Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: We're live.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: All right, shifting gears once again. We are going back to FDA's discussion on PCBs and Schools, and we've asked Councilor McCready to put together the suggestions from the agency or from my chaplain to to the bill and take a look at that map. We've copies.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: Yes, you have the plot on

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: the stack. So I'll move around now, so. What draft number are we on?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's draft 1.2. I got it. 416 with the $10.29 and 8 and 5¢. Yep. So this is my agreement with Budget Council. This is a language that ANR proposed. Matt and I did go through the language earlier today and resolve a couple of questions. So it's not exactly what you were given previously, but, generally, it is.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Did you say 1.210.2.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So just walking through the sections. Section one adds a new section to the waste management chapter, entitled 10. It's an ANR program, the waste management chapter, will effectively address how to do investigation mitigation or remediation of PCPs in those schools that are subject to the scope of investigation. And you will see that definition of who is subject to the scope on page one lines 11 through 13. It's any public school approved or recognized independent school that was constructed or renovated before 1980. That's the threshold for PCD use. And then you will see a subsection on investigation. So the investigation that will be done by a school shall be completed according to guidelines that ANR sets and under the supervision of ANR. And then you will see a directive that a school shall investigate for PCBs when evaluating environmental contaminants as part of the facility's master planning process under 16 BSA thirty four forty five A. So that is that program for the school construction grant. So that's when that is triggered. When you apply for that school construction grant, that's when the mat facilities master planning process is triggered under 16 b p s a thirty four forty five. And once that's triggered, you, the school, is required to investigate PCBs when evaluating the environmental contaminants. Environmental contaminants is already something that you need to review as a school when you are in that master planning process. Just being specific about the PCBs being one of those contaminants that is going to be evaluated. Then on page one, last twenty twenty two, the school shall conduct an investigation of PCBs when the school is evaluating its existing facilities for renovation, construction, or decommissioning. This is not necessarily part of the facility's master planning process, but this is good practice. If you're a 1980, pre 1980 school and you're gonna go out and do construction of your buildings or decommissioning of your buildings, you potentially have liability. And you should be assessing your facility for that liability. And, frankly, any construction consultant should be telling you to do this if your school was pre 1980 anyway.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So back to slide 19. If the school doesn't request the funding. Right. That means they don't have

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: to do it. Well, it's

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a little bit of a fiction because you still can play the last section of the closed amendment still requires schools, pre 1980 schools to test, but takes away the deadline. So the testing requirement is there. It's now more incorporated into this where if you're going to apply for a grant or if you were evaluating your facilities for decommissioning or reconstruction, etcetera, that's when you're gonna be required to do testing. But you could wait. You could wait.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: But if they don't if they they're still required. If they don't apply for grant, they're they're not financially

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It it could it it could be some time. Yes. But they're talking on the house floor right now about how they're gonna capitalize the school construction fund. And once they do that, there will probably be demand for going through the master planning master planning process. So on page two of line one and two, a school may request that ANR conduct an investigation at any time. So maybe they haven't triggered decommissioning, maybe they haven't applied for a grant, but they want investigations. School can request ANR to do that thing. But then on page two, line three, this is the requirements for response to detection of PCBs. If the school has an exceedance of the school action level, it shall develop a PCB management plan for managing the impact. So that's the preliminary plan. That's when you, like, respond and try to mitigate the source. It's not the full investigation and and remediation. That's like, do we do immediately to control the source and reduce exploding?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Can I ask a question? Yeah. I don't I don't know if this is, like, obvious in here, but this is this is what I'm struggling with. I don't know what's happening with the master planning process right now or what what it says. But let's say we're capitalizing master planning or school construction or whatever whatever happens this year or next year. I would want the schools that have high levels of PCBs to be in the front of the line for resources. That can't happen if they haven't tested. So we're saying what I'm looking at this through an environmental justice side of house. That's my field. If you are scared to do master planning and try to put a bond up in your community, that means you're not even testing. I don't want that to be the tail that whacked the dog. I'd rather the tail that whacked the dog be we as a state know these handful of schools need the most help if we're capitalizing school construction.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But you don't know for a 173 schools whether they have a problem or not because they haven't been tested.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So that's what I'm saying. This bill would say they only test when they're doing renovation, construction or decommissioning.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Or if they voluntarily request.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So I think that's where I have the problem. I'm not sure. I don't want it to be voluntary based on the money they feel they can accumulate for the next step because that is a justice question.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Can I add to that?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So if you if if I'm a school, my town has a school, then it's you know, we heard a testimony yesterday that North Country is in the $9,000,000 already. Why would a community do the testing and apply for it if they don't if they suspect that they're gonna end up being on the hook for Mhmm. $10,000,000? There's you know, what what actual mechanism do we have to make them do it? You know? I mean, if they don't do it, what are you gonna do?

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Mhmm.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: What's in what's the mechanism?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The the Nasdaq, the number bill is a special fund. Doesn't have any dedicated revenue to it right now, but that doesn't mean it would in in the future. That would be available for grants to do investigation remediation mitigation remediation based on a priority of what is the most necessary to address health. But you, it's still not a mandate for all schools to test by a certain time.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah, I like that less, I guess. Could push the deadline out, but I don't know, maybe the compromise was always like, they only have to do that when they're doing renovation, construction, or decommissioning, but it's it isn't a matter of disturbing some soil only. They could be they could have areas of buildings that have PCB levels that are too high.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It's it's not like, oh, we're gonna go disturb something, so now we have to do it.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, I mean, you test, you find a source that exceeds an action level. You now need to do a response. You need to do control. It's high enough. You might have to take the material

