Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're live. We're live.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Good morning. Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Senate Committee on Economic Development Housing and General Affairs. We have a busy day today with a lot of things, and we're gonna start right now with labor relations, and we're gonna talk about H548, the introduction of it, and Representative Kesha Ram Hinsdale. Thanks very much, folks.

[Representative Conor Casey]: Great to be here this morning with you. I confess I don't really pass too many bills, so I don't get to come to the center to watch what's up.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So this

[Representative Conor Casey]: is a pure pleasure. It's great. And actually, this one hasn't masked yet, so I should be careful. You've got a stintness after your testing. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, thanks for having me today. I'll a brief overview. Senator Clarkson asked me to come in and just sort of talk about the motivation of this bill. It may have changed a little bit while I wasn't looking at appropriations or something. So apologies if I inaccurate effect. But five forty eight, what it's gonna do is create a state labor mediator, which would be housed underneath the Vermont Labor Relations Board. And what this position would do is offer free neutral mediation when labor negotiations hit an impasse. That'd be for public and private sector unions. So how did this come up? Well, as you're paying attention to the national news, you've probably seen there've been a lot of federal cuts with those and whatnot there. And one of the ones on the chopping block was a federal mediator that you may have actually had in this committee at some point or another. George Lovell was the guy back in the day there from he was a Rutland guy. He was an AFSCME before. But they provided a really valuable service and having sort of a free mediator to help resolve these labor disputes. So when the positions were cut, negotiations really have a greater chance of stalling now. And when a contract hits and it pass, always good to bring a mediator in and suss it out there. But if you don't have that service, that could result in litigation, strikes, lockdowns, or just long expensive stalemates. We're lucky in Vermont, you don't see too many strikes or anything like that. But without a mediator at the table, you're looking at much higher potential for that. So if the federal government's not providing this, what I would call a very basic labor peace infrastructure, my thought is Vermont should. And why? Well, mediation is a lot cheaper than what you're facing with some of these long disputes here. And I should say you have management and labor agreeing on this

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: because if you're like in some

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: of these small towns, you might have

[Representative Conor Casey]: a small local, but you also might have a very small town budget paying for mediation out of their pockets now. That could cost like,

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: I don't know, some people

[Representative Conor Casey]: are more familiar than me. I think like $4,000 a day, pretty easy. That's a big hit to a small town, small workplace or a small union. And I think we can all acknowledge strikes

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: are

[Representative Conor Casey]: a bad thing. They're bad for workers, they're bad for employees, they're bad for the public too. It's always a last case scenario and we wanna try to stave it up as best possible. So a neutral third party is gonna come in, they're gonna help cool people down, they're gonna solve problems. It's like that last bit of the contract, that lasts like 10% of the contract. So it's really preventive maintenance. So it doesn't force agreements. We can collect the bargaining for either side there. And it doesn't take sides. It's neutral. But after the Trump cuts there, Vermont just lost a very basic thing that we had that we should restore. And it's someone just coming in, being the person who doesn't have any skin in the game, has some experience in this, says, have you tried to have to, know, bring people into the hallways? Here's a proposal. So for the cost of one position, I just felt it was a really good investment for us and would really help our small businesses, small towns, and unions save

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: some

[Representative Conor Casey]: money and avoid some of these. Because the other thing is the longer negotiations go on and on, you get a little more snarly with the other side too. Right? It's just not good for long term relations. And then the mediator could really be a good peacekeeper, there's some trust fall and stuff like that. So that was the

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So previously, the mediator would provide us with federal funding, the federal funding is gone. Exactly. Do you have any history of the use of mediators in the modern words? To be able to quantify how much have we used mediators in past years, and were they to be used under this formula here, what would it cost the state to do? So you've got the positions on permanent but how frequently are they used? That sort of thing.

[Representative Conor Casey]: Yeah. Would love the analytics, but I've been in the labor movement a long time and I've spoken to the federal mediators. I think it's usually double digits anyways. It's not gonna be a ton. I mean, if you looked at, I would say most, you know, most negotiations can probably 80% plus can solve this without mediation. You know? And a lot of these are mature contracts, so they've come to the table. But it's gonna be for the, like, the 10%. They're they just can't get it over the finish line.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: You're you're envisioning here that the labor the medias would be contracted as opposed to employees, or are you envisioning them as permanent employees?

[Representative Conor Casey]: I could see it working either way. That's where I probably should talk to my colleagues at appropriations to see what they're putting in the big bill for that.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: The only thing that you wouldn't want to do is you wouldn't want to hire a full time mediator and go six months, you have no cases to mediate.

[Representative Conor Casey]: Just pushing a pencil on the desk, right?

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Why would you have a person that you don't need, in fact, a permanent employment, when you don't

[Representative Conor Casey]: have a permanent employment issue? Right, right. And I was thinking, it could

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: go either way, you know? Okay, great.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Yeah. Right. It's for clarity. So your your the concept is this media represents the state. It represent local governments. Yep. It could represent all commercial interests, state.

[Representative Conor Casey]: It wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't be representing anybody, right? They'd be the they'd be the neutral party. Yeah. Right. Person involved

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: in the kinds of cases.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: To represent all commercial parties in the state?

[Representative Conor Casey]: Well, they they, you know, they they be working both for labor and management when they come in. I get that.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I'm just I'm just trying to understand the concept.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Oh, sure. Yeah. The mediator, again, represents two parties but those two parties, the state. Yep. Is one. Local municipalities is another. Yep. Assured potentially very big bucket is all commercial interests. Exactly. Like So two commercial interests going against each other. Or Nah. Okay. Let's let's

[Representative Conor Casey]: Sorry. My mask. Sorry. I I should have been more clear there. Debbie, like, you know, if a business was negotiating a contract with their employees. Right? Right. Right. So it wouldn't be business business. It would be business in their own employees there. Okay. And a mediator would subset out. So

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I do agree with senator Brock that the utilization of mediators in the state would be a very helpful metric to understand if this is, to your point, whether it's a full time employee or a contractor.

[Representative Conor Casey]: You're not gonna see them doing like 50 of these. You're not, you know? That's where Senator Brock, you know, you might be, like, having a contractor come in. It might be the right way to do it, you know, depending on the need. Oh, and then I started a little bit, like, where to place this because, you know, you couldn't really place it in state government. And sure enough, like, VSEA in the state use mediators sometimes. Right? So, you know, having the labor board was the most neutral sort of place where some of the stuff is supposed to have anyways.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: It's okay. Well, good. Well, thank you very much.

[Representative Conor Casey]: Hey. Hey. Come down again someday. Pass it on, Bill. Who knows? Yeah.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: That was one the best Bill presentations I've seen.

[Representative Conor Casey]: We're get a great job. We'll see you later again. Yeah. Take care.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Now, next, you're gonna have, the lecture council. Tell us what we'll call that petition. Okay.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: It's all here to listen.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning, Sophie Zadatney from the Office of Legislative Council. Is it okay if I go ahead and share my screen? Please. So this bill did change a little bit in general and housing from what representative Casey was discussing, And this committee has actually already been seeing this before. This was originally part of S 173, and then this committee took it out, the bill that focuses now just on vocational rehabilitation, originally included this piece in it. So what the changes that were made in general and housing? And I let me just provide a little bit more background. So the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, that's the FMCS, that's the entity, the federal entity that was cut in the changes last year, and they went from 147 mediators down to five zero six. There's been litigation over that, and the FMCS is being rebuilt. The FMCS mediator that most commonly worked here in Vermont was let go last April, has taken another position. So even if it's rebuilt, we already will have lost that institutional knowledge that that individual had. The other piece is that as the FMCS is being rebuilt, its creation is under the National Labor Relations Act, and it's designed to address disputes and provide mediation service for entities that are covered by the National Labor Relations Act. Here in Vermont, have seven state labor relations bills, acts. Those are not covered by the National Labor Relations Act. So it was really sort of the generosity, as opposed to the FMCS, that they provide mediation services free of charge to parties, state entities here in Vermont. So even if the FMCS is rebuilt, it's not clear that that would be a resource that would be available to the state in the future, again, for state labor relations.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Now the sense is, and the object of this is to provide things in which mentions public and private. So clarity would this then effectively extend the provision of pre mediation services to people who did not get it when the federal VA were around, and perhaps some other things that may not involve state agencies. Is that a fair thing?

