Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's one of our favorite days. I don't know if you'll make us feel as wonderful as the captive insurance people do, but Only for free. Yeah. They make money, but they love us because they make money too, or save it. But this is Communication Union District, probably known as C and D, and this is your day here, right? We have you in every year. This committee did a lot of work creating CUD's and trying to find a way to bring broadband out into the rural areas of Vermont. The commercial carriers will only do it's only cost effective for them. I believe if they have 10 houses per mile and that leaves out in a lot of Vermont. So communications union districts, which I said about this municipality, our solution. And we look forward, been very positive up until now, so I

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: hope

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: we're still moving forward fast. So welcome and, you know, just introduce yourself to the record. Alright,

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: thank you for having us. So, for the record, my name is Ellie Bibiliers. I'm the executive director of Maple Rock Vans, which is 20 pounds of Addison County and I'm the chair of the Heart of Rocks Beauty Association. My name is Christa Shoot. I'm the executive director of NDK CV, which is a combination of NDK Broadband and CV Fiber, 72 towns in Northeast And Central Vermont.

[Unknown (Maple Broadband Executive Director; VCUDA Chair)]: And I'm also secretary of LUCUDA. Okay. So, have a couple introductory slides that I will mostly skip over because we had such a wonderful introduction from your chair. And as you mentioned, this committee was instrumental in a lot of the legislation that got us to this point, and we will talk about that in a little bit. So, yeah, CDs are municipalities, and we are committed to universal service, both as a requirement to the act 71 fund they've received and also by mission.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: The And wonderful thing about being not for profits public entities with good transparency is that we can invest every single dollar we have into getting to the last mile and then continue to invest back into the communities around things like affordability. And all CDs, just as a reminder, we have we're all in public private partnerships, so various different forms. There's a couple of different models and strategies, but it's really a great example of the public and private sector coming together to solve a problem. So as SVACUDA, this is the Association of Communications Union District. So we speak to you here today as the as as SVACUDA, so as the Association of CUDs. And one of the things that we do, obviously, is come together to act with a shared voice, but we also spent a huge amount of time working together in committees to be able to drive efficiencies and learn from each other to make sure that we're because we're all solving the same problem that every part of Vermont is with. There there are local differences and local challenges, but there's a lot more to common. So making sure that we're taking the time to speak to each other and learn from each other, that makes us be as efficient as we possibly can in terms of how we do it and, yeah, how how we spend the money and how we acquire customers and how we serve the public, which is really why we're doing this. So so the goal, just to remind you, is world class broadband. And, again, Act 71 of 2021 was really quite this is almost like our our foundational North Star is this sort created the Block Community Broadband Board, Block Community Broadband Fund. And the intent of this is we tell the story, which we tell both within the state and outside the state, is to be able to give the the baby CDs, the new CDs that grew up on the model of EC5 orbits to give us the advantages that they never had of giving us enough funding to get to the point where we could achieve universal service on our own steam. A couple of years in, we have a progress update to give you, but that was the original intent. Again, just as a reminder of why this investment makes sense, fiber is it's it it is this the best technology to be able to deliver symmetrical broadband. So there's wireless technologies which are really useful for a lot of things, but in a place like Vermont where we have weather and terrain and mountains, where the business case can actually support fiber, this is a long term investment. And so the state of Vermont has taken the money upfront and is investing now in the future. And there's a lot of parallels that are drawn between what we're doing now and what was done in the past with rural electrification. So, yeah. So, I think that's about that. And then, this slide, this is testimonials from some of the residents. And the reason we put this in here is really just to remind everyone, it's very easy to get focused on what we're building and how many miles we've built and how many addresses now have access to fiber and maps will show them in the later pages. But it's important to step back and think about why why we're doing this and for whom we're doing this. So we're doing this for the people for whom we're now able to open up things like working from home or one of my favorite stories in my district is I'm now on board of a level three residential care facility, and they practically begged us when they heard that we were coming. They said, we really wanna be a beta customer because we can't. We have calls for the state. We can't do them. We have files we need to upload. They fail. So it's really transformational for them, and I'm sure, like that one story I happen to know, but there's, and here's some more, there's dozens of others for whom this has really been a big change. What I can also speak to is the people where we haven't yet gotten there, they're still feeling pain. It's full comfort for them that a lot of other parts of the county have broadband when they're still suffering. So, it's really rewarding to be working on something where you can feel this annual benefit. And so it's important to just be reminded of these are the these are the residents and these are the businesses for whom we're doing this. And also a good opportunity to give a shout out to all of the volunteers that have been participating for many years on the CUD governing boards. We have a couple that are sitting here in the audience today, you know, of the of the all the CUDs throughout the state, all nine of them, all of them, the governance is from people who are appointed by towns to sit on the governing boards, executive committees meet more frequently. There have been thousands and thousands of hours. And so the dedication of those residents and those citizens,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I think, is also important to call out. To realize how far we've come in less than ten years? Well, in there somewhere. But when we first started doing this, I can remember, you know, having testimony about, well, we found a place in the town hall where we could have a desk. And that, I mean, it started at that very basic level. We have to find a place to have a desk, and then we have to find someone that'll give us a computer, and it's come so far, and the interaction and cooperation, Not sure how well that would do either, and it's think it's a hitch.

[Sen. Anne Watson]: Yeah. And that's that's kind

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: of what this slide is gonna get to. So this is our 2021 map, and the blue is fiber that existed in 2021, and the green is cable that existed in 2021. But you see there's a lot of gray roads that don't have, that didn't have cable or fiber, and there's a lot of places that didn't have fiber and just really had cable. And so, there's, that's where we were in 2021. And then over the last five years, the Vermont Community Broadband Fund has funded over 2,500 miles of And that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: really dense blue line area is basically EC

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: fiber. EC fiber. That's what we're gonna say, exactly. Yep. You know, and so that EC fiber there and then a V tail portion below that that was funded through V Top and the BIP. So, lots of it.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: I don't even remember what those

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: That was like a decade ago. And

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: so when we changed to 2026, you can just see the palpable difference in the amount of fiber throughout the state. No. That's okay. There it goes. It's 2020. 2021, 2026.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: The difference. And

