Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: But it does make me We're live, I better.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: We're live January 30, Center of Education Committee. And today we're going to take up a couple other things. We're going to take up S-two 14, an act relating to the provision of kindergarten education in geographically isolated school districts. Something that we actually heard a little bit about inadvertently almost from a couple of our witnesses. That's better than the Northeast Kingdom. This bill is I think designed to get out some of the issues they raised. So, and this bill was introduced by Senator Rutland District of Hinsdale, and she is here to give us the introduction followed by Beth St. James Dutland District We all have fresh copies by the way.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: For the record, Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale, a member of this committee, and it was actually, I believe, last year in this committee on Northeast Pigment Day that we heard together from Essex County residents who highlighted for us that they end up having quite sparse representation. Sparsely populated county, they have their one senator and they have one member of the house. And, you know, sometimes that means we don't always hear in all the committees of jurisdiction about the experiences of some of those far flung counties. I would chalk this up to essentially taxation without representation. This is a part of the state that pays into the payroll tax and should be eligible for the childcare subsidies that we have already passed. It's already law. But their geographic isolation makes it very hard for them to access an actual childcare center. We recognized this more often in the Upper Valley and other parts of the state where the identity across the Connecticut River is sort of more pronounced and more known, but it became, I think, very obvious to us when we visited Essex County that they treat a lot of the population centers just across the river in New Hampshire as their centers of commerce at places that they would access resources like childcare centers. So this has been very carefully worded, and it's taken actually over a year to get the language right, and you can you may hear more from others about that. So and and I think we have had conversations about what geographic isolation really means. This may have broader context for those conversations, but truly, just as with K-twelve, pre K have some elements of geographic isolation, and we're trying to address that for Essex County. You know, it's not often that folks from that county can even come down to meet with us, so I'm really grateful that we heard about this last Northeast Kingdom Day. We have folks coming by us again from Essex County to really advocate for families who then can stay in Essex County because they have access to childcare. And that really is the intent of the bill, and I think it's easy for other witnesses to walk through

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: the language of why it's worded that way. Thank you, mister chair. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: it's worth waiting for. St. James? I'm sorry? One

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: and the only. Beth St. James, the Office of Legislative Council, would you like me to share my screen for the walk through or do you all have it?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: We all have it. I think it's posted, right? So it's posted. Okay.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this bill is, so we're going walk through S-one 114, I'm sorry, S-two 14, as introduced, an act related to provision of pre kindergarten education in geographically isolated school districts. So this bill is specific to pre K. And so, section one of the bill amends our pre K Education Statute, which is section eight twenty nine of Title 16, which lives actually in the courses of study, I'm sorry, not courses of study, maintenance of public school capital, which is also where the tuition statutes live. But we have one statute governing pre K education, and that's section eight twenty nine. And so what section one proposes to do is require the second So the first amendment, which is actually on page two, is there's a rule series for pre kindergarten education, and it's jointly developed by AOE and DCF. And the state board actually owns those rules. And page two, line one, subdivision 12 is proposing to add to the rules a definition for geographically isolated school districts as the term relates to the provision of pre kindergarten education under subsection I of this section, which we'll walk through next. And it requires the agency and the department to establish a process for a Pre K student residing in a geographically isolated school district to enroll in a Pre K program located in New Hampshire. So, first amendment to the Pre K statute is require the rules to come up with a definition for what geographically isolated school district means.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: That's both. This actually might be a question for you, Senator. Why just New Hampshire? Why not Mass and New York?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: And this could be a question for Beth or some of our other witnesses, but we wanted to make sure it was limited to going outside of the state in counties where there simply was no option in that county. There's really unique features of Essex County as opposed to places that border Massachusetts and New York, where we have not heard this concern come up that there's simply no eligible childcare centers. And New Hampshire has specific regulations that this needed to work with. So I certainly welcome conversation about Massachusetts and New York. Certainly in the year we've been working on this language, it's just come up that the regulations need to work better with New Hampshire and that Essex County is uniquely facing this experience and more people can save.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So it's good if you need to consider Canada as well just to make sure we're covering the bases.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: That would be like a whole other set of regulations for childcare and

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I don't know who would

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: We're talking about pre care.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Yeah. It's highly regulated. Yeah. I don't even I mean, right now it's taking tax dollars out of the state, so I don't know if

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: it could go out of the country. I don't know.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I guess it can with k through 12.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Not really What what what I'm saying is Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: When we dig deeper into this Mhmm. Massachusetts, New York, Just get Canada. It's applicable. It's applicable. It's not.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Alright. What I don't wanna do with this bill is sort of open it up to criticism in other realms that is about like other things. This is just. It's

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: not about this. They're they're doing the right thing. New Hampshire, it's a good start, but I think at least we need to see if there's problems solved. If not, they don't go there.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I should back up and say that Section eight twenty nine, which we are in right now, governs pre kindergarten education as it relates to the universal pre kindergarten education program. So the ten hours of pre K that is allotted to each student in the state. Subsection H, I'm on page two, line eight. Subsection H is right now called geographic limitations. We're gonna retitle that pre kindergarten regions and then not touch any of the rest of subsection H. This is current law that allows school districts to kind of set a region within which those pre k dollars can go. But because we're gonna talk about geographically isolated districts, that term geographic, we didn't wanna get anyone confused,

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: so we're just retitling this subsection.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So then the real big substantive piece of this bill is, if you scroll all the way down to the very bottom of page three, line 18, adding a new subsection to the statute entitled geographically isolated school districts. So notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, on behalf of a resident pre K child, a school district shall pay tuition for pre kindergarten education for ten hours per week for thirty five weeks to a pre kindergarten program located outside Vermont if the following conditions are met. And we're gonna walk through those conditions, but I just wanna highlight that that ten hours per week for thirty five weeks is the entitlement for all children in the state. So if the following conditions are met, that ten hours for thirty five weeks can be provided to a program outside the state. If the Pre K student is a resident of a geographically isolated school district as defined by the State Board of Education, and that's what we walked through first requiring the rules to define that term. And the pre k program located outside Vermont is approved to provide publicly funded pre k education under the laws of New Hampshire and is located within 25 miles of the Vermont border.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Just a question on Act 73, did we also use the 25 mile limit? Is that the same? What was that limit? Just out of curiosity. There was no limit. You are thinking about something that was in the bill. Correct. Yeah. That was, we're picking that for a reason.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yep. There's gonna be a

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: quiz on ACT UP meeting today now. I mean, it's a good quiz to have. Okay, so payments made pursuant to the subsection shall be paid under the same statewide rate that is paid to pre qualified pre kindergarten providers located within Vermont, which may be adjusted regionally, that is established annually through a process jointly developed and implemented by agencies of the AOE and Human Services. So basically, the statewide rate that is for Vermont would be the same for those payments going outside of the state. And then section two is requiring the state board who owns those rules, the pre k rules to open up the rules, to comply with everything that we just walked through, including creating that definition for geographically isolated, and then the bill would take effect on 07/01/2026.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Curiosity question because I don't know the answer. Know there's lots of folks in the state house who have all kinds of trouble with money going to schools which have a religious basis. The laws, this page four, line seven, under the laws of New Hampshire, I don't know if New Hampshire has a different perspective on where their education money can go. We should see if we're bumping into something which at least needs visibility.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Fine. Can I say something?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I mean, we I think we currently, through a district, can provide pre k dollars to, like, a church pre k. I I don't think we

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Good.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Like, if I don't think I mean, I don't think you can, like, impose religious beliefs on kids, but I think we we don't necessarily have the same issues with pre k since there's a lot of independent schools where they can find space.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay, that's a good thing. I just wanted to know if we were bumping it in an anomaly that needs visibility.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: There is a long line of First Amendment jurisprudence that is relative to this conversation, that if you all are interested in having me in on, I would be happy to talk about it, but it is such a delicate topic, and a topic that what you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, that I would encourage you to just be very conscious of how we're having that conversation.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. Other questions? So the only yeah. I I would only the only thing that I have in my mind as we're finishing this walk through is that if if we deem an area to be

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Geographically isolated.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Isolated. It's possible that it will be it will emerge on the left hand side of the state. I would if it is in fact geographically isolated, just like in Essex County, they probably don't have the same opportunity. So that's the only thing they probably want to make by New York and Massachusetts. Okay. Yeah. I mean Might not happen, by the way. Well, might not happen. It might even sold the Essex in the end against the Essex. Right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: And I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure other witnesses will speak to why this is written so narrowly. Yeah. Okay. And

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: so, yeah, that is a good look at that too. Is it proof to task the agency of geographic information to to do a quick study? Well, because we haven't defined it yet. No. I I know. When we get to that point, just to see if we have other areas, and again, just trying to be fair for all the counties. Yeah.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Let's just, okay, so we just have that bank note, whatever, VIN, whatever, so