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So FMCS would have provided services to private because that's under the National Labor Relations Act, and they also were providing it to the state folks covered by the State Labor Relations Act. So that's the municipal employees, Labor Relations Act, the teachers, state employees, University of Vermont and Vermont State Colleges. So they were all receiving services from the FMCS before. So again, as Representative Casey said, the concept was that resource has gone away, The value of having a neutral third party mediator is, it's a pretty small cost for the potential disruption to the system of not having that resource available. There was testimony in the house, Generalist Housing, regarding the cost, so there was a question about contracting them out for this service, and mediators typically are charging $450 a day, So the thought is that actually it would be cheaper to have an in house person, and you'll see if we switch over to the bill itself, was in terms of workload, was was taken into account. So let me just run through this quickly. So this is just adding in, again, a position to employ a mediator to provide remediation services to both public and private, so it wouldn't be limited just to our State Labor Relations Act contracts. And again, the private sector may have access to the FMCS if it gets rebuilt, but again it's that's still kind of unclear. And then what this provides in Suffolk Division two is if the mediator has capacity, the mediator may provide free mediation services for public and private sector to collect the bargaining use of units, current employees on grievances and unfair labour practice charges. So right now by state statute, you're required to go to mediation if you hit in past during contract negotiations. You have those different steps. And the first one is the parties hit in their past. They typically, again, they resolve some issues. They can't resolve all of them. You have a mediator come in, the mediator then is typically able to either resolve, get the parties to resolve the situation, or could help winnow down. So now they've only got a couple of issues and just give. Then currently, you could then go to nonbinding, backfinding, which again, the parties are paying for that. And then if that doesn't resolve it, then you're going to find it the Labour Relations Board for last best offer, or you're going to a a binding arbitration. So mediation is that sort of one of the steps in how we resolve impasses in negotiation, and that's required by state statute. It's not required that the parties use a mediator for grievances and unfair labour practice charges, but historically parties do sometimes use a mediator to help them get through that. So again, in anticipation of maybe they if this was a hallucination, they wouldn't have pulled a full load. The thought was that then they could assist in other ways. Mhmm. So and there was some testimony. The the executive director of the Vermont Labor Relations Board was asked specifically around how many how many, you know, issues go to a mediator. And, typically, what happens is the parties, if they hit an impasse, they provide notice of that to the Vermont Labor Relations Board, and they ask the the LRP to appoint a mediator. And, typically, the parties historically would agree, let's use the FMCS. So the parties would say, please appoint, you know, this mediator from the FMCS. Because, again, the parties both found it really beneficial to work with the FMCS. And the director the executive director didn't have that date at the hand. There was some testimony from the Vermont State College system that and I'm not gonna remember the exact numbers, but it was something like they had 16 instances of negotiation over the past couple of years, and in 10 of those, they had gone to in person who used a mediator.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: So you're referring to a conversation with steroids?

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. In general and housing. Yes. So, there may be, you know, maybe work hearing from the executive directors, you may have more information now in terms of the numbers. So again, one of the benefits of having a single mediator as opposed to contracting it out would be someone that really builds that expertise and knowledge of the particular contracts here in Vermont, the ones that are used all the time, rather than having somebody that is just not familiar with them. Just really helps. And again, if someone knows parties, that was one of the big benefits for the FMCS, because they've really developed a deep knowledge of not only the Marx Labour Relations laws, but also the parties themselves. That helped expedite things, because you didn't need to go through a whole education piece with the mediator. So one of the other issues that came up in general in housing was of course, again, mediators are neutral. They're not on one side or the other. They're there to help negotiate between the parties. So it's very important that if this position were to be created and it were to be housed in the Vermont Labor Relations Board, that there be, you know, a segregation of that person so they're not having access. There's there's the parties need to have faith and trust in the mediator and their neutrality and that they're not biased one way or the other. And it's important that anything that's learned through a confidential mediation process be kept confidential. Right? If if parties believe that what they do in that mediation process is going to then be shared with the board members who might be making the ultimate decision or with staff, other staff in the Labor Relations Board, that's going to impair the credibility of the mediator. So this subsection three was, Subdivision 3 was added to make sure that the board would develop policies and procedures to ensure that all confidential deviation information would be maintained separately and insulated from access by members of the board or other employees of the State Labor Relations Board, so as to protect the integrity of the mediation process. And then, this is the appropriation request. This is currently in house appropriations. I don't know what's gonna happen with it. So, the original request was for a full time permanent classified mediator in the office of the BLRB. General and Housing added in a full time permanent classified staff attorney position. As you may be aware, over the monthly relations board has two staff. They have the executive director and then they have a department clerk, that's it. And they're administering seven labor relations statutes. So there was an understanding in general housing that there was a real need for additional support for the executive director and the board, and so there was a recommendation to also include a staff attorney position. So in light of that, the request was for $250,000 for both of those positions.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: It's not a relationship. Yeah, the funding can be here.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's the current, this is the current request from, again, the House Committee on General and Housing that's currently pending in house appropriations. I don't know what house appropriations is going to do with that, whether they would support those positions, one position or no position. Again, in terms of what, would probably get out if you report it, we're taking

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: this up, we want to look at when a VA has too many cases, what does that VA do? And if a VA has no cases, what does that person do, and how often does either situation happen based on history?

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It'll be

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a little hard because there's no history, right? So again, that's gonna be the issue, how to balance that out. So again, that may be something, yeah, that would need to

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: And then what happens when maternity leave or sick leave or vacation, whatever, how do they deal with that?

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And the other issue that can come up is complex. Mean, says, know, again, that may be

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Certainly if they're doing private sector, nothing to do is say for them. And if we're doing private sector, does the state have an interest in paying for it?

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, so I think the primary focus would be on the state contracts, and then if they had additional capacity, then maybe they could assist with the private. And again, at the time, this And I have not gone back and looked at the most recent litigation, but at the time, again, the Federal Legation and Conciliation Service had been, I mean, like 95% cut, a massive, massive cut, and I don't know where they're at right now in terms of rebuilding that.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Whether or not there's anybody back there who can provide us with this treated costs unlike places that they're doing it.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Yeah.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Is there anybody in state government who maintained the records along those lines?

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not that I'm aware of because they wouldn't have any reason to be informing the state. I mean, if it's a

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, if the state were involved, it's

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Like the information have any information relating on the state side, but on the private side, I'm not sure who would be collecting or would have access to that information.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: And in the event that this bill were not passed, presumably the state would have to come up with its own mediator of some of the place,

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: put some cost. Essentially, parties would need to pay for the services, and again, the testimony in general at housing was, you know, that would run $450 an hour, and again, if you have travel and preparation time, it can get very expensive, in addition to which the parties already have to pay, you know, for arbitration and fact finding. So this was a valuable resource that has been there that is no longer there.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Was anything gotten from JFO upon any of this?

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: JFO did testify in front of tax appropriations, but the amount that's being sorted is in here, so I don't think there was there was no additional information beyond the appropriation of what's been requested yet.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So, so many appropriations, do you know if there was any report done by FFW?

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If there was, it was a very straightforward, this bill is seeking $250,000 There was to any of

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: these other information, there's other information there.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So at 250,002 attorneys, there was no administrative support sought here.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. That was an issue that came up from the executive director in terms of space. So it seems that the office currently has space to house them, but they don't have space for doing the mediations at the VLLB. But, historically, they didn't happen at the VLLB any often. They would happen either on a neutral place or either at the union's offices or at the employer's offices. So that didn't seem to be a big issue, but there will be my understanding from the testimony the executive director was that the Vermont Liberation Board does pay to the state, I think, BGS sort of rent, you know, for the space that they're using. Mhmm. So that was raised as an issue, but the House committee just felt it was more important to just focus on getting these positions through the I

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: guess the one, sorry, positions always come with strings and computers and data service and phone lines. And two fifty for two lawyers, seems to be on both sides, do you consider the benefits of support needed for this?

