Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We are live. We are live. Welcome, It is Wednesday, 01/21/2026, and we are here in Summit Economic Development Housing and General Affairs in Vermont State House and today is Wednesday so we are focusing in our broad jurisdiction on economic development and one of our most important economic development partners is our outdoor recreation industry and to kick off both the update on its impact on Vermont and what their priorities are for this session we are turning to its executive director Kelly. So take it away Kelly, it's good to have you. Thank you. Being patient. Good

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: morning, thank you. Happy to be here. For the record, I'm Kelly Delft, Executive Director of the Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance and I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the economic development needs of Vermont's growing outdoor sector that contributes to contributed 2,100,000,000 in 2023 to the state GDP almost 5% of Vermont's economy. BOBA is a nonprofit statewide organization established in 2018 with a mission to educate Vermonters about outdoor recreation, strengthen Vermont's outdoor industry and cultivate a skilled workforce in all of our urban and rural communities.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And just a note that's where your work also intersects with our other work which is workforce development and as I recall last year when you're asked really were around financing some work for development. Yes. And I'll provide a little bit

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: of an update in this presentation as it relates to our economic development ask and that work has been in in full swing for a while. Right. Our we have a 155 members, our values led and revenue generators as the manufacturers that make our gear and apparel, the retailers that sell it, the outdoor centers, lodgers, and trail builders that ensure places to play, and the guides, educators, and creatives that tell our stories to Vermonters and visitors. The positive social and economic impacts of outdoor recreation are only possible because of ongoing investments by both the private and public sector which is why we are pleased to hear the governor yesterday in his budget address identify the Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative or GORAMP as a program that is making a real difference to our outdoor economy. We fully support the $500,000 proposed in the governor's recommend within the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation for one time general fund dollars for grants to strengthen communities grow local economies and inspire stewardship of natural resources This funding is an important step forward and one which we hope leads to base funding in the future. We hope you'll consider including the FBR Borac grants for $500,000 in your committee's economic development bill.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It will already be in the governor's budget. Yes. So we can either support or not. I mean, I'm not sure we need to include it in our budget. Yes, David? Yes. Just to

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: give us clarity to the fifty month projects that you awarded six point three months. Can you just give an example of those projects?

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Sure, I am. I'm going to give a couple of examples and we were one of the recipients of the grant and we did some workforce and business development projects. So I'll share some of that and describe some of the others that supported businesses across the state.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The intersection of your organization with BOREC because BOREC is a lot I can't remember which is the larger umbrella.

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Yes the ORAC is the state arm it is a state council a fifth area committee of public and private members it was established by the governor in 2017 via executive order and it is based in the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation and the Agency of Commerce and Community Development so it straddles and represents both those agencies and informs the administration on outdoor economy and BOVA is an independent nonprofit statewide organization led by the industry that is primarily driving forward the economic development priorities and we are very much in sync. That's how I think that's the process we look at all the particular financial recommendations. Right. And so we can share some of our firsthand experience in witnessing the impact of the GORD grant program since the first round in 2019, there has been a really strong return on investment, probably $11,200,000 in 84 grants that have been awarded to businesses, organizations and municipalities across all the counties. The success that we've seen in those projects bolstering local economies and expanding participation has also increased demand for the program which was evident in the last grant round in 2024 where 51 projects were awarded $6,300,000 out of 127 applications which are best totaling $21,000,000 We can speak to the grant program first hand as a recipient of $150,000 that supported workforce and business development in three regions the Montpelier Randolph region, the St. John's Bay, Lincolnville region and the Rutland region. In 2024 we used War Rock funds to develop series of professional development trainings and credentials in the technical applications of trail building and bicycle mechanics. We hosted four multi day courses involving 24 professional and 10 employers and we supported a certificate at Vermont State University all of which led to internships, job placements, and career advancement. The Morag funds also supported us to launch a career pathways portal for the outdoor sector where job work pages continue to be the most vivided and career spotlight videos are top performing on social media. And most importantly, the Borac grant was springboard for VOBA to expand our technical training program, especially in 2025 when we received an economic development authority grant via the Department of Tourism and Marketing and I know Heather presented on this last week. We were able to expand our program to 15 workshops in Trail Dike is the training 116 professionals of which 23% were women, BIPOC and LGBTQ community members. It also involves 60 businesses as instructors, employers and hirers and we also used BTSU classrooms. Right. And this year our program expense even Sorry, just before we ask,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: how many actual certificates, of, if they're career advancing certificates or career enhancing certificates were awarded in that award?

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: VTSU issued one sustainable trail building certificate from VTSU. VOBA administered or awarded 15 certificates they were industry designed, industry led and created certificates in trail bike and ski so each

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Not necessarily honored, certificates that's like honored by the academic institution but but created by the business themselves and saying these are the skills you need and you Correct,

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: there were certificates of completion and curriculum were designed by the industry so to be very valuable to what they were looking for in the skill sets and in hiring employees post course. Great, thanks. So we're excited that this year we're expanding our program even further into a climate resilient workforce partnership with the Climate Action Office, Department of Labor, Office of Workforce Strategy and Development and Board Act and we did present on this last year and so we're excited we've been able to roll out this work and develop the partnerships across the state in industry as well as in state to advance some shared goals. That's perfect. Additionally with our Borac grant we had a lot done with $150,000 We supported a business technical assistance program targeting producing gear, apparel and accessories in Vermont. We supported 40 entrepreneurs with BOGO workshops and events that focused on strategic and financial planning, market research and trade show participation. This support helped startups and emerging businesses expand their customers and retail accounts, develop supply chains, cultivate leaders of women and BIPOC owned businesses and create a brand identity featuring sustainability. You'll hear from us at the outdoors next, but I'll share a few more examples of businesses that have benefited from ORAC grants. Patrick Cliffs Climbing Center and Mount Marion School purchased new mobility and adaptive climbing gear to use in their programming. The renovated Danville Train Station is home to Memorial Valley bike tours and a gear shop serving users on the Memorial Valley Rail Trail. The Blueberry Hill Inn in Goshen is developing a strategic plan for their outdoor center replicating the outdoor hub success in the Mad River Valley. And testimonials from a guide service and trail builder sum up important outcomes for the state. The first one, the Moran brand for new trails was a factor in us choosing it as a place to live when finally making the move to Vermont. The work done in Randolph has been an example to neighboring communities and added to the economic viability of the downtown. The marketing resources that we developed have led to outcomes such as greater attendance, higher distance revenues and even people moving to Central Vermont. The infrastructure we are developing is helping to build Mount Failure's outdoor recreation economy in a timely desperately need economic elements. In summary, we appreciate your consideration of support for the FPR ORAC grant program in your economic development bill. Our global workforce story demonstrates how an initial award can cause a ripple effect leveraging ongoing support and funding for businesses organizations and municipalities that are ready to invest in their outdoor recreation. With the average ORAC brand at 134,000 we know a half million dollar investment in Vermont's economy in fiscal year twenty seven will keep making a real difference to Vermonters and now is the best time to support war act as it implements the statewide vision and priority actions and move forward together in Vermont over the next five years. With a clear framework for the state and an expanded set of partners on the ground project support can advance objectives in climate resiliency and equity themes in stewardship wellness and economic development and sector areas in innovation, sustainability and career pathways in ways that are strategic and effective. I wanted to make sure you all are aware we have outdoor recreation day at the State House and we very excited to see you and bring constituents to the State House that day.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Jill almost made us very aware of that and we are clear and thank you and I believe we may have a witness or two that day yeah so let me just be clear on your ask is you're asking for a 150,000 directly to BOREC and to cross to support the $500,000 line item in the governor's budget for one time spending to OREC and you're for BOBA asking for 150. We are supporting the