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: spine right down there. Back down. Mhmm. And the mouth Yeah.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: That yeah. That's how and so the the pink is, what the CUDs have planned. So in the upper right hand corner, which is blocked by that box, but we have our USDA reconnect, which we'll finish building out this year, and the rest of our ARPA grants up in the Northeast, and then Northwest has a couple of sections that they're finishing, and then DB Fiber has the rest of their ARPA project that they're finishing. So, those pink things are stuff that the CUDs have in progress. And then the rest of the gray roads, a lot of which is in the Northeast Kingdom and Central Vermont, but there are little pieces of it through DB Fiber and, you know, all through the state. There are little pieces of stuff that's gonna be covered by the broadband equity access and deployment. So, we're still waiting to hear final approval from NCIA. Vermont's one of the final four in that, but that will take care of the gray roads that are in that map, and some of the green, because of, bead, will turn to blue. So, a lot of the stuff that just has cable now will have fiber at the end of of a bead build out. So it's a it's a huge amount of progress. What? What's the green again? I'm I'm looking at the eyelids. Oh, the green is cable.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Oh, okay. Cable. It

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: means that it has it means that it has 100 megabits per second down and 20 megabits per second. And then if it's gray, it has less than that. Generally, usually less than twenty five three.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: So the green, by definition, is a 100 down and 20 up? Correct. As a minimum?

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Yeah. It's a minimum. Blue is five. And the blue is all 100 symmetrical. And the pink will be I mean, not just 100 symmetrical. Almost all of these are gig and two gig systems, so it's 2,000 megabytes per second symmetric. I'm just curious. Are you now that I know Viper is a big issue for data centers, and we've heard about a bill to ban them over a 100 megawatt AI Not ban. Pause. Pause.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Whatever you wanna call it for the

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: next five years. We don't have any moving, by the way. But are you seeing any more interest from data centers? You know, your typical data center because of the fiber network that's being built out here? We are having conversations with University of Vermont Medical Center. A variety of folks that Ellie and I meet with as part of a consortium to work on what Vermont needs and what the future looks like and how we can work together with other states and the relationships that we've built with other education and research networks. So, that's part of the conversation. So, I wouldn't say that there's anything more than that from that perspective. I think in general, centers, there's a correlation between cost and electricity and where people want to put data centers. So in general, looking nationwide, it's not probably the most attractive site in the state for data centers in general. But things like edge data centers and high performance centers, that's colleges and universities, a bit of a different story.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And you know, just introduce yourself. I will. I'll come over where the candidates

[F.X. Flinn (Chair, EC Fiber)]: don't you. FX, Francese Adler Flynn, I'm the chair of the governing board of the East Central Vermont Telecommunications District, EC Fiber. So, even before we began to do this, Vermont did have a pretty good fiber backbone because Sobernet started to build it and personally took them over and kept building it out. So kind of the fiber infrastructure for doing data centers has been around for a while. And, yeah, the CODs really are primarily residential plays. It's gonna take us a while to build up to the point where we could do something like hospitals and more. So in the meanwhile, we do have providers like First Light that have had that in Vermont for a while.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Thanks for that.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Just looking at the map, for example, you take Northwestern Vermont, Northern Part Of Franklin County and virtually all of Grand Isle Of Green, and I assume that the commercial provider is really the one who is the internet provider for those areas. Do you have any thoughts of cable expansion into those areas?

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: I mean fiber expansion?

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Fiber expansion, yeah, mainly fiber. Well, can

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: give a general answer to that. So the funding that we received both under Act 71, 2021 from Vermont and then also the new federal funding, it requires, it's meant to be serving the areas that aren't served. Mhmm. And so that's why if you if there if there's cable, then typically, it wouldn't be built with the grant funding that CUDs have received. Having said that, every CUD so the first thing is to make sure that people who don't have access to what the US Treasury defines as broadband to get access to broadband. That's the first thing. And then the second thing is as CUD's, we are again, part of part of the idea here of standing up these independent municipal entities is to give us the the the independence and the and the financial ability to make business decisions to be able to serve the consumers in those areas. Mhmm. And so I think the general answer I mean, I don't want give a specific answer on behalf of that district, but the general answer is if the district believes there's a business case, it can choose to invest in this. That answers that question.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: I think the business case from my perspective is I have widely serviced, although I have cable by a commercial provider, and the provider appears to have absolutely built interest in improving the service. I'm paying for up to 800 MBS per second, and I rarely get 200. Two is a phrase that the industry uses that is utterly meaningless.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: And the prices are probably pretty high.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: And prices are too high, absolutely. Is another Which

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: another comment in general, is that it's great to make sure that everyone has access to broadband, and the next challenge is the affordability. And part of affordability is competition can keep prices in check. That's that's how the market should be operating. Do think that one of the things that we're gonna see from the broadband equity access and deployment funds that, you know, we're all hoping to hear about soon, is that there were addresses throughout the area. So, even if there was only five or six addresses along a road and there was a bunch of served addresses along the road, those were still bid for and many of them are going to be served with a fiber provider as a result of that. So, I think that at the end of the feed era, you're gonna see virtually all of that green turn blue. In most cases, from Phytium, but in some cases from Comcast. So both Phytium and Comcast were also

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Phytium is is sort of spotty in terms of where it's located at least at this point. Maybe there are lots of further expansion, but you're looking at them rather than at fiber for areas like that.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: So Phytium is only building up fiber at this point in time. Yeah. Yeah. And so it just depends on whether the CUD does the build up or whether the private provider does the build up. It really has to do with the motivation that the provider has and the funding availability and decision making process of the CUD. And that's another great point that if you look at this map, we've said about 2,500 miles of new fiber had been funded to buy funding under at 71. But if you look at all the blue on the map, that's more than 2,500 miles. Mhmm. And so the CUDs, having received funding and starting started their builds, actually prompted private providers to build in areas with business cases where strong first people get there first and to prevent CUDs from, you know, going in there and being second to market. So it's it's logical, but I think that the the funding had the intended effects. And as a result of that, Vermont is getting closer to universal service faster than would have been the case otherwise. So, we just really wanted to give a shout out, because you are really who made this happen through the formation of the CUDs, for the formation of the Vermont Community Broadband Board, the investment of the ARPA funds, the merger legislation, which brought together CB Fiber and NEK Broadband, and has been beneficial for both of us. Together, our district has gone over 10,000 passings. We've built 1,200 miles. We've got 2,000 customers. We just made a really, you know, big indent in that area. And then the match funding to enable the CUDs to compete and be, that's the $30,000,000 that enabled us to, we've used it for our reconnect, USDA reconnect grant to match that. We've used it for our US community connect grant. So, are bringing tens of millions of dollars in, but we were also, we, all of the CODs, were able to also use it to compete for Bead, to bring the Bead money in, and so that has enabled some large investments there. So we just, it's just a major thank you because you you are the folks that made this happen.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: When we started this, the money that the state moved for broadband expansion was whatever was left over in the universal service fund. Right. Which was usually it's a couple thousand dollars, and it allowed us to kind of offset the cost through the commercial provider to run it 10 more miles up the road, but we were basically had no money, and we have come a long way getting the initial these are not you have to have an initial capital investment. You gotta buy the cable and there's a you know, before you actually get anybody hooked up and they're actually paying money in, you got to the end and we still haven't really dealt with affordability. There is a significant cost as these folks significantly leveraged so that they can't really offer really low prices that some it would be all some families can afford, so we haven't made it possible for everyone to afford to sign up. And I doubt that we're gonna find that money this year either, but the feds have come and gone and