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And it is very lean operation at the LRB again. It's just got one and a half positions at the current time.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, we can certainly look at what the house did and what the. Anything else, though, just to point through the bill? Basically, we Yeah, discovered the

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think that's it. I mean, again, there was some testimony from, and I've got the list of folks that have to find in general and housing. So again, this one, sir, who you've already heard from, Judith Dillon from Labour Relations, Judith Heesdale, David Weeksburg, and then Patrick Chittenden testified for Rivermont City College System, and then I testified. And then in house appropriations, it was the reporter, representative Krasnow, and then Patrick from the Fiscal Office testified as well.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: After Chittenden? Yeah. Well, thank you very much. I think there are any questions on what is it for me.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But then that It does have. That was correct. I've talked to you. Would be. Well,

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: guess we do have time. So thank you very much. Well,

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: I think if we had the ability to get those people who wanted to meet, if we had the ability to

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: get them in a few minutes early, that would probably be useful. She's not. It's back to her pocket.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Back to her pocket.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: People are pot.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Remember at the end of the day yesterday, the committee had some concerns on tobacco as well as tobacco. I wish you hear more testimony. Also had do any reconsideration. Walked into, frankly, didn't do reconsideration, but there's the issue with some of those numbers were far apart from history.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: May I? Yes, I'd love to get a bit, but Mr. Chairman, I bring what I see as four issues just to get center weeks up to speed. Yes, please do. Alright. So there are four things on the tobacco bill, the pop bill up on the beach separate that, I think came up in finance yesterday that I think are worth discussing today. One, the fees. So with the commissioner nineteen minutes spoke, it absolutely does not support does not support a thousand dollars. So, if this committee, the three of us, because Kesha's at the, I think, Senator Rutland Hills at the hearing as well as if Senator Clarkson is not here, But if the three of us gave guidance to finance on what we think would be a better fee, I think would be useful for this afternoon. We could do a floor amendment. Alternatively, we could do form the finance discussion saying we took a strong pool of 5%. And that is if

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: we get we have our

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: degree with it. I was wondering if the opportunity to make a difference, agree with the case, but recognize that we've already made a decision since the end of this.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: And that's that $1,000 so I fully support lowering it

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: to Yeah, versus $100 versus $100

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: There's another easy one that I think it's not really relevant, the wholesaler fee because that the VLL is asking for that, that they need similar capacity to charge what they charge for alcohol, but they're going to bring it over. So that I I don't think it's necessarily for for us to wrestle with.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: I mean, finance would do.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Yeah. The pop laws which I did send an Email to you. It seems like we have some compromised language which makes sense to basically unrevealed or not reveal the penalties for presenting a fake ID. So I believe Todd is gonna speak to that. You saw it in the email. And then the the fourth one is something that I I bring forward not endorsing, but I did cc you on this as well as price chair is it's from the lieutenant governor's office that has to do with a special type of tobacco used by VUCA lounges, Chisha. So okay. So there's some proposed language that I don't know what the implications of it are. I don't know. And I just I wanted to honor the request from lieutenant governor's office to consider it. They did share it with as well as Jim Carvey, and I'd love to hear their implications. Those were the things I was hoping for. I haven't

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: I haven't looked at that as you know, think or even considered. So we have time to do that, could at least get them on the record right now. We have to take a couple minutes from the discussion today, later today, or tomorrow to get in some of the things that we may shed additional, whether it be something from the governor's office who was.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Regarding the fees, I'm really seeing three options of percolate. One, we just keep it at exactly what it is, which was set in 2016, a $150. So a $100 and 50 or $60 add on. Two we adjust for inflation which JFO did calculations 2016 would bring it to a 162.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: JFO.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Ted Barnett and emailing it to you so he was ready to present but we never called it forward. If we adjusted for inflation in 2016

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Ready for it to present the job in in finance. Yeah. Or three,

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: what any advocates was comparable with other states would be about $2.50 to 300 for those. I want the bill to get passed. Mhmm. I know I've said that I do want less people to sell tobacco in Vermont. I do, but at the

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: same time, I don't want to

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: penalize the local retailers and shops with the

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: tax. So 10 times tax increase. So here, number percent concerns about the substance of the disease. It is going to back to my answer to better at least Well, I've had the discussion of whether or we'll act on it or do anything.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Just I think there's questions.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Jennifer's heartbeat's on the right here right now. I could shout to

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Jill and Todd if they could be back from them, but we can

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: at least hear our perspective. So if you want us to do that.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: And in terms of Come on. To one of the other kids. Right here. That's perfect. 10, have a chair. Alright. We're gonna be talking briefly about the tobacco bill and some the things that are issued regarding the impact of the tax dollar increases, the tax increases, etcetera, like that. Had some discussions in finance committee yesterday, and we were asked by finance to just if we have a chance to take a a second look at this, if they take a look at it. Thank you. So, again, for the record?

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For the record, Dan Carvey, Office of Legislative Counsel.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, as you know, we're gonna

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: be talking about the tobacco bill again, and

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: we've already talked about it. The question is the current increase in fees associated with some portions of this bill, obviously some of the advocates raise questions about the extent of the fairness of it, issue of how well it compares with what others are doing and some of options associated with certain of Chittenden in particular has has had some concerns expressed. Why don't you so? So I just

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: wanted to hear senator Weeks thoughts on what I I'm hearing percolating with percolated incentive finance yesterday, is I just said this before he came in from me, but I see I see really three options. One, we keep the these are the fees for the retailers at the $100 whatever it inherently is and the add on fee. I see the second option is adjusting for inflation, which I have a bigger JFO, which I think was like $163 and $83 and then two, which is comparable with other states, looking at other states, York, Massachusetts, which would

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: be about 250 and $300. I am equivalent.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: I think we're making a lot

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: of progress elsewhere in the bill that I just want this to move forward. I do want but I do wanna put barriers in front of getting cigarettes, tobacco in front of people, but I simultaneously want a rational and good policy that doesn't hurt the smaller retailers. Senator Weeks, do you have any thoughts on this fee structure?

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Yeah, so I appreciate the effort you guys did in finance. Hear that a thousand percent increase on any kind of fee is more on the emotional scale than the pragmatic scale, and that's why I voted against the bill that's at left committee. I think, you know, something pragmatic, either we the inflation percentage gets one reasonable approach. The other is what's the cost of doing business with, I guess it's a tobacco GLL, whatever the agency is, they can justify their services versus the fee. Separate approach, something a lot that's more reasonable, like a 50% increase or 100% increase even, just something that's just more than reasonable, certainly acceptable.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: The same time, one of my concerns is how to actually grow out of this, and we now have three members, a five member committee of making decision. One of them go, no. Originally, I think it was a four oh. Was a recall. It was a vote. I want to make sure that we don't do something that in fact undermines the committee, the full committee's actions in terms of something we do upline. I want to be very, careful about that.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: To that, Mr. Vice Chair, I also think we could frame this as straw poll of our committee to inform the Senate Finance Committee amendments.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: But make it clear that this minority, if we get Senator, to the discussion.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: I won't speak for that. I will just say a sense that there seems to be healthy ambivalence to the fee structure, so I don't, I haven't heard any of them say that it has to be a concern for them.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Yeah, I make sense.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So based on what you saw and what you did, you obviously participated in this in the other committee on the outside, I'm wondering if there's anything that you could add to what you saw there that might help us in our decision making.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So are you talking about the finance committee?