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: $500,000 line item in the Department of Forest Park and Recreation's budget in the governor's recommend for the Gora community grant program so I wanted to describe how we spent our $150,000 grant over a two year period to support the sector but today we are solely supporting the GORAC funding line item of $500,000 Okay.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So you're not asking for anything from BOBA individually? No. Okay. That okay. That wasn't that wasn't fully charged. Okay. David or Randy give a question to Kelly? Right. Well, then let's I

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I do have a question. And that is for reporting purposes or otherwise, how do you measure your return on investment? In other words, how do you determine whether or not what you have spent is actually achieving a result that is positive to economic development?

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: It's a great question and we've been putting together metrics at the beginning and the end of the project to understand how we can track the success and the outcomes. We have been very thorough in our evaluations of instructors and participants of all of our trainings and have provided reports and summaries of what they found were the benefits. We've also interviewed businesses and the employers that are hiring them or that have sent them to the training to advance their knowledge on how they felt the trainings were effective in providing what

[Kelly Ault (VOBA) — time-bound override]: they were looking for and being

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: able to support the retail environment and journal builder environment and we found you know pretty extensive list of outcomes that match what we had hoped to get out the project. I can't speak for the other projects but I do know that we're at had worked to identify economic metrics and then reporting on those economic outcomes of all the projects.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: How is the reporting done and to whom is it presented?

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Currently it is presented to the funding agencies and to our network of businesses that were involved in the project. So we've been using it internally to sign better programs in future editions as well as to share those results with the outdoor community so others can benefit from how to best train our industry. And then by sharing that with our funders which are state agencies, we've been able to share those learnings to the departments, the offices, and the state as they are developing work

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: with the program.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Is there something like an annual report that brings all of these things together?

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: We have an annual report. It doesn't specifically pull out the outcomes to this grant, but we have a series of final reports that I'd be happy to share all of the details of the trainings.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Are those on your website?

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: I don't think so, but they

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: should be. Yeah. Because they are public reports. We're gonna shift just given our time. We're gonna shift to Natalie Starr, who is joining us from West Windsor, Vermont. Natalie. Good morning, Natalie Starr. And you have this presentation also in your packet. Nala, can you hear us? Are you unmuted? You're still muted because we can't hear you.

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: Can you hear me okay?

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Yes. Now we can hear

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you. Yes.

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: I can hear you fairly well, not perfectly, to be honest.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You can't hear us well?

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: No. I can hear you okay. Okay. Not perfect. Might be on my end. I'm sorry to have, slides for you. But No. No.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's gonna keep you off the record and, take it away.

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: Okay. So, you know, everyone says a picture is a thousand words, right? And I'm I've got five minutes. So

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. You have ten. You have ten whole minutes.

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: Okay. So I'm a volunteer and board member of Escutney Outdoors. We're down in Brownsville, which is a village of West Windsor, not Windsor. And Escutney Outdoor Sorry?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I don't There you are. It's good to have you. Your name is Natalie Star. It's great to have you.

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: Yep. Okay. And and a little history. I'm with the Scutney Outdoors, a nonprofit formed in 2015. I don't know if you all remember when the ski area, Scutney, was operating and our town was thriving. And then it opened and closed a few times. And in 2010, it closed for good, went bankrupt. And adjacent to the skier is a town forest where we were using for recreation. We had some mountain bike trails. People hiked and certainly hunted there. It was forest management. But with the ski area gone, that was where the thriving outdoor recreation occurred both as a kind of community center and bringing dollars in. So we had we had more businesses in town. We had more people in town. So the town had to decide with the bankruptcy and ended up purchasing the ski area with the help from Trust for Public Lands and the state putting conservation easement on on the land with the understanding that a nonprofit would form to manage this land and recreation uses so the town didn't have to do it. And that was the formation of the Scutney Outdoors a decade ago now. Ski area closed bankruptcy. And here's a picture of the the base lodge also burned down. And it was an eyesore. The adjacent resort, which has condos and timeshares, they faced financial challenges. There wasn't a ski area there anymore to enjoy. Property values in town fell. The general store closed for good, went bankrupt, and the economic and social vitality of the community was threatened. It was a tough time. What happened with the purchase and the development of Eskopney Outdoors was the ski area lodge had to be demoed, so that was an additional cost. We had to raise money for it. We built a new lodge to scale much smaller to scale for our community and a smaller ski area. The lifts had been removed and sold, but we put surface lifts in just a used T bar, which we purchased up from Canada and put it in a tubing lift and a gas powered rope tow, which was a little archaic. This was all great news. The community and businesses contractors got involved in doing a lot of the work. So there was certainly fundraising to build that lodge and get those lifts in. But there was a lot of people power with people volunteering their time and their skill set to get the building built, to paint things, all sorts of stuff. New York Times picked it up. That's the article to the left. We really rallied together. And what came in afterwards was the Vorak grant, which enabled additional improvements, which were necessary and we were tired of fundraising and we needed some more money. So we electrified and upgraded the rope tow. That was really important. We purchased ski equipment used for the school ski program where we give free ski equipment to all the kids in the program from Windsor and West Windsor. Over 100 kids participate. We designed and constructed a skills park for mountain biking and put flow trails in, which are really popular now. We did not have any. We developed our Escutney Discovery Trail. We had one up on the mountain, but not to town, and we extended it down to town. That's an interpretive trail. And we developed a map you can see here and a marketing brochure because we didn't really have one. We had one actually that I threw together years ago. We didn't have a professional helping us at all. So I know everyone's interested in what were the benefits of that. Well, overall, our general store and cafe is now a really active part of our community. The general store reopened with people in town actually kicking in money to purchase it and then renting it to a young couple who then bought it back and expanded it. And the visitors up on the mountain really add revenue to the store and make it possible because it probably could not survive on the community alone. And the general store cafe caters our events up at

