Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Yeah. Active. Let's We are live.

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

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: We are so live and live late. Yeah. Right? We're lively too. Hi. Oh, you want?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: No. Go ahead.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: You are

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: live. Just just start rolling. Let's go with it. Let's go with it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: So Alisa I'm Clarkson. Chair I have a joy of being chair of Senate Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs, and we have a big jurisdiction. We have housing. We have economic development. We have consumer protection. We have devices. We have cannabis, alcohol, and labor. So I want you to know upfront that every bill that we send you is our top priority in that jurisdiction. That being said, all we have prioritized our bills for our chair, for your chair. Only person I would do that for because every one of those bills is a priority in the section that it it comes out of. And we only passed you one bill out of each one of those jurisdictional sections. So right now, I'm gonna speak to you about the economic development bill s three twenty seven. And I would just say, generally, it's hi,

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

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Glad to have Rick here because, Rick helped us develop this. This in a very tight budget year, we really restrained ourselves and, really focused on supporting the governor's recommends in the areas we agreed with and adding to them in the areas we know that need more and actually putting in money in areas that seem to have been forgotten in the governor's budget. So I'm gonna only just really address the, the sections in the bill that have money in them. And the first one, if the bill is s three twenty seven, The first one is one you all are very familiar with, which is increasing the downtown and village tax credits. Last year, as you may remember Rick, correct me if I'm ever wrong. You're Feel free to step in.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, you know that you're never wrong. You're

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I know I am often wrong. But we'll get yeah. Anyway

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So down a fiscal note yet, Lauren? What? Do we have a fiscal note for this yet? No.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Yeah. It's okay because I

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We do have.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Wait. I think you have because I haven't seen it yet. But

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But it should be online?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: It should be online, but I'll fill it in for you because That's what