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: The finance committee, who you did not have involvement in the House.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hasn't gone to the House yet.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Okay, that's right. Right, so you got that. Oops.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, think you heard testimony yesterday with some examples from the Attorney General's Office, examples of other states, and what their licensing fees are, I think JFO had looked into some of those as well. One of the pieces of testimony that you may have already told Senator Weeks was that the $1,000 was maybe an attention getter about increasing the fee more than a specific

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: That attention span lasted all for half the session, so it made its impact. So

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think you have a lot, I would discourage you from potentially using a number like 163 that just seems a little bit, it may be inflation adjusted, to put $163 in statute and have that be the number. Versus something round? Just a round number, yes. That's not scientific, it just stands out without some sort of an inflation mechanism.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Just for getting her clarity, didn't we also divide the fees? Have the original fee that have both liquor and tobacco, and the new scenario is two separate fees. So we have the original fee plus now we have another

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We don't know that those are separate fees, and I'm looking at just the way the existing statute is framed. There is the ability to get a combined license, but there do seem to be separate fees for the tobacco and tobacco substitute endorsement parts from the liquor.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: But the separate fees in terms of increases seem substantially different.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, I'm not sure what, and I'm not, yeah, I'd have to look at what the fees are for the liquor license, that is separate from these currently $110 tobacco license and $50 tobacco.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: I misspoke. So now I have the email from Ted Barnett and it's not 163 he recommended. He said 143 to inflation adjusted 30% since it was last set in 2016. Just to get the conversation moving forward to your I I think one fifty something that is defensible and a round number or one forty. I guess I guess we don't like the threes. Fair enough. And then 60

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: probably more about the personalization. We don't Yeah.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: And there's, did you pretend Barnett?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: He shows up. He does.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Since you mentioned a name of

[Tucker Anderson (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the person appears, y'all have powers. That's a stamp for that. Alright.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Jen, is there anything else that you wish we should know if I may perhaps call our commentary that we give to finance? So

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: if you could possibly propose or walk through the language that I think is coming forward with a lot of support, which is to not repeal that item c, which would be the public law regarding the fake IDs. And so I'm sensing if that Todd is gonna come out and support this as well. Mhmm. I don't hear your official title. Is it deputy attorney general? Assistant. Assistant. Attorney general, anyways.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Kara, can I get lock in in for the Yeah? So I have have proactively drafted a penitentical amendment that is being reviewed by the editors right now, unless they have already reviewed it, but it is pretty straightforward. That is not a piece.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Not to confuse the discussion, but there's a third piece of language that I've included you, Senator Brock, as well Senator Clarkson. It's Jen on regarding this other request about Cheshire, tobacco purchases that I I don't know what the implications of it are, but it I'm not sure where it came

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: from either. This would have We kinda got to go. Mentioned it, but whether it was originated in his office or elsewhere, I'm not sure that he mentioned me for the first time about five minutes before hearing this morning.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: And then all week conversations are told that that might be best taken out in the house, so if we wanna just Yeah.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Are

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you sending me the Zoom link? Oh, I

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just Teams it to you. Sorry. Oh, okay. No.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Let me see if I can make that work. I've never got you. No. It does. Thank Thank you. I didn't speak the

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: word today. Yeah. I love it.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Five years ago, had a

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: hold up. You have to pay me too.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Something like No. Are you okay? Just telling me yesterday that the Zoom era has made it much easier to explain the concept of telemedicine before we use that to do a sort of lengthy.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Too much as the pandemic had a lot of fault. It dragged us all kicking and screaming into the world of.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great. I'm gonna hold this on for that screen. So I have made this from senator blank so you can decide who would be sponsoring. Like

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: that. Senator blank.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But this would amend the this committee's report in section one and which is that whole chapter, but by striking out section 1,005 in its entirety and putting in a new version. So I've changed the heading a bit. This is the section that was fully crossed out of repealed in the bill as it passed out of this committee, removing the provision of penalties on purchase use and possession by minors. I'm putting it back in, I would amend the title of the section to say persons 21 years of age misrepresenting age to purchase tobacco products penalty. And so it would still strike out the overall prohibition on possession, purchase, or attempting to purchase, but it would leave in language saying a person 21 who misrepresents their age by presenting a false ID to purchase tobacco products, tobacco substitutes, or tobacco paraphernalia be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $50 or provide up to ten hours of community service or both. As I'm looking at it, may wanna add in language from the previous section that wasn't in here, but about the same matter as the traffic violation. I assume that is the

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Same matter as the traffic budget.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's like it's a ticket because the judicial bureau as opposed to somebody confessing it in the civil committee.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: From a committee standpoint, from raising this and after it's approved, is this better either A, done by finance, if finance wants to do it, or B, refer to the House again as something that's just the House.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: No, go ahead. So I think doing it in finance, the finance committee amendment, since I'm reporting the underlying bill and I'm gonna volunteer to do a finance amendment, I think makes it logistically easiest.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: I think that makes sense, and I don't think that we at best take something in committee and then rewrite a committee's report for first recognition.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I know it's a little muddy but I disagree. I think that I appreciate the effort sincerely, but I think that if if the hesitation is, kind of emanated from the committee of jurisdiction that we ought to take it as our responsibility and correct

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: it on the floor with amendment or whatever.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Logistically, understand. It's much smoother if you take care of it in the finance committee, but

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, there's an argument, though, well that in some members of the committee, as opposed to the entire committee, because the entire committee that voted on the bill was members who voted on the original bill are not here to be able to put in And I I think that is probably the the big issue.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: I'll support whatever path is necessary to be just as fine with that. I do think we have time because this is gonna get out of finance today and then it's gonna go to a probes tomorrow and then so next week so we can bring this up on Tuesday and have a committee amendment where all of our names are on it. Whoever wants to present it can be. So if you wanna have it emanate from here, think that's justice.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: That'll be my preference, but I don't wanna solve this. Okay.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Thomas, yeah, anything more that you think?

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, don't think so. Sounds like, hold on the language for now. With that, I've just added in that second sentence back up, and I'll be ready to push from whatever source.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Mr. Vice Chair, just to honor my, would you show the Chisha language? Would it be okay for her to just show it's like one sentence? For us to go through yes. Do you have that at all?

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do I have the I the affected section, but I don't

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: The affected section.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Sure. So just to show you on this one, I'm proposing adding an action under this subsection. Just literally copy and paste the sentence from above down here.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Just to honor the request of the lieutenant governor's office to give it a thank you for quick hearing then say to the house and have them consider it. So, yeah. Talking too much this morning, mister Vice Chair, but when he brings assistant attorney general, you wanted to also reflect on it, we had colleague conversations that I thought might be

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: useful for. Yeah. But, you know, at the same time, since we have limited number of folks here who are in the committee, and we haven't had a chance to discuss it with any left. We haven't had any other witnesses hesitant to take it up and put something in at this point. When it's gonna go to the house, we have we have full hearing and then it'll come back to us, which is probably, I think, the probably way to do it. Alright,

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so this is in, I've now pulled up your committee amendment that you passed out of here, and also in section one, because it was amending the whole section, whole chapter, we have internet sales, and under existing law, there's a provision on anyone causing cigarettes, roll your own Zaco, little cigars, snuff, tobacco substitutes, substances containing nicotine, or otherwise for use with a tobacco substitute, or tobacco paraphernalia, ordered or purchased by mail or through a computer network, telephonic network, other electronic network. It would be shipped to anyone other than a licensed, and then under current law it says wholesale dealer or retail dealer in this state. And passed out of here, this would strike retail dealers. It would all have to go through a wholesale dealer. And I think the suggestion had been picked out to restore the or retail dealer in this state.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: And to add license. So, but I don't understand the implication.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's modifying, for me that's modifying both, but yeah, please, good add.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: That's the ask, but I completely concur with you

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: if you've already shared. I this for the house down. I don't want her to send the link.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: The argument maybe if you want to bring him in that I think I may.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Please go ahead.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Is that there are hookah lounges and some other cultural specific uses of a type of tobacco that they are not retailers, they are not wholesalers, they just need to buy the special type of tobacco. And with this law, they will not be able to buy that tobacco over the phone or even online. So it's looking for a carve out. But I do think if we take the language that's been proposed to me, it might nullify the intent here which is to to to make

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: it harder to buy tobacco online. That's going on.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: I like the house figuring this thing out. I I do

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: like in terms of trying to do things on fly that we're concerned is we're to miss something or we're not going hear both the other side of the story that's conditions which the Alpha had time to do. But at the same time, in terms of the advocates, I've asked them to join us today for just a few minutes. We have until 10:00, and we just give them a break before that. Could you see that we just get copies of the

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: proposals, if you will? The language that I walked through from Senator Blank? Yes, I will send that. If you could use me, I'll send

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that right now to Chair. But it's something for

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: you to consider, but say, Todd knows we have a discussion for the house. My inclination is that it's not for the solvency.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Senator Blake's first inscriptor.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you want her you can like to do that in bed.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: And let's see. We're gonna have next who wants patient come up, I know you've been here before.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: Should we speak first?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I've been chair, vice chair.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: Jill Sonthoff Garing, I'm representing the Coalition for Tobacco Free Vermont, and just wanted to weigh in on a couple of things. We do not support striking the retail dealer, the Shisha component that you just put up. The reason that that language exists right now is that there is, we're trying to make sure that the tax on tobacco substitutes is applied equally and fairly, because remember that the tax is applied at that wholesale level, and so by making the wholesale dealer the only one that can buy online, we're ensuring that the tax is being paid. In the other part of the bill where you're studying having a tobacco tax stamp, that's also an effort because, as you know, the wholesale dealers buy the tobacco tax stamp for the cigarettes, so we know that tax is being applied. Right now, with this language, it's actually a loophole, and in the online sales ban, it allows the retailer to buy directly and potentially not pay tax. We don't know what, how that's happening. I would not want to guess at how that's happening, but this would make sure that the wholesale tax is being paid and that everyone is playing the same sandbox, and so we don't want to correct this language. Does that make sense?