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the mountain. We don't have

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: any kitchen or any food service up there, so when we have a bigger event, the general store staff comes up and often caters in. The work grant projects they added to our infrastructure, they benefited children, teens, and families in particular, but everyone attracted more people to the mountain. We now have an annual high school mountain bike race every year, we have for two years now we've had the Vermont Youth Cycle Summer Race Series, and the Flow Trail and the Skills Park really appealed to the younger generation, kind of modernized our mountain biking infrastructure, that was important, but we didn't have any way to pay for it, so the Warwick grant paid for that. The rope tow upgrade is much easier for volunteers to operate the rope tow. We also don't have it's electric, so we don't have the smelly gas loud engines. It's easier for the users to use too. And the local ski and bike shops really appreciate more business from having having all these things at Escutney Outdoors. So finally, the Trail to Town that I spoke of, this is an interpretive trail. This extension connects the town, the village of Brownsville, up to the outdoor center, and the kids constantly can we kind of have a bit of a mountain curriculum the kids constantly come up during the school year, but also there's now a summer camp, the Brownsville Base Camp, based down at the school, and the kids come up most days from the camp either on foot or on bicycle on this trail to town, and it's an interpretive trail along the way. Also the resort is up and comes through, people staying at the resort comes through this trail to town along the Discovery Trail to get to the store. So finally, just overall, some of the things from our revitalization of the mountain and the ski area, which the Borac grant helped to enhance, is really that our town no longer faces the possibility of another bankruptcy at the ski area, if someone did continue to operate it as a ski area. Our town actually gained residence since the 2020 census. Think our increase was about 23% since 2010. That was significant for a town that was really not doing so well. Our general store, as I said, went bankrupt to a cafe and it really attracts a lot of mountain visitors as well as kind of is a great community meeting place. Our town forest is forever conserved with the conservation easement and the help from TPL State. It's really amazing unfragmented habitat, wildlife corridors, and the state park is on the other side, so it really connects a lot of wild area. And finally, it's been great with the community rallying together, and we have recognized that we're stronger when we work together towards something except for arguing whether or not this this mountain should even be purchased and what should be done there. So overall, it's been a great success. So I'm happy to answer any questions that I might be able to.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Natalie, it is an incredible success story and one that made me stay. You're we're all so proud of. I mean, it's just it's astonishing. And but it is really was the the you know, we talk about force of nature of a of a person. This was the force of nature of a community who really really willed this and made this and and volunteered their time making this reality. And I we all applaud you on this because it's really been

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: such an

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: astonishing comeback story for West Windsor.

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: Been great. We don't have the Woodstock Foundation behind us. We we have ourselves.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. No. You're you're touching. Your operating budget now is what?

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: Good question. It's very small. You know, rough, rough, rough. 275.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You still heavily rely on volunteers, right, to make

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: this Yes. I think it's less than 200, honestly.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. And so your grants that you apply for on an annual basis are from VOREC, not from VOVA. Right?

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: No. Directly the grant that I'm talking about with those projects was from VORAC. I think it was 2020

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's what they're that yeah. They are from VORAC, not from VOBA, not from the

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: No. We're not a member of VOBA? Kelly, I might have met you at Trap Skiing once. I don't know.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. Any questions for Natalie? Because those results are pretty great. The one additional piece, of course, not that the that the Sky Outdoors has all to do with the incredible growth of the Grand List but the Grand List in West Windsor my guess has grown significantly just like sadly, maybe well not sadly but one of the challenges we face is rising housing values. But in this case, it's just great because they were on such a decline. Yeah?

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: Yeah. Yeah. I I mean, our population has grown. Housing's a problem everywhere. We have a housing committee formed. I I would say one thing that's been great is that we have more people want to live in West Windsor year round.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Which is exciting.

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: Yeah, it's great. It's great. It's what we all want, I think.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. No, this is a huge success story. Thank you. Yeah,

[Natalie Starr (Volunteer Board Member, Ascutney Outdoors, West Windsor)]: we want a balance between the outdoor recreation industry being in our towns and having the community there. And I I think that we've struck a great balance in our town where we we hope to keep it going.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yep. Yep. Well, we applaud you. Thank you. Thank you. And if there's no other questions, we will shift. Thank you, BORAC. Thank you, BOBA. And we as we develop that bill, we certainly will consider that supporting that the governor's asked on that.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: I just have to apologize for missing it.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I promise to watch the YouTube.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Yeah. And we were planning on advocating for the ORAG funding before we learned that the governor put it into Just identify yourself. Just the top parent representing Pata Boba and Vermont Council.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. Terrific. Thank you very much. Natalie, great to see you. Nice to see enjoy today, and we're going to we're gonna shift to one of our economic development partners, the Public Assets Institute, for their update and the priorities for this year and proposals for this year.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: You say partner, do we fund them? No. You're not saying.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: What? Public Assets Institute? Yeah. No. Right? You don't. It's like a

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: just see if I can

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And Kesha is joining us via Zoom. Okay. Great. Excellent.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I'm hoping this one gets me logged on. I should have done it sooner.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So Julie and we should have done this with Natalie because they probably know us all. Julie, while you're doing that, do you know all have you met all of us or should we just go around? Yeah.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I got to be with you last year.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. So bear with me

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: one moment because I should wait till this goes on. Right? And this is just for my slides, the Zoom, so

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I could see We have our slides. You have my slides. I think.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: So maybe I don't okay.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, wait. I'm in. I'm in. Okay good. Thank you, Kara. This is great. The state of working Vermont is the one you see in blue. Tom, thanks for your email with Nader. Let's chat. I didn't I didn't I got hijacked a little bit at the end the evening, so I didn't get I had read it.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I didn't have a chance

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: to respond.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Alright. Oh, I'm connecting. It's like the substitute teacher in front of the class with the VHS tapes. We all remember this. Thank you very much for having me. I'm Julie Lowell. I'm the economics attorney policy and outreach director at Public Assets Institute. So I do a lot of the data analysis, a lot of the policy research at our shop. Just as a reminder, we are a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, and we're really focused on improving the well-being of all Vermonters and advancing racial, social, and economic justice. And we do this through research, fiscal analysis, and public engagement work to inform state policy to improve those areas. So Senator Clarkson had asked me to join you all today, and thank you very much. We're excited to be here to kind of talk about some of our economic development priorities in the state. And so I brought, not surprised, some data with me today because I think you're up there. All right.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Did I get lost? No. Did you wanna send it to Kieran and have her put up?

[Julie Lowell (Public Assets Institute) — time-bound override]: I I think I do have it. I can just share it.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Is that okay? I'm sorry. It looks like I just got kicked off. Yeah. It's the Wi Fi in this room. Okay. Great. Thank you. That's really kind of have one hand in your So say it's not me.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's the Wi Fi. So

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Just keep going. I know that. Alright. She's in so And I'll just let you know when I'm ready for the next slide. Thank you. I apologize. Okay. So every year, we do a big annual state of working Vermont report. I shared some of those indicators with you this year. So I'm gonna share not a whole report today. I'm gonna share some of the highlights from this year to start and then move into some opportunities and some of the policy areas that we think are most important for Vermonters. So just as a reminder, state of working Vermont report, we've been doing this for twenty years now. I have not been, but I've been doing it for eight. And the report is really aimed to ground people in the fast of the Vermont economy. So to track those changing over time, put economic indicators into the perspective of the everyday Vermonter and how folks are actually doing.