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: we were gonna go and

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: follow That's bill. Oh, okay. So downtown and village tax credits, you're all familiar with them. Last year, the governor recommended them at five. This year, he recommended them come in at three, and our committee voted to take them up to four. This was one of our 4,004. So last year, the governor recommended 5,000,000. I don't think we I can't remember where we ended up landing. Anyway, it's always between three and five. We this is one of our few tools in our economic development toolbox. It's one of our most important ones, and it is a wide range of economic development as we develop our housing businesses any and all in our downtowns and village centers. It has the biggest return of any return on investment. It's, like, 17 to one. It's just huge. The second section of our rep so the big addition here is we not only support the governor's recommend, but we actually go above and beyond that to recommend a million more to 4,000,000. And this year, we pared down our support for businesses, our small businesses, because we know it's a tight budget year. Many of these businesses are already in the governor's budget, but for much smaller amounts, and we can reach and affect more businesses. Every one of these resources is a service and a resource for our businesses in the state to do bigger and better business do do what they do, bigger and better. The first one is the Vermont, Small Business Law Center, which has been very lucky and has gotten a congressionally, directed spending grant. Bernie got gave it to got it for them maybe three years ago. They have turned out to be invaluable because it looked it turned out the one resource we did not have available to small business or to any business that's starting up was legal advice. And so the only businesses they can't give legal advice to are, obviously, our cannabis, our craft cannabis industry, but they of it because they're federally financed. This the challenge here is that they have had their their grant renewed for $550,000, which is great. It won't kick in until December, at least, at the earliest. They run out of money in June. We are at we're asking for a $100,000 to tie them over, and we hope the law school would step in and do that as well or some other things. The bar association, whoever, to help us tied them over from June to December. That's what the $100,000 is for. The next small business piece is we fully support the Vermont Small Business Development Center, Linda Rossi's operation, which does incredible work of providing every kind of business advice you can imagine to our businesses. They had asked us for 200,000 300,000 more, and we given the budget year, we're only asking for another 150 on top of what they have in the budget. And the governor's recommend they have 388,000 in the base. $396.89. The more money we give them, the more businesses they can support. That is true for every one of these businesses that we're asking money for. The third one is supporting the governor's recommend to the community action, agency, the community action programs that run the micro business program. And the micro business program is run all over the state. This is for our lowest income promoters, helping them to start businesses. My Republican friends always tell me we love supporting hand ups, but not handouts. This is a great hand up. This is helping small, really small businesses, sewing businesses, lawn care businesses, caretaking businesses, businesses that for people who have close to nothing, who are really being taught great business skills and taught how to really manage their own business and and start their own business. Switchback is, of course, the poster child for this. And I will remind you let me just see if I can remind you that the businesses we're talking about we're talking about thousands and thousands of businesses taking advantage of all these programs, which I will talk about in a sec. So that's the third one. And then the fourth one is 200,000 for the Vermont Professionals of Color Network. The 60,000 that is in the governor's budget was actually not for them. It was it was money that was going through them through ACCD to be granted out. It was not to go to the Vermont professions professionals of color to actually do what they do, which is advise and network for professionals of color into the business community. And they are and they are a huge network operation. And we applaud their work and put the amount they asked for. Actually, it was the one full piece that we're asking for because they have no recommend. The other money piece is the our Vermont outdoor recreation business, as you know, has grown like topsy. It's we're so all so proud of it. It's now over $2,000,000,000 economic sector for us in this state. And we're incredibly proud of its growth and how it's done. They wanna do an economic impact study. And this $200,000 is for them to be able to do an economic impact study. And they have I I have more on that, and we can get more to you on that. But that's what that is for. The, next one that has money in it is the continued support of our Montreal office. We have a representative that works with us in Canada that helps us attract that helps identify businesses, Canadian businesses that would like to set up, American, anchors here in Vermont. And it has been a very successful partnership. And, also, it it it's really the liaison between, Vermont business and Quebec and Canadian business, both investing both sides of the border and really their main focus is trying to bring Canadian businesses into Vermont who wanna have an American presence. And for a variety of now of tax reasons and tariff reasons, it's important to have an American subsidiary. And that's what this branch is that's what this office is really doing. In addition, this year, we're asking us to explore and figure out and recommend how we go forward with a relation similar relationship with Taiwan. Taiwan has 25,000,000,000 they want to invest in in American businesses now. We don't have a a you know, we don't really have a strong relationship with a a representative who can bet businesses for us and who can bet our businesses for them. And we really need to establish. This has been a relationship that's been ongoing. Many of us have been to Taiwan and and looked at how we can build this relationship. So we've also asked in this bill to ask Tim Terry and the International Trade Office to really work at establishing how we might go forward and better support our business relationship with Taiwan. Is that favorite? So, like yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I think that Did you talk about the brownfields?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: No. That's the last. My favorite is the last. That was my number one choice. So the fifth is $3,000,000 for brownfields. All of us have brownfields in our districts. All of us know what brownfields are. The governor put no money in this budget for brownfields, which I found. I'll restrain myself. It's a huge miss. We cannot do our redevelopment of our downtown and build centers without cleaning it up first. So sadly, step one is cleaning it up in a site that has been contaminated. So without the brownfield money, we're really, we're stalled. And many projects are just stalled. I know Springfield has tens of millions of dollars still paid up to do. A lot of our communities do. And so without this, it because they leverage more money, and I you'd have to have the people who own the program to me and remind us of that, but I'm sure they've already been in. Anyway, this we felt was a critically important piece of the development. So most of the money pieces that I'm I'm giving to you, there are some other pieces in the bill. I'm very excited. I'm excited about a couple additional pieces. The most the one that has been long needed is we have asked job Lyle Jepsen, the new commissioner of economic development, to look at all the business resources we offer in state government, out of state government, public, private, and pull them all together and review what we have and what we still need with the lens of the four stages of business development. So looking at identify and and identifying what are the stages of development that need what resource. So we have start ups. We have early stage. We have maturing companies and mature companies. What resources do we offer in each one of those areas? What are we missing? What can we add? And how can we then better market and promote them? Because we don't. So many people don't know we have these resources, and they're amazing. You know, you've just heard about a few of them. So the other piece that we're gonna ask them to do is really it's the intersection of public private money, capital, access to capital, investments, tax credits, that piece we're asking them to clarify and to see how we can better enable our small companies to access capital. Then the two studies that we have in here, and we've done these all as non legislative studies. You'll be so proud of us. We've all asked every other outside outside, so it costs us less money and also have have experts running them. So we asked the Department of Economic Development to do that one. We're asking the office of workforce strategy and development, which we created, to take on convening a conversation about how to reestablish a culinary institute in this state. NECE was closed during the course of COVID, as you all know, and we are missing it. Our restaurants are missing it big time. This is a huge piece of our economy, as our tourism and hospitality industry, and we have now no workforce pipeline into restaurants and to that piece of manage both management of restaurants and and actual chefing and cooking. People are very excited about it. And I wanna commit some time to helping do this wearing my state workforce development board hat. I'm really I'm so pleased that we're finally moving this conversation forward and we're hoping it would be under the umbrella of our state, our Vermont State University On that capacity.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: On your financial aesthetic question, have has the law school small business center received money in the past from the state?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I think you gave them money last year. I I no. I apologize. I can't remember. I can't remember if we did last year.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It was stripped out. What? I think the office of this account