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. Would you like

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: me to stick around?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: It's up to you. I mean, will probably be good between the two guys or Sure.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: There's this many questions.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Oh. Sure. No. I'll pick whoever gets up next.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yeah. Who is up there?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I assume we have a witness here.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Janet McCarthy.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: I don't think

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Oh, he's on screen. You

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: sure? Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Oh, well, if we're not having a live witness then That's true. Rat Cooper. We'll just sit next to each other.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Good afternoon, Janet.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: Hi there.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Oh, yes. Just for the, I guess, just for all the witnesses, we should go around the room and introduce ourselves so that somebody does that site. Starting with Senator Ram Hinsdale. Say hello.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Hi, Senator Ram Jeff from Chittenden County.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Doctor. David Weeks representing Rowan County. Seth Bongartz, represent the Bennington Senate District.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Terry Williams representing Rowan County. Steve Heffernan representing the Addison County District.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: With that, introduce yourself and the floor is yours.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: Okay, great. Hi there. Good to be with you guys again. Janet McLaughlin, I'm the Deputy Commissioner within the Department for Children and Families that oversees the Child Development Division. And the Child Development Division is responsible for all things sort of childcare within the state of Vermont. We're responsible for children's integrated services, which is, you know, supports for children and family, young children and families who need extra supports like early intervention and home visiting. And we also co administer universal pre kindergarten along with the agency education. So we are jointly responsible for pre kindergarten education. I didn't submit written testimony. I have notes, but as you guys know, this was a quick turnaround. But I have talked with, I've connected with Secretary Saunders. I talked with the AOE Chief Academic Officer, Erin Davis, on this topic earlier today, just to make sure that we're fully aligned and that I'm speaking on behalf of both agencies. And so relative to this bill, I just have a few things to share as you guys are considering it. So the first, and I'm going to just pull my notes over so that they're a little, some not looking off to the side. So the first thing is that we, you know, we wanna emphasize that we completely agree that the purpose of Vermont's universal pre kindergarten law is to make sure that all Vermont children can get a high quality pre kindergarten education experience before they enter kindergarten. And we agree that this includes children who live on the border, and especially those who might be likely to go to kindergarten in other states, and we agree that they should have access to publicly funded pre K, and we agree that there is a challenge, that there are some children who have not been able to access publicly funded pre kindergarten in the same way as other children in Vermont, and that that was a problem and that we should solve it. So agree on all of that. This is an issue that has come up before. We've talked about it. We had a pre kindergarten education implementation committee that was laid out through Act 70, as part of Act 76 2023. And it came up there and it was kind of tied to some of the recommendations that came out there, but that didn't, there wasn't legislative action taken after that, so that hasn't adjusted there. And I think right now I have a few things, pieces of information I wanted to share with you guys. And I guess just a couple thoughts. So one is just the belief, again, that any changes we're making to preconjunctive education should work in coordination with the larger pre K to 12 education transformation overall. And as we think about creating new definitions, right, for geographically isolated and things like that, we need to, you know, make sure that that is gonna align with some of the bigger picture thinking for pre K through 12, which sounds like that's some the questions already been raising. And we know that there is, pre K as a whole,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: K,

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: and Universal for Pre K kindergarten specifically, and for pre K through 12, that, you know, there is additional work to be done right now, right, related to revisions to roles and responsibilities between the districts and the state. What is the right way to think about the administrative overhead associated with pre kindergarten? And what is the appropriate payment to run a high quality pre kindergarten education program, like whether or that is run-in a publicly operated program, or in a community based program. So, you know, all of those questions, right, seem to be open right now and being asked by your colleagues. And so whatever is happening here, we would want to make sure, right, where everything is happening in The other thing I wanted to make sure that you all are aware of is that at the very 2025, so just last month, the Child Development Division, along with Agency of Education, Building Bright Futures, Department of Health, Department of Mental we successfully secured a preschool development grant birth to five systems building grant from the federal government. And it is designed to support multiple projects that strengthen early childhood education for remote families. And one project is gonna be a focused consultant supported process to develop a more streamlined, coherent, statewide framework for UPK. And we've already got the RFP out there for that consultant. And is, there's four major goals to that. And so one is to improve access by ensuring UPK policies and supports work consistently for families in every region or district in the state and across program types. A second goal is to clarify and align UPK governance funding and expectations across agencies and settings, again, so that public schools, community based programs, family childcare, Head Start partners were all operating, right, with this coherent framework, that we're reducing the administrative burden and duplication that there might be by identifying any unnecessary differences in the oversight and monitoring, and to create sort of a foundation. The fourth goal is to create a foundation for shared UPK data governance and integration so that we can track participation, quality, and outcomes across mixed delivery universal pre kindergarten system. So I just want you to know, I guess the point is we are kind of like deeply thinking about the pre kindergarten system as a whole. And we have, you know, a body of work already planned this year associated with that. And that body of work is really deeply informed by the work we did on the pre kindergarten committee, by the conversations related to education transformation, by the Vermont Early Childhood Strategic Plan. So wanted you guys to be aware of that. And that work will be sort of guided by an interagency team, that's CDD, AOE, and also our partners at Building Bright Futures. And then we're going also have a steering committee that would include sort of statewide and local leaders, school district, community based and home based universal pre kindergarten partners, Head Start partners. So gonna be, I think there's gonna be a forum to really have these, to like have these conversations and make sure we are getting to this place where we are achieving our goal of making sure that every Vermont pre kindergarten student who wants it can have access to that high quality education. So then I would offer that specific to this very specific bill, I think one of the challenges in the past of why this isn't happening already, like why isn't this already solved, has been around the ways that we pre qualify pre kindergarten park programs across the state. And so we do think it's achievable for AOE and CDD to identify ways that are comparable to what we have in Vermont to qualify for kindergarten providers in other states in these limited circumstances when there's not a reasonable option right in Vermont. So, and I'll give a couple examples of that. So like right now, the Pre Kindergarten Pre Qualification Standards say that you need to participate in Vermont's STARS Quality Recognition System and you need be at a level four or a level five. Well, Hampshire programs don't participate, know what I mean? We don't have a vehicle for New Hampshire programs to participate in STARS, they probably, you know, or New York or Massachusetts, they have their own systems of quality, and it's doing the work of mapping those and saying, Close enough. We also know there's places where, you know, it might be that the child is gonna attend kindergarten at that public school, you know, but we don't have a way to get them access to pre kindergarten right now. And again, maybe we can think about that standard. You know, maybe there's just a pretty clear, just like, oh, if it's a K-twelve school and they're offering pre K and that's where that kid's going to go for K with Vermont money, maybe we can just make it a really simple fast lane right there. And then there's other details that we have associated with University of Kindergarten. Like we have a requirement for an individual child level assessment using a very specific tool, Teaching Strategies Gold, which again, a New Hampshire program, right, if they only have a few Vermont children in it, and that's not the assessment that that school already uses, we need to work out those sorts of details. But I would just say in talking with our partners at AOE, we do think that those details can be worked out. I think in looking together, we feel like we can't quite comment yet on the specific directions in the bill related to sort of defining geographically isolated districts. And again, would want to think about that in terms of implications related to other parts of the pre K to 12 system. We also think we could look at data related to kindergarten enrollment on those border communities, and also look at some of the data that we have related to childcare financial assistance use in programs that are based in New Hampshire or Massachusetts or New York, because we do already do that. We do allow Vermont families to use their childcare financial assistance benefits at another, where they can find a spot if that's out of state. We would also think, we also really would want to look at, we know we need to be looking at the requirements related to the money, right? Related to the statewide tuition rate, ADM, how the money flows, that for pre kindergarten, that's definitely an area of where we need to do some initial analysis. That's part of what the analysis we're hoping to do with the consulting piece of it. And so as I think about the tuition rate that we have for community based programs in Vermont, know that that doesn't necessarily cover costs right now. And so I think if this bill were to move forward, we'd want to make sure that whatever we're putting forward was, you know, could allow

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: for,

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: to make it sufficient, right? Because if we say, oh, you can take your benefit and it's $4,000 a year, well if nobody in New Hampshire's willing to take that much money to offer the ten hours of pre K, then we haven't actually achieved access, right, for those children. So that's just another piece of it to consider. But that's what I just wanted to pop in to offer from how the administration is taking a look at this bill just as a first look.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you, Heather. I've got it. I've got some thoughts. Want to let you go first. You had perfect. Yeah. Janet, thank you. Sure. So lot. It's Friday afternoon. Thank you. I'm just curious. Thank you. I'm just curious. At at like 10,000 feet, you have at the Department of Children and Families supports at least the intent of S-two 14?