[Julie Lowell (Public Assets Institute) — time-bound override]: We use a lot of federal data sources like the

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: American Community Survey, which is a federal survey that can be distilled down into state level data. And that survey has a lot. So it's the 2024 data. There's a lot of processes to clean that and get that ready to share with the states. And so that comes out in September '25. So that's why a number of the data points in this report report to 2024. Please supplement this with additional labor force data that is collected through the Bureau of Labor Statistics in collaboration with the Department of Labor in Vermont, and those are monthly labor force numbers. So you'll see some of those, and then as well as state and federal administrative data to kind of get a sense of how the Montrose rate is made. I want to name one thing because data has kind of been a huge conversation. In the last year, none of the data points in this report have been impacted by any data collection changes. With the exception of in October during the federal shutdown, labor force data was not collected. So we will there's gonna be a hole there. Right? And what we're seeing now is sort of a lag time

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: in some of the releases of data. Sorry. Forgot

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: to bring it over. I was busy with my time. So the report is what it means you can grab a page and just pull it and

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: look at an indicator or that you can look at

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: the full report and sort of get an overall picture of the economy in Vermont and what that means for people. And the message is fairly unchanged. I don't think I'm gonna say anything today that's gonna shock you, but it hopefully give you some new grounding in what's happening for Vermonters. So Vermonters are continuing to struggle to meet their basic needs, wealth and income inequality is increasing, and housing and healthcare costs continue to grow further out of reach for people. What they're important we tried to do though is give a new post pandemic baseline. You know what we saw during the pandemic, I'm not there yet, sorry. Long, long with you. What we found right during the pandemic, it could have been a lot worse than it was. We saw really important targeted public investment that kept people out of poverty and actually decreased poverty with the increases in the child tax credits and the pandemic payments. Since then though, inflation has increased, prices have increased, and all of that government investment has been made. And now we just are not keeping pace with costs. And then in addition, we're facing sort of federal cuts and federal challenges that are making life and continuing to make life harder for Vermonters. So I'm gonna touch on a few of the charts and kinda go into more detail of each of those pieces, specifically looking at inequality in Vermont's housing and health care costs, and the workforce. And then I'll finish by talking about opportunities in Vermont to address the work quality challenges. So the first chart I brought with you today is what I'm really, really excited about because what we were able to do is we were able to take the Joint Disposal Office's Basic Needs Budget, which I think you're

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: all familiar with. Yes? Yes. Right. And the Basic Needs Budget just does a

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: much better job of assessing what families really need to get by. The poverty line shows us 9% of Vermonters are in poverty and that really doesn't tell us

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: who can meet their basic needs.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: So we took the basic needs budget this year and during fiscal office has six to seven family types and we expanded that to an additional 11 to include families with more children and we were able to account for 74% of the monitors in this analysis so we took these 18 different families representative Vermonters and we tied it in our community survey data what Vermonters were actually earning and the results were stark. And on just a note, this covers 74% of Vermonters. 20% of Vermonters not included are those 65, and that's because those Vermantras have different tax implications and different spending spending patterns and

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: also different costs that they face. That would be a separate So you're talking about everybody up to 65?

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Up to 65, yeah. And what we found is half of single adults and a third of families with kids don't meet the threshold, which you can see here in this chart. And of course, as you have more children, the number of families leaving their basic needs declines even further. So on the next slide, you can see that families with children make up about

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a quarter of household.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: We can just see the next slide. Oh, perfect, thank you. Families who aren't meeting this threshold, threshold doesn't necessarily mean they're not meeting their basic needs. It means that they don't have the incomes for sure of that flexibility. Maybe they've found an amazing deal on rent, but the landlord's gonna sell the property. And so it's leaving these families with that stress because they don't have that financial security and flexibility if they fall below the threshold. Some of the families are getting support through the government. So in the next slide, you can see that monthly about 60,000 per month is for land food assistance. And then on the following slide, you can see that 170,000 Vermonters receive health insurance through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. You can look a little bit about what the distribution across

[Julie Lowell (Public Assets Institute) — time-bound override]: the state of those two programs.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: But we know that these investments aren't enough, right? We know that families and food assistance are often still all insured being able to cover the cost of food. We also know that some of these programs aren't entitlements. So if you look at the next slide, you can see that in terms of housing assistance, 3,500 people were homeless in the state in '20 in the point of time count in 2025. That's triple what it was in 2019. And there's a growing number of folks on shelter. So these challenges are gonna get worse for families. What we've seen is a lot of uncertainty federally, as you all know. The homelessness assistance program funds at the federal level are continually in flux in terms of how local providers, their flexibility in using those in ways they know will help the population and the community in Vermont who need housing. We saw 131 housing choice vouchers cut in the state last year and that sort of has a compounding effect because once you can't house those 131 families, but once you don't have those vouchers, then the feds don't count those vouchers in your allotment of dollars.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We're we're trying as you go to rectify that in the budget adjustment. Yes. Yes. So are hoping to do with this $5,000,000,000 infusion and sort of rectify that sort of insidious funnel down to fewer and fewer vouchers every year.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I'm really excited to hear that and know that like we're worried obviously that this is just the start of the trend right federally that this might get worse with federal funds. And then with staff and Medicaid, there's kind of three different ways those benefits are getting attacked. There's new administrative burdens, which is both difficult for people trying to access the program, which probably will mean some of them will fall off. It's harder for the state to administer the benefits. We're cutting immigrants from the programs, including people legally here like asylum seekers and refugees, and we're decreasing benefit levels. So the basic needs story is grim right now. People are struggling to meet their basic needs. So in order to address the shortfalls, grandma needs to kind of address two sides of the coin, right? You have to address the wage side and the cost side. I'm gonna dive into those. Thank

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you. Because we never addressed the wage side.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I'll talk about that, but I'm gonna talk about the costs.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We all want harp on the cost side and we aren't willing to necessarily do the work to actually address the other side. I've got

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: a little bit, I think I do. So if we get to the next slide, this just is a reminder that Vermont has an unfortunate designation without having the most expensive health care premiums in the nation. This is based on the benchmark silver plan on the off exchange.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So before we leave that thought, do you attribute that or perhaps we should ask someone else but at least it be interesting to get your input. Do you attribute this to our community rating? I mean this is solely a result of our requiring insurance companies to meet our community rating standard. I can't answer that exact question.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I think this is a deep question. We did a report on the exchange in particular and there's various ways in which Vermont draws down the premium tax credits that in some ways can sometimes be an advantage to some portion of the population, but I think in general, the market premiums near the exchange premiums and so it continues to be. But I think you should get an expert healthcare witness. No, no, no, I mean, because

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think we all have to, you know okay. Next slide.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Particularly curious though, at this slide, that whereas we have the highest cost of the nation, our next door neighbor New Hampshire has the lowest cost of Asia. Do you have any idea why that's the case?