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: You want the language to continue to care about

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: it, doesn't it?

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, great. You wanna do that? Yes. Yes.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: The way that it passed out of Limited, here in the

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: same way that it's limited, go back Yes.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: Any questions around that? No, I think it's pretty clear. You want me to talk about what happened in Senate Finance yesterday and the potential around the licensing fees? Because I think that's an area of concern for

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Licensing fees is an area of concern. Take a couple minutes and just give you a perspective.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: Yeah, so I was not here, but I think you, someone had floated an idea of how much about the licensing fees should be.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Did I state them again? The option? Yes. So Yeah. Anna, you

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: were dealing with you to have more on that.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: I really see three options before us, but four if you want to just keep the thousand dollar, but let's just take that one off the table. So one, we just keep what our current fees are, is the $105.50, whatever they currently are, which is what I heard the Commissioner of Laker Lottery advocate for, that the administration was not supported increases. The second option, I love to Ted Barnett, if you want to have him Mr. Chair, is from an email that he gave me, which I misquoted twice, which would be to adjust for inflation and adjusting for inflation from the email that went to, again, quote, would since it was last set in 2016, would bring the fee up to a $143 and $63 or something. But Jen Carvey said she doesn't like threes. That might be better at $1.40 or one And then the third option, which I could support any of these. I just think there's a lot of good stuff in this bill that I wanna see move forward. The third option would be to compare with the regional states, which would be like New York, Massachusetts, and that would be arguably be paying 250 to $300. Those are the three options that I see before finance this afternoon. Feedback and testimony here. And the origin of the $1,000 was

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: mentioned to some extent. Do you want to?

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: So I heard Assistant Attorney General Day Laws say yesterday at the time of that the $1,000 was any in some respects a for shock value just to highlight how it's it's very cheap and easy to sell cigarettes in the state, and it's harder to enforce and to to monitor more and more stores. That being the case, that's why I do support the thousand dollars, but I'm a realist, and I don't think that's gonna move forward. So that's why I like one of these three options that will move this bill along and get signed into law.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: Yes. And I would say from the coalition's perspective, we also want that. We're not going to see a burden on the retail environment either. We can definitely get behind a reasonable license fee.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: What's a reasonable license fee as you would divide it?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: I think that the decoupling is the best thing for non essential oil use state that has this alcohol with tobacco, and what we know is, what was said in this committee was that we've got about seven eighty tobacco retailers, only about 50 of them pay outright for the tobacco license, and so, we feel like, I think to me, 150 sounds reasonable if you're saying 150 for the tobacco license, and then that 150 for the enforcement. So, because the enforcement is the add ons, you can have the vapes, you can have all the tobacco substitutes, and that's what's really getting the kids to come in, and so we need to make sure that we have some deterrent even from selling those products and that it's taken meaningfully, you know. Thank

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: you very much.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: And while we're in the talk, so fees was one issue that I struggled with. The second was the penalty. Penalty is 2000%. That, you know, that that was one of the three issues that caused me to not support the bill and if if the finance colleagues could take a look at that while you're googling out the bill at some point.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: So just for your information Wendy Knight the commissioner of the Department of Liquor and Lottery, was passed, and she did not have any issues. She didn't say that the penalties going up by that, and reminded that.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: No, think it's just got make a jump like that. I put it back into the shock value category. Okay, we get it, we'll do something, but 2000% increase on penalties is in the shock value category, not in the pragmatic government, let's take it in a reasonable and effective. But that's my point.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: But at the same time, the shock value I gather is part of the discussion about what's the damage that's being caused and should damage be caused be recognized in a way financially that simply doesn't reimburse the state for the increased costs that come with tobacco, but it does have the impact.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: Great. My mantra is cost,

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I recognize it, but I do think the fact that we're already taxing these, this commodity and what is 92%, you know, there's a balance. And I'm just saying this, I'm got 2000% increase.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Who needs the bond? Think I have a bit financed, but I will, as an action item, maybe talk to TED and otherwise maybe just get a better idea of how we calibrate those fees and how that compares to other penalties.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for a Tobacco‑Free Vermont)]: We do have a chart that we put on the record on this that shows the regional fee comparison? And the only other thing that I'm not sure we wanna talk about at all that came up yesterday was the online compliance investigator. And that is something that would actually help brick and mortar retail shops that we can catch people that are, in any way,

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: online. Okay. Thank you very, very much.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Attorney General's office, I think we can you a minute and a half.

[Todd Daloz (Assistant Attorney General)]: Sounds good. For the record, my day reads, assistant attorney general about 10 words. We support the compromise measure on up, purchase use, possession, or anything. Once you start using fake ID, that that should Mhmm. What is happening to that individual. On fees point, point taken, maybe too much shock value. It took a little more air out of the room we intended. We're comfortable with some of, you the more reasonable rates that have been suggested. That was a

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: 150. We'd love to see 50 to $2.50.

[Todd Daloz (Assistant Attorney General)]: Yes. Exactly that range. Something closer to a regional quantity. And, again, I think it's important that don't want to harm the retailers per se, but we also do recognize, like, cost is a real the distal cost is is extremely high. We do want to create local friction in that system. Again, supportive of investigator position that's not necessarily trade here. And on the retail, you know, I think Jill framed it very well. We think there's we would support a further conversation in the house on the Chittenden issue. And I think, you know, relatedly, there's a morality question there too about how rural retailers may be getting access to product and how successful that can be through retailers through wholesalers. Excuse me. And so there may be room here to look at that weekly, and and we would support that conversation later if it comes.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: I really I really appreciate the time.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Absolutely. I'm down. Oh, back on schedule. Thank you. You're gonna have a great I've

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: talked to Yeah. Robin might be mailed

[Tucker Anderson (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in back. Okay. So thanks.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Was a reporter at the village worked on it with me all summer, fall, and welcomed us to help him. So we

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: are gonna be talking today about a bill we haven't seen before. This is the first introduction we're going to have, and we would, the legislative council, tell us what's in it.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Great. So I don't I don't take too much to John. I'm Mark Mahaly, record. Alice Plainfield, Marchfield, chair of the committee. Don Chittenden, at this gesture, wrapped in heat limping. So this is very much of a bipartisan effort. What happened was you remember last year, we passed a housing bill. We all did. And in the bill was this new financing device called CHIPS. And what's come common comes from Chester, which is not a big town. Of course, my accounts aren't big either. What we realized was that Chips was great, and

[Representative Conor Casey]: we hope

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: it's successful, but that they're not we really realized that it might have been a bit oversold when it comes to rural Vermont, really, that a lot of small projects that are small, the tax driven financing doesn't really work. And, also, a lot of towns just don't have the wherewithal to navigate, even though ships have to reduce bureaucratic footprint. They don't have wherewithal to navigate ships. And so we just felt like we've had a really hard look at how we felt challenging in really world class. And this what emerged is just a seer this is a omnibus field that's got six elements. They're all different from each other, and they're all embedded, making it easier to finance housing for security for a while. And so I'll just summarize them really quickly because you're gonna get a walk through. One and it went out of the tops yesterday. One is a new a new process for infrastructure finance. And this really the emphasis in a lot of ways came from Michael Gone of the Bond Bank, who's a great guy. Anyway, here's the deal. For small projects, very often, a good way to finance a road or even a group septic, for example, is through an assessment district. That's just the development area, and that assessment district then, you know, over time. And then you issue bonds, The bonds pay for the infrastructure and then the assessed, you know, the property risk. Okay. Back, the assessed was

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: a good time for companies.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: There are really two different kinds of of of I hope I'm not telling you what you already know. There are two different kinds of bonds. One is what you call a GO bond, general obligation bond. And the deal there is even though the bonds bondholders have been paid back by the assessments, What if they're not?