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Well, that's that's a great opening and something we can talk to directly. So so you mentioned the federal funds. So there was something called the the portable connectivity program, which is a $30 a month subsidy at all qualifying households. And so all the CDs in this room today, so any case, the Maple Broadband, and EC Fiber, we all grandfathered in the customers who qualified for that, and we've been self funding it since the funding went away in May 24. Yeah. So almost two years now. And, Krista has been, continuing to add new customers. And so as of today, we actually had the press releases of Maple Broadband. Our governing board voted to do the same thing, to take what we had and go through the process of being able to qualify new households and have that subsidy. And that is the Vermont Community Broadband Board has grant program that they announced last year. Many of us have won when the ground unfreezes, which is called the Affordable Long Drop Program, which covers the costs to connect the household to the road because there are some locations either they're very far from the road or they require buried service, and that cost is not something which CDs can take on. We need to get to the end of the road before we start, you know, subsidizing putting condiments under people's driveways. But it's if you we need to make sure that we're actually able to address these barriers to connecting houses and to be able to pay the ongoing fees. And so I think to your point, the problem is not solved, and part of what we're doing is to better understand what what is the impact and how much money is actually required to tackle this. But I think the other kind of political commentary here is that federal government can't fund it. The state of Vermont has lots of other priorities, but even small small ISPs, are CUDs, you know, we are investing in doing

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: this because we can, which let's leave that right there. Perfect. Just how much of the CMD's business is business business as opposed to individual households?

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: I think it probably depends on the area. I mean, a lot of so we actually sell the same product to businesses as to households. I mean, as as Beck said, it's a different thing to have an enterprise product that sells to a large business. So there's a lot of small businesses. And I would say for us, it's probably maybe in the range of 10%.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: The reason I raise it is, when we started this process many years ago, and I was here then, one of the things we certainly talked about was the importance of getting broadband so we didn't wind up with two Vermonts. A Vermont that was in the world of connectivity and a world that wasn't. And as far as being able to get new businesses into an area, to be able to get businesses to be able to be sustained as they grow, this is an absolutely essential element, and probably the most important element that we can think of right now in the notion of investment to ensure that it gets to where we want it to go, I think is absolutely critical to the economic nature of quality. Yep, and that was one of the driving forces.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: So affordability is one of our themes going forward, better understanding what's the need, how do we pay for it, how do we do it, how do we optimize it, but then also how do we maximize the use of this public infrastructure? Exactly to your point. I mean, it's great that it's there. We need to address understand and address all the barriers to getting people connected and keeping them connected. But then also we have this public infrastructure, and we have lots of nonprofits in the state. We have economic developments. And so what what does that actually mean, how do we work together? And then the the other plug that we wanted to put in is, there's obviously a lot of work on addressing the housing situation in Vermont. And so when new houses go up, it is so much cheaper and more efficient to put in the infrastructure to serve them with broadband as they're being built rather than after the fact. And so one of the things that we'd like to suggest is coordination between, in particular, new housing developments, which is even more expensive than if you miss a single family home, it's a lot less expensive than if you've missed a new property development that's going in. And so, require there to be some coordination between new buildings that go up or new property developments and the local CDs. There is one, or at the very least, local telephone companies, just to make sure that there's that awareness and that their passive infrastructure to connect with broadband is there, and that consumers have a choice as to who service provider they have. Yeah, both the buildings and the infrastructure that gets to those buildings, they're putting underground, look so much cheaper. Oh, yeah. Yep. And I think we've talked about a lot of this. So, we we have talked about the next round of federal funding and we we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but that needs, still needs to be approved by the NTIA, then by NIST, and then we need to get the grants for all the provisional winners and roll that out. But that's a four year period, and so it it'll happen, and it will take some time to get to the end of the road, but it's encouraging that we're almost there in terms of at least getting the funding, and then building becomes something that's obviously we've had some success in doing over the last couple of years. And so there, I guess the challenges are we've started to shift our own heads from how do we get to the end of the road to how do we what does it mean to connect the houses and then what do we do with it? So that's where we

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: are. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Thank you for all the work. Those of us that have been here for a while know how much of your work has

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: gone. Uh-huh.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: It's gratifying to see that blue change. It is. You

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: know? And I think, yeah, we ever really think we should see it, but we did. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Stay in touch. Well, you've been in state? Yeah. If you need something, know where to find it.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Well, vice versa. So as Vipuna, we're also here that if you guys ever have a question about how might broadband help this or what would be the impact on broadband, we are more than willing to be able to provide feedback as well if you guys ever have questions. And we collectively have the perspective throughout the state, right? Whether it's the three CUDs that use Phytium or the CUDs that use Weitzville Champlain, or or or, I mean, we have a

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: lot of perspectives, appreciate it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: You. Thank you. Of insurance. These guys are as great as captive insurance.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: This year it is to hear that you've done something, what? Want

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: you to know that we are probably gonna have some kind of a celebration at some point in the late spring, early summer, our network is finished. Yay. And and and and I like It's like a complete side with the twentieth anniversary of one of the first organized guys in their meetings and had grassroots crowd that made this all happen. Because it actually, for easy pie, but it really got started in 3006. Yeah. Forget how it works. It was like, it was nine years later, we realized, you know, we need to be a a district. Need a government. So, definitely we need to. Yeah, and in fact, if you do everything right, in 2027, we're gonna refinance that capital budget. About $35,000,000 worth, and get an investment grade rating, and drive our annual bond coverage down than it might happen when we have, we should be able to start cutting our prices at the end the day. Because right now, about $40 to $50 a month of our rates just goes to pay a bond. Yeah. Capital costs.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. That stuff is a big one starting out.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Thank you. You. See you then. Of you. Thanks for having us here.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Would you like me to admit,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Joan to the Yes, we are going on and we are already fine again. We are Educational with Service Agencies and Joan Wade and Joan is on. She is. Welcome, Joan, and this is Senate Finance. Just introduce yourself to the record so

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: we have a name to go with

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the voice, and then tell us

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: a little bit about your organization and anything you think you know.