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: Yeah, the intent of making sure that, yes, that all Vermont children can have access to a publicly funded pre kindergarten education, yes.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you. So as I listen to you talk, it sounds like what your, all the pieces and all the thinking that you're doing and all the rules that would come would end up taking some time. And I'm thinking about kids who don't have pre K now.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: And it's too late for this year but it seems to me just admittedly thinking out loud here a little bit that we need to find a way for this to happen in whatever form by next August to like really need to do something so that those who have no access now have access. So I am even thinking that even given some of the things you want to consider and look at I go okay that's fine but we need to do something in the interim. And even if it's a little messy, it doesn't, you know, we haven't had all the review of the schools or whatever. It's seems to be that it's, you know, there's a true urgency here as it relates to what may only be 10 or 15 kids, I don't even know. But, so I'm wondering what possibilities we could do this in some form in sunset in two years or something like that so it's at least there and it could get taken out. How long would it take you, let just ask this question, should it not, does it appear the way it's written, doesn't have to be by rule if I'm reading it correctly, to come up with a definition that would be workable for the geographically isolated school district that we have. We just actually as it turns out we got the recommendations or the report from the board as it relates to schools in Vermont, or if you could go up with that. But it seems to me that we need to make this happen for next August.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: So to your question, I think, yeah, that's definitely a place where I'd want to make sure I'm coordinating with the Agency of Education colleagues on that piece of it to make sure. But I do agree that those children, right, they're only three and four for two years. So that's a short period of time for those children.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So I wanna echo just what you just put out, for how many, for how this is gonna affect the state, for how many children that's probably gonna actually use this, time is of the essence, and you gave a very long reason why it may have to wait, but you can see here in this committee that I believe we feel it's more urgent than I just ask that you work with us to make sure that we get this done.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: Yeah. If I can respond, I think I didn't necessarily mean to say that it implied that this absolutely has to wait. I just wanted to make sure that whatever is being done is that, you know, that eye is being kept to how does this potentially interact with the other parts of other legislation that is potentially moving this session. And this is a place where we agree that we can't let perfect be the enemy of much better.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So what? I was just thinking, you know, you do anything with a rule or obsession ball. Yeah. Could do something that is.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: yeah, I mean, waiting for other things to happen is never a good policy in this building.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yes, and well, we're splitting time between whatever it is, seven kids or 12 kids. I couldn't see the hand signals over there. Six. Six. Maybe seven. Versus the eighty, zero kids we're dealing with Act 73. You know, sometimes we're just going to have to like, you know, pull lever, believe, sunset, move forward. We've got big big best to go ahead. But I I do support the concept. So if we were going to go forward with this, I'm just asking maybe thinking about this in order to come back to us. We We were going to go forward with this bill. Are there any and we were going to do it let's just say for the sake of discussion here sunset in two years. Is there anything that you believe is that we must work into this? Because I think frankly thinking about it in the context of Act 73 is probably not what we have in mind to do with this. We can be thinking about it as we go forward with Act 73 but in the meantime we got to make sure we're ready for next August. So if there are some things that you believe must be in here in order for this to work, let us know what they are.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: Okay, I'll get back with our colleagues at AOE and we can get back to you. I think one of the things that's coming to mind for me is thinking about the operating districts versus non operating districts, and does that play into thinking through the way the funding flows? Again, with the the point I was making at the end of making if the goal is to ensure access, we need to make sure that the funding, you know, is sufficient to actually ensure access.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. Good.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you very much. And by the way, your points are all well taken and the wall go run. And so thank you for coming in.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: Yep. Thanks for having me.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Have you do again. Here. There it is. So, Yeah.

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: Hello, again. Seems like it was just a day before yesterday that I was here. So for the record, my name is Erin Rutland, and I'm the Vermont Director of First Children's Finance. And thank you for having me here again. I hope to provide a little bit of data for you about the availability of preschool and universal pre kindergarten throughout the state and by county. And I have a few questions about S-two 14, as I reviewed it last night, that I hope might be helpful as you consider the legislation. And some of those questions have already come up in this past half hour or so. So to the data, I guess. As part of our 2026 child care supply and demand gap analysis, which I talked about a couple days ago, First Children's Finance produced several supplemental data briefs that were outside the scope of that full time childcare analysis, but we thought they were of interest for a better understanding of the whole ecosystem of regulated childcare, And also acknowledging that families and young children have different needs, and our childcare ecosystem should offer a variety of settings to best meet every family's needs. So I'm going to talk a little bit about, and I shared with you the very brief report about preschool and universal pre K. But I did also want to note that Building Bright Futures and the state of Vermont's Department for Children and Families Child Development Division played an important role in the sort of creation and fine tuning of all of these reports, and also in helping us see the value of these supplemental briefs. And so I wanted to acknowledge my gratitude for their partnership and expertise in all of this. So without further ado, I'm going to share with the committee our supplemental brief that's titled Characteristics of Preschool Capacity in Vermont.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: I'm going

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: to share the relevant oh, I can't share. But if I can share, I'll share the relevant page with you. Here we go. That everyone can see.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Okay.

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: So the main report that we talked about the other day focuses on full time childcare. This supplement focuses on preschool only, whether it's full time or part time, whether it's at a public school, whether it's universal pre K, it's preschool. And so the table that I have here shows the in the right, the first column on the left is the county, the second column from the left is the total preschool aged children in that county. I want to note that the this data comes from the Department of Health. This data is from July 2024, which was the most recent available data at the time that we were doing this analysis. So I just want to make sure everyone is clear that these numbers are from July 2024. So you can see how many children, three and four year olds, there are in each county and how many there are statewide. So there's 11,000 in the state. Essex County has a hundred and eleven three and four year olds, while Chittenden County has almost 3,000. And then we show the total preschool licensed capacity, all the regulated preschools, like I said, full time, part time, public schools, and how many spaces they are licensed for. I want to note that just about every county has more licensed spaces than they have three and four year olds currently, or July 2024, with three exceptions. Those are Essex, Franklin and Grand Isle County, which have a little less licensed capacity for preschool in regulated care. So I wanted to show that table in case that is helpful to you as you're considering this legislation. And then the other thing I wanted to show you is on the next page, table three, which is specifically about universal pre K. So again, the first column on the left is the county, the second column from the left is the license capacity of universal pre K spaces, right? These are ten hours a week. These are, as the Deputy Commissioner McLaughlin talked about, these meet requirements set out by the state. And so not every preschool can be a universal pre K provider. So I thought it would be helpful for you to understand that, for example, in Essex County, there are 95 universal pre K spaces. Remember on the previous table, I think we said there were one hundred and eleven three and four year olds. So I thought that was useful to note. I also think it's useful to note that Grand Isle has 84 licensed universal pre K spaces, and I don't remember the number, one hundred and thirty eight three and four year olds. So anyway, I thought that was relevant information about the the sort of availability of preschool and universal prekindergarten spaces in the state. Yeah. So that's the data I was going to share. Happy to answer any questions. I also had a few questions in my written testimony that I wanted to pose.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Well, there's a question first about the so let's do that.

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: Of course. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: So, Erin, you don't do mapping?

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: I mean, we sometimes have maps, but I'm not, like, a GIS expert.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Okay. Because the, you know, the unique nature of Essex County is that it's such a large landmass.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: So your data doesn't tell us a real story, unfortunately, I think, about Essex County. It's unclear where those spaces are versus where people live and how far they would have to drive and how far away that is from work. I would say juxtapose that with Grand Isle County, I don't wanna speak for them being in Chittenden County, but we do know a lot of people in Grand Isle County are kind of used with kids are used to traveling off the island to Franklin or Chittenden for work or for their other needs.

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: Yes, I present this only as data. It was not this report was published several weeks ago. It was not specifically produced to address this issue or this legislation. It was really to get a better idea of preschool and universal pre kindergarten and sort of the part time and full time nature of those spaces. So I'm not trying to suggest that there's that that it Essex County does or does not have a distance to travel to

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: And you don't know that? Like, that's not data you would ever monitor or track?

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: No, the state does have a lovely website with a map of where every regulated child care or preschool is in the state. I'm not sure that that's appropriate to measure distances or how long it would take to travel on a road, but there are maps that do exist. And so it if if one were to bring in an expert in in, like, travel patterns and things like that, that might be obtainable.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So you said you had any other questions about the data? So you said you had some questions?

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: Yeah. So I reviewed the legislation yesterday, and so I just wanted to raise a couple of things. And again, some of these have come up already, so I'll just quickly run through them. So the legislation specifically references New Hampshire schools, but it doesn't call out a specific Vermont county or community. It's become clear that this is really referencing Essex County. So the question that I had is if there was insufficient access to universal prekindergarten in a county that borders New York, for example, or Massachusetts, then this law wouldn't accommodate that. And I was wondering if there is a specific Vermont County that this is really focused on. And if there is, should we state that explicitly in the legislation? And and I wondered if if making the same accommodation to other school districts in other parts of the state wouldn't be a sort of equitable way to look at this. But anyway, that's already come up today. I just wanted to state that sort of for the record. And the second question also came up earlier, which is that I'm not familiar with New Hampshire's or any other border states universal pre kindergarten requirements or their criteria for providing prekindergarten. And I wondered if we have evidence that these programs would meet or exceed Vermont standards. And I think Deputy Commissioner McLaughlin spoke to the need for better understanding that. So that was something to consider. And also, I want to just say that I'm aware that other committees in the legislature are thinking about education transformation and other changes to universal prekindergarten. And I wondered how the need for this legislation would be affected by that. I think you all have talked about that while I've been listening. And then the last question that I had, which is maybe just curiosity on my part, is I wondered how many children this legislation would impact each year. I believe that every Vermont child deserves access to prekindergarten, and I think it would be helpful to understand, like, the expected scale and scope of this legislation. So anyway, those those were my questions and and sort of my reflections on reading the draft legislation. And I yeah, if there's any other questions for me, I'm happy to answer them. Or anything else that you need from me.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: I don't see any others, but that was helpful. Do we have that, those statistics? Do we have that graph?