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: What if they

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: what if the what if for whatever reason something bad happens and the bond and the bondholders aren't made whole by the assessments? You're pledging the full credit of the town to stand behind it. Ultimately, they can look you have to tax if you have k. They're a little less expensive. Geofonds are less expensive. The other kind of bond oh, and by the way, for that kind of bug, in Vermont language right now, and for good reason, you need a vote at the town because you're putting the full faith and credit of the town. The other kind is I call, what you're more to call revenue bonds. Revenue bonds are used commonly in The United States, not so much in Vermont. Revenue bonds are bonds where you can only look, the bondholders can only look to the revenues from the assessment history of the future. There is no pledge of the full faith and credit of the town. That's how a lot of projects are built in The United States. Yeah. They're a little more expensive for obvious reasons. I mean, a stadium is a classic example. You build those with a revenue bond. With revenue bonds, what this does is provide that if it's a revenue bond, then the vote is only the the permission you need is the property owners, period. Not a vote of the town. That's step one. And that's been really backed by the bond bank and a lot of housing developers because there have unfortunately been instances where I mean, still need approval to set it up for the but there have been instances where the Select Board approved a great project, but it needs, like, let's call it, group septic. Well, then some people in town who opposed the whole development because they don't want things to change, they used the bond vote to campaign against the project and the bond failed, so the project failed. So this says, well, that you can do that, but if it's a GO bond, but if it's a revenue bond, it's the bond, it's the people who are on the hook for the bond to vote. Then there's, I guess there's a really interesting modular and manufactured home accelerator.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Tom, you wanna talk about that? Sure. He worked on this. The modular housing accelerator is built on several years of work that's already been done, built by the HFA, treasurer's office, and it sets off a, a meter with the treasurer to, we'll talk about that in a minute, but the treasurer is back, bulk purchase of off-site manufacturing offices is where the cost savings comes in when dealing with on-site manufacturing is when you're ordering the same thing. Is actually You

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: know what, by the way, I have a one pager. Can you scan? Yes. Why don't you just scan this? Just so they have it. You know, it's just kind

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: of like summarizing everything. So section four contains VHDD and buildings and general services to put together bulk purchasing program where they can aggregate small orders from a number of different projects, the bulk, back the bulk order, and pass on the bulk savings to the smaller developers and the smaller communities. I think that's the simplest way

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: to put it. Yeah, and another thing in the bill, which I'll get to

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: in a minute, you should know.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Okay, so in other words, see the problem with rural Vermont? It's like five units. Somebody wants to build five. That's a big project in a lot of towns. If they make a five unit order to Huntington Homes, the Huntington Homes might try to fit them in, but if we can aggregate and Huntington Oaks has 40 units, they might even open a new line or, you know, dedicate their winner to this kind of stuff. And in fact, what we want is we want to be able to get out of the trap of seasonal. There's seasonal drafts that you can want to be able to expand. But I was a little concerned that they might be skeptical of a bunch of aggregated or little bitty orders. See, the beauty of it is the state's not gonna pay for those orders. The bill is paying for them. But are they reliable? So this bill has in it the permission for the treasurer to use up to 1% of theirs, 10% from Vermont, can get into that, to backstop that, to guarantee it as a credit facility of some sort. So that Huntington owns I'm just using that as an example. So they actually have the confidence to expand their production or do whatever they do because they know the state stands behind it. And I think the rest of the state is risky. But okay. So then we have the VHIP program. Remember the VHIP program? But it's a reimbursement program. The landlord has to pay first. In other words, I what's happening? I'm gonna put $80,000 into my apartment unit, and I know I'm gonna get 50. I get it back. I have to have access to the aid. I have to advance the money, then I get paid back by VA. This allows certain at the discretion of DHCD, they confront the money for a project that may not have you know, maybe a little capital squeeze. So that's that's another thing. It lets them front the. And I think they think they probably have that authority now, but they really wanted it to be more expressed. Another section is about VITA, Vermont Economic Development Authority. You know, right now they finance. They're in the arena of financing partial projects, but they really would like to do multifamily residential, but they can't sue the law. So this allows them to move into that field. And again, you see what I'm trying to expand access to capital, we're talking about. Speaking of access to capital, here's another part. You guys might be familiar with the treasurer's 10% for a month. Essentially, idea is you take the state's cash balance. Actually, they don't take the whole cash balance. Right now, we have, like, a 1,500,000,000.0 of cash, which we need some liquidity. The treasurer doesn't use $1,500,000,000 a measure because it's really conservative. Uses $1,200,000,000 And so 10% of that, under the 10% of the bond, can be lent out for housing and senior housing, affordable housing, at very low rates. Very low rates. And it really makes the difference for a lot of reasons because, you know, our problem in Vermont is that affordability is so loose. You know, people can afford to pay to buy $700,000 units. So to make it pencil, a developer has to keep the cost way down, and one of the major costs is interest on their construction loan and their takeout financing. And so low interest loans are very important. There are all kinds of projects that won't good projects that won't pencil unless you have low really low interest loan money in a in a capital set. And so what they do is they issue an RFP, they get a bunch of responses, and then they lend money out. They lend it through an intermediary like or, like, VHFA. They lend it through them, but they lend the money to VHFA at, like, one and a half percent. Depends on the concerns, but it's really low interest. So We talked to the treasurer and their feeling was they could do more. This bill expands the 10% without changing the title of the program and changes the 10% to 12.570.5%

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: per month. That's Yeah, what doing exactly. Sounds

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: petty, actually. But the reality is that extra money is gonna be available. The treasury testified, we had various people testified that this he's really comfortable with this because the cash flow need remember, you need liquidity. It's cash. You need liquidity. And so he feels like 10%, 12.5%, that's easier in terms of cash and liquidity. And then finally, the last piece has to do with housing targets. You wanna take housing targets?

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: This the the last section addressed the housing targets that have already been communicated to municipalities and then asked them to incorporate that in their future land use plans. It also asks them if they are not able or feel that they're not able to meet those targets to communicate back ECHD the reasons that they feel they might not be able to, whether they're regulatory or geographical Section seven. Seven. This is I don't know which version of the

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Did you have the portion of

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: the bill that does pass one. Okay. So it's been simplified by a waste management, the list of the criteria they want to hear back.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: You wanna look, when you look at, you guys, they should have in front of them, on this section, they should have the weight of the instrument. Okay. Because it's better.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So that allows us to aggregate some data as to what's challenging with this balance, so that can inform some of decisions and adjustments as we go forward.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: And this is important. This language came from VHDD. And then we worked with them, and then actually a better version came out and Wiges and Piges drowned it in. That's why I want you to see that.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: But that's in this version?

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: No, it's in there. It's just more complicated. It's too complex. There's another version, lots of Well, Ways and Means amended it, and you should look at it. I'll tell you right now, I'll tell you the difference. In Plazen, it's very simple. Is a better version of this. And the reason this is important is, you remember how this worked. We had a statewide housing garden. This was top down. A statewide housing target was disaggregated into counties or RPC, regional planning commissioners. And the RPCs working with the towns created targets by towns. And those targets, they have a low and a high, and there's twenty thirty and twenty fifty. Anyway, a lot of towns when you talk to them, these are important. They tell you what a town would have to do. We really wanna beat our house in Paris. K? That's fine. But in Vermont, as you know, saying it in a statute or regulation isn't any good if you don't socialize and find out whether it really works. And if you talk to a lot of towns, let's say, I just don't know how we can do this. What's weird, I think the most important part of this section is we say to them, yeah, put it in, next time you do a new plan, it in your plan. But more importantly, if you can't, tell us why not. We need data back. We need to know, Is it because your downtown area is on the flood plain and you can't build anywhere there? Is it because you don't have sewer and water? Exactly, what does that do to you? Is it a regulatory barrier? Is it, you know, you're in tier three and shouldn't be, or I don't know. Whatever it is, we wanna know. And I think knowing is is is almost as important as the, you know, as the numbers.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: So we had similar language in our bill, and we heard from the remote the RTCs, Regional Development Corps, they we revised it down. Have they did they weigh in with you?