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: Okay, thank you all very much for giving me some of your valuable time today. I am Joan Wade, the Executive Director of the Association of Educational Service Agency or AESA. AESA is a national association that organizations that you're talking about belong to. It's a voluntary national professional organization. Prior to having this role ten years ago, I served as the administrator of a CISA in Wisconsin for fifteen years and prior to that I was a member of the Wisconsin State Legislature and various education roles before coming to the legislature. So that's a little bit about my background. I have written testimony that I put into your record. I'm not going to read that to you because I know you're short on time today and I'm going to try to catch you up on that time. But I thought if it's okay with you, I really want to make this so you're getting your questions answered. AESA has just under 500 members, which are educational service agencies like CESAs and BOCES, as are members in 44 different states. So I thought that today I would talk to you about how those organizations are governed, what different kind of governance structures we see across country, how they're funded, the variety of ways that those organizations are funded. I know you're interested in a little bit about startup costs, so I'll try to answer those questions as they come up. And then I want to talk to you about services that educational service agencies provide. I do have a PowerPoint, but I almost think that it's going to be more valuable of your time if I talk about a section and then if you want to ask questions, I'm happy to answer your questions because I really want to make this a good use of your time and try to answer as many questions I can. How does that sound for kind of an agenda for the next thirty minutes or so?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That sounds fine. I'm not seeing any objection here.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Okay, it's your presentation. We don't know very much, so we're happy to learn. Okay,

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: well, I'm going to share with you what I can in the brief time that we have together. So, educational service agencies is what we refer to the ESAs when we're talking about their work across the country. They go by about 20 different names, CISAs, RESAs, BOCES, and a variety of other names. But what they do is very similar in that they serve a region of public schools in each state and they have a diverse portfolio of services. So they're not just serving special education needs or technology support, but they do whatever the local districts need them to do. And typically they'll work hand in glove with the State Department of Ed. So as the legislature or the or the State Department of Ed have initiatives that they want to roll out statewide, these organizations are in the region to help school districts implement those equitably across the state. So it's not a new concept. Educational service agencies have been around American public education for, some as early as the early 1900s. Most of them came to fruition in 1950s and 1960s, and over time they really became the organization that the State Department of Ed and state legislatures relied on to bring equitable services across the country. So there's about four different governance models that these organizations follow. And it really depends on the context of the state. But let me give you an example of what those are. So, the governance models in some states are made up of the school administrators, superintendents, in that region. So if there's 10 school districts in that region, there might be 10 school superintendents that serve on the governing board for the for the region for the CISA. Local school board members are also a second avenue that some states use as the governing board. Those local school board members are either appointed or elected to represent their district at the regional level. And then there are some states that opt for mixed boards. They combine superintendents and school board members, and get those appointed by statutes, on a rotating basis to the regional board. And the fourth most common type of board are publicly elected boards that are voted on by citizens and serve within the region. Each model, I would tell you, has trade offs. Superintendent led boards are often emphasizing operational alignment with the school districts and being responsive to those district needs. So that's kind of a nice avenue. Even in states where the school superintendents do not make up the board, they have regular monthly meetings with their CISA to make sure that the CISA is meeting the needs that they have. And it's a really good professional learning opportunity for those school superintendents. That second board that I talked about with local school board members, oftentimes they really rely on district bringing district priorities to their board meetings on a monthly basis, and they do represent the communities really well from across the state. Those publicly elected boards are really good about public accountability, but sometimes there's additional cost to those elections and gets to be a little complicated because sometimes those elections can be partisan rather than nonpartisan. And I always push people, especially when they're thinking about designing these new organizations to think about making these as nonpartisan as possible. I always say that K-twelve education really should be a nonpartisan thing and I know in some states that's easier said than done. The second thing about governance, distinction between the states is whether district participation in a certain ESA is voluntary or it's mandatory. And so in some states in this statute, they will assign districts to be in a certain CISA and they can't get services outside of that region. That's really a mandatory participation. You're telling the districts where they can get services from and what ESA they are connected to. Some states are totally voluntary in that, the school districts can pick and choose which CISA they belong to, or they can buy services from some CISAs, but be a member of another CISA. So it's more of a voluntary model of how school districts participate in that region. What's really consistent across all those models is that they're really that ceases are structured to support the K-twelve school system, not to dictate, not to tell them what to do, but really to support their district operations. So let's switch to funding. How are they funded? So across the country, really see three common models and one kind of unique model. So the common model is state funded baseline. So the state will provide funding to the ESA either from GPR dollars, general purpose revenue, or through the State Department of Ed to do certain initiatives that the State Department wants them to do. That is more of a state funded, the state tells you what to do and they provide the money for you to do it with. The second funding model we see a lot of is entrepreneurial or fee for service. And that's when districts will go to the CISA and they'll purchase the services that they need. And the CISA has a way to develop those services, find those services by partnering with other organizations and so on. What's become it used to be years ago, twenty years ago, twenty five years ago, it was very common for states to fund their ESAs. That's very much not the case anymore. We see a lot of hybrid models, so that's your third type. So state funded, fee for service or hybrid, and the hybrid is typically what we see the most of across the country. That's when there's some state funding provided by the State Department of Ed or the state legislature to roll initiatives that they want to see done equitably across all the school districts in the state. And they also have some fee based services. So the school districts might get together much like what's happening with your BOCES and say, hey, we can't find enough speech and language pathologists in our special ed department for our school. Can you BOCES or CISA hire someone and then have them work part time in different districts and run that contract through us cooperatively. So that is an example of a fee for service. The districts have a need, the CISA can help with that need, and then they cooperate on how they purchase those services. The last funding model that we see across the country is when an ESA has taxing authority. So there's only one state that I'm aware of in the country that gives ESAs that authority to levy a local property tax, and that's in the state of Michigan. And Michigan has 59 different ESAs, educational service agencies, but they also have their own taxing authority and they get state funds to do statewide projects equitably across the state. But again, I would tell you that for the most part, our members do a lot of fee for service and a lot of some, not a lot anymore, but some money coming from the state to support their work. All right, I've talked to you about governance and I've talked to you about funding. What about those startup costs? What do we have to think about when you're starting up new organizations? Once you've made the decision on are these going to be CISAs where they have set boundaries and school districts belong to a certain CISA or can they be shared services where they get it, they have a member in one CISA but they could purchase services outside that CISA and you decide how you're going to fund them. Is the state going to help them with funding, especially startup funds? And I wish there was a black and white answer for you, but of course I can't make it that easy so I'm going to tell you it depends. It really depends on what your expectations are for those organizations. So ESAs or CESAs are often misunderstood I would say as creating new administrative layers or bureaucracies for schools. But in practice, they are typically funded by reallocating existing expenditures and consolidating duplicated functions such as a special ed administrator that can be shared between districts or deaf and hard of hearing teacher that can be shared between districts. That is much more efficient and effective than trying to have one per district. The startup costs for these organizations really are going to depend on what it is you want them to do. They tend to be modest because an ESA when they're starting can coexist in an existing facility, so you don't need to build a new building. Although I'm sure they would like it if you did, but they can coexist within a K-twelve school district and share some office space. Or sometimes we've seen it where they've coexisted in higher education institution where they have room to house these organizations until they really get their services going and their staffing going. Then oftentimes they will expand into a larger space. But coexisting in shared office space is a lot of times what happens to get them off the ground at a cost effective way. There's

