing this year in addition, but all of this is just again to say that, what you folks have all done over the years is critically important. It's very beneficial to keep us sustainable. So we thank you for that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Great, thanks for And your

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: I would just like as a wrap up, there was a pot of money that hasn't been discussed. And a couple years ago, I had we had four fairs that come came under the three acre impervious surface rule.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. We talked about it last year. Remember?

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: Yes. So the update on so it was Champlain Valley. It was Orleans. It was Brooklyn. Brooklyn. Brooklyn. Addison. So the legislature very generously gave us $2,000,000 to put in a kitty so that these fairs could could come up with a solution to their challenges. Champlain Valley, so they each got about $550,000 when it was all said and done. The Agency of Agriculture has been wonderful to work with because it was ARPA funding, so we had to move it out of that to ANR to get it back over there so we could keep the money. So Champlain Valley is shovel ready, and they're gonna have their piece completed back as soon as they can get their construction going. Addison actually was oversold on a project. And they went back to the engineer and said, you know, we've got a lot of land over there. And we've got a lot of drainage, can't we do it this way instead of building something huge? And that worked. So they are able to come in underneath the

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: $550,000.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Who am I

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: forgetting? Orleans. Orleans. Sorry.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: It's been a long day. Orleans is working on it. I think they've got their plan in, so they're going to be able to come in under $550,000. Rutland, they have just the feasibility study. Just the first step to decide what they're gonna be able to do is coming in at a $175,000, out of their $550,000 and the engineer cannot start until hopefully June, near June. We've had these wait, I say we, they're all not fairs. Rutland has had DEC down twice for for on-site viewing, at which point that's when they discover there's a wetlands also as part of their issue. And so these guys are really in trouble. They've had anywhere they've had estimates anywhere from 2,100,000 to 3,600,000 to fix this. And that includes putting in underground tanks to move the water around. And they not only have to fix the water, but they have to move it back into the stream. They've got an impaired roof that runs right through the middle of the fairgrounds. And so the challenge that we have found, and we've mentioned this to DEC, they've said, well, you can put in these underground things. Where if you're familiar with Brooklyn Fair, in front of the grandstand, there's the parking lot. Well, that was one of the areas they thought could happen. We're not sure we can park on top of it. The other area they're looking at is over where the carnival rides are, which we're not sure

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: we can put carnival rides on top of it.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: And on top of that, given the construction season in Vermont, we would have at least one, if not two years with no fare. And if any you know, we all went through COVID. We know that the farm shows had trouble coming back. Luckily, all these guys did come back. But having a fare of that magnitude not occur for two years would end them. So we're waiting for more figures. We may be back on their behalf. We've talked to institutions, they're very well aware of what's going on. But there is no way that that any of the fairs could come up. I mean, we're talking if you wanna have a ticket to go there for a thousand dollars apiece, it's not feasible for them. And it's not that they're not we all love clean water. We wanna make this work, but that's not gonna work very well. So that's my last pitch. And and it's been really hard for these guys because they're all volunteers. We had Addison mention about how wonderful it was because they're all done with this challenge, and now they can move forward. And their meetings are wonderful and exciting and they're happy. And we've got Rufflin that that is just going through this on and on and on for two and a half years, and they're troopers. And they're just they're trying their best, and we want it to work, but we may be back

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: for some assistance. Okay. Thank you very much.

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

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: it. Appreciate your time.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thanks all of you. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you. I know all about it. Not all of them. You bet me a night there. Yeah.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: Did everybody get started?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I don't think Norris. No.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: We still bought. Okay. There's one for him.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. So they Franklin got their new site. Right?

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: I'm sorry?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Franklin Fair got their their payroll.

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: They got their new site.