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I think that we asked

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

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: It was stripped out, but we asked. Yeah. Yeah. But then yeah. But then they have the money through this June, and we always knew that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right. But I didn't know just long enough. We had given the money in the past because giving money directly to the private entities usually not the way we do it. So we might have to find somebody else. And took over the law library. We gave them directly to to do the law library. So and we did that for a number of years, so I don't know where

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Okay. Got it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, if we find the money, we can

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: find out the best

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: way to get

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Last year, we knew that they had their grant was going through this June, and now we know there's this gap. So and it's turned out to be an incredibly important resource, a very different resource than the others that we've I'm not sure if we didn't give it

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: to the right one. Libraries. Department of Libraries. And and then they gave it, but we they got money Yeah. Directly to. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: And then the last one, Richie knows about, but it was it is we're really asking the planners, the the Vermont Association of Planners to convene a conversation. Oh, well, I'll get back to another a very important repeal that if I have no money, again, these don't have have a bunch of money associated.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Repeal. Veggie beef?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Well, yes. Ahead. Miss. We have repealed yet again the senate we hope will repeal veggie sunset. So I would hope that you would be on board with that. And but the last study is that we have charged the association of planners and developers to study and determine how best to connect people and economies of Vermont and New York state. We have 22A, which is the primary route that lots of goods and people travel from Vermont into New York State is in terrible shape. And this will review both the condition and the short term and long term feasibility of how to improve it. It's near and dear to a member of our committee and David Weeks, and it it mattered to us to put on an economic development lens. Richie has, I know, the transportation lens. It's a tough ask, so we ask them to look at short term and long term things that we might do. It's a huge problem because as you we're all very clear on our transportation money at the moment. But we are we view this as a a something that was important enough, and the chamber actually came in and weighed in on this pretty heavily. So the those are just conversations to tee things up hopefully for next year and the years subsequent. Okay. So that is the economic

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is there any questions? Yes. Senator Watson.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'm just

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: wondering, did you mention that after rec money? Yes. That was the $200,000 for the economic impact study. Okay.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: 200,000 more than they have.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Oh, yes. They have 500 in the budget, I believe. We are not we support that. Absolutely. Sorry. I should have said that. We completely support the $500,000. I think it's one time. I mean, I don't know its base. I think it's one time. Is that right, Pat? So One sec. Yeah. Yes. This chap on your right is nodding yes. So

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Senator Norris has a question. Yes. That's quite an extensive list, Kyle. What was what was down. Excuse me. What was the first one you asked for? You did went to so many. I forgot the first one. The first $1,000?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Our downtown and village the downtown village tax credits.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: To be used for what? You have something about advisory monies or was it mean, I had to explain the downtown village tax. Are the downtown village?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Oh, they're tax credits that are leveraged 17 to one to help us do everything from at Saint Albans. Key key piece of the downtown redevelopment in Saint Albans was the sidewalks and lights and all the pieces that helped then enable more development. Elevators, planning, the downtown village tax credits are a key piece of developing our downtown as well as centers.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Who gets the tax?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Pat who gets the tax? The the a a range of companies. So Banks

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: and Patrick's here to join

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Committee Clerk)]: the school office. The the board will issue or award the credits to the numbers of the projects, of the eligible projects specifically. And then those developers have a couple of options. They can either sell those credits to typically a bank or insurance company, typically for $90.95 cents on the dollar or for the upfront capital for the project or they can use them. Yes. So that's typically what they're used for. They do have the option of applying those credits against their personal income tax liability. But generally, is most typically seen is they will sell their credits. The bank or insurance company will claim the credits upon completion of the project.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Like the affordable housing tax credit? Yes. They can use them for their personal income tax?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: They It's a private developer.

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Committee Clerk)]: Yeah. Typically although typically the reason you see them sold most often is this is for, facade improvements for historic buildings, historic rehabilitation, flood mitigation projects for buildings, specifically in designated downtown areas or village centers. So they could be a small general store and historic Could

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the municipality get them at some?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I I don't think

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Committee Clerk)]: believe so.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I don't I don't think so. It's it's up in finance at the moment, so we were trouble booked on this one. So finance will weigh in on it. Okay. So there we

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'm just wondering. I don't have the document in front of me. Is there a a grand total of what? Did I miss that? No. It's $9,200,000 is what's an s $3.27. If you compare it to the governor, it's 4.6 more than the governor asked for those items. Got it. Thank you. That's just the main ones. There are some little ones like All the studies are small. So, yeah, the one council that's gonna have eight more meetings. That's like another So,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: and another one that I've requested.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: There is a fiscal note and when we we get don't have the bill, We just have center