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: out. Right. I wanna know what's going on in all the schools before we figure out who gets money for school construction. You know? Like, I guess that's kind of what I'm trying to make sure is clear to me.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I have people who don't have the money.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But we have the money to do the testing. And if we say we don't have to do the testing until you're gonna engage in master planning, the part is before the horse as far as I'm concerned.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So where do we have the money to do all the tests?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We we don't have the money for the test.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: What? It was like 40,000 and we have a 175. So it was like 10,000,000 and we only have 1,000,000?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The remaining money that's left from the last time I got an update, there was 3,900,000 that was left. That's right. And there that was effectively all allocated for response at one school.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. I guess, like, if we're capitalizing any school construction, I would put environmental testing toward the front of the list for statewide master planning.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: If you had left out the word statewide, I would say that's what this bill does.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But it doesn't in that every district has to decide on their own, and that's a patchwork still of who's tested, who hasn't. Do they have are they partnering with another district? You know? Like, one could say that if you find that there's a school where they can't use half the buildings anymore, that that might speak well to a whole different facilities planning process.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think that's the point of what this is doing. That's exactly what this is.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So I guess I'd like to focus, maybe when we get the bill from the House, on if they're looking at expending dollars or finding dollars for facilities master planning, that we would put it toward environmental testing first.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think that's in every I think this is all that's almost what this is doing.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: When you go into facilities master planning, one of the first things you need to do is an evaluation of the environmental contaminants in your facility.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But you still have to affirmatively take up testing. I want the mandate. I want the mandate. Like, I wanna pay for all the schools to be tested.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, that that that that to me is a whole debate about school construction and whether or not you want to do consolidation with facilities or districts? So why test a school that's not gonna be used? Right?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, guess that might help you make that next decision. And we could say that's gonna help you make the next decision.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, what if it's of bordering on the obvious? The larger district is created, they know you know, that it's more apparent what schools will survive and what schools may not survive, and they can already prioritize and then not have to dedicate some of these funds. That's the alternative to what you're recommending, that everybody get tested

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Mhmm.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: When we know that certain facilities, they're fading out. And why test why spend whatever the 100,000, whatever it is per school per test? You know, it's just a different

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No. I I see what I see what you're saying. So it is like the a chicken egg problem. It's a chicken egg problem. But that building might still need to be something. Right? Like, it might be phased out of school use.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Sure. But not necessarily in the back of the education fund or school construction fund.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No. And maybe it doesn't have it all the time.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Gets repurposed to a city office building. Right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But it might help you make lots of different decisions if you're informed about the environment. Think at

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: that point that, you know, this is a little further down the road that at that point, if there are multiple options, they would test. And that that would be part of the strategic building plan. All those, you know, potentially surviving would be tested so we know what step to go into.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I just think it should be, like, a first step.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I would totally agree with that if we had the money, but we don't have the money. So we gotta decide how we're gonna run this bill on that we don't have the money. That's my-

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I mean, and I would go back to them, we pushed the deadline now, but we still require the testing to have it.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So you were, like what you

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: were about to say? I, I, I already said it. It's basically, once the money is there, it it is still voluntary process, but you're gonna have a lot of incentive for those schools to to basically take advantage of that process because how long will the money last? So you will have schools step up right away. Once they do, the evaluation part of the is one of the first things that they have to do. It it is it is a chicken and the egg problem. Nothing bad. Really, the the chicken is the money.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: So,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Matt, you wanna talk? For the record For the record,

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: Matt Chapman, Director of Waste Management Prevention Division at TC. I mean, I guess I wanna just acknowledge that the conversations the committee is having right now is kind of the policy discussion that we've had internally trying to figure out the best ways to approach dealing with this. And I think that the tension and the challenge, is both, you know, agreed with Senator Ram Hinsdale that, like, we want to test these schools. It's important to do so. And frankly, some of the schools that maybe are on the lower economic disadvantage are gonna be the ones who are least likely to come in early for the loans because it's gonna have to be a share by the local district. That's just not feasible for those. So we've had those conversations. The other side of the tension is it's where we where communities have made a decision that they're not gonna make a future investment into a facility. Does the state want to be investing a lot of money in remedial response into that facility? Right? Because once we found a positive result at high levels in a school, I hate to say this, but once we found it, we need to address it. Right? There you can't continue to have children in a school with known concentrations. So, I mean, if you test, we need to then be prepared to go to the next step, which is dealing with the response to it. And so, I mean, this is a way, I think, to try and structure those responses in the context of a capital program where we can deal with things in a planned way holistically. But I want to acknowledge, I mean, we're completely supportive if the committee decides that the best of version to deal with this is to just push the data out. That is a completely legitimate option. This, in some respects, is an effort to try and find a a balance point between the senate's historic position of pushing the data out and the house's historic position of eliminating the program.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Did you realize that I fell right into that trap?

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Yes. So going back to page one, investigation. The first paragraph of when we initiate investigations or the facility's not plan planning process. Again, I agree with you. Number two, prior to renovation, construction, commission. Again, it's number three, you know, I have a lot of I pause because the school can just simply request. Frankly, I think a school which is built prior to 1980 could request. Not any school. There's a whole bucket

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of Oh, it's right. And and school is defined as prior before 1980. Page one, lines, eleventh,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Yep. Thank you.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And and frankly, that school, they they should have either their school board or or or their local government vote to request that because they should be informed of what what's what's the consequential liability that could occur?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yep. So where would we be, Watson?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're we're basically on page two line four. When there is an at the school action level, they have to develop that management plan to to basically try to control any sources before they do a full approved corrective action plan. A and will publish guidelines for what is required in that PCB management plan. And a school that is in exceedance of the immediate action level, they'll comply with requirements subdivision two and three. So A and R will mitigate any impact associated with the PCBs, that's the mitigation plan, action plan. And then three, they will only require the school to implement a corrective action plan when it's undertaking construction or renovation activities provided that the PCB, if the PCB concentrations are of such a level, as Matt said, there are times when you have to go in So let's talk about, like, you have an exceedance, you do your management plans and control the source, protected children, stands, filters, things of that sort, immediate actions that you can put into place. You don't do your corrective action plan right away, the removal of it, until it's determined that you're gonna go through facilities, review facilities reconstruction, except if you're at such a level, you have to respond. And that's what has happened with some of the schools. They didn't have the ability to just say, oh, we're gonna wait and manage exposure. They had to respond.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But if it hits federal levels, that means it's really bad. Right? I