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: They have a site. They're leasing it for three years, and then they're gonna have an option to purchase. It's 47 acres, and it's $2,400,000. Wow. Wow.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. I think

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: So that would be another one. Yeah. It's a challenge. Thank you very much

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: for your time. You. Now we're gonna switch to eight to five point five. Go ahead, Ginny. Thank you for joining us.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: Yeah, thanks for having me. 545,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I think we have this address. So there's a Senate amendment?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is a committee report coming out of health and welfare. You can pull it up on my screen.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do you wanna say anything about it, Senator Lyons, before we update you on

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: your vote?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: No. Well, it is it is an important bill because it allows for the state of Vermont to continue with its immunization program in spite of changes that have happened at the federal government. I just will say that, and then Katie can pick up on those.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And you could focus on the financial part. Yeah.

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: Okay. Try to

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: go high level. Katie McFinn, Office of Legislative Council. So Senator Lyons is saying this is a bill that sort of decouples references that Vermont has in statute that links the CDC recommendations with how we, for example, reimburse health insurers for immunizations or how we authorize pharmacists as to what they can administer. So instead, this creates a path by which the Vermont Commissioner of Health would be able to make recommendations as to recommended immunizations for children and adults. This bill at 23 pages looks intimidating. What's happening here is that there is a sunset after six years. So half of the bill is sort of putting statutes back in place as they are now with a few little changes. So financial pieces, there are no appropriations. We do have this section called immunization funding. This is an existing section of law that sets up the immunization program in the Department of Health. That's an existing program. And as you'll see, really, this first definition lays out what the bill does. Right now, an immunization under this program is tied to the CDC. And this language instead becomes a recommended immunization, meaning recommended by the commissioner pursuant to language that's set out in another subsection. So that is a major change. A lot of this language is kind of conforming changes to change the word vaccine to recommended immunization meaning an immunization that's recommended by the Commissioner. Here we have some language in subsection C that the Department shall determine which recommended immunization shall be purchased under the program. That's not new language, it's just moved from down here. But what is new is that right now, under the program, the health department purchases immunizations from the CDC, and there's this language added or another vendor. So this would authorize the department to purchase immunizations for the next six years from another vendor if doing so is at the lowest possible cost and with consistent with the recommended immunizations put forth by the commissioner.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yes. Can I just ask what

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: was the thinking on six years?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's a good question and it's come up. I really think it's a better question for somebody from House Human Services to answer, but, you know, there was some discussion that there would have been a change at the federal level and different administration.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Understood. I was thinking this would

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: put us in the middle of

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: the next.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And perhaps some time once administration comes in to make changes to return to a recommended schedule more consistent No.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Think it's very clever to have it

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: revert to the original wording. I was just curious.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What the magic of six years is? Yeah. I think it was All magic.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Like, if we're gonna go through the trouble of kind of setting up our own, why not just keep our lives with that?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That was the what was in the bill is introduced and human services decided they wanted to have a sunset on it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: I guess if, you know, if we're talking about a CDC that was, you know, as of ten years ago or even five years ago, I could prefer that to our own, you know, just following our own lights.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They're aligned with other states. But

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: who knows, maybe this change is not gonna revert depending on who gets elected next time.

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

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: think the other piece of

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: that is that the federal CDC could change to be more like what Vermont is, and Yeah. Vermont could change to be different. So it's

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: a balance. Trying to figure it out. It's like

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One thing that was sort of discussed is that this timeline gives the general assembly time to be responsive depending on what happens at the federal level. If the, you know, if there's a decision that we don't want to revert back, this gives time to act and repeal the second half of the bill, which would essentially keep this connection with the commissioner of health in place. Shall

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I keep going? Yeah. I mean, I

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: could even skip ahead to the council because maybe that's I was trying to figure out why it sent to appropriations.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It was sent to appropriations in the house too and I wasn't quite sure the the thinking. There is an immunization funding advisory committee. It's an existing committee. The membership isn't changing, although there's some cleanup in how appointments are made.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is there zero financial impact?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Essentially, there might be some there's another committee that has some tweaks. It's an existing committee. OPM change?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The United States people Advisory Council does expand.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. But most of the folks on it are working in their professional capacity, so I don't know if that would have a per diem effect.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: A couple of them may or may not be working on. And