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I don't. I mean, I think healthcare premiums are fascinating, right, that

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we have our separate markets and separate insurance. That's why insurance in New Hampshire would be done with it.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Right, Right. Right. And and I I think there's a smaller market here with, you know, lower competition, but I think having some more in-depth estimates is really important.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think that's certainly worth looking on. Yeah. Yeah. Or or certainly getting Yeah, So next slide is about homes. I'm gonna stay on this for a while.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: So you know I think this is a problem no matter who you talk to, right? You're talking, we talk about it at work all the time, it's a problem for self employed folks, employers. The hospital community, right, it it continues to be a problem. But one of those folks the people who are sort of standing out right now are the 30,000 people who access care on the health exchange.

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: They are supported with 350,000,000

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: in federal premium tax credits last year, and we stand to lose $65,000,000 of those credits this year because of the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credit. So the premium tax credits will still be there, but there is an enhancement that's gonna mean that people will get fewer, less support to pay for their health care premiums and middle income Vermonters will no longer qualify for the program altogether so what that means is individual earning $63,000 a year no longer qualifies for support and they would face a benchmark premium of $15,000 a year so about a quarter of their income so this is kind of the group that it's going to be and already is being squeezed, January 15 was the last sign up date for the exchange. So I'm gonna do a little bit more with housing prices. I remember talking with you all about this last year, you really wanted to dive into this. And so we looked more in-depth. We did a number of charts on this in the report this year.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And we looked at Sorry. Which chart do

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: we Oh, yes. The next housing chart. Yeah. There we go. I can see it here. We looked at homeownership and rental cost from a distribution perspective. And I think this chart is really telling because what you can see is home values or what I could summarize for you, you know, you can really see the shift of increase in the value of homes. Home selling at $300,000 or more doubled in five years from 2019 to 2024. So the median value was $353,000 and that was an increase of $120,000 So over a five year period, the value of people's homes rose by $120,000 Compare that to the five years previous and the homes values only rose $18,000 So it's quite striking right there, the sharp increase. And if you go to the next slide, what you can see is in these five years, this is the actual this is actual sale price

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of homes where the first chart

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: was the home values. There was a 55 the state. The homes in the state. It really just varies how out of skew and lack the housing market has become for so many.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: So home prices have just risen at

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the rate that Vermonters even with increased income came forward.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Cannot keep up with. Yeah. If you look at the next chart, you can see rental units kind of a similar story. Right? Everything keeps getting more expensive, which you would expect over time.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But maybe not at this rate.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: No. Maybe not at this rate. So three quarters of rental units cost over $1,000 a month in 2024. That was three quarters of the units, but in 2019, it was under half of the units or over $1,000 What this means in practice, if you look at the next slide, is two full time workers who are earning minimum wage at full time, their wages fall $25,000 short of the fair market rent. And so that fair market rent is the rent that you would need to access 40% of the house in the rental market. So these are just their wages. This isn't even 30% of their wages. So these families are scrambling and trying to figure out how to make this work.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So repeat that one again. Yeah. So because it isn't actually written out here, it's just in the graph so you have to know Yeah. Yes

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: and in the report there's a

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: like a So just repeat that statistic for us.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Two full time workers working at the journey minimum wage they fall $25,000 short a year of the fair market rent. And I think this is assuming a two

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah, two bedroom bedroom apartment.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: So this is both because of those rising rents, but also if you look at the next slide, you can see that we're having our minimum wages falling and this is contributing to the problem. So there's a couple of different things I wanna point out in this next slide. We can bring that up is that Vermont's minimum wage is the only one in New England, aside from New Hampshire. New Hampshire is still tied to the federal minimum wage, is $7.25. So only minimum wage in New England, that's less than $15 an hour. And if you remember back in 2019 and 2020, and I have to admit, I did not fully remember, I was like, what happened before the pandemic? I don't know. We had a lot of minimum wage conversations in this building, and there was some who had the goal to get our minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2024, and some who had the goal of getting there by 2026. We are now in 2026, and unfortunately, we are not yet at 15 an hour.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We're at $14.72

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: something like that. So that's one thing to point out.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Have Which is still well below a lovable wage, which is a frustration that some of us have, which is if you actually believe and support the JFO's work on the basic needs budget, one would then thoughtfully, they tend to embrace the recommendation that comes out of it, is data driven and science driven of what a livable wage would be, which is the minimum amount you need to live on, and even that at 17, whatever it is now, an hour, which is what the basic needs budget predicted two weeks a year ago, even that is below what is needed now for a family to, you know, keep their 30% of, you know, to keep within

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: the 24% of housing. Yeah. Mean yeah. Yeah. And so that's the other point with this chart. You can see the growing gap. Way that the Joint Fiscal Office releases the basic needs budget will come up until next year. They do it every two years. And then we'll have the numbers for '26. So we did a projection here based on CBO projections of CPI. So this is kind of around Are these inflation adjusted? These are not inflation adjusted. This is the strange

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: When I look at that and I look at the chart that we looked at a while ago, three quarters of rentals cost over $1,000 a month. In 2019, only half of them did. Those aren't inflation adjusted either, are they?

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Can I see that one again?

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I think the charts are misleading if they're non inflation adjusted. Point of fact, there's a 22% increase of inflation in this period that's in this chart. A 230% increase

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: in what income? Dollar, dollar value, the change in dollar,

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: the value of a dollar between that period of time, at least what I'm looking at, prices increasing about 2223% from '19 to 2004, and that is based on an average rate of 4.16% I'm looking at. Like rate in 2024, 2.95%. And as I look at it, when you have numbers that you present showing a comparison of how costs have changed, If it's not an inflation adjusted cost, have a misleading conclusion, Well, aren't

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I think for these numbers, we know that there's a number of folks who are living below the poverty line or who are the lowest income that there's fewer units that they are able to access is one of the points of doing this. And I appreciate your point that inflation adjustment is important, but I think people sort of can see like distribution is

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: starting to creep upward. For the other check though,

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I believe, you know, I without inflation adjustment, I'm comparing to the other states and the level wage, you can still

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: see kind of the growing

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: We certainly see what's happening compared to other states but in terms of the actual number as to what the meaning of that is, unless it's inflation adjusted, I don't think it's a valid statistic. If you go

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: to the previous slide, the point she's really making is that medium home prices are not the key in keeping up with medium household income. If inflation adjusted, they're both gonna be impacting you.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You're gonna

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: see a widening gap.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Exactly. I don't think that is material

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: for I I actually think they're both really important. Right? Like, I think the general consumer sees $6 for a dozen eggs and thinks this is really difficult for me to pay and isn't doing that math. Know, how did inflation change since 2019? But what they do know is how their wages have changed.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, they do know what they do their pocket. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you keep going because we get we're sort

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: of Yeah. Okay. Alright. Okay, let me just really quickly do a quick rounding on the next slide, but I'll have a couple more things I'll say on the page. Just to ground you on kind of where we are in Vermont's workforce, right? We've generally recovered what we lost during the pandemic. Our labor force participation rates are pretty much back to where they were and that's true across different age groups and our levels of employment are roughly the same. This chart is actually from our monthly jobs report. We usually put out just kind of a one page statistic and what we found was that our employment actually hit our highest employment mark in January 2025. You can see that sort of there. But then our employment actually fell month over month in 2025 till till November. So we are keeping an eye on this. We don't have to subvertip again. At the same time, though, so employment is account people working, self employed, people on farms, maybe they're people in a family business getting paid, maybe not getting paid. Our jobs have not fallen. And jobs is account of people in jobs. So if I was working two jobs, think counted twice in that statistic. So we are keeping an eye on this. There are some rebranched numbers coming out next month that we're gonna try to understand why because often those indicators move together even though they're not exactly counting the same things. But what we did see The next