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: I it's It's worse than ours.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I Oursets are standards a lot lower.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But that's what I'm saying. So what the federal government is saying.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I I have desperately tried to be able to do a one to one comparison of the two because the federal level is based on parts per trillion in the hard material that the PCB is in, and the the air testing is is nanograms per liter. And or nanograms

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: We have a whiteboard.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Nanograms per meter cubed.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And and and they don't convert to each other. Right?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, can we get a smart person to to, like, get put have a put over I have

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: tried that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, I'm sorry. You are a smart person. No. I'm not.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't. I don't. No. Not me. I I mean, I have tried to get a smart person besides me to do it. I I gotta try to get EPA to do it. Yeah. I have a letter from EPA region one that says, yeah. We can't do that. I tried to get Trish at ANR to do it, and Trish can't.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Isn't it not a good idea that to not have policies that could talk to each other? So so

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: if you so I think one of the challenges that we have is that we have a bunch of different standards. Those standards are different depending on what media, meaning sort of substance you're looking at. So if you're looking at solid building materials, that's different than looking at airborne air emissions within a room and how you measure them and the impacts associated with them and the standards that have been established for them are all different, right? So, from a regulatory perspective, we basically you know, I think I think deputy commissioner, Ariel sort of went through the standards presentation in her that she is the best person to talk about how Vermont standards were developed. But we basically have Vermont specific standards developed by the Department of Health, both what you can normally like, what what is functionally what I would call a a a lifetime exposure standard versus an immediate action. Right? So, when we're trying to face it, when we trip or go over that immediate action level, that's basically where we say, okay, we we need to do something in this space. And what this basically says is after we've tried to mitigate the problem, we've put in bands, we've maybe removed some obvious PCB containing materials, we test again, and we're still over the immediate action level, then you can't wait until the construction activity. You need to move forward and do more intensive and invasive work in that way.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: But if Vermont set its own standards, and it's different from federal standards, and we cannot compare the two, how do we know that the health department didn't set the standard either, well, too low? So

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: I rely on the health department. They are the state's expert as it relates to establishing the standards for human health exposure in Vermont. I guess I would say that often what EPA does is they don't look at the people who are the most vulnerable or sensitive. They look at eighty kilogram men who are middle aged and set the standards based on that exposure pathway, and they don't look at sort of the the sort of risk profile that we normally look at. So I'm happy to come back in with I wasn't prepared to have a standard conversation. PCB standards are are hard, and I will admit,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I am not

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: the expert diving into sort of how to explain the differences. The reality of the situation is EPA doesn't really have a regulate you know, EPA has a regulatory standard for PCV scenario, which is higher, and what they call an action level, which is the actual what they think is a harm to human health exposure, which is lower than our standard.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: So how am I supposed

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: what am I supposed to do with that? I mean, EPA is not a bottle of of helpfulness or clarity in this particular particular space.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So just as kind of an example of the difficulty, this is the Department of Health method for deriving the exposure levels. It's kind of just incomprehensible to most people. 100%. But they do have a narrative about why they do it that way and what it's intended to do. I still you know, people will still argue it's too low, but they do have a policy back to argument for why they said it this this way.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And they must have heard testimony when they decided that in committee ethically, but that's really not the issue here, just deciding what we're gonna do.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Should I continue? Yeah. All right, so you're on the bottom of page two, you're in section two, this is the creation of the special box, It is still within ANR's authority in in the waste management chapter. You'll see on page three, it's created to be administered by ANR for to provide funding for investigation, mitigation, of PCBs at schools in Vermont. It consists of there's no, you know, ongoing dedicated revenue source that depends on the opportunities for appropriations to the fund. So the first opportunity is reimbursement from a school for work related to a grant issued by the state for PCB investigation when that school recovers money from litigation or other awards. And then the second is any recovery by the state. So the ongoing litigation that the state is involved in with manufacturers of PCBs or any claims or damages caused by PCBs. That money would go in there except for natural resources damages because because of the need to respond to natural resources damages. Any money for that is going to be attributed to that of their state state law and, like, end of the settlement as well. Excellent. And then monies deposited from appropriations and then any other funds that would be dedicated to the special fund. And then you see how the ANR will issue grants from that fund. They will issue grants to schools to pay the cost to the extent funds are available, following activities in order of priority listed. First, they're gonna do PCB investigations that are part of the facility's master plan. Then they will fund development of PCB management plans. Then they will fund the cost of mitigation when results exceed the immediate action level. And then they'll fund the cost of implementation of any approved corrective action plan after mitigation efforts to concentrate and succeed the immediate action levels. And then they will balance the cost of implementing a corrective action plan as part of the school construction project. And then last would be the cost of investigation would take a pursuant to you're doing a decommissioning or a facility review or when you were doing the voluntary request. That will be the best because you're gonna have to prioritize those things with the regulatory need to respond first. And then when it's voluntary decommissioning or facilities or, rehabilitation, or when the school is just voluntarily asking for it, that's gonna be the least priority for funding. But

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: can, page three, line 11, the caveat, except recoveries for damages to natural resources.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Why is

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: that applicable? There is SG.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, there's a law in Vermont and federally as well, it's called natural resources damages. So when you can show that a hazardous material is released or some other type of damage is caused in natural resources, there's a process by which to quantify what those damages are and as part of a reward or recovery in a in a liability or a litigation or the state recovers monies for those damages. In this, in the case of PCB So let me

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: give you, like, a real example. Let's say a water body has had PCBs discharged into it, and those PCBs have accumulated in the soil, in sediments of the river impacting the bugs that are in the river and the fish that eat the bugs in the river causing damages to the state and trusted natural resources. If we go out and, hypothetically, in fact, we are, suing the manufacturer of PCBs for those damages, the recovery would go into the natural resources protection side of the funds, not the school cleanup.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, because when you sue, when you litigate, you request the damages. And so you quantify what the damages, the natural resource damages are.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: But I get it, but we're talking about the secretary of natural resources. This whole section is about why why are we, like, creating an exception for natural resource under the heading of secretary natural resources? Someone really sees why there's a diversion. There's a different way