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Yeah. Patrick, Demetriq, their suggestion was maybe every town can't do this. Yep. What we did was we just decided to support. We worked out with Wiges and Meats, a very simplified version. We think anybody can do it. And frankly, we think it's important. I mean, like my town, I happen to know what's going on in my town because my wife's on the sling board. I'm not. Thank god. Anyway, it's a lot of towns haven't thought a lot about this. You know, they just haven't gotten around thinking about it. And I think it's important that they do think about it. But I don't think they should feel like it's being shoved down next door. I think they should feel like what they have to do is tell us can they do it or can't they do it? Just FYI, here's the difference between our bill that you have in front of you and as amended, how it passed out. One, better language from its last ones. Two, in our bill, the interest that the treasurer earns, he earns interest from all these loans. It's a million bucks a year. Now it could grow to three. It goes to the general fund. We put it in a special fund for housing, Ways and Means just took that out of them. Their Ways and Means feeling, and I think if they hadn't taken it out, probably Approach would've. It's just Ways and Means was thinking, don't make it automatic. If we want to appropriate that money for housing, we should decide to do that on an annual basis. Those were the big changes that they made. Which is my partisan. Pretty straightforward, what it's trying to do. Well,

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: we'll hear the details once you got the certificate. Yep. Will the council agree with what you've said?

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Of course. If he doesn't No. If he doesn't, I ought to know about it. If you need any further or anything further from us, let us know. I'm more stuck upstairs. Thank you very much.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Looks interesting. You,

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Cameron, are you gonna talk both about this, the bill and the ways we should have been?

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So there's thank you. I always Good morning. Good Good morning.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For the record, Wood, office of legislative council. So the reason that I shared just the house general report for this bill is because there's four documents. There's the house general report, there's the ways and means amendment, there's the appropriations amendment, and then there

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: was a floor amendment.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: as opposed to trying to give you all four documents and then walking through all of them individually, I figured I would share this with you. I can comment on the changes that I've made. They were mentioned, some of them here, from the the sponsors of the bill. I don't have a complete document because all of this was just agreed upon yesterday in the House. So that at second reading in the House, the body did agree to all of the amendments that were proposed, and so it's up for third reading today. Soon as we get a clean copy back, we'd be happy to share that with the committee. Also keep in mind that there are provisions in this bill that you have in your housing bill that you all passed just last Friday, S3 28, the municipal plans was what you wanted to do. So I will comment just generally on the fact that some of these are different as I walk through. But doing my best to keep you on time, I'm gonna try to be relatively high level and succinct here. The first section is the special assessment bonds. It's the version that you have is as if, was was approved by the body yesterday. As mentioned, this is actually, I wanna start off by saying this is John Gray's section, not mine. He wasn't able to join you this morning, so I'll just kind of highlight echo what the sponsor said. As you all know, municipalities have the ability to set up, you know, these special assessments as they exist now, and this would provide them the authority to do revenue bonds backed by the revenue of the special assessment. It doesn't require a vote of the entire town, so there's some detail here that I would let John walk through about what the bonds need to meet. They need to meet certain thresholds before they could be approved or authored, but other than that, generally that's the concept here. The Vermont Housing Special Funds, so section two, this is the beginning on the bottom of page two. Okay, so you all have a similar provision in your bill. This is about the Global Investment Advisory Committee, state treasurers, 10% for Vermont. And so if you all remember in your bill, if you kept it more narrow where you're increasing the cap from 10 to 12.5%, so it would be 12.5% for Vrban at that point. Bill goes a step further, and primarily it's just the language here on page three, the sub B. At one point, I think, in your housing bill, we discussed this a little bit towards the beginning. So there's the increase to 12.5%, and then the treasurer's office was also asking for I shouldn't say they were asking for, it was part of proposals that were being shared, an additional credit facility of up to 1% for the purchase of doing off-site, bulk purchasing of off-site constructed housing, but that the intention wasn't to then get a 13.5%, so anything they do within that 1% equally reduces the authority in the 12.5. Again, I feel like this was part of your amendments in your housing bill and ultimately it was removed. So that remains in July as it's gonna come over to you. It does keep that 1% credit facility for purchasing a off-site constructive housing. The Ways and Chains Committee did strip out the interest, and they did strip out the special funds. So part of this proposal that came out of House General, and at one point, it was in your the housing bill that you all were reviewing as well, allowed the treasurer to keep all of that interest, put it into a special fund. All that was stripped out in your bill that came out of your committee, and it was stripped out by the Ways of Means Committee in that house. So seven seventy five has what you have, 12.5, but it also has the 1% for purchasing of off-site constructed housing. So moving forward on to section three of the draft that you have in front

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: of you, is page five, this is that special fund where the interest was going. That's gone. Ask for clarification. Yes. So page three paragraph 12 line seven paragraph where does it say that that 1% is dedicated to on-site, not or

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: what? They're on lines 12. So it's the credit facility established in the one b may only be used Okay. May be used only for that. Okay. So we get to page six. And so this has the off-site construction accelerator pilot program. This was language similar language that was in the housing field that you all were viewing in s three twenty eight as ACCD working in this version, working with BGS to work with municipalities to try to come up with a pilot demonstration to utilize bulk purchasing of off-site constructed housing to then locate in that municipality. I know that Commissioner Fairrell at any point earlier on in the session came in and testified with this pilot with you all. It was initially in one of the some of the housing bills that were proposed in the House of the Senate. From the administration this year. It has had some slight tweaks throughout, but you all stripped this out of your housing bill of S328 last week. So it's here in seven seventy five, and I know you've taken some testimony on it previously, but pilot program run through ACCD, intention to work with municipalities, and you can see kind of the appropriate language on page seven, working with the state treasurer to try to identify the feasibility of the state providing a guarantee for facilitating bulk purchasing of Valium that's in sub c one. The house general committee put in c two to require that the treasurer consult with certain entities if they do offer funds for this program. Pilot occurs in one or more municipalities willing to participate. Municipality is available, is eligible for grants or enacting necessary regulation reforms to site and build the housing. There's a report in 2028 from the agency about the findings and recommendations from the pilot, whether or not to enact a statewide building code for off-site construction. One of the floor amendments that was approved was to add in an end date for the pilot. So what you don't see on section page eight there, at the end of this section, is language that just says the agencies shall cease the pilot projects in 06/30/2030. So on page eight, then you get to the changes for VHIP. As was mentioned by the sponsors, this is adding language that gives the department the explicit authority. They're on lines 15 through 17, explicit authority to advance funding at the beginning of a project. The I would argue the department has the ability to do that now. The department testified that they would prefer to have explicit statutory authority directing that they can do that or they would be comfortable doing that, so that's what this does. Rumaan Economic Development Authority, same languages in your bill, allowing

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: that the fund won't be in a house anymore.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So moving forward to municipal plan section seven, different

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: language in your bill.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is a there is a change to what you have in front of you that was or is the ways and means amendment. It really just kind of simplifies it and takes out some of the detail. So looking on page 11, sub 2A, which should real quick, so it takes out all of that extra level of information. So it would still need to include a quantification of the existing and projected needed housing types, but they wouldn't have to break it out by location, age, condition, occupancy required, etcetera. It just it simplified a lot of the information, took that out, yes, sir, but I would say, you know, the language that came out of this committee was even further simplified down than

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: what you have here. There's a