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: To finance it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: When we get the bill, we can have to ensure fiscal go on the fiscal note. And we would be pulling the appropriations Yeah. In any event.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Okay. And they'll probably they'll weigh in on the tax cuts. The one additional small amount, which I didn't mention, is the service supported housing for our intellectually developmentally disabled. This is a group of people. We did a task force over the summer, which I was honored to be serving on. And this has identified that we have probably 600 individuals now who are aging out of the shared living they're in at the moment or they're in a housing situation as an adult fostered child, even though they're no longer children. We have parents just aging out of the ability to care for our intellectually and developmentally disabled. And they we create in this bill an advisory council that is time limited. I think we have

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So that's that's the next bill. That's

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Committee Clerk)]: three twenty eight.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Oh, that's the next bill.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So so it's more segue. You're also gonna present three twenty Anyway,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: any other questions on economic development?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Richard, I don't think so. You could

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: So we it is more than the governor's asked, but that's our job is to advocate for economic development. And it's your job to pull what you need to pull, but it's our job to ask.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Fair enough. What was the total? Total over $9.05. 9.2.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I don't have

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The governor's 5.5.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: It's in my inbox. Okay. Okay.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, it's 4.6 more than the governor for those programs. That's a big chunk of that is $3,000,000 mark for Yeah. And ground fee.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I would just it's the first year I've ever seen the governor not recommend anything for Brownfield cleanup, which was disappointing. Because it's, in many cases, the foundation upon which we build the housing or build our and rehabilitate our older and historic buildings. It's it's a key key component, and it's often neglected. But Okay. Our committee continues to be a champion of it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: 03/28.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: You were champions of it when you were. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: S 328.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: S 328. Thank you for indulging me on both of these today. So we have there are six money asks. There's a lot more in this bill than the six money asks. But they they we really work hand in glove with Anne's committee. I think when you put the two bills together, you really have a pretty robust we're really robust in moving some housing opportunities forward. And so I'm excited about that. The first thing, again, it's gonna begin in finance, is the down payment assistance tax credit, which is the comes out of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. They inst I can't remember how many years we've been offering it now, but for quite a few years, This is for first time homebuyers the ability for them to get $10,000 to in down payment assistance to buy a home. And, it supports one of our top values in moving people out of rentals and into home purchase. It's a revolving loan fund. So it's designed for churn in mind. The challenge at the moment is there's no churn because starter homes, there are no homes for these people to move into, and

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

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: more expensive. So for us to keep pace with the $10,000 that has been the backbone of this program, and many people in this building have actually take been able some of our public servants who work in state government have been able to take advantage of it, which is great. And I've heard so we've heard firsthand from so many that it's meant a lot to them. We're asking to increase the governor's recommended $2.50, I think, and or actually, it may not be in the governor's recommend. Is it? Was. Was. Thank you. I couldn't remember actually on that. But we wanted to raise up to three fifty in order to keep up with inflation. Because without it going to $3.50, and again, this extends it to 2 to 2,031, without the extent without increasing it, without the revolving piece, they're gonna have they'll they'll be offering less in down payment assistance. So in our inflationary market, that is why you see this increase from two fifty to three fifty.

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

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: K? The second piece is increasing the treasurer's credit facility with his the local income and advisory council, the local investment advisory council. You heard about the incredible investments that this fund has made. And the proposal from the treasurer's office is to take it from 10% to 12.5%, which allows them to finance and help with more with more projects and more economic development. 80% of that fund has been used to provide loans for housing projects. But there is other economic development when it is when it's when they apply for it. They've done other things, but housing has been such a big need that they have really helped make the difference on a lot of housing projects. But it increases their authorization. Again, it's not really money out of the general fund for us to deal with, but it increases the treasurer's authority. We would be giving him the authority to raise the cash balance being used from 10% to 12.5%. Peter, when we get