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to calculate natural resources damages, and then there's different way that state law dictates how they need to be collected and spent. So that's there's already kind of a carve out and just for purposes of what's going into this fund, any any damages that the litigation receives, you you have to carve out those natural resources damages anyway.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: So, again, I I think so this is a special fund. The special fund is dedicated towards damages that have happened to schools as a result of the PCP containing materials in them. And so anything that we recover as a part of the lawsuit goes into this fund except for work. Okay. Alright. Okay. Okay.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So on page four, lines 10 through 16, AMR is not gonna reimburse from the schools for the cause of investigation remediation removal when they that investigation remediation removal was not in response to indoor air quality testing required by, the previous acts, but was part of a planned renovation or construction project that school under the PCBs will be remediated or removed as part of the process. Think of, you know, a school that wants to do total renovation, they plan for the renovation, their renovation requires some assessment of contaminants. They're gonna not long for that and and reconstruct. That's not something that ANR is is providing funding for. Something that was already gonna be replaced under our plan is they're not gonna be replaced. It's not gonna be reimbursed.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But isn't there a gray area that gets created?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There there may.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I I said the required anyway.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: So I I think what this is a really so this is a sort of it's a little bit of a vestige that we brought over from previous laws, but I think what it's intended to capture is for those who and it also, I think, may change and I'll just do a little policy flag here. Right? The agency said that you should test for PCPs when you are doing a locally sponsored Mike and I had a conversation. You know the draft of conventions. It either needs to be May or Chao. We went with Chao, but that's something, frankly, it was a kid the committee to consider. You know, think this goes away when it becomes a shall. I mean, I think to some degree we were thinking that or some school who went through a school construction project with local money and elected not to test for PCBs or alternatively didn't follow the state's methodology when they did so, right? Like they went ahead and freelanced and didn't do what they should have done in doing the testing, that we wouldn't reimburse those scenarios. Now that that mate has become a shall, I think you could probably get rid of this particular provision.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And it okay.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: But if you get rid of the provision, then the shall is gone as well.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: No. If you if if the shall is a shall, you can get rid of this provision. If if that particular should becomes a may, I would say keep it because we would need the ability to tell schools you didn't follow the right process, and we're not gonna pay for the bad process. Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I need, like, a flowchart. I know. Like, if you decided that you're no longer doing testing, you go down this road. So but what we would be saying here is we no longer have indoor air quality testing required to pursuant to this if we start with removing the program.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Those the original language that Matt sent over, that's it said when the school starts to go through the master's facility planning, they should do testing.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: They shall or they should?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. It said they should.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: It was the second one, Mike. It was when they were doing their own locally bonded. That's probably what you made. Master planning was a shall. Oh, you're right. Local bonded.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So if we took, like, Woodstock, for example, that they decided they bonded and built in the school.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yep.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: They didn't do any air quality testing in that. Yep. Oh, we found PCBs. Right. Oh, we want some money from the state. Right. State goes, No, you didn't go, you didn't do the air quality test first to indicate then. That's what I got from me. Exactly.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So it's a should in the sense that you should do it if you want our help.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, right.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: But if you're gonna tear the building down anyway, and you already have a bond for it, it really just would be, oh, we found some, but it's like, you're gonna tear the building down anyway, you decide to replace it.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, but they still have to go to destruction program Tear it down. Yeah. And if there's contamination Yeah. Half of the pee took That's great. Before you do.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: Matt, exactly what are you suggesting here? I I think that Or why? That based on the way the bill is currently drafted, that you can get rid of this section. We said meeting. Page four lines and February. It's not an issue. See,

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: one three kinda now.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Somewhat related to this topic. Going back to page one, line 21, it just says the school's evaluating existing facilities for renovation construction service. Renovation's a pretty broad term. Mean, I renovate my house, like, every week.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'm like,

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: well, so we do a renovation. So where is there a language that could kinda create an idea? Well, context. Right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yes. Make your own foundation.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: We could

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: probably work on that. I can look into that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It does exist in all the active 50 stuff. Yes. Like, when you're talking about a real improvement.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What is an improvement? Right. I look at that. Structural.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But actually, maybe more to the senator's point, does that mean what if they are evaluating their gym and they just let's say they I don't know. I'm trying to figure out a scenario, but, like, they discover PCBs there, they then have to do the whole school?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If they've done investigation and they found just the PCBs in the gym, they can probably come up with a management plan to, a, control exposure, and then they have to come up with a corrective action plan for how they're going to address long term exposure. That might mean rebuilding or renovating the gym.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Could it mean the whole campus, though? Could it mean that they now are under an obligation to

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, that's that's what the testing would indicate what they how they would have to if they only found it in the gym, which they have only found it in the gym in one school. Right? In Twin Valley. Yeah.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: Yeah. It's a little more than half, but it's it's large.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: They're only gonna renovate the gym. They're only planning to renovate the gym. You should test the gym. You don't need to test up a school. Why would you test the whole school and open up can of worms when you're on? Not gonna disturb the other parts of the school.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But I hope you have today in our sleep right now in the way that this is.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: She's saying what that?