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: lot more detail in what is being proposed by the house versus what came out of that committee.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: I'm sorry to interrupt you. That was right. So, yeah, that's where I was a question point I have is if ways and needs really heard in the same testimony we heard from the Catherine Demetriq and others and at some point need to get on one side of, like, a free pass and what gateways means, and if you wanna reflect on how different or how close they are.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would say that they're even though they're they're in the same ballpark, if you will, what you all pass is pretty significantly different in that. What you pass was adding it into the housing element piece, and it requires them to provide information on whether or not they're going meet their housing targets and regulation of this will strengthen and keep them from doing that, and then they have to include progress made if they do an amendment or readoption. They include language of progress made to meet their housing types. Pretty straightforward, pretty simple language, what you all proposed. What this is proposing is just similar, but more expansive than what would be required. Sub one year municipality shall include, with the housing elements, identification and an analysis of existing and projected housing needs for the projected population, added in including housing needs for individuals with disability, and provide regulations that were struck, that piece right there was struck by ways and means. So they have to include the identification and analysis here. So I would say that's somewhat similar to what you have, but what's primarily different is what the House General proposed is the sub two's. If the municipality cannot meet the housing targets, then the municipality has to provide to the Department of Housing and Community Development an analysis of the regulatory and physical constraints preventing them from doing it. So you added that directly into the housing element. You said, tell us about how you're gonna meet your housing targets, or what are the constraints that are stopping you from meeting your housing targets? The House proposal is saying, do you need to include this analysis of how you're gonna meet your housing targets. And if you're not gonna meet your housing targets, you're not gonna put that in your plan, then you need to tell DHCD why you're not going to, and you need to include all of this information.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: You didn't have it? That's a big

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: It it was in your bill, like, initially.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Because this all started from the same place. I would say my understanding, and I don't mean to speak for external parties here, but my understanding is the version that you all have in your bill is the most recent positions of VLCT and the regional planners about what they would support or what they asked for. So they came in and testified to you all most recently. And so I would say what you have is the latest Yes, iteration of

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: sir. Of what they would like

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to see in the bill. I know that the house general heard from them. House Ways and Means did not hear from them. House Ways and Means update was really, again, further refining the language down to take away some of the burden on the municipalities based on what was there, and it was at kind of the recommendation of the health general committee at that point. Health general put it out, goes to ways and means. They wanted to further refine it down after what had left their committee, so they asked ways and means to put that piece in. Ways and means didn't take their own testimony from the regional planners or if you like to talk about that piece specifically, I believe. So Okay. So I'd be happy to get you a

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: side by side so you

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can compare that section because, again, it's in your housing fill as to what is here. If that would be helpful, think. Yes,

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: A few sections. There's a

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: few sections that are prepared. I'll kind of pull those out and put them in a document. And then there were some physicians here, two physicians within DHCD. If you remember, that's also in your bill, you had three physicians. Here they have two physicians. That was stripped out by the Appropriations Committee in the House. I'm trying to spell it again with everything. They stripped out since ways and means was stripping out the interest from the treasurer because that goes into the general fund now, they stripped that piece out. Appropriations only needed to strip out the positions. Presumably, they would have stripped out the interest being kept as well. So that was the other element there. So that's the Again, there are, I'd say, give or take, half of the sections of the bill you have in your housing bill that you all pass out, slightly different versions, so I'll get that comparison. Really, primary differences are the changes in BHIP, the revenue bonds at the beginning, and I

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: kinda like the revenue bond, but I'm curious why it wasn't gonna be kind of spelled out in ways to be, so I'd like to know if they have concerns with that, but that'll be

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: a conversation. I'm curious of all the bills that heard from. That's why we just sessions. None of them had reduced savvy anywhere. Curious what universe.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Okay. Okay. I'll work on that and give that to you, and other than that, whatever

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: you want. The next step.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. If you guys move forward, we're happy to come back, and I would if you wanna move forward with the revenue bonds piece, you may wanna have John Gray back to walk through with a little more detail about what that section does.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Well, that's been my questions. Yeah. It's for us. It's there's been anything done by JFK. Yeah.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I'm really intrigued by the revenue bonds and when

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: he said arenas, because that's something that's how much we've been able to.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: But the name is obviously.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: Thank you. Please look pretty good.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So here we are, this morning.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're at a bit

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of an impasse. Mr. Tucker is stuck in Senegal and welfare.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It was scheduled from 10:15 to 07:30, but it's not yet started to speak yet because they are discussing S-two 78.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: He'll be there a while. I

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can try to grab him right now, but Well,

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: as I understand, yeah, he's he's there, and once you're there, it's

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: very difficult to leave. But know that we're we're ready for him when he's gonna be available. We could perhaps talk for a

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: couple of minutes about working on our development finance today relative to these particular bills and how the government position the testimony that we serve. But even if you're on the floor talking about that, but not at the time, I think we We ended up talking about testimony.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: You're talking about tobacco now? Mhmm. Okay. So yeah. Because that's I'm reporting the bill too, so that's why I've been more positive on this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Around it. I think for Senate Finance this afternoon, we should propose this to be lower fee. I'm liking $1.50 just because that's inflation adjusted. I think it's defensible.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. The question is at one fifty or whether that goes two fifty, which seems to be the prevailing amount from the other states, but one fifty is probably more reasonable as far as tobacco suppliers here. Does it not have the effect that was intended though of perhaps some shock value for the $150 has any shock value anywhere.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: To your very salient point, I'd like to hope that the original fee was established based on the cost of administration and that the 150 is inflation adjusted to today. I don't know if it was, but

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: I'm not When was the original fee done?

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Well, don't about original, but the last time this

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: fee was raised was 2,016. 16. Yeah. And so you can always do a quick quick look at what is $20.16 dollars or $100 That

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: came to the 143 figure,

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: and that's why I left them. And 150 is 53 points to it. So the question is, is there any other reason to to raise the fee other than adjusting for inflation? I've got a big one to have some value, both shock value. Think the shock itself is quite

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: a lot. That's my sense is, particularly shock, it's more targeted at committees, get your attention, necessarily. Not the recipient.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, don't know, I gather from the AG's point of view, the attention of the public, as far as they are concerned, maybe the public who saw it being more shocked. Good day. Good

[Tucker Anderson (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: morning, Anderson, Legislative Counsel. You should have in front of you draft 1.2 of Senator Clarkson's Form two seventy eight, and what the good senator asked me to do this morning was to cover the intent section that's been added per the community's discussion earlier this week. So it's three sentences, fairly straightforward, covers each one of the components that the community discussed. It states, The first finding, that medical and commercial cannabis industry has grown significantly in The US since the time that Vermont transitioned to a recreational cannabis market in 2022. Second, that recent statements from federal officials, including provisions of executive order 14,370, entitled Increasing Medical Marijuana and Ambidiol Research, and indicated shifting federal posture on regulated cannabis markets. Accordingly, the intent of the general assembly is to prepare for the possibility of regional or interstate cannabis markets by authorizing the governor to form agreements with other states that have commercial cannabis markets. That's all that I have for you this morning. You went through the compact language earlier this week and just had a little twist.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: If I could fully tuck her into our earlier discussion, what I believe the trajectory of the committee is, I anticipate the majority, mean, not even majority, everybody to be on board with another amendment that I'm thinking might make sense to just fold into this as a committee floor amendment and it has to do with restoring back the pop law. So Todd Delos, Jen Carvey's fully familiar. I'm I'm thinking of tobacco. I am mixing up my smoking products. In the air at one time. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Never mind. Sorry. Please forget everything I just said, Tucker. Think it's bad

[Tucker Anderson (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You lost me in pub.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Yep. Yep.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Yep. Yep. You need an amendment. That's for the other one.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: That'll be Alright. So this will be a different format. My apologies.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Let's see. You'd pretty straightforward. Yeah. Yeah. Any Common committee members? Bar. Bar resolution.

[Tucker Anderson (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Excellent. So what I'll do from here is there's a little bit of cleanup, and I'll send a clean copy to Senator Clarkson, who I understand is going to do certain things. Sorry

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: about that. We got fifteen minutes to go, and

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: then we're waiting for witness

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: who we do not have. We're waiting to No. We are. We're dusk. Yeah.

[Sophie Zdatny (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's it.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Was that it? Oh, okay. That's it. You mentioned you have some. Yep.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Was some early efficiency.

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: That's amazing.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: That's what we forgot.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're getting home ready get through security.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: Alright. Everything's done. So

[Representative Marc Mihaly]: awesome. Perfect. There

[Senator Thomas Chittenden]: wasn't anything else you wanted us to take up.