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then there's two sections on health insurance, not a monetary effect, but essentially what it does is says right now health insurers are reimbursing those immunizations that are recommended by the CDC. And this language says health insurers will reimburse for immunizations that are recommended by the Commissioner of Health. So there's a swap out there and who is doing the recommending.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So they already did it. So if they could recommend something of it, we're requiring the insurance company to cover that. So there could be a cost to that.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. Right now the immunizations are covered by the health insurer in alignment with what's recommended by the CDC and this changes it so health insurers will recommend in alignment with what the Commissioner of Health recommends. So it's just a swap out as to who is making the recommendation for what's covered. There are sections pertaining to the administrative and prescribing authority of pharmacists. Right now, their authority to administer and prescribe immunizations is tied to the CDC. That's this language here. And you'll see that the change is to instead refer back to what the Commissioner of Health is recommending. We have similar labels.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is the commissioner's recommendation? Yeah.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Or that's the definition of recommended administration, which refers to the commissioner. Pharmacy techs, we have the same thing happening. And that brings us to the halfway point in the bill, and this is where we start restoring the existing law. Just

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: change everything back from the first course.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, but I just want to be clear that it doesn't go back exactly the way it is now because there were some changes that are being made in the first half of the bill that the committee has decided they liked and they wanted to keep like for the immune the funding council. I said there was no change in membership, but there's change in how the appointments are made. And the committees decided they liked that and they wanted to retain that moving forward. Same thing with the other advisory council. There are some changes made some changes made to the membership of that council and the committees decided that they liked those changes and those should exist moving forward, even if the rest of the statute reverts back. So there are changes like that. The pharmacy tech section, there was no need to revert it back. OPR said they like the changes and they would like them moving forward and there wasn't a direct reference to the CDC in it. So that has been retained moving forward. So I'll move past this quickly because this is mostly going back to existing law.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah, thought there was more about the committee per diemage, but I don't even see that. So yeah, I guess you're saying like because of potential for a change in health insurance, there'd be a cost?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Maybe because there is this I I'm

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: not sure.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. I'll ask the lender just to find out or or maybe it was

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But this is the same process that the House went through. I went to House Appropriations also. I had the same conversation.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, at least there could be Senate Secretary and the House clerk are consistent.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that pretty much brings us to the end of the bill. We have a section repealing a new section that had been added that created a framework for how the commissioner was going to make recommendations under this section and that's being repealed July and then we have effective dates.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Any questions about H545? My only question is, would

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: you prefer to let this lie until after you ask

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the Senate Secretary, or would you No, I would entertain a motion to pass a favorable. So moved. I think so, moved. Any further discussion? Now I'll start to call the roll. All right. Ready for this.

[Unidentified committee member (likely a senator)]: H-five45 draft 2.1.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. We're doing

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: it right now.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oops. Under the gun. A lot of pressure. Lot of pressure. In fact, we could can we ask this, like, a serious opposite question? Sure. Why was H545 sent here?

[Erica McKellar (NCSL, Fiscal Affairs Program; Vermont liaison)]: I can't tell you

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: about my memory, but I

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can go check upstairs. I probably flagged it in the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is it the eighteenth? It's the new the new United States. Eighteenth?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Today is Yes. Eighteenth.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Senator Baruth? Yes. Senator Brennan? Yes. Senator Lyons?

[Jack Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs and Field Days Association)]: Yes.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Senator Norris? Senator Watson? Yes. Senator Westman? Senator Perchlik? Yes. Do you wanna They're hold it both in the building. I can find them. Norris just with this football team and I don't know what that was.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Member)]: Norris isn't coming back.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Don't know.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Did you talk to him? Made it pretty quick. He was done. Okay, well, if you see the question, I'll find a crab in, but Okay. If Norris is left one. Reporter. Change center lines, of course. Virginia Ginny Lyons. Virginia. I don't know if you like that. Okay. Good note. Ginny, that rumors throws this day calls you Ginny. Ginny.