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Was that a policy this afternoon? Is that what they all

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: Well, I'd say, hey. Certainly, is my I guess I would say that it's complicated, right? And that I can't say for certain that the contamination in the gym hasn't impacted or isn't being impacted by other parts of the school, right? So again, the question I think, and it is a part of the complexity of all of this, right, is if you're going to invest $8,000,000 in a set of gym improvements and the contamination is actually coming from your HVAC system because of contamination at the cafeteria, you probably want to fix the cafeteria and the HVAC system so you don't recontaminate Is the

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: it part of the process in the mitigation process? Case we objected, the mitigation process is, well, where is it coming from? It's coming, you know, being Well, that It's not just a blanket. Okay. Found it. Gonna tear the whole place down. It's founded. Try to

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: encapsulate it. And there again, they're renovating just the gym. The gym comes back negative. But in this policy you have to do the whole building, they find one of the, let's say the West wing. Sure. Now it's got a contaminant that's right on the borderline or high. Oh, now Patient, you wanna go through the gym So,

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, I have a question for Matt. I think if they were going through the facility's master planning process, they have to do the whole facility. They're just gonna do a renovation, say, of one wing, I don't know if they have to test the whole school.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: I don't think that's clear. I think it's fair to say that

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: it's not clear. What you could say, if testing, if you test it and you get high levels, then the rest of

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: the school needs to be tested. Think that it's a very rational approach, and probably we would certainly, if there were high levels, we would be having a conversation about doing additional testing, or doing the sort of like, the inventory planning we do, where you look at similar building material types, kind of do the inventory at school and figure out, well, yeah, we have this stuff everywhere else too, so maybe we should make sure that we're doing additional testing. I mean, I think this is an area that frankly we would be developing guidelines on for schools so that they have an understanding of what they're getting into, when they're going through doing renovation related work and what the set of expectations were, so there was some degree of predictability. And I think, you know, again, back to the previous point, you know, significant construction, you know, probably what is con renovation probably needs to have some definition and clarity.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's okay. So We we basically have one page left. Bottom of page four, it's the money in the fund carried forward from year to year. It doesn't cut the return back to its source. Then page four, line nine, money if the school recovers money from litigation or other award for work covered under a grant, school district's gonna reimburse the state for the amount of that grant. Page five, the state may recover from the manufacturer and other ways for the money expended or awarded by the state with PCG investigation of the action levels. And then page five, line seven, section three, this amends the original testing requirement from 2021 and then strikes a deadline, page five, line 19 to 20, that all schools shall test for PCBs on before July 2027.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: so I think we're we're

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: up on that one issue of what constitutes renovation. If I'm not sure, like, that is a myth, but the suggestion was that you fill with an a or case four, that section two or Yep. So issue two, but it's time to sixteenth.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I will just say I don't support getting rid of a deadline. You can we can commit to capitalizing a fund, but if we get rid of the deadline

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So you We're not. Moving it out?

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Yeah. What'd you say why'd you say you wanted to do that again?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Because otherwise, we're not asking all schools to test for PCBs. We're just saying when you happen to do master planning, which could take a while.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: How far would you wanna shoot up?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I mean, I'm always open to a short extension for things like this because then we we can and should look at it and see if any progress was made because of the school construction fund or anything else we did. So it could be 2029, but I don't think we should say this is such a non issue anymore that we don't need to have schools testing. I'm probably speaking as a parent now more than anything. I wouldn't want to just be sitting there saying, Well, we're not testing because every test, we have to do something, and then my kid goes through K through 12 and that time period.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Several weeks. I think that so I agree with you. I think that what a fool would that be, three years to be said.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I hate when we, like, get so No.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'm just

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: We might wanna find a real deadline that means something. I don't know what it is.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Significant deadline. I think we all need to reflect on the fact that this bill will pass through appropriations, and they will have, they're the money folks, you know, they tire, you know, they take away our money, tire our hands, blah, blah, blah, with anything we do, this is their opportunity, put some money in life. You know, we're really gonna prioritize this, and I agree with you. There's some money for longs in here, but that's their role. And I challenge them to do it. This gotta go back to the cause, too.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Senator Shane. So, I mean, I'm thinking, you know, parallel to the Act 73 and timeline that we have, I'm saying 01/01/2029, assuming that all of this happens, or at least parts that happen, and this concludes in 2029. Schools are going to be going through a lot of changes over the next three years, and I think, you know, perhaps going a year or two beyond 2029 may be a bit more realistic because it's there's gonna be a lot on their plates during the next three years, and having this as another weight is is going to make things it's just going to be another stressor. I I do agree with the idea that there should be some deadline but it also should just be infinite, you know, test of someday eventually. So I don't know, maybe twenty, thirty.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: By the same token, you know, if if everybody just tested like they're supposed to, that know that would help with school closures, the merger process, thinking along the lines of that seventy three time period. It It may not be a bad thing to have that all happen at same time. If they find out that there's contamination, they gotta close the school.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Oh, and and then they think, oh, well, we have all these PCBs. Correct.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: We wanna get this. Correct. But now we can't. No.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: This was the. That's what this gets at, I think. Not

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: with the deadline.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: But actually, I think it does. I'm not arguing against the deadline, by the way. Yeah. But I think this does get to helping us decide which schools would make sense to put money into and which it doesn't, Because if we have this, it probably doesn't. But I think the bill does that. I'm not arguing against the deadline. I I what I'm what I'm hearing perhaps is that we combine the two.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yes.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We have we have, you know, very somewhere, you know, we we also say or and I think I'm with senator Hashim with us. I think pushing it out. We we have I mean, we're talking potentially about if we just tested, we don't have the money for the if we have the money for the testing, the remediation would be talking you know, we could be talking hundreds of millions of dollars just to do this in the meantime. But so I think sorting out which ones it's gonna make sense to do this with makes a ton of sense. And I think that that's what the bill does, but I think I I don't disagree that because there will be schools that don't get affected by a lot of restrictions, also, at some point, wanna have those guys gonna know what they're saying.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So Well, I could search and find

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I I the worst case scenario I'm envisioning without these aligning better, is that a supervisory union or a district could have in their minds right now as they go into the process of the next three or four years, you know, we all know, like, this school has more capacity or this one is more central. And they could be planning in that regard in word and not deed. Like, they might not get to the stage where they're getting beyond conversation, and then they really feel settled on something, and then they discover that spool, half of it, you know, can't be used for the next five years. So I I think I think if I mean, these kinds of environmental decisions do lead to dramatic shifts in what spaces can be used regardless of what people's hopes and dreams are. So if they do that testing too late, it just seems like they could've they some districts or unions could've wasted years not knowing that the building they wanted to use can't be enough, Patrice, for anybody.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Can't review that point. So what do we want to do?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: 2029 for the deadline to align with the planning process.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So what's that mean? Like, here in 2029, aligning with