[Erin Rutland (Vermont Director, First Children’s Finance)]: The report that I was showing? Yeah, it was in the was in the documents that I provided today. Okay. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate all of your efforts for the people of Vermont. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you. So, Morton Crossman couldn't get me here. I think she said that because everybody else will come in, which she was like to do and said anyway. We have Sharon Ellen.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Kellen Wood.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Kellen Wood. I'm sorry.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I think I made that mistake.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: No, actually. Thank you. Hi.

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: Hi, everybody. I wrote some testimony. I'd like to read it, although you have it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: You, chairman Bongartz. I'm just like, the computer screen is so big that on screen, you're almost eclipsed in case you wanted to move your computer screen while you do your written. I'm conscious of that because it's like Thank you.

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: Yeah. Better?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: There you are.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: If you want.

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: Yeah. Might look better In case you don't want to show your face, I show. For the record funding to Sharon, Ellen Wood, thank you, Chairman Bongartz and the committee. It's never been more of an honor to come talk about us as your board team. Really excited. As you know, I serve on the Any K Choice School Board. I go over this when I testify for anybody who's listening who is not familiar with Essex County. Any K Choice member towns are Norton, Leamington, Bloomfield, Brunswick, Maidstone, Hill, Hall, Granby, East Haven, Kirby, and Victory, Vermont. Nine of our 10 towns have a population density of less than seven people per square mile. We are micro rural, and we are geographically isolated by many, many thousands of acres of state and federal needs lands in Essex County. We are geographically isolated on the other side of that preserved land along the Connecticut River bordering New Hampshire, some of us, toward Kirby's actually in Calderon County. I'm submitting this testimony to urge the committee to correct an inadvertent statutory barrier that has prevented children in geographically isolated areas from accessing universal pre k. I also urge the committee to address this issue now through S-two 14 rather than deferring it to broader education reform efforts. Along the Connecticut River, students frequently access K-twelve education out of state anyway. This pattern is not based on convenience, but on necessity. School choice in this region functions as a lifeline. It aligns with where parents work. Childcare and after school care are available where grandparents provide many facets of support and where families need medical care and where winter travel is the safest and the shortest. Our towns are very small and local economies are fragile, often with municipal budgets of less than $75,000 for the entire town budget. There are no sidewalks, There are no roads. There's no water. Most are volunteer or small segment positions in town government. Because of a technicality and statutory barrier, we currently have geographically isolated students in kindergarten, from kindergarten through tenth grade. We have 10 grades of kids right now in school that we are paying tuition for that didn't get pre k. That missed two very important years of early intervention. That's how many students it's impacting right now. It's gone ten years. I don't believe any area of the state would have let this go on ten years. It's really important for me to say that. For the next years, we need to recognize this, and that we have a lot of current students who have been excluded from this due to this oversight. Tuition agreements and infrastructure already exist to support those Vermont students going from key to 12 in New Hampshire, but there's no comparable mechanism for Pre K. The statutory inconsistency permits out of state attendance for K-twelve, but denying access to universal Pre K, and I know this inconsistency was not the clear intent of a very hard working legislature ten years ago with Act 166. The barrier I'm describing isn't philosophical. It's technical on language that other folks today have explained with Department of Children and Families Dars quality ratings and the use of Vermont licensed early childhood educators, and I'll leave that testimony to the experts there that have been cleared today. These requirements can't be met in New Hampshire, as these are certifications that license to Vermont specific. For geographically isolated districts with no in state options, this has gone on again for a decade. My recommendation is a waiver at the local level to determine if the child's in a pre K desert and allow current seamless tuition agreements to continue, because we already have tuition agreements with most of the schools they're going to for the K-twelve tuition. It's really a charge thing. We already write checks to these people, to these schools. I remind that our taxpayers have contributed to funding universal pre K access for other children throughout the state, while ours have gone without. Based on historic district level data, we estimate that an average of seven students per year are directly impacted. In a small district, that number is significant. When you have seven students a year who have not had any early intervention, it impacts budgeting and other concerns. We often don't know how many kindergarten students are going to arrive in our next year's budget because we're not seeing them in Pre K. When you don't know you have a student and you've underestimated by seven or three or even one student that may require some specific interventions can really, you know, inflate your budget. The volatility of that budgeting burden falls on our taxpayers, and Essex County is the home of the most elderly residents of Vermont per capita by county. They're on fixed incomes, they're living in poverty, and I'm very concerned about that. Excess spending thresholds in education have penalized districts by going over the per pupil spending for students that didn't get this early access. So they're missing it. We're over targets on per pupil spending, and we're penalized for circumstances that for ten years we have been unable to reasonably predict or prevent. Early childhood education one of the most effective tools to reduce downstream education and health costs to support workforce participation in stabilized communities. I respectfully caution the committee against delaying this fix by folding it into potential Act 73 changes. Large reform efforts are complex and slow moving. Deputy Secretary McLaughlin spoke of RFPs and, you know, getting together with focus groups with head starts and schools. I would like to point out that we don't have head starts and we don't have schools. An RFP to bring those people in to solve this problem for us are places that don't exist. I love being a subject matter expert on my district with every school board member. So I did just want to point that out. This is a very targeted and responsible correction. It aligns statute with intent. It reflects the rural reality and addresses a problem that's been well documented for over ten years. Strongly urge you to advance S-two 14 the best you can and remove this inadvertent barrier. My colleague, Martha Vanderwaffe, with Canadian is with me. A final question is, what if there are no pre Ks that meet Vermont standards? Does this mean we can't go at all? And that's, you know, where we are. I have maps and data, and I'm here for any your customers. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Just

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: a comment. I don't wanna speak for Morgan Crossman, but because Building Bright Futures is really trying to get every child pre k because they know how important it is, she was I think she was more gonna echo this testimony than others. She had helped with the drafting, recognizing that people have had all these these technical questions for years, but also recognizing that it it has been a long time. So I just wanted I didn't think I don't think Morgan was gonna come ask those same other questions again. I think she was gonna say, like, we've been trying to narrow and narrow this bill so that it works for Essex County. I

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: want to speak from other areas in Grand Isle or Southern Vermont that have this issue. I think the data, the most recent data that showed how dismal our numbers were shows I don't think it's big, I would guess it's not as big a problem with those other areas, but those children are important as well. I would like to say that. And I really appreciate the way you thoughtfully recognize that this is an urgent issue, not one we can delay because we're already chasing ten years of equity. Thank you. I

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: have a compliment, but it also seems to be that enables that New Hampshire doesn't the requirements. They also, they pay are better than nothing. And they may just be different.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: They may be better than ours.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: They may be better than They may may be Yeah. And then frankly, if we're talking about something in the short term to get us to bridge until, I guess we want to know, but I'm not.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Some Pre K is better than no

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Pre K. We

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: can't. We have a saying in the framework that you can't let process eat action for lunch in some cases. You know, the process of going through that minutiae we all know in this room the value of those first two years economically, financially, emotional, and It's tax critical.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yes. Think we're back to where we sort of started with this kind of just figuring out whether we're talking about this this one little area that has the most acutely to make sure we fix that. But maybe pick up a couple of other places that have the same thing, but also not get bogged down and get in. So we have it. That's that's the new element to reflect.

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: I brought this. I always bring this, and you can see across the table, geographic isolation. Those green and orange lands are state, federal, and east lands. And in other municipalities, don't see this giant swamp. And that's what does we're talking about this river, and these are the places our kids are being educated anyway, but they can't get to pre K.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Know a lot about natural forests.

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: I think So it's a great visual.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yep.