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: slide The number of jobs that need to be done haven't fallen.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Sorry, the number of jobs has not fallen, right? So the number of jobs that employers have people in has not fallen, but the number of people working have fallen.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So that means more the the natural conclusion of that is that more people are doing more jobs. It's very possible,

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: and because they're separate datasets, we can't

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But Vermont that has been constantly challenged for Vermont who are income challenged, which has all sorts of other ramifications in terms of family life and I mean, there are just huge Yeah. Impacts elsewhere when people are working too many jobs for a same life.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Just haven't seen that kind of data. I'd love to know historically are we seeing more and more promoters having to work second jobs or is it just consistently the same? But I'm intrigued to

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Yeah. Think the

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: one meal barrier can get to that. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Because we all know anecdotally, that's been true for homeowners for a long time. Yeah. To get over a financial afflict in college or this or that yeah. You know, a specific thing that they take on.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Yeah. Okay. So just to note though, it is important, we are one of four states who haven't recovered all the jobs that we had pre pandemic. So even though our jobs are up this year over last year, we haven't quite recovered everything lost during the pandemic.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Last question about the slide previously.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So I'm curious, know, take a lot of time to compare pre pandemic to pandemic. Yeah.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: What about like 2015 into 2020? Was were we still on a downward slope? We were on an upward trend.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: We were on an upward trend over five, ten years. I'm pretty sure, but like generally it's been fairly upward. Yeah. Yeah. With a couple of clicks during the recession, right? And this is employment not labor force. So during recessions sometimes you see the labor force grow because people are out of work but more people are looking for work because labor force accounts for those employed in Canada. Right.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But yeah. Yeah.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: So going kind of, you know, of course, this contributes to the story of wages. And in on the next slide, you can see and I

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: believe these are inflation adjusted.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Wage growth actually bottom earners saw the largest rates of growth over the last decade, but their dollar gains were a third of what those at the top brought in. And what we've seen in practice

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm sorry. Bottom earners had big wage growth. They had the highest rates.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: They saw the largest percentage of growth, but because they started at such a lower value ten years ago, they brought in about a little over $6,500 a year compared to over 18,000 for the top earners. And then on the next slide, you can see this has been a growing trend over the last fifty years. So in 2022, the top 10% of Vermonters, they have 45% of the income. And you can just kind of see that increasing kind of slowly, a little bit of a up and down line. Just leaving less for the rest of the folks to be able to meet their basic needs. One part of that story is that productivity in the next chart grew to 47% in twenty five years, but wages for those production and non supervisor workers grew 34%. So if wage growth had kept up with production growth here, that would be $6,500 more per year that co worker would earn in 2024.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: How do you relate that? Is that an average figure? Yes, that's

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: the average figure. Yeah. So

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so if wage growth had kept up with productivity growth, they would have on average been earning each homeowner would on average be earning 6,500 more a year. Yes. And how can that measure It's the

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: median, sorry, so it's a median a worker being paid median wages would have $6,500

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: per year. And how do we measure individual productivity? Because I think all of us as legislators think about that our own productivity how do we measure individual productivity yes it makes me worried we're only if this isn't 40% of our time that's productive it's a growth of our productivity. It is 40%. Yes. Growth of productivity. So it's growth of wages for goods and products that are sold.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Or not wages, but income, right, for goods and products.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. Yeah. So can you explain what how do you measure 47%? The the productivity has grown 47%.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Yeah. So there the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects these from businesses. They collect receipts and things, and they look at the growth in those receipts. And I can get you a more detailed answer on this in terms of which survey does it and things like that. And so they look at those indicators that they collect over time. But I'm happy to follow-up with that with kind of more Right,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so given our timeframe now that we're beyond time, but Andy isn't here yet. We're Okay,

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: so very quickly then, I will move us to opportunities. The reconciliation bill this summer, it cut Medicaid and SNAP services along with other things. And it did this to finance tax rates for the wealthiest. When the bill extended and expanded the twenty seventeen Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And this gave $700,000,000 in savings to the richest 20% of Vermonters. So what that means for a filer in the top 1%, they would have an average savings of $60,000 annually, which is about two times the earnings of a full time minimum wage worker. So I think there's really some opportunity for Vermont to recover some of these lost taxes to invest in important public programs. You can see in the next slide, and you all know this, But just as a reminder, we have a mostly progressive tax system. This is anchored in

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have the progressive tax systems in the country.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: One of the most progressive, yes. It's really anchored in our strong progressive income tax, but the property and sales tax is where kind of the if we get into the weeds where things get a little wonky, and so you get pretty progressive and then a little regressive. So there's room there to create to fix that. There's capacity to require lost dollars, fixed progressivity, and I know there's a lot of conversations in the buildings to look at wealth, which we don't have slides on because it is a much difficult much more difficult data point to capture. So with some increased resources and revenue, we would advocate for adjusting that minimum wage, creating a level that is better keeping up with the growing costs of goods, services, and housing and health care. The refundable tax credit has been a great mechanism through the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit to put more money in the pockets of families with children. It really is an efficient way with little administrative burden that lets families direct the resources that they need. And, of course, investment in health care and housing for

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the most vulnerable are gonna be continually important. Yeah. That 65,000,000 a year that that we have exposed Vermont families to, whether, you know, who's lost with federal support on the exchange, you know, and that that's per year. That will be a huge lift if we decide we have to support families. Yeah. I mean, that's just one Hindu. That's not food. That's not housing. That's just one that's one major piece. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. The health care question is very intriguing to me and one

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: that we would love to have a full time analyst work on because it's such a big problem and in fact, like I said earlier, everybody in this room, all of our employers, all of our communities, continues to be a challenge.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. So your takeaway for us for this year for us to focus on is there is money that has come back into Vermont in many ways it's just not being reengaged necessarily or recaptured in any way. That's right. Yeah. How can

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: we recover some of that and do good work and address some of

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the federal harms that we know is already happening. And this discussion begins in some ways in the house and they are in the process of, I believe, discussing it.