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, I'm looking. Both of our senators should shoulder the dis I mean

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: It's got to align with the school construction program because funds have to, funds are either going to be obligated even in a small manner. Right. So whatever that program is

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It says 07/01/2026 on here, school construction

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: program. Yeah.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Pretty bad. Would

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: my move funds be available?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It doesn't this was, like, our little thing from Beth that she doesn't wanna be held responsible for.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: There are no there are no funds, though. Right.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think you do need to give a lag between when the funds are gonna be available and when they start doing the planning process because a, the consultants, you have to get the consultants scheduled. It takes time to do that. There's demand or competing demand for that. You can't, let's say, that the same day that the funds are available is the same day that the capacity has to be completed because it it won't be done.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I I believe it's linked to the school construction program is a is something that's subsequent. Of the first actions is that the districts have to have boundaries so that the district knows what group of schools they're even considering. Then the school construction program at some point has received some funding, not the paid paid funding, but some funding, and this this exercise of PCB investigation uncovers which ones are, which facilities survive, which ones don't survive. That's kind of the time off.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know enough about your discussion of the education bill.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I mean, I would just let's just say, like, we are trying to find, I don't know, 2 and a half million dollars each year for the next four years likely out of the education fund to do all the testing.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well then we have the issue of the remediation when it's found. Well that's why I don't think that's we're have money for that. We're not committing to that.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: But that's after the district realizes they start they first, they stand up. They start recognizing that that's this bigger geographic footprint is their responsibility, and then they would begin to determine which schools are important, which schools are, you know, have priority, and then then they would be funded for testing. And then if they're on the good list, then there's remediation. Otherwise, remediation for, you know, any off school. It's a no, it's a non starter.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I, I'm still going back to like being a parent and you're like in the fourth year of testing instead of the first year. The the second you know that there's a high level of PCPs in your kid's school, you're you're gonna be like, ma'am, this is a huge pain, but what are we gonna do now? And you're gonna be driving your kids somewhere else and we're making new districts and things like that. But probably gonna wanna start getting used to that. And if most parents would rather do that than wait the fourth year or the eighth year or the tenth year and say, Oh, this is, our school has high level PCPs and we never signed up to do this.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So I don't know what's new with that. What,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I would say the main

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No. Thing We're talking about

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: the date. He's gotta roll back to the date. Let's go roll back.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I'd like to say 2029 and then ask appropriations to come up with 2 and a half million in the $3,000,000,000 education fund for the next four years for this.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I agree that I would

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: For testing.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Looking at the time, I had moved out of here.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I'm not gonna die on any hills at 04:30 Thursday, so sure. 2030, Four years.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Got 01/29, February, I think.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: 2030. No. February. 2030. No.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I mean, even 2030, that's four years we have to come up with starting FY twenty seven for the money. So I agree.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But but you do need because right now, session law, which is still binding law, says that the state is going to pay for all mitigation and remediation.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So we already know in PCC.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So could we say it's prioritized when we populate a school construction fund? That's good. Propagate.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Sure.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What would be prioritized?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Schools that need to do remediation and have been prioritized by their new supervisory whatever as a place where kids are going to school.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think we'll probably have to see what the school construction language looks like once you get to that, but I think we could do that.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. So I'll talk you on

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: that's what we're yeah. It's that's what this is what we're trying to accomplish. You know? Right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: The language has to do that. I mean, in my mind, it's like

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I don't like, with don't know.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It might spend you much longer than me, but, like, we've there are times when we are not as clear, like, what we are saying we are going to do in the legislation. And I would say we should finish this in four years. The legislature should be working towards a plan to test the remaining schools in the next four years.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: You know of a ripple that's coming from each one?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: 2 and a half million I do. It's called the $3,000,000,000 education fund. And 2 and a half million dollars for the next four years to do this, I think, could be found.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: We're gonna need that to pay down property taxes.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The problem

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Use that. The problem

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: with this is and the reason the house is trying to make it go away is so much of the testing gonna cost. It's the It's the There's no money for that. Right.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: $5,000,000 has already been attributed to one school. 9 million's also another school. 22,000,000 went to Burlington.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So I think what I mean, I I think what I I think what we're trying to do is say that as we're prioritizing which schools that that links to construction

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yes.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We need to know which schools it makes sense to put money into and which ones it doesn't.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yes. And how urgently. That

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: That's the bigger the nerve.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I mean, you said it yourself. They want to make it go away. It doesn't go away. We're just sweeping after the rut and I'm not okay with that as a parent.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I don't think anybody in this room is suggesting that. This room is trying to figure out the path forward.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Can we talk, Matt and I talk with AOE over the next day or Yep. And and also with Beth and John about how to like interconnect this with whatever

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: you do for street construction. Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. That's what I wanted all about.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: It's gotta be one story. Yep. Yeah. It's bigger than it's bigger than just the sort of that

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But then I was gonna say, I think a prorations would be very sympathetic to this perspective. That's two former chairs of the natural resources. Could they you know, I mean, we don't just ignore contaminants in schools.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, have been.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: We don't. Lot of other It's been an education. We don't do that. So,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: okay. Yes. That would be great. And ultimately, with everything to do, the question will still come back to us whether we wanna have the current deadline as well. Right. I mean, I let me Focus on that part of

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Counsel)]: your part. Talking in that I heard any from 2029 to 2033. And so you'd have that kind of time frame that you can decide on that. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Just remember, that's the difference between a student spending a few years in elementary school with this or all of their

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: LP skills.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: My kids already have gone

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: through it. My grandkids were there. So, Matt, one other thing that came up yesterday-

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I didn't have it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Maybe that's why I'm fighting hard.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: When we had North Country in here, it was, not a single kind of date of testing but average. Right. Is that the way it always works, or or should we be thinking about that somehow as well, or is that just something you want flexibility to work?