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: I made this. So I would love to make a map of the data that was in that line. I wrote that down and asked Aaron Rosenberg for her data. I'd love to map that because having the two pre Ks, I guarantee you, the two pre Ks are over here. Which means zero.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yeah. Yeah. But

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: you're thinking that did that. Yeah. Think

[Sharon Ellen Wood (NEK Choice School Board Member)]: he does have a wonderful, wonderful parade that serves kids. So,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: think we were, we asked Janet to be thinking about, Janet McLaughlin, the deputy commissioner, to be thinking about what must Janet included in this event for a couple of years. And I think maybe Sarah will be thinking about.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I mean, the only other concrete suggestion I heard was just to write Essex County if we need Essex County. That's the alternative to including just New Hampshire versus other border states. I mean, my intent right now is Essex County because there like there's no other map in the state that looks like that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yeah. Do we no. We have those two other counties that have the deficiency. One that's was the print one they have?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: They it was less of a clear condition.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yeah. So, yeah, I'm gonna this is just one thing. How do we how do we get out whether we I don't wanna get it bogged down. Yeah. I wanna make sure we get it out. Right. And but we might wanna think about how we get at that definition quickly and then see

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: if I it's mean, like, I know Albert just opened a child a big child care center to help solve this problem. Like, I wouldn't we can ask those other counties if this solution helps them, but I think they have other solutions they're working on that don't involve Chazy, New York, You

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: know what? You just spurred a thought. Maybe the difference is that it is unsolvable in Essex.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: It's just that's the thing, Franklin and Greta are working Yeah, on

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: so that's a fair thing.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I have been celebrating their work too. This is not solvable with another facility that's out there.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Right. Yeah. So we'll be back to this. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. These people wanna they want a break

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: You it's not walk a mile in their shoes in Vermont. It's drive a 100 miles on their commute. So thank you for coming all this way and highlighting that it's been a decade issue.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yeah. We're we're good. We we moved to Cayman partly because of the weather, and it took me five to have the house.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah. Three hours the other day. Right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I do I would say, like, for for AOE's benefit, having people sitting in the room who do that kind of drive and then hearing, like, we have a process, and you can come to meetings. It's we have to really get up there and see how hard that is to hear, I think, that, like, just come to

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: a meeting where A stereotyping of schools and and head starts and that kind of thing doesn't reach nonoperations. Yeah. This

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: is one of those instances where one level will go. Right? Sure.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I just, like, you know, I think Janet gets it, but it's like, go have a meeting and came in if you're gonna have a consultant meeting. So,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Janet, did you come back on if you wanted to say something? You're still here.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: I did yes. I'm still here. I'm still listening. And I I just wanted, I guess I just hope that what you did hear, people are taking away is we totally agree that all Vermont children should have access to pre kindergarten education. We think this is not that complicated to solve. I wanted you to be aware that there is this other work related to pre kindergarten education. And to make the broader point that if we, that, I thought the solution that you, the idea that you came up with potentially about like, is this a two year thing? Like, I just wanted to make the point of the fact that is integrated with other pieces. But I agree that consulting, the big picture consulting around the overall framework for universal pre kindergarten is not necessarily the answer to Essex County, but I just wanted to put the work in context a little bit. That's all.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: All right. Thank you, point well taken, so thank you. Okay, well, we have to move on. But thanks for coming in. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. On for four, Doctor.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Maybe. No. I'm not. No.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Put this back up. This will be back on the agenda quickly. I'm trying. So we're on to S-two thirty two. We're starting with Sorry. We had a very time with the draft. And then we go

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I do not see the draft. First on the agenda. But, yes, that would probably be for a walk through.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Oh, but but I can do the walk through. That's exact of course. Yes. For a later center. That's the thing. Think it's I think we could have but he has a hard socketship with her. Yes.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Welcome. Yes. Good afternoon. Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel. You have in front of you S-two 32. You've already heard some excellent testimony about the contents of the bill. What I'll do is do a high level walkthrough for you, touchdown on a couple specific legal points within the bill, and then answer any questions you might have about the words on the page. One thing that I'll note up front, S-two 32 contains actually very few substantive topical changes in state law, and for the most part, it adds inclusive clauses calling out public libraries and lists of either, nonprofit or governmental corporations that are already qualified for certain forms of grants. So, if you are with me, I'll skip through the findings. Findings are typically not vetted by legislative counsel here or legislative findings. So unless you have specific legal questions about findings on the page here, we're gonna go ahead into section two. It's on page three. Starting on line five, establishes Vermont Library's Day as the October. You have already heard this from senator Rutland, but this does not add this to the list of paid state holidays. This is just recognizing this day's end standard. And in section three sixteen BSA, section 51 is amended in subdivision Sorry. 82.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Where does this live in statute then? Is it live with, like, Greenup Day? Okay. So, like

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. On state holidays. State state recognized days, but found Okay. State of Albany. Yes. In section three, the universal after school and summer special fund section is amended in subdivision AQ to state that cannabis sales tax revenue, shall be used to support a mixed delivery system for after school and summer programming, and the new language adds public libraries and including flaws to the list of eligible recipients. That is not a substantive change. However, the sentence that follows is states that a reasonable portion of funding shall be allocated to the Department of Libraries to support the statewide summer reading program and grants for after school activities in libraries. One thing that I would flag here is that there is no standard for what reasonable is, and specifically in this context, what would qualify is a reasonable portion of that funding. So, one thing that I

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: would suggest the committee look at and take testimony on is what is the portion of funding that goes to libraries under this program? Sorry. In this statute, is there somebody authorized to determine that? Yes. Who's that? The secretary of the judiciary. Determines.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Because they manage the flood? Yes. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So looking at this section, the line that says eligible recipients can be public funders, nonprofit organizations, that would include public libraries without saying public libraries. And so the only reason we're saying public libraries there is to set up

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: the next sentence. And to call out for, those who are applying for the grants that, yes, libraries do qualify. So part of the inclusion of these including clauses, from my understanding, is to point out to the libraries that, yes, in fact, you do qualify and you may apply for Because they For whatever reason, have thought they didn't. Correct, even though they're of a good correct Okay. All right, good. Still within the same section, there is an advisory committee that works on these after school funding programs, and it's a Section T under the membership. The state librarian or designee is added as the ninth member of that advisory committee. So on page four, Long as well as all still together, moving into Section four, which meant CCVSA Section 4,014 related to Early Education Funding. Subsection public libraries are added expressly in the list of community organizations that qualify. That's all in that section. Alright. Move along. We're already halfway through. This is very efficient. Okay. On page five, in section five, we're moving into the duties and functions of the departing libraries, 22 VSA section six zero five. Cover this at a high level. Launch of what you're seeing on this page is just adding digital to the term collection, in order to clarify that the collections that are maintained by the department can also include digital, electronic materials in addition to physical materials. I know that there is a recommendation from the department that's posted on the information page around changing conjunctions from or to and doesn't change substantively what's happening here unless it's a mandate, in which case or is discretionary and is mandatory. Yeah,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: that's, I wanted to get back to that because having a hand requires them to have both, and I'm not sure that's really the intent of what we want to do. We want to have one or the other, not necessarily a two fold sentence, but I'd say it's a different thing.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: The specific clause that is called out in what the department submitted, is a discretionary clause where and would not change that discretion, but one thing that I would point out broadly with the language you all work on is that or is not always disjunctive, meaning it doesn't require a choice between the two. It is often, in fact, constructive. So if you want to parse that out in the future, you can always say either or in order to make it disjunctive, or say any combination of the procedures. Alright. I always bring a lot of

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: thought, because I think there's time to fix the point.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: On page six in section six, other duties and functions of the department, we have an entirely new subdivision that's added to this list of the Department of Library's duties. This requires the department publish guidance documents concerning current grants and programs that are available for the support of municipal public libraries and to post them on the website. The second sentence requires the department to consult with the Vermont Bond Bank to publish guidance concerning municipal bonding for the improvement of public libraries. So this goes with some of the preceding sections that I was talking about, where there's no substantive change in the public libraries being listed and the eligible recipients of grants, and perhaps the intent here is that there's a guidance document that will further clarify for libraries that, yes, they are eligible for these grants, yes, they are eligible for bonding opportunities at this level.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: I think it seems that much difficult.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah. I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: have a question about something that's not a proposal amendment. At the top of page six, didn't someone say we should look at the word bookwagon for some reason? Like, we don't have bookwagons. I think book wagons would be great, but Are we asked to change that?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. In fact, there's a document posted on the committee's information page from the State Librarian that suggests amending and updating some of this language. That's in the preceding section six zero five for the duties Department of Libraries, and the system is interlibrary loan.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Typically, yes. Okay. What about, like, a mobile

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: book wagon? Like

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: There was one when I was a child.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Oh, maybe. Like, the ice cream trucks.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah. We have that. There are