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Any questions for Julie? It's very interesting and I think we would love to have you back as we potentially look at how we address the wage piece of affordability. Everyone loves to talk about affordability and my committee knows that I feel very strongly that we always talk about the cost piece of affordability. We seldom talk about the cost, the the income. So the wages is is income and there's cost. Yeah. And we have an ability to address the wage impact and we keep sidestepping it wanting to put it all on the cost and it's not.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I I So we'll start spinning

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: up some charts. Alright. Have I a

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: couple I'm like, well I wonder what this indicator looks like that I haven't looked at This is helpful.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You know what those people want to hear but it's helpful and thoughtful and certainly adds to our thinking about the challenge we all face together which is how Vermont has been afforded to live in Vermont for the next few years for the rest of their lives. Thank you very much. Thank you for having too. Very helpful, thank you. And we're going to shift gears a bit but stay on economic development issues and turn to our wonderful partners in economic development, our regional development corporations, and we welcome Andy Chittenden who is the current president of

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: the RDC. Yeah. That's correct.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. It's worth being happy. And then at about 10:35 we'll take a break for ten minutes and begin again with another aspect of downtown, well Downtown Texas.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yeah so I'll try to keep it brief here so we'll put within that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Keep it with what you need.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Okay, alright. Well we'll have some handouts here because I see you all don't seem to have enough papers on your desk. Oh, we brought it up.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay, but

[Kelly Ault (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: we have it

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: posted for

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: people. Okay.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Andrew are you wanting to share your screen or are you okay with the I'm okay with the In case you have it on the screen. Okay. It's on the website.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Alright, we'll just work out the paper here. So yes, this is our legislative priorities. We thought we would cover these. We keep them nice and brief. Know you folks have plenty to do this session. This is very helpful. Are interested in many things but we thought we'd keep it fairly simple on the priorities list here. The regional development corporation

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: of Vermont.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: You can see at the top it says regional development corporation so we're AB testing a new name for that corporation. Believe it

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: or not

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: a lot of smart

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: people have put that and we all missed it.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay, you know what it should say so therefore So you skip what it does

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: I think in general we're looking to recognize and build upon the positive contributions. We've had some great legislation passed over the last few years. That's great. We will anticipate and react to new economic challenges because they are vast right now and just do no harm. We have a really volatile time right now. We're hearing from businesses that it's really hard to tell where the economy is headed at this time and whatever we do we just want to make sure we're doing it carefully, deliberately, and with data. We do make

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: decisions that are careful and deliberate and thoughtful and you may still think we do harm. No. I'm handkerchief. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, we always think our decisions are made thoughtfully and terribly. And, you know, I mean when you say do no harm what do you mean?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Well I mean just that

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: we're careful of course you do.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Do you want me to name the RDC director that many inserts us? No. I think we're just saying, you know, at this time volatility in the business world and we're hearing that every day as we go out and visit people.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Keep it safe.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Just yes. I mean so much supply lines, prices, employment. So much is a question mark and when you're a business owner trying to figure out, you know, where are we going? Can we expand? Are we in trouble? All the question marks.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We can work in all fairness, we can work in this building to keep it as stable as possible, and outside forces may derail us completely. Absolutely. Totally understand. I just want to make sure we don't get blamed for everything.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: I can't control that but yes. It won't come from me. So veggie tops the list and I think you know we're all aware veggie utilization is a little frustrating we haven't seen as many businesses utilizing that program over the past few years as we would hope. It does work really well when it works. We do have some flagship Vermont companies that have come up through that located here, expanded here. It's where it works. It's working really well.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So you would support our sunset?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Absolutely. I think, you know, in part some of the constant question is this program going to be here in the next five years, maybe contributing to that utilization, low utilization. I think we heard at the retreat, those of us who were there, that you know there are improvements that could be made to that program.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And they're working, they're working

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: on making those improvements. So are they or is there any?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, okay.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: So it feels like we've kicked the can here one year, two years at a time as we've done that and there's always an expression of let's make this thing better and that there's never any assignment of that duty and we come back year or two later.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The assignment is with the Vermont Economic Program. Okay. And

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: I think if we I mean, I

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: think you would I think we need to have that conversation with Jessica

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Sure.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And what they're planning on doing to make it easier for companies to access. But as we also discovered in the Pepsi retreat, it's not for everybody. Veggie is for a company at a certain level of growth. It is not for a startup. It is not for even early stage. It's for a mature company.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yeah. And trying to make it two things at once could be farming to throw. Yeah, I think that we all heard that there. While I was at the retreat, was impressed by the consultants and the work that they had done and hope that they get to continue their work. I understand they've been asked for some funding to continue to work with those consultants that may or may not have made it in the budget.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have had that to ask. I'm looking at my committee members and I don't believe we have. I think their main ask is to sunset Veggie.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: I think we had finance, didn't we? We talked about Veggie and the sunset last week on Oh, the sunset.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes, that's where our bill went. Yeah. Okay. We're gonna reinforce it here.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Thank you. So the second priority we have is we have this great program through building a general services called the economic development program. That is a small grant and it actually, not a lot of folks have heard of it and I think that's sort of a good thing. It's been non controversial and

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it works really well. I serve on that.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Isn't that a great yes, that's right. You're on the Big

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the buck.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Big bang for the buck and sort of ticks the box that everybody seems to be searching for with the small businesses and edgy. Would you don't think it's

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: related to edgy. Think it's just small businesses that need an investment, a modest investment which they have to match.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It has to ideally grow jobs and but these are investments of, you know, 10 to $25,000. These are not huge investments. We only have 300,000 to work with. Yeah. We work with the Commissioner of Buildings and General Services and Edie Branning and I are the two legislators that served on it. We made great, we really had a great process, we did this in December and made the decisions and you know it's everything from machine to help make donuts better and faster that will mean there's a growth in that business of one employee I mean it's really rubber on the road growing economic development in very small but impactful ways.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: And for us we go around to these businesses you can see the impact that it has just small investment, big impact, know, if set another machine, expansion to their business, puts a couple more people to work.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So this is are we talking about the same grant? The grant we had was $300,000 through the capital bill.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: This is the so there's yeah, so building general services and there's four categories are you in all four categories? Is the economic development? Economic development. Okay. Yeah. I think we're

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that's the total is the $900,100

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: for the economic development portion of that. We'd love to see that bumped up 10% just to recognize that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: For our institutions committee.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Great. It seemed like they were a lot more than just if they funded this year just because that the applications exceeded the board. And we've seen great successes with those. Priority three, F-one 181 timelines, know, that you have a balance to make between the environment and growth and we leave that to you in your capable hands and that's a difficult decision you have to make. But we're seeing the interim exemptions really working, starting to take hold, everything goes a little slower than you would hope with development. We are

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Where seeing is your best example of the interim exemptions working?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: A specific one isn't I don't think I said one in front of me. Could supply that.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Yes, mean I can do the same

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: but there they're they're definitely people taking advantage of those exemptions. They have been for for a year.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Yeah. I just was

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I would do some Yeah. No. I'm say that they're Yep. Working. It would be great to have. Yes. Examples of where they're working really well.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yeah. You can do that. I wish it were happening in Grand Isle County as much as, you know, the other areas, but, yeah, definitely I can get you some of interest