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: also a lot

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: of times when districts are collaborating together through a CISA that they will, you won't have to go out and look for new staff, but you can repurpose staff that's now assigned to a district that now can work across district boundaries with other districts. So to me, over the long term, consistently have found that ESA is really reduced costs through cooperative purchasing, through shared staffing for specialized positions, through reduced administrative duplication and for improved grant acquisitions. So a lot of times our members will have grant writers and go out to find grants that for schools that want to do something that's maybe not typical but important for the students in their area. So the scope of the services that our members provide really vary. Almost everybody does special ed services that is a member of AES. That's really quite common. They include low incidence and high cost supports for students that are there's not many of these students in a district, but it allows districts to meet those legal and instructional obligations without duplicating expensive positions. So I think I've already mentioned it, but when you think about speech and language pathologist or instruct in teachers for the deaf and hard of hearing or visually impaired students, they're really hard to find and there's not in each district. There's usually not enough students that needs a full time teacher but can be shared through the special ed services. A lot of ESAs also run the special ed programs and the Medicaid reimbursement programs for the districts that are in their region. Professional development instructional coaching is another support mechanism that our members will often do to help with the implementation of state standards and state initiatives. They do a lot of work around technology infrastructure, helping with cybersecurity, helping with data systems to reduce risk and improve system reliability especially in rural schools. There are some of our members that will do what I call back office services. So they'll be the HR for districts. They'll help they'll do payroll financial services freeing those district leaders up to focus on student learning and not the the business office functions that can be done especially for small schools and rural schools collaboratively. There's many of our districts that often have cooperative purchasing contracts and there are some national cooperative purchasing organizations that help lower the cost of buying supplies for schools, buying new roofs, athletic things, and our members help districts with those cooperative purchasing ventures. It also helps a lot with compliance and reporting and accountability reporting both to the state level and to the federal level. And a lot of the times the CSAs are the one to help with that student information systems and getting that data reported accurately. Our members often are the have crisis response teams that will go into districts when there's some kind of a crisis that they need to manage during an emergency. They also now do a lot of coordinating of mental health services for students and for staff, especially again, I keep saying this, but in rural parts of states where there aren't a lot of mental health supports, our members are able to bring that to the schools and make that a reliable service for kids. CTE Career Pathways is another area where CISAs often find themselves helping K-twelve school districts. So I want to I want to give you just a couple of examples of services in selected states. So it maybe will help you understand better the level of support that school districts can get from these types of organizations. One example is in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, the CISAs, which are Cooperative Educational Service agencies, provide a lot of special education shared staff. They provide instructional support and business services to districts statewide. Some of the CISA supply library and media specialists to be shared between school districts. Again, hard to find people to fill those positions. So when you can cooperate, that's a lot better through their cooperative purchasing program. CISA's have been able to set help school districts save substantial amount of money on their operations. And some reports are up to $50,000,000 have been saved in Wisconsin in a year on some of their health insurance pools, some of their cooperative purchasing programs, and so on. In Iowa they find the called AEA's Area Education Agencies and they are really strong delivering regional special ed leadership, instructional media services. So they have online streaming services for schools so that each school doesn't have to buy their own. They buy them regionally and they have professional development that the AEA's coordinate. They do also have a large scale cooperative purchasing program and districts report that they save 20 to 25% a year on commonly purchased instructional and operational items through the cooperative purchasing program in Iowa. In Pennsylvania, they're called intermediate units and they operate regional special Ed programs. They operate professional development for teachers and educational leaders. They do compliance services. They help districts apply for E rate funding for their technology programs and and particularly with smaller ones. They really smaller school districts. They really help with the federal and state requirements without duplicating those again specialized staff to do that work. In Texas, there's 20 ESCs. This is the last example I'll give you, and again statewide professional development that makes it consistency across the 1,400 districts in Texas. Through those ESCs, they do technology integration. They do data system support. They implement assistance for statewide initiatives. And they really are supportive of both urban and rural districts. So when I talk about these organizations, while I keep saying how valuable they are to rural and small school districts, That I would say is definitely their sweet spot. They are a lifeline to small and rural districts, but there are also a lot of ESAs that are located in urban and suburban areas. So Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Milwaukee, all have ESAs that are located in the urban area and works with the school system in that urban and suburban areas. So while I think the sweet spot is the small rural schools, it's definitely not the only one. One of the most significant benefits of ESAs is their impact on sustainability. ESAs across the country do not have the authority to close schools or to make decisions about district consolidation. However, I think they often play a critical role in helping schools remain viable by reducing that district administrative burden through shared leadership and business services. They often share specialized staff across districts. They support compliance. They lower the operating costs through those purchasing programs. And there have been national studies and state examples that consistently show that ESAs improve efficiency while expanding access to services for all kids. In multiple states, there have been documented state savings from cooperative purchasing program that I've mentioned, and I'm happy to put you in contact with those states and those state leaders so you can get some of that data directly from them. But just as importantly, while our members do not run schools, they often will have, they don't run public schools, but they in some states they do run alternative placement programs for students that are not being successful in the local school district. The cooperative, the Educational Service Agency will bring together a school that several participate in sending kids to that school where they can find success because they have a lot of support. Some states also allow the ESAs to run magnet schools in the state of Connecticut. In Mystic, Connecticut, run a magnet schools around. A naval base where they have a lot of sea. I can't remember the name of it right off top of my head and I had it, but I can't remember it right now. But it is chartered really to be a school for kids to come to and learn all about fishing and the fishing industry. There are some states that allow the ESAs to author be charter school authorizers. Most states don't allow that and most states don't allow them to run schools other than alternative schools. That's pretty common for our members. So I think as I'm just going to wrap up here by saying that the governance structures that you develop, I think really need to really need to reflect Vermont size, your geography, your traditional governance models. What makes sense for you might not make sense for another state. Funding models should balance equity for students across the state with local flexibility. So you want to have it set up so the state can run statewide initiatives through these organizations and get it equitably distributed to all kids across your state, but yet have enough local flexibility. So when schools are working with their CISA and they need a service that the state hasn't necessarily thought of, like sharing a teacher or sharing a library media specialist, they can cooperate through this organization to contract for that service together. I think that phasing in an implementation is really wise. So I think it's really wise that you started out with a voluntary BOCES I'm assuming that you're watching that, we're watching that, we're supporting that BOCES as much as we can so that they can find success with their school districts. That's a great place to pilot. How is this going to go? How are the schools going to work together? What do they need that they don't have? As you continue to start implementing or think about implementing, how do we do this more formally in a statewide basis? I think that the ESAs are really an important part of the educational landscape and in the majority of states they really do improve efficiency, equity and capacity for the public school systems. And while there are no two states that implement ESAs in exact the same way, I wish I had a model that I could say do this, but it really has to meet your local context. The national experiment, though, with ESAs really demonstrates that these agencies help states stretch your limited resources, especially your limited dollars to support those rural communities and you strengthen the local school districts. So I took more time than I wanted to, but I am happy to answer questions as you may have them.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay, Ruth, I'm watching the clock because we have Michael Brady coming in next.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Think Michael's here.