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Oh, wait. That's bigger. Now there were buns when you were a child.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: The last day I paid it. That's a fine in this committee multiple times about where I grew up, which is smallest town in Massachusetts. There was a book way, and because the library was smaller than this committee room, so most of the books I read as a child came in a band, but anyway. Section seven. Amends 24 BSA section seventeen fifty two A related to, bonding for libraries. Now in the preceding sections for seventeen fifty two a, it is expressly called out that municipal corporations have the authority to bond for their municipal buildings, which would include municipal libraries. Section seventeen fifty two a clarified that they can also bond for the libraries that they support, but don't own. So all already in statute, all libraries are covered for purposes of municipal funding. This the amendments in section seven further clarify that, yes, public libraries, any public library municipalities, thought for improvements to those facilities. Which moves us on to page seven. We're gonna get into a couple of sections that deal with grant programs around planning and development. Section eight twenty four BSA, section twenty seven eighty three is amended. This is within a chapter that covers economic development performance grants. The service provider references that you see, it is a general term that refers to only the two possible entities, either the RTCs, your Regional Planning Commission, or your Economic Development Corporations, which are nonprofit organizations that meet a specific definition for purposes of this grant program. This adds a new subdivision 10 to this section for eligibility for these grants that the secretary this is the secretary of the CCD here, shall enter into a performance grant with a service provider if the service provider demonstrates a capability and willingness to assist public libraries, encourage the development of growth programs and services at public libraries, and increase awareness of the resources available through public libraries within the service area. This puts it out there as a requirement for eligibility for this grant that the libraries be taken into consideration whenever these service providers are developing the economic development plan it would be covered by the branch.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, DCF—Child Development Division)]: What so which

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: secretary? K. C. C. Dave.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Fair. They have community development. I've tried this one.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. We're at the bottom of page seven. We're gonna go we're real swift. It's page eight. But section nine twenty four b s a section forty three seven is amended. This relates to the municipal bylaw modernization grants, another RPC affiliated grant program, and sub f of that section. The bill proposes to add new language to subdivision eight, which would require for purposes of eligibility that a municipality update their municipal plans utility and facility element as provided in subdivision forty three eighty two a four of title 24 related to addressing present and prospective library facilities, resources, and services, and update the municipality's recommendations for meeting future needs for library facilities and services. Most of the language that you're seeing in that subdivision A already exists elsewhere, specifically within the municipal plan statutes. It is a requirement for certain types of facilities to be taken into account as part of the municipal plan. And here, just the library part of that forty three eighty two eighty four is transported over as a requirement for the grant, municipalities must have updated that part of their plan prior to applying for the grant. That's all you have within the four corners of S 232. Happy to tell you more about my childhood library.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: What was it now? Sounds like pretty quick. Now it's called Sandusfield, Massachusetts. Sand Sandusfield?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Sandusfield. Sandusfield. Oh, dishonored my beautiful I know.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: You have to burn out, but

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Sandus Fields didn't have a library, and my grandfather in the 1940s donated the land and built basically a closet to get hold some books, and the plaque that they put outside the library for him is bigger than any part of the library. But shout out for crew, Shout out to Sandersfield. 400 permanent residents, two hydroelectric dams, a block of state forest.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So would we, in the end, this bill has two substantive things to change things a little bit. One of them is that a reasonable portion must go to libraries and the other gets the library.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I would say that the grant programs are also because operative they changed the eligibility requirements for those grant programs. Yes. Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Yeah. Mean, so so I would say right I just wanna flag, and I don't know if Katherine wants to speak to the importance of this, but that that is asking a lot of communities that need to update their bylaws and economic development and natural resources are probably gonna have conversations about bylaw modernization. I guess I would just flag that I need to hear more that this is the right year to add the a new requirement to bylaw modernization because we want them to have bylaws as soon as possible to participate in some other legislation. So, I think that section would need to get sent to one of the two committees of jurisdiction on bylaw modernization. And I just would need to hear that it's critical right now.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. One thing that I wanted to make sure that I flagged for you as well is that the state librarian has, in the document posted on your committee page, recommended the committee take a look at the definition of public library and some of the changes from just last session of the session before around, the use of the term public library with respect to the governing bodies that are articulated in municipal control over certain types of libraries. I wanted to flagpipe this as an issue that has been brought to my attention several times just over the last month with, specifically, library corporations that are privately owned, but municipally supported. And there is some language in the library sanctions right now that could be read to allow municipalities to appoint the trustees of libraries that accept municipal appropriations, but that are private entities. And so, So something that

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: that's there already as an issue.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: It is not addressed in S-two 32 right now, but it is something that has been flagged frequently over the last month. It's not the legislative council's attention. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: We should look at that, then, because it is potentially an issuance upon us, upon some people, because so many the ones libraries are nonprofits and some of them are that sort of nonprofits that they do get some support. Would that include just voted support?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Could, yes. As soon as you get into the, municipal appropriations supporting the library, that's where the hook is in those statutes, and because definition of public library and its use following I can't remember the number of the act. The statutes could be read to allow the legislative body of municipality to appoint a trustee.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Would would it be Could you come back to

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: us with some language to fix that? Clarify. So clarify it to the extent or to the effect of that. I do not want that And to if it's what the committee wants, I could consult with the state librarian on the recommendations that were included in the department's document on your committee information page. The background is very wild and confusing around the types of libraries, mostly because there are many library corporations that were chartered by the general assembly under special law, and there are also library corporations that can organize under general law.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: It's been around so long.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, and there are private libraries, there are library associations, and then there are municipal libraries. Well,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: we don't want to make it harder for those people who are, for those organizations that are doing so much in the community. We don't want make it harder, means we want to Thank you all. So, yeah, if you could do that for us, that would

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: be great. You for your time. Appreciate all of you.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Because while you're here, Tucker, sorry,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: because you cover so many different

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: You didn't quite make it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I know. Right? Well, this is like a this is like a a gut check because I've heard it covers all kinds of jurisdictions, but I think so many. I think right now, this would have to go to economic development gov ops and finance after us because it has ACCD, it has oh, sorry. I mean, it's uphold bylaws and it has a tax.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: It has bylaws who have to go to that group's as well.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: And so yeah. So I'm just saying,

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: like, it's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: a lot of it's a lot of issues that aren't necessarily our specialty.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: That's what I think would be

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: lot of your disability too. That's actually more of an issue for you all.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Right. I didn't know if you, like regards

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: if we if we

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: move something out of a committee and I didn't realize it or aware of that. But

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not aware of any requirements or senate rules that the jurisdictional charges of the other committees require commitment. I believe that that's a quote that is taken by the body and not the floor. But if the other committees wanted to take a look at this, I would be happy to do the drive by with them. Right.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I mean, it's definitely going to finance. Yeah. Thank you.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Cannabis, that's e cut.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: So, yeah, it's a lot.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yes. Wasn't you. Go ahead.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I'm Catherine Dullow, the state librarian and the commissioner of the Department of Libraries. Some of what you've received from me is really just responding to questions, primarily from senator Weeks. I apologize for the two things having a very similar cover. Right? So, make them look uniform, but they look so uniform. You may not be able to tell the difference. So, the question had been raised last week. How important is it to actually focus on libraries? Because it sounds like you have heard some testimony about the from academic institutions about lower usage of libraries.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: It was the case that Kesha Ram University, you know, went through that whole scenario of some truth trying to be funded and immediately reacting and stuff like that. Yeah. That brought that elevated that issue.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Well so I don't necessarily need to go through this in great depth with you but I wanted to make you aware of it. The department has an annual survey called the Public Library Survey that we conduct. We unfortunately can't get every single one of the libraries to do anything we ask them to ever. So we encourage them gently to participate in the survey of 186 libraries that we know of, public libraries that we know of in the state. 154 responded in 2024. We publish and we've been recently publishing a report each year, but that report, which is on our website, doesn't show longitudinal usage, which I think is more to your point of question. So, what we've done is just put together a quick PowerPoint that, and I wanna give all credit to Josh who did this work in his department. He's our technology consultant and he coordinates the survey, which means he's an expert cat herder. Do you ever have a bat lost in your house? So we just have some metrics about physical library that people actually go inside the building, circulation of materials that are physical, circulation of electronic materials, a combined circulation, which looks a little bit more healthy because when you combine those two resources together, you'll see that they're back, to where they were pre pandemic. And then interlibrary loan, which you just see on that slide seven that continues to to grow in our space. And then programs and program attendance are on one chart. So

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Can I ask a question? Yeah. When they all in person visits, is this this is number of

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: people, humans visiting the library.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: It's only 8,605. That doesn't sound

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: This is the median.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Okay. Because that was, like, I teach my children, like Yeah.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Everything. It's just my kids in that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Use. Why it's 8,000 for

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: the whole state? So let me just look at it. We're looking at the it's a longitudinal overview, and it's in person visits. Median. And Like, a month? No. This is annual. Let me look at the actual

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: report for

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: There are more than 8,000 visits to South Burlington.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah. I think that's the

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: median for library. Per library? Okay.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I believe so, but I don't want to misinform you, so I'm just gonna And

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: then you have a little tiny one.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah. Mean, there's no way that that's It's gotta be

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: the median for the library. For the library. Yes. Okay.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Just numerically. Sorry. I don't appear to be just We like the data, right, in