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: to when we take up the bill, we'll want it to treasurer's office. Mean, this sounds great.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Oh, there's Peter. He'd probably do a better job at this than I. The next piece is the piece I I really feel strongly so strongly about, but it's a very small amount of money. It's only $3,300.0600 dollars, but it is supporting this new advisory council that we create, service supported housing. I described you with six at a minimum, 600 housing units we need to be building over the next x number of years. So many parents are aging out of this. So many foster homes that people had lived in, and we're talking adult children. We're talking people from anywhere from 22 to 45. People who need to be housed but need supports to live. Some can live very quite independently but need some support. And this council, we they we originally started with $3,000,000. We could not figure out where to find the 3,000,000. We were hoping we'd find it in the treasurer's pocket, in unknown properties, not unclaimed. But, anyway, that didn't work. So we're really charging this advisory council to help us figure out both financing and how we finance these houses going forward. These these this this particular niche of housing. And the this would be the advisory council is oh, I see there other thing. I'm just doing the money first and then I will talk about these other things. The advisory council is embedded in the agency of human services, but it it is just it it has a whole range of the stakeholders that are involved in this. So, hopefully, they will come back to us year after year with recommendations. The advisory council is not forever. It is just, think Pam, it's for six years. Five

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: or six years. I don't think there's a sunset on my calendar.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I think we talked about a sunset maybe and didn't end up adding one. Then the more challenging one is in the bill the administration initially gave us on housing that was introduced in the House and the Senate, there were positions. The Department of Housing and Community Development is losing seven limited service positions. They can't ask for positions now because the budget's gone through, but we can. So they have lost seven limited service positions, and we are proposing that we add three additional positions in the Department of Housing and Community Development. Two are full time classified, and one is a full time exempt. And they are they're at the end of the bill, and they anyway, if we want the HIP if we want all the things we want, we sadly need the people not sadly. We happily need people to make it all happen. The fifth piece of money that we are asking for here is $250,000 for the municipal and regional planning resilience fund. And this is for technical assistance in helping our towns meet the housing targets, which we're hoping that we embed in our town plans going forward. The first piece of this bill is actually embedding the housing targets that we've worked on with our regional planning commissions and that we've identified in every one of our towns and embedding them in the town plans going forward in an organic way that works. And so that is for this is for to help the towns meet those housing targets. And then the last piece of money that's in this bill is 5,000,000 for VHIP for the Vermont Housing Improvement Program. We love this program. Our committee actually listed it, prioritized it as their top as their top investment, the treasurer's piece being their second. But the we added up another million dollars. So it is 5,000,000 because it's 4,000,000 in the base. The governor's asked for 4,000,000, and he finally put it in the base, which was good. And we support that in North enthusiastically, but we're also adding an additional million dollars. I'll remind you, this is the biggest bang we get for the buck in terms of building new housing. This, on average, each one of our new units, housing units we bring online cost $39,000 in state investment, which is so modest. And to get a new housing unit for $39,000 is remarkable, and I applaud the team at DHCD for this. It's just been a hugely successful program. So those are the money pieces. Okay. And that's, I think, what you wanted at the moment. There's a lot of other great stuff in here.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We'll hear that in the floor report.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Yes, you get to hear my report.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Any questions about the housing initiatives described? We will again, when we get the bill and we'll have the joint fiscal go through the fiscal note. So we didn't want to pass on getting the presentation to the Senator Clarkson herself.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I'm not sure we have a fiscal note on it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We don't yet.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: We have.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So we will have, when we get the bill, we will have a fiscal note on it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Ted did this for us.

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

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: like it. These are very, very even better than fiscal.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right. It's like a working sheet.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: But in all of this, we were cognizant of what a tight budget season we're in. We did not really create any new programs. We supported current needs and we expanded current opportunities. I think expanding the treasurer's authority to an additional 2.5% is would make a huge difference in what we're able to do in terms of housing because we have no housing revenue bill. Sadly, wish we did. So instead, we're trying to make the most we're trying to make ourselves curse out of sausier. And so we're doing that as best we can in the limited ways we're able to this year. Okay. Thank you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Any questions for senator Clarkson?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: No. But thank you for focusing in on the needs for folks in Dale. Oh. Continued. Yeah. We I know. It's good to work together. It's great. I it was I really loved serving on that task force this summer. I learned a lot. Yeah. It was great. And, I mean, I all of us know there are no young no longer young people. They're all of us know people who are in this boat and parents were in this boat. And I've had parents just weeping with me about what do I do. Would be is there

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We hope to find a solution for that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Yeah. No. No. We do too. And it just means I mean, we have I just wanna say that we have worked so hard in our our committees to reduce the barriers to housing development. But in the final analysis, it does need funding. Housing cannot be built without money. Right. So we can reduce improve the zoning situation. We can improve permitting. We can do improve appeals, and we're working on all that. But at some point, we need money.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So, lodge council, we will ask you for

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: And on that note

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We're gonna ask

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Committee Clerk)]: you for

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But if there's no other questions, we can

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: We could email me and text him.

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