[Sen. Anne Watson]: Thank you, madam chair.

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: Joan, thank you so much for this presentation.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: This is really helpful and I just also want to know I worked in Wisconsin for the Legislative Fiscal Bureau and Bob Lang in the late 1990s.

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: Oh, you are so lucky. Yes, you're

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: in the legislature and Bob is one of my mentors, an amazing, amazing human being. And I worked very closely with your husband, Blue Moon. You did. Yes. So please, please, please tell him I said hello. I still have thank you notes that you wrote me for the work that we did together.

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: Oh my gosh. That is for those of

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I was like, oh my gosh.

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: Yeah, I was there in and out pretty quickly. Three and a half years, I want to get back in education, but my husband was in the legislature for twenty six years and of those twenty six years, many many years on the, committee of joint finance committee, the House and Senate. So, oh you, that's fabulous.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: He was, he was a warrior for public education, rural public education, and it was just such a pleasure to work with him. Please tell me hello.

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: I just refer you to one thing that I didn't, I forgot, I failed to mention, but in the documents that I sent is a state by state report that we put together a few years ago, and in here you will find every state listed, if they have ESAs, what they're called, how they're governed, structured. I think that might be really helpful in your deliberations.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: And does that have information, because what I'm interested in is information on how CESAs or whatever you call them, I call them CESAs because of that's what I learned was how they are able to save money. You gave some great examples, but is there more detail in that report?

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: No, they're really, they are, it does talk about how each state funds their ESAs, but it and what they're called and how they're statute, but it doesn't really say how much money they save. And that's really a state by state thing. And I'm happy to do some of that research for you and with you if you want to reach back out with any one of you that are on this committee, there's really valuable information out there from our members that I could send your way if you want to see what those efficiencies are.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: That would be great. I can connect with you separately and try to get that information. So I believe our committee assistant must have your contact information.

[Sen. Anne Watson]: Absolutely. Great.

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: You so much, Joan. Great to see you. Thank you. Nice to see you too. Thanks for having me everyone and and apologies for the time. It just went so fast.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Thank you. This has been helpful.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Good.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Apologize. We are on a tight schedule. So thank you very much.

[Joan Wade (Executive Director, AESA)]: You're welcome. Have a good day, everyone.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You too. Bye bye. Sender Watson right up there. Sure thing. Perfect timing. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson]: Hello. Good afternoon.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You are here on 02/18.

[Sen. Anne Watson]: Yes. 2 '18, the Salt Bill. So, at least two of your members are already familiar with this. It's their inside of Natural Resources and Energy. So this was a bill that started its journey last year and started it early because we knew it would have a long path and ended up with perhaps a very curious path, but it had relevance to both the transportation committees as well as judiciary. The premise of the bill, is it useful if I talk about what the bill does? So I was gonna walk us through it. Yes. Fair enough. So, as we're all very familiar, we need to be assaulting our roads in order to reduce the risk of slip and fall accidents to keep our roads safe, that sort of thing. And as the premise goes, if a little bit is sufficient, then a lot is better. That means that there is pressure on salt allocators to over salt potentially their services that they're responsible for, ideally in order to prevent slipping fall accidents from happening. Now, the question comes up, what is a sufficient amount of salt that would be adequate for a surface? And as I understand it, there's not necessarily great training out there that exists to understand what that is, but the state has their own standards for salt spreading in own fleets for their projects. And so what this Well, actually, I get to that, it's also worth mentioning that as we continually spread salt on roads and parking lots, sidewalks, that that salt inevitably gets into the soil, gets into our waterways, and we're starting to see some pretty serious negative impacts to the, particularly some waterways around the state of Vermont. Are you familiar with the idea of TMDLs, total maximum daily loads, particularly for phosphorus? So, there is an equivalent kind of program, a TMDL, not for phosphorus, but for chloride contamination. And if you were to have too much chloride, if you reach a certain threshold, if you're beyond that, then you to enter into a, you need to have a total maximum daily load for chloride. And that is potentially very costly. But it really is to preserve the of our or the cleanliness of our waters, the integrity of our waters, to protect the aquatic biota that's there. But in addition, in some places where we're seeing a lot of salt, it is starting to get its people's drinking water even, which is also particularly scary. So, this bill proposes a system that is not new, actually. It is modeled after a system that New Hampshire does. It's called the Green Snow Pro program that offers training to private salt applicators, and if it's voluntary, that's key. Lots of highlights there, Voluntary. And if they participate in that program and are able to learn about the best management practices, and then after that program, if they keep sufficient records of their application, that they would enjoy some liability protection in terms of if slip and fall accidents happen on the services that they were responsible for. And there was discussion in judiciary about what that ought to look like. We ended up with something called an affirmative defense, which I will defer to you, Senator Mattos, to explain as an affirmative judiciary. Fair enough. Or arguably, you know, our legislative council could probably explain that better as well. Yeah. But it's better than myself, Melissa. But the idea here is that that helps to reduce the pressure on salt applicators to over salt surfaces. Let's try to salt to a sufficient level. And there just, I mentioned the total maximum daily load difficulty. There are some places in Vermont that already have TMDLs for salt. They are mostly in Chittenden County, but we had data in Natural Resources that the rates of chloride contamination in waterways is increasing basically on every body of water in the state of Vermont, unfortunately, at this point. So, hope here is to have an ounce of prevention. So, that's the idea. The reason I believe it is here is because Section five includes a fee report. The model in New Hampshire is either entirely oh no, I think it is. That program is funded through the fees that they collect through training program. And so, the vision for this is that this program would either entirely or at least largely be paid for similarly by the fees from the program. And that is why it was here. Any questions I can answer for you at this point?