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: library pool.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah. It would be good to clarify that on the slide, though, for sure, because that could confuse people. Yeah. The one thing that's interesting as we're seeing more broadband in homes is that we are seeing fewer public computing sessions. We talked about that a little bit in the department and think it's because more people are using their personal devices when they're coming into the library. And you can see that the usage of these WiFi sessions has gotten higher over time. The WiFi sessions are notoriously difficult to capture just because everybody's using a different WiFi provider and routers and stuff. So, I do need to say that on slide 10, those numbers, we know they're a little bit fuzzy. But this gives you an idea of usage of libraries in our state. I think, you know, to the earlier question about the inclusive of the exclusive or the inclusive and the exclusive. And one thing I really encourage you to bear in mind is that there's not one material format that works for every Vermont term. I have visited a lot of libraries. I'm trying to get to all of your libraries, and I've been probably 110 or so at this point, and I have been seeing many instances where DVDs are on the shelf and people are using them. They're actively going in and out. CDs actively going in and out. Everyone doesn't have the same access to streaming. Everybody doesn't have the same access to the internet at home. A physical book is a much better way for a child to learn to read. So, there can be a lot of reasons that libraries need to maintain physical books. When I heard the suggestion from lunch counsel about using either or or combination, that's really what the department is going for, to have some materials. We don't necessarily need every material in both formats. We can't afford that. Verwanders can't afford that. What we don't want to see is that public libraries become completely digitized and there's no longer access to the print resources that people need for information and that they enjoy interacting. So, the thing to remember really though is that those words about print and electronic are specific to the state library. I don't want to be in a position as the state librarian where we are throwing out a copy of a historic Vermont book because somebody who doesn't understand libraries has made that decision for us. So, we do want to be able to provide digital resources. We also want to be able to provide physical resources and have continued access to the collections of the State Library for Vermonters, for historians, for people who are interested in using the primary text in its original form. So, that's we're looking at that part. It's not really about the whole library community. That's really specific to the state library collection and the Able Library collection. So just a thought on that. I also wanna say something about book buy. I'm just gonna go

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: back question. Please ask your question. I didn't quite understand your statement because I'm wondering if you're saying you don't want you don't want, like, an average Vermont citizen to throw out a rare book because they don't understand what they have. Like, you wanna make people more aware that that the libraries want rare books or you just don't want an untrained library employee to throw out a rare book?

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Neither. I'm sorry. Clarify. I'm saying in terms of the Department of Libraries collections, which is what that piece of statute and that Oh, the bill is related to. I want the professionals in the department to continue to have the discretion to provide materials in either electronic format or physical form. Oh, okay. And not to have this be written in such a way that somebody might misinterpret it, and we have to have a legal battle to know if we can keep a physical, historical book, or do

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: we already own the Sich Library? Ideally you want both?

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah, that's why I was asking. If

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: you have a little language change, you'd like for that and send it to us. Okay. Very specific about

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I've included that in the testimony I shared previously, but I was also open to either one, so I can just Yeah. Just because we've been seeing a lot of libraries that academic institutions have been early where the decisions may not be made by the library staff so much as by administrators who might have a slightly different perspective on the needs of the community they serve than the professional librarian does that work. So, I think as a librarian, here to speak for the librarian, and I just would like for the state library to have the discretion to provide those materials and not be faced with saying we've completely moved online now. We might one day completely move online. We're not there yet. We don't have money to do

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: We're used to have just copied all the way. That the Bennington was in civil history, civil war history. Right. Those volumes are a lot.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Gotcha.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: And we would need to have a lot of resources for digitization, and then you have to migrate the digitized items each time there's a upgrade to the format and platform. So it's it's a it is the case that some of the material at the state library are gosh. We've been around for two hundred years now. So we cut some white, old books. Books from the state library were thrown out of the State House as it was burning. People saved the library. So we wouldn't want to be in a position where somebody says, you have to digitize that if we sell it to the highest bidder. That's a a resource for Vermont. So, that's just a quick walkthrough of the statistics. There was also a question about the capital needs, and this is related to the bonding portion of things. I'm going to admit, I'm not an expert in the bonding portion of things. I'm learning about it in order to understand the impacts on public libraries and what they need. My sense is that there is a lot of need in public libraries to adapt. So, when you think about that little library that Tucker Anderson's grandfather supported, as big as this room, well, if the community around it has grown, it's very hard to continue doing what you need to do in that old style library. A lot of the buildings are historic. A lot of additional costs cover preserving and maintaining the features of those buildings and preserving that integrity of the feeling of that library, and then often adding on to that space to add a meeting room to have a place that's big enough for people to have a yoga class at the library, or to have story time at the library, to welcome in families for playgroup. There are a lot of things that go on in libraries now that weren't happening fifty years ago. I thought it was I unfortunately don't have a color printer, so I'm looking at a black and a white version of the capital needs. Please disregard slide two. I asked that need to put up the post with it Vermont. Slide two got carried over. But on slide three, you should have a map of Vermont by county with breakdowns. And it's really interesting to look at that and to note that in Caledonia County, the median year that their libraries were built was 1890. Chittenden County, conversely, 1951. So, there may be more need in certain counties at the state. I think as you look at the map, you'll see that there's quite a lot of need in many of our rural communities with small populations. Mean, towns, it's not necessarily lots of folks.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: This is another data challenge, I think, to look at it this way because Chittenden County has probably just built a lot more libraries that are newer. Like, it has old libraries like Fletcher Creek that need a lot of care. But then it has a bunch of newer ones that bring up the average year something was built. So it's just not a great, like, it doesn't tell the story of the company.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: It doesn't tell the whole

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: story about it.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah. It tells a story, but not a complete story. There are certainly libraries in Chittenden County that

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: are That's illegal. That are censored.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Just heard Lecture three, which was my home library, and at the same time, the the median age where they were developed. The the and we're going from the earliest construction of the building to where there is still a data point here. I think you could provide more of that for sure.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: You know, I mean, what it is is saying that your library was built versus the last time it was renovated is a really different picture. Mhmm. And they're they both might be important, but I I think it's hard to see that the shouldn't they some of these counties just built libraries for rebuilding.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Some counties experience population expansion related to the public resilience directly relates to it's a good slide.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: It's We might need just another slide to complement it for sure.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Right. Like, you can have a beautiful old library and you can have a new library that's had asbestos in it. Example of that, for example, is Brattleboro.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: So, we have granted funds to Brattleboro. It's a newer library. It gets built in the sixties and they have to do asbestos at a good shack of the library. So, it is not the case that a brand new library doesn't need any work. South Burlington, which was I grew up in the you might say this, the North End Of South Burlington or the South End Of Burlington, but it's kind of a no man's land. But, as a kid, I went to the library in high school, or I went to the Budger Free, which was a much bigger library and easier for me to get into. South Bronx had built a new library, then there was a storm and something happened to it. Suddenly, new library's roof had a problem. So you can have a brand new library that suddenly needs some support. So I think there are two different things, and I wouldn't wanna fix them, and we can try to see if we have more data to that point.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So, question from you. Yeah. We're looking at common thread of problems that the state libraries across the board have, and that's governance. We have multiple different systems. Got, like my library has a board of trustees. I think they're a corporation. The municipality supports them financially. They get the bank. So how do we how do we fix that? So many legal issues have changed the governance. Is there any way we can come up with a common thread that can make your job easier to fix I these

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: think you've heard me say before, Senator Williams, sometimes I show up at a library and they ask, Who's my boss? Is city clerk? Is it the mayor? Is it the board of trustees? There is something valuable about each of the structures. The incorporated public library has the autonomy to be a public library and have that as its primary function. The municipal public library has that structure of the municipality. I think it might be helpful, my understanding is that you'd like me to talk more with Ledge Council about that definitional piece. Even something like the language in the definition of public library that says that they should have some public funding. What does that mean? Because they're all getting different amounts of public funding. When we were here a couple years ago working on S220, which became Act 150, we didn't kind of I don't think that the committee had the appetite to dive in and say, what's a reasonable amount for the municipality to provide as far as support? But I think one of the issues is what is the amount of money that people are providing as support? Another issue is the independence of the library board, And it's something to remember as well is if a town charter calls out a different governing structure, well, that's the governing structure.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So, we we can fix policy here. We can start policy. We can't fix those. Who's my boss? Yeah. Can I get a raise this year?