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: So we we have been looking at we've been trying to look at trends and and averaging in data. You know, I I think, you know, I think set at some point, someone had said, well, why do we keep doing this testing? And I think that North Country is actually a great example because because we had a long sort of series of data there when we got really, really high numbers in the summertime sampling event, it helped the state be able to look at those numbers and say, this is something abnormal, this is not what we've been seeing in sort of regular testing data, and so we don't need to ring an alarm bell. This may be seasonal because of temperature related issues, and let's, rather than, you know, causing all of the kids to go move into tents again, let's look at let's do some additional sampling. Let's see whether this is temperature dependent, and it was.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And so You have the authority to do that.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC/ANR)]: We have all the authority to do that, and we've been trying to figure out the best way that is scientifically defensible with the Department of Health to look at averages over, averages.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, okay. Okay, to be continued. Okay. Thanks.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. We sorry, guys.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No. That's good discussion. Okay. We're we are we dropped one. We are not gonna have I don't represent a pen for ourselves today. We're gonna go straight to our last two, 09:30. Back to 08:30.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: What is this?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Chronic IBS DSP. Have two more, we have two more lipsticks, and you're on the roof, right? So- Thank you

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: for your- Ready to show.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Yeah. Also important.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And it's wandering in Yeah. The Can't help that. Thank you. My name is Big Hartman. I'm the executive director and general counsel at the State of Vermont Human Rights Commission.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: I don't think I've spoken to this committee before, so thanks so much for having me in. I'm coming at the end of a tough day, and we're totally pivoting to a different topic.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, we put it there earlier today, so I think I'll get it.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: Yes. That's great. And I, you know, I'm only coming here to talk to you about the discrete issue of how h nine thirty is touching on some issues relevant to the Human Rights Commission work because our commission investigates discrimination complaints, and we have a large portion of cases involving harassment in schools that fall within our jurisdiction. We have identified school based harassment as a significant enforcement priority for our work based on the high volume of calls we get all the time from members of the public whose children are experiencing harassment, as well as bullying. So bullying shifts from bullying to harassment if it becomes conduct based on somebody's membership in a legally protected class. Okay, so the majority of school based harassment complaints we investigate pertain to race and color. We also see a good portion related to national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, and sex. So the Human Rights Commission is very actively involved in three different kinds of work around this issue. One being our complaint investigation process. I'd be happy to come another time and share with you in more detail about what our complaints look like, especially the ones involving schools. Another component of our work is in the policy field. So I have just become the chair recently of the Paysing, Harassment, Bullying Prevention Advisory Council, which I've been a member of for about a year or so while it's been reactivated recently by the Agency of Education. And we also participated in the 2023 working group on the prevention of hazing, harassment, and bullying. And that working group had substantive recommendations about the overlap with chronic absenteeism that that I'm glad to see are being taken up in this bill really does hit the nail on the head of a lot of the recommendations that there was consensus on in that working group from 2020. I'm happy to answer any questions that folks have. I'll just also share that the third bucket of work that our office does in regards to harassment in schools is we do offer school training. So I have gone into several schools working with the staff teams, doing harassment prevention training, and getting really good feedback on that, bringing back training with a civil rights lens and a prevention lens for school teachers. And we do have a number of cases that have settled in the last couple of years where school districts have agreed to get training with us, like live in person training on their in certain states, and we are getting great feedback on those sections. We're going to continue to offer those as much as we can with our small team of nine staff. So, I just wanted to come here today briefly to weigh in and say that we really, at the Human Rights Commission, support the inclusion of hazing, harassment, and bullying incidents being listed as a reason to have an excused absence. We do see that a lot of students who experience harassment and bullying have difficulty going back to school after those events, not necessarily because they're having an illness, but because they genuinely are not safe there, and they don't feel safe there. And when you aren't safe in school, you aren't going to learn anything. And so, we think it's very logical, in addition to this bill that was added, I believe, on the floor of the House side to include HHV incidents as a reason to have an excuse to absence. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm looking at the official verbiage, 13 verbiage. Yeah. So there's a laundry list of reasons why school absence may be excused, and section 12 of that laundry list is explicitly including incidents of a painting brushman.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So what you see, this testimony we got with with the agency was in here that they suggested leaving it, that they're clearly looking forward to them without suggesting

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: I'm sorry. I'm having a lot of difficulty hearing you.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, but agency when the agency was here, they suggested leaving that section. Their theory was that it might make it easier for schools to ignore bullying harassment if they could just become an excuse. I'm not sure that I follow that logic, but that's what they said because I wrote it. I wrote it down. So what's your what's your response to that?

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: I'm not sure I follow that logic either. For me, I would just, want it explicitly I wouldn't want it to be an unexcused absence if somebody misses school because of an incident like that. So that's why I feel like it makes sense to have what included, and it was definitely something that the twenty twenty three working group talked about and recommended. And

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: I'm sorry. Just wanna make sure I'm understanding that you wanna keep line five as it's written in its current place, if that's what you're

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Yes.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Yeah. Okay. Just wanna make sure

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I heard

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: it right.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: I think I'm looking at a different version of what's line five, but it's section 12. Yeah. Gays and Grasso. Yeah. We see that as a good support for students. Without that, are they gonna be deemed having an unexcused absence? That seems unfair and concerning. And the reality is that what we see is that students who go to school and after having harassment or bullying and it keeps happening, their harm can worsen. We've seen, it's kind of a disturbing pattern that we've noted in the cases that we process, that when something occurs again, parents kind of get to the last straw with that school. They will pull their kids in order to keep them safe. They will change districts, change paper private school, they homeschool their kids, they will move out of state. Those are the patterns we see frequently in these types of cases, and so the more gentle we can be in excusing absences related to that kind of stuff makes sense to me. And then there was also an addition I'm sorry, I'm not looking at the right the same exact piece of paper that you are. Thank you. There's also there was an addition to of adding for the policy and procedure about chronic absenteeism that's required of reference to there being protocols in that policy related to harassment and bullying, including best practices for reentry into the education space. And I think that that's a really important component. There is an existing hazing, harassment and bullying prevention policy that I believe that the Agency of Education talked with you about that is currently being kind of revised by them. It still doesn't speak very much to that issue. How do we reenter these kids back into this space that was very harmful to them before? And I think it's they're missing out on school because of that, it would be very supportive for them to give some best practices for schools to employ when bringing those kids back so they're not kind of thrown to the fold.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That was important as well, right?