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Can I make a quick comment? Senator Brock and I both serve on the Citizens Advisory Council for the Lake Chittenden future, and salt comes up a lot. And Carina Daily shared a one pager on fluoride and salt with us not too long ago and it's part of our strategic plan for the coming year and it's so I'm really thrilled to be with this legislation. Okay. Super. Thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Super. Thank you. Michael, you wanna walk us through this? You can do the 2,000 foot. It's rarely got a zero in our knees. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: That's what we do.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Is Michael Grady with the council. Do you want it on the screen or do you want it?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The screen's probably good because if anybody's watching, people in the audience can see it.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, there we go. So I think senator will just make a great consolation. Senator Watson does a pretty good job of providing context in the spirit of doing a 10,000 foot overview and then zeroing in on the fee. I will move pretty quickly through the bill.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The bill we have says s introduced. It hasn't been Well, one of

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: the things I was gonna gonna summarize it is this kind of unusual history of this bill. It was introduced as s 29. It went to house judiciary. There was debate on it there. At the same time in the house, the house was looking at a version of it. S 29 went over there, came back. When it came back, it was put on h three nineteen. A miscellaneous environmental subject's ill from out of the Senate Natural. When a three nineteen came out of Senate Natural, One of your colleagues tried to put a wetlands amendment on it, went to the floor, came off the floor, went back to committee, got divvied up and sent to different bills, and this component did not go forward as part of the three nineteen or as part of the reallocation of the components of three nineteen.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So this is a new bill?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: New bill. Same substance as what was gonna come out of Central Natural Resources as part of s 29 slash h three nineteen last year. So no need for a

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: lot of amendment because they had worked through most of those issues. It was. Sounded like it had been through several committees, and it's rare

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: to get something this new and different that hasn't been amended somewhere by the time they can see it, that explains that the amendments happened before it be made.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: On two different bills.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: In two different bills. Okay. So this one should be just help over.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So as senator Watson said, the purpose of the bill is to provide for state conditions for application of chloride and chloride alternatives so that there's safe travel for cars and for veteran while also improving the water quality of the state. As senator Watson said, the state is required to go out every three years and identify waters or segments of waters that are impaired due to a pollutant, and chloride is is a pollutant that impairs water, so it prevents things like aquatic viola, aquatic habitat, and at times, recreation. So what do you do when there's an impairment? You come up with a plan. Well, what is the plan for salt? Stop putting salt into the water. And how how do you do that? And this is, the first step. It's the voluntary approach. Do it voluntarily so you don't have to have mandatory provisions such as you need certain type of equipment if you're gonna be operating in Colchester. You need to provide reports if you're operating in an impaired watershed. So to avoid those types of mandates, this is a voluntary program to hopefully address the issue without going to the mandates of a

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: full TMDL. So you

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Just real quick. I was thinking about salt alternative, and it just hit me. What about salt sand mix?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: That is still considered salt for the purposes of this program because it has the salt is pretty much every variation of chloride you can think of, and salt alternatives of every variation that's not chloride that's used for de icing and or dust suppression.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: So that would fall under here? Yes. Would it be able to be used in different rates? Because usually the stuff I get is, like, 10% That's