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: We're getting fewer of those questions now because we've been make we made an incremental. You made an incremental.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: I think you have made the difference because you're going around talking to identifying these issues.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Well, the working group, which was also a legislative imperative for the department, has really brought in. The department staff really appreciate that you all have listened to the input of the library community and are trying to work for this. I'm not sure, you know, we wanna be careful if we're making changes to something that's been in place for so long that we don't break it, or we don't make things harder for people, but happy to look at that definitional piece. My real point in testimony about the definition of public library was that when you're making things available to public libraries, please tie back to whatever the definition of public library is in statute, because I have been places where they say, We're a public library. They're not incorporated. They're taking donations. They're not municipal. They're taking donations. Not really clear who they are, and the department really is supporting the statutorily defined public libraries. So that was really my point that it has seen my test of state. First question I had on the first day actually was, you know, what constitutes something? Because,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: I mean, some of them are some of them are five zero one c threes. They're not chartered. There's five zero one c threes in Maine and I think we'll a of them in an early pay job, but they should be considered public libraries for these purposes because they're all the kind of definition that they're a five zero one c three.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah, and they're all different types of nonprofits as well. I was recently up in East Burke and I saw that there was an open flag at the Burke Mountain Club and Library. Has anybody seen this place? It's delightful. I peeled in, I was going to Canaan, and I was like, I'm going. There's a flag out there actually open. They've never been open when I've driven past. And one of their board members happened to be there. They don't have a library director, but they have an executive director of the club. They have formed three separate nonprofits where I think they just need a public library because it's a community center and it's a library. At first they formed one library nonprofit and realized that wasn't the right time, so then they formed another, so they have to solve the first. It is confusing for small communities to work on governance issues. So I think any support we can give them is beneficial.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay, so what do we want to do with this? You're to talk to Doctor. And one of the issues is clarifying that just because you'll see COVID-nineteen doesn't mean you have to have public presence on your words.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah. Oh, I didn't know if you were done.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: No, just thinking out loud about what this we can take. We need to have a discussion as a committee about, and actually since you're here, you know, we prioritize within that laundry list libraries I'm not convinced that they should be prioritized over the other eligible organizations. Maybe they should be but I'm not convinced they should

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I think if I could speak, if there's time for me to speak to that a little bit on the topic.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So where we are, just to be clear here, is that section.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I was looking at the page three, line 11, and line 12 with the after school, universal after school. I can speak more, need to look more into the bottom I can explain this a little bit. So, right now, the state librarian, me, or my designated assistant state librarian, Jeanette Schaeffern, do attend the after school committee meetings because we were invited after they realized we weren't at the table and that we weren't actually called out in statutes. We're totally open to that portion of it being added officially. What I think happened as that group, and this is conjecture, I think it's possible that as that group developed their program, they had a real focus on the growth and the support of childhood, early childhood education programs and after school programs, are extremely important and valuable to providers. However, not every kid will use those programs, and the way that the grants are written, it would be very challenging for a public library to actually apply to get funding for their ongoing monthly Lego funding, for example, to buy the Lego robotics kits and to have the laptops that support that great STEAM programming for everybody in the community. Similarly, we are truly strapped for cash sometimes for the summer reading program. We give very little support to public libraries for summer reading in the state. A grant of $350 doesn't get you much in terms of summer reading program at your public library. So, that is, I think, spoken to here to say the department could have some of this funding to have this statewide impact and statewide support so that more funds from the cannabis sales tax could be directed toward that. I can build out a proposal for you. We have something in progress and I wanted to talk to some of the folks in the committee that works on this to see what they might be open to so that we can kind of resolve that a bit on our

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So just to make sure we're clear what I'm saying, it's, I have no problems with adding including public library's consent, so one in 20. And I don't necessarily have a problem with saying it has to get a reasonable portion. But I do want to know because it is by definition competing with the other organizations delineated and how do we know whether in fact especially the support members want to do everything great that they actually should get a priority over others. That's what I want to have some sense of before we do it. So we haven't done it yet. That's right. Two days ago, meeting the after schools and summer programs director at the AOE. I think we should invite them in to have a chat about this particular section to see if there's a problem, if so what's the problem, how do we rebalance. Anyway, is such a gap there, so you have to wait. Just another point, going back to governance, it might be as simple as fixing, you know, out which towns actually have libraries that are, you know different legal aspects of corporation or whatever. Put an article on the ballot for town meeting days saying whatever your definition of a public library is would you consider allowing this to be adopted in your community? Because the taxpayers are the ones usually end up supporting the library with donations if they don't allow municipalities to actually fund their libraries.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Yeah and to be a public library you need to have some public funding and current statutory definition. So if a municipality, if no municipality supported a library, even if the shingle outside says public library, it's not quite meeting the public funding aspect because it needs to be ongoing. My understanding is it needs to be ongoing, kind of annual regular support. I think that there is a challenge that I hear reported from colleagues who are library directors or trustees where sometimes they even have trouble getting their municipal public library funding on the ballot. And if you looked at town meeting day, you might not want to look too closely unless you've kind of fortified yourself because how that plays out in every town could be very different as far as who brings it on the ballot, is it included, is it not included. Some will argue they want it as a separate measure, some they want, they don't want a line item, some they want it included in the municipal, it's quite an interesting

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Theoretically thing that there are so many then, do libraries slip in and out of the public and then go, what happened last March?

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Certainly hope not. Certainly hope I hope that every library's getting at least a dollar of public Okay. But it might be that's a line that we may want to look at and see. What does that really because there is at this point in time, is no discernible federal support direct to a public library that is ongoing and reliable. There might be a one time grant or a capital project. There might be a one time grant or a service or a program that they're running, but there is not a federal infusion that goes straight to each public library. So when you're looking at public funds, you're really looking at municipal funding.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: You want to call up for the Windhamers? Give it to me and I'll get a petition up when it comes to that. I will, so it's that simple to get it put on the ballot. Yeah. We're gonna take a you're gonna take a look at that and talk her a little

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: bit. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: While we have you I I don't know what the conversations in natural resources are gonna look like, but having been on economic development and gov ops, we're very reluctant to add more municipal bylaw requirements when 40% of our towns don't have municipal bylaws. Do you have strong feelings about that section? I'm otherwise inclined not to support that right now while we're trying to get more bylaw uptake.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Well, I think I would ask, I hear what you're saying, and I can see how we're trying to get people to do something, and if we keep adding a hoop to jump through or another bar, that it can be really challenging. The thing I would question is how long has the public library been in every municipality, and what's their plan for it?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: What if they don't have a public library?

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: There are fewer communities like that, but that would that's a good question.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: I mean, I would say the 40% of communities that don't have zoning and bylaws are the ones that probably don't have a municipality or don't have a lot of staff to keep this updated.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Right. I think one thing I would say is here in Central Bahrain, right in this county, Washington County, I have a friend who lives in Berlin. She has a public library and their municipality doesn't contribute toward Kellogg Copper or Northfield or anywhere else. So the people of that town have to pay out of pocket for a public library. They don't necessarily, in a bylaw update, they wouldn't necessarily need to build a new building. They could just say what their intention is to make sure that their people have that service.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Does this come into play only if you're doing a bylaw update, or does it force some other action?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Well, if you're doing bylaw modernization, you know, chances are if you're doing bylaws for the first time, you're gonna be asked to do this too. So it's just a big barrier right now, and 40% of our communities don't have bylaws. If anything right now, we might look at taking some things away to get communities to do bylaws. So, it it may just not end up being this committee's discussion, but we are putting a lot of money right now into helping those 40% of communities even do any bylaws, and I don't know how much this costs. I don't know if it's if it's really mission critical right now to getting them to have bylaws so they could plan where the library goes, but where the housing is, something like that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: I think that's the right question. I'm so mission critical right now. Yeah. I think that's the right question. Yeah. But you think it is, let us know. Yeah,

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: I mean, I always feel like when you're setting the stage and saying that these are the four functions, a state librarian, I'd like you to have libraries in that complement. So, in that sense, yeah, if you're planning for the first time, considering that basic piece of the educational system into your town, how your citizens are going to access that in your town's plan. What I would worry about is if you don't include it, when are they ever going to come back and update this bylaws again? They're going to be twenty four years, thank you. So, it's sort of, which is, but this recommendation, I wanna be clear,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: didn't come over to the park. Maybe we could squeeze Kevin, Demetriq or Charlie, Baker and her friends do that. Just the few list.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: Right. And some majority of their community have bylaws. It's

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: But they would

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: The ones who don't have bylaws are not even coming here to tell us. This would

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: be another barrier. I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: think VLCT might be the

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: best group.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Chittenden Southeast District)]: They they know what every town has or doesn't have have and why we're trying to get bylaws.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So we'll just thank you. Talk about it.

[Catherine Delneo (State Librarian and Commissioner, Vermont Department of Libraries)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. So or yes. Before we go off, I have something in one second. Yeah. The Russian community. And I it's so uncertain that I actually want it down. And Yes. If if it's okay. Yes. Of course it is. So give the legislative time, and we have the options. We're requesting I'm requesting it. Fine. For a process of tidying back date for release of draft governor's map under act 73 so the members of respond meaningfully the constituent concerns. And I wanna walk the point of this. You know, everything we do here is important. Every bill that comes through here is important, but I think the the long pole in the tent, the one that keeps our tent up is this Saxon. It's the one I pick about 24 a day. Yep. So intruding. So, know, if, you know, like to know what your plan is. We'll we'll talk, and we'll talk next. Okay. Thank you. Can we readdress on Tuesday? Yes. Yeah. Alright. Well, the plan Right. Yes. Okay. K. Okay. We're