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think that'd be helpful. Yeah. Because we're on the other side of it, Kesha has joined us again and she's having to be remote today, but on the other side of it we're looking at what are the barriers to towns opting into being tier one towns. Yeah. Which is so if the exemptions are working well, how can we figure out how we're how we can reduce those barriers so that more towns will say yes, we want to be a tier one town.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of moving parts there. We understand that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So we'd appreciate actually input from you on that. The towns that you're in your jurisdiction. What are those barriers and is it how might we effectively address that this year? Sure. Because I think all of us were hoping more towns would opt in.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yep. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. So I thought I only had fifteen minutes today so I didn't go beyond the examples and documentation so okay.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Good, we gotten the questions yet so and so your fourth priority is?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Brownfield and the second handout is the change in standards for lead arsenic and

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh wait, sorry, I'm going be sad. Go back to so your objective with Act 181 is to extend interim exemptions by one year so from '27 to '28.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: So the governor asked him for three years to thirty? Why just one year? We picked it, yeah, it's I mean we're open three years as well. We understand this, we're understanding the balance here that folks are making. We're trying not to to weigh in on one side or the other, but just make the observation that we are seeing evidence that the interim exemptions are working and it feels like a quick turnaround to change the rules now.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Then your fourth priority

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Brownfields, really would love to see state money in Brownfields so much more flexible than federal dollars And the last handout is the new standards for testing for lead arsenic and PAHs. The standards got stricter last November for all three of these. So the last two pages is a visual of that? We don't have those, at

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: least I don't have those. At Thomas.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: So I'm not disagreeing with this, but those standards are Vermont specific. What I said last year, and I'll say again though I'm blue in the face, is we, there's, I'd rather just standardize our requirements to be more consistent with our regional neighbors to reconsider what we're acquiring at Brownfields so that we don't have to put $5,000,000 into meeting standards that are exceeding that with our neighboring states. We just make it too darn hard to build in Vermont and I think our standards, rather than throwing more money at meeting a standard that we apply that's out of step and far exceeding all of our neighbors, let's reconsider those standards. That's what I would say. So I'm not against what you've said, but I just wish that it might also include the scope of reconsidering some of the standards that Vermont has enacted in the development environment. And that would get to the objective that our concern is that you will end up with areas and villages and downtowns that are dead spots because they don't meet these standards and if you don't have money to clean them up, you've got water, you've got wastewater, they're right on a break traffic.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Do you have data on how many towns, because of this standard town, that are not able to be cleaned up?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Under the new standards?

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: Yeah. I

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: don't know that we do because I think this will be our first building season under these new ones. Those that have existing assessments, like a Springfield that has a complete map of these are the contaminants at this level. I think you could probably say here's the acreage that is being removed. I guess you wouldn't know the ones that have done. I'm sorry we took testimony on this last year.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, no no we did but my concern and and yeah. I mean, I would think, actually, we would then have more well, exactly. We'd have more properties that need to be yeah. Your what I I haven't had a chance to go through the governor's budget on the brownfields. What did you recommend?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: I have heard zero.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's what I've

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: heard coming

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: down the pipeline, and I think zero is unacceptable given it's critically important.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: But if we had lowered our standards, it would lower the amount it would take to meet those standards.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: If that is true, either way, we need that financial money, but the lowering the standards would take more time. And we could ask for it in the bill, but we we and we could ask for a review of that again.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Well, there must have been some sort of a review as to why the load raised them in the first place.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: In fact, that is one of our jurisdictional jurisdictional challenges because that's not in this committee but we can

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: But there should be testimony, there should be some result from the committee of jurisdiction.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: And what I hear is that we have standards much higher than our neighbors. You want to go to New Hampshire compared to what they have there in New York. So this imaginary geopolitical boundary, we got to do a lot more with dirty dirt. It's just dirt. So I'm just

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: saying, we're meeting the costs. And we worked on this effectively last year. Let's get Matt Chapman back in and and and understand more fully what we're up against. But to have zeroed out of Brownfields is is just unacceptable. If you want to build housing and to have zeroed out is really heartbreaking.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yeah, even at the current standards if we're using the mice, particularly in the Northeast Kingdom and Springfield region.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: On Rutland. It's like Rutland as well. Yeah, exactly. So critically important.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Madam Chair?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes, Kesha. You

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: may well, I didn't try to raise my hand because

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: You're taking a moment while the kids are not screaming. You might hear Peppa Pig in the background. But I wanted to go back, if we can, to the interim exemptions. I'm glad they are working for folks. Those were hard hard fought, hard won. I didn't hear any reference to, like, the backlog of projects or why one year. I mean, it it would help us when we look at what to do to have more specifics, and I would hope the RDCs could give us those specifics.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. I think that would be helpful, and I don't know if you were on when I asked them when they said that interim exemptions were working well. I asked them for a couple examples of the more frequent Right.

[Julie Lowell (Economic Policy & Outreach Director, Public Assets Institute)]: So we we

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: have those because we we never know. Right.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But, you know, if we're gonna get an extension, we shouldn't do it on vibes. You know, it should be, like, what what is actually in the pipeline? What where are people feeling afraid to put something in the pipeline and spend money to get something ready? I mean, it speaks to why you need three years. One year is just not not really a useful proposal, I would think. So getting more data from the RDCs would be helpful.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Very, very helpful. And I also ask for the data on what are they hearing in their accounts about the impediments to opting in on tier one?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yep, we can provide that in three years would certainly not hurt our feelings. We didn't know what the ask would be in the governor's budget.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So the chart that you brought with us share what that is, is that all brownfield data?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yes, these are the new standards. Okay and does

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Kiara have that?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Yes. Okay.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And those just remind me because Clerk and I committee we run members better than I do, did they get enacted? When were those good?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Well yeah there's a timeline, it's actually been kind of sneaking up for several years here, there's a lot on this, the various phases and it looks like it started in 2017 and remember a new process to revisit this.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We've been living with these new requirements on Brownfields since '17?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: No, no the new requirements kicked in November 2025.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. So they're brand new.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: There were other ones before then too. I just think we make what I hear from developers is we make it too difficult and too expensive to deal with dirt. Reconsider some of our standards.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And dealt with that last year? Mean we dealt with it a little tiny tiny bit.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: We allowed for another permitting process for them to be able to retain the standards of the site.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Much sooner and hopefully less expensive. Let's find out from that CHEP and how that's working and let's see what we can do about you know, we keep raising the bar. It's not unlike our energy codes.

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: The one who raised the bar and then try to fund the ways to meet that bar,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: but Right?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: Dog trying to use some

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I don't disagree. But, I mean, it's what we face with in a in a number of regulated areas. Great. Any other questions for Abby? Remind us how many towns you represent in Grand Isle?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: You mean personally five. You don't have

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Franklin County as well?

[Andy Chittenden (Chair, Regional Development Corporations of Vermont; Grand Isle RDC)]: No. That's in Smith. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, that's right. So you have $5 a half. Hence you being given the additional burden of being chair of the RDC's for this year. Yes. Then you have Erica in this chair. Right. Now it's wonderful. Happy to it. This is great. Okay. If we have no other questions for Andy, I think we will go offline, come back when we have the Vermont Downtown government, but we're gonna be talking about Downtown tax credits and other economic development pieces we can be adding to this. Let's go offline. Thank you. We'll see you back at ten