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: I believe so. It's in italics in my version. What section is It is I'm in gonna read this,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: but I can't remember the word it's in.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: It is in section eleven twenty four, where it's speaking about the Agency of Education creating a model policy, and then it says that shall include specific provisions for how to address the absence of a child with a disability, which is another issue that we fully support. A lot of our work is involving individuals with disabilities. Who's probably striking that?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Depends on the agency

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: for But some you're saying don't strike that.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: If you're considering striking that, our recommendation would

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: be not to strike that. And

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: the additional statement about the policy shall include protocols to respond effectively to bullying and harassment, acknowledging the unique aspects of each case, including best practices for reentry into education spaces. That was explicitly recommended by that 2023 working group. And there wasn't They didn't have the easiest time to get a consensus on a lot of issues, but that was one thing they really did have consensus on.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: That was another thing, at least from my notes, that AOE recommended removing, and I almost have them up, I'm reading the tea leaves, but there's other sections regarding that's a few lines below. It's also recommended to be removed. I don't know if that's been around that you may be supporting.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Template? Notes before that, right? Senator, are you taking the policy shall have good protocols to respond?

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: The notes that I have are, yes, the protocols to respond, AOE was suggesting removing, and then further below, the policy shall also include a template, so on and so forth. I have another note saying, remove from the AOE.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yes. And they said it should be guidance rather than that section. This policy shall include a template. They're saying that the rest of that paragraph should be guidance, not in a sense, too detailed for policy should be in guidance documents. So this policy shall include a template for documentation of actions taken according to the policy to address the absence, which shall constitute a ruling protocol, and then the template for standard documentation. What's your reaction to that?

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: In my experience, schools are very welcoming and needing leadership from the agency to guide a lot of these kinds of issues, and so the more specific can get in what you want to see the policy say, I think that will be welcomed by administrators trying to implement those policies.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Here. So going back up, same page, page six, line seven. I'm curious, struggling with safety and emotional issues. An emotional issue, it's pretty pretty broad, pretty vague term. Is there any better way to articulate that? Like, what if it ended with safety issues? Those are emotional issues. Got a lot of language in here about hazing and harassment, but I'm, you know, very good. Your thoughts?

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: I think that students really are struggling with emotional issues in connection with these issues, and so I think keeping it broad is probably

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: If it's not a safety issue, is it an issue for the school to be, I mean, how can they deal with the reintroduction of the student if they say that they've got an emotional issue, well, the safety issues are resolved, they have an emotional issue. You know, where is it at? What how do you how do you put boundaries around it so that the student can come back to school, be reintroduced?

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: I think that this is specifically going to children with disabilities that have safety and emotional issues, and think that there's a lot of overlap with that, and the need for tailored responses for those particular students is great. I think in the school context, there's the social emotional learning staff that expertise there, I would draw, I would ask.

[David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Do you think it applies to special ed?

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: I think it applies to children with disability. That's how I was reading it for my current take up.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So just to go back to that section to which I was looking before starting on line 11, this policy shot through the template for documentation, do the rest of that. Their their point was it's too deep to be too detailed for policy because I think because things may well, it's just too detailed, and it should be a guide it should be a guidance document rather than policy. And it's like, you see you know which section I'm talking about. Right?

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I do.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Oh, okay. So your response is actually the more detailed the better.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: In this kind of situation, yes, that schools appreciate having specific guidance and templates to use. I I I would see that being somewhat welcomed.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So you just used the term guidance and template. So Guidance including templates. So it could, so This could say, by the way, I'm not saying what I think, I'm just trying to make sure I understand it. This section, that little clause could be reformed a little bit to say the agency shall provide guidance which shall include a template for documentation of actions.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: Yes, often I would see that go into the policy is the Okay,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: you're okay.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: You know and while we're looking at that section there's kind of a laundry list here of entities that Agency of Education would be consulting with, and if we were added to that, we would certainly engage with the agency around the specific protocols relating to harassment, As we've seen without a lot of specific guidance for schools, it really goes across the spectrum of how different schools will deal with things, and we'd be happy to consult with them on that, should we be included. Since I got you, if I could just take a moment to make a plug for bill that was on the house side last year that pertains to the HHB Advisory Council. So I'm not sure we went to this issue. It's the HHB Advisory, it's supposed to be HHB Prevention Advisory Council, and it's had a very limited makeup. H130 was introduced to expand the makeup so that we're having a lot more voices contributing to the conversation about what we need to do to actually prevent harassment in schools. And it also laid out additional requirements duties of the HHB Advisory Council, which are kind of vague right now and limited. And I do think that as the chair of that advisory council, it's a real opportunity to grow the work and the conversations around harassment, which many of us feel is reaching epidemic proportions in Vermont and across the country. So if there's any interest in expanding the scope of this likely to address the advisory council mandate under Federal 16, we would really be happy to see that and we would run with that, with that increased work to be able to have more of an impact on these issues.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: You guys created alcohol, right? Each one third, you said? Right. Yeah.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: Write a testimony on it to the House Ed Committee last year, and I wasn't sure what happened with it, but I think with everything else that you all are having to deal with, it's been hard to put that at the front and center. But it would also mandate like a joint committee hearing on each session where we could report to you on what we're working on and what our recommendations are, or some more robust prevention work across the state, which is very badly needed.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Still with the law of

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: education. Yeah. And then it can't get it doesn't abuse.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's unfortunate. Thank you.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: So maybe I'll come back and talk to you about that next year. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate your time.

[Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Okay,

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: we can go up live.