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: that's a great question. It's gonna be part of the BMPs. Like, what rates and what alternatives can you use when you can use different alternatives to achieve the same safety while improving or or not posing the same risk to water quality. So we get this creation of this new program at ANR, it's Chloride Intamination Reduction Program. Applying salt is what you think it is. Commercial salt applicator is a person who for compensation applies salt for salt alternatives. It's not municipal or state employees. As Senator Watson noted, AOT already has their own practices. And we'll we'll talk about municipalities later in the bill. Master commercial salt applicator is someone who can train individuals within their organization. Salt every variation of fluoride used for de icing or dust control, salt alternative thing that's not chloride used for de icing or anti icing or dust control. Transportation infrastructure construction projects, you probably know what this is better than us. Some of you are in transportation, but it's a project that involves construction of roadways, parking lots, or sidewalks, or other camp construction activities, but transportation facilities are within transportation. Right? Why is this in here? Because this is going to be exempt from the BMPs. Because when you're doing this project, you need to do certain applications, certain types of management that will be outside of the BMPs because you have schedules, you have timelines, you have equipment moving in, etcetera. And so you need to have an allowance for that type of activity. So you get to the program, ANR after consultation with AOT and other states, it's more than just New Hampshire that's doing this, shall establish the program for voluntary education, training and certification of commercial salt applicators regarding effective application to provide for pedestrian motor vehicle safety while also reducing the water quality. As part of the program, they adopt by rule best management practices. Right? So best management practices are rules. So if you voluntarily become part of the program, the rules become part of your certification, but it's still a voluntary program. Those practices will, address measures or techniques to increase efficiency and application of salt or salt alternatives so that the least amount of salt or salt alternatives as you go on maintaining safe conditions. Established standards for when and how salt alternatives are applied in order to prevent them from entering the waters of the state, including the alternatives that are cost effective and less harmful while maintaining safe conditions, whether and how to implement the equipment, calibrate the equipments, etcetera, and when sand is appropriate, alternative to salt or salt alternatives for deicing or industrial. There's gonna be recordkeeping requirements. It's gonna be important part of the certification, models for recordkeeping requirements, requirements for certification, a testing requirement, and other requirements that the secretary deems necessary for the program. The program offers the training. Again, voluntary. They offer the training to commercial. If you don't wanna do it, you don't have to do it. Upon completion of training, the applicator shall be designated as certified commercial sought applicator. The term of the certification is two years. The business that employs that master can have that master train the persons in their their organization. They have to submit an annual summary of total winter salt usage. It's just salt usage. It's not salt salt alternatives here because salt is the issue. Chloride is the issue. The secretary may revoke certification for for violating the BMPs or the other requirements of the chapter. And then the program specifically excludes salt applications related to transportation infrastructure construction projects. It also does not apply to state agency staff. So that is that is AOT has their own construction, transportation infrastructure projects, still get to use the soft and salt alternatives that they need in order for construction. Then you come to the legal benefit that the certified salt applicator will receive when they can complete certification. So when they complete certification, they shall have an affirmative defense, not just them, but their the owner, occupant, or lessee of the real property that they maintain against a claim for damages resulting from a hazard caused by snow or ice. The claim damages were caused solely by snow or ice and any failure or delay removing the or mitigating the hazard as a result of implementing the BMPs. So what is an affirmative defense? When this bill started out in its original s 29 iteration last year, it said that the the the applicator shall not be liable, period. Wasn't a defense. It was they shall not be liable. And that's a concern to certain persons who represent injured parties because that's a stoppage on your access to the courts. We're an affirmative defense. It shifts the burden to the the person who's being sued to show, hey. I deserve not to be liable. It's not that I'm just not liable. I deserve not to be liable. So the the plaintiff can still bring the claim, but this commercial applicator or their property maintained property owner gets to say, hey. We did what we were supposed to do. And because we proved that, we are not liable. That's what an affirmative defense is. And it was I'm not gonna characterize the defend the trial attorney bar, but I don't think they will oppose. But that affirmative defense does not apply if the civil damages are due to gross negligence or reckless disregard of the hazard. So if you are just totally disregarding your duty or you're totally disregarding the hazard, then you don't get the affirmative defense. So that gives that plaintiff the opportunity to say, hey. Yes. You were doing the BMPs, but you were implementing them in a grossly negligent way. So still access to the court, remedy for the plaintiff. In order to assert this affirmative defense, the certified applicator needs to keep records when they apply, where they apply, rates that they apply. Some some applicators will have the equipment already in their trucks. Senator Watson referenced New Hampshire. They had a test case there. The company there had all the GPS and all the measuring and monitoring equipment. They easily refuted the plaintiff's claim, and they showed that the plaintiff wasn't even hurt by the parking lot but by the sidewalk grass. And and but you don't need that equipment. Remember, A and R is gonna create a a document, a model for how we do your recording so that you will be able to to take advantage of this program without having to significantly inadequate. And still,

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: if you don't wanna do it,

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: you don't if you need to. So there's also an enforcement provision, water quality issues, applying anything going into water raises water quality issues. If you're certified and you're compliant with the BMPs, you're presumed not to be causing a water quality issue. So that's another benefit, legal benefit that the certified applicator receives. Then there's education and outreach via the program. They, will inform commercial applicators of the existence of the program and the affirmative defenses inform the public of how salt and salt alternatives should be used and how that they can have a harm to not just water quality, but that's in wildlife. Then come to a section which there has been some little misperception of. There was at one point in the evolution of this bill a requirement that municipal salt and sand storage facilities cover the facilities by a certain date, there is no longer that requirement. This is not a requirement. This is a report from ANR to you, the General Assembly, regarding management of state and municipal facilities for storage, and they report what facilities are out there. An estimate of the number of facilities that are currently covered, an estimate of the number that are not covered and within a 100 yards of a water or drinking water source, an estimate of number of facilities that are not covered and are more than a 100 yards from them. And then and then an estimate of the total cost to cover or remove those facilities, including a proposed annual amount of plumbing that would be required to meet timelines for covering for movement. Now EPA tried to do the cover requirement years ago, like, maybe almost almost fifteen, twenty years ago now. There was, like, a national revolt among municipalities because there was no money involved. Money is the key part of how you cover these facilities, and you can talk to senator Washington about that. He'll tell you something.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Got you to feel like manure pits.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's it's not like manure pits because because the the farmer has that requirement. Right?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: But this I mean, it's move it, who pays to move it, cover it, don't cover it.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Didn't we talk about covering salt last year?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's part of this part of

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: This bill came for this variant of this bill came through this committee.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Last last last That's why it's okay.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Now section four, remember, the commercial applicators, it doesn't apply to state or municipal, but there's another section that gives municipal applicators the same affirmative defense if they go through the annual yearly Vermont Local Roads training, and it has that component about application of the best management practices. So municipal sought applicators, they will get that affirm it's not it's not the type of liability protection that they are looking for. You probably heard from the league about what they are looking for, but it's the same affirmative defense that the commercial applicator would get for completion of the training program.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Don't don't tell me. State snow plow driver? I was on judiciary so many years ago, and it was sovereign immunity. Just I thought local if I'm the town and I'm putting down salt and I slide into the car in front of me, doesn't somebody in sovereign state. Right?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So I I made this mistake last year of saying that the municipalities really had sovereign immunity and should not be worried about the liability, and they very clearly told me that I didn't know what I was talking about. It's like the municipality municipality has sovereign immunity, but the employee can't be sued, and the municipality has to represent that employee, and they are engaged when the liabilities grow their scope of their their duty, their employment duty. So it effectively places the municipality into an area where they don't have sovereign immunity.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Right. They are getting sued, their employees get them.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. But then they have to represent and think on that potential liability. And so was schooled last year because I thought the same as you, Chair, but

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: it it was I was clearly, redirecting you.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So then we come to those sections why you were here or why I am here. The secretary solicits interest from third party vendors for training and certifying the commercial applicator. There is an option for ANR to do this through their own staff or through do it through contractors. New Hampshire started with the contractor, then moved to its own staff, paid for it with a fee. In Wisconsin, they kind of do it depending on where you are, you know, more rural agency staff won't necessarily get there. There's a lot of remote that's done. So this is, they solicit interest from those third party vendors for training and certifying the SALT applicators, and then they recommend to you, the general assembly, including the committee specifically, to be charged either by the state or by a third party vendor for the certification of the commercial salt applicators. Any fee that's going to be charged has to be approved by the general assembly. There It wasn't

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: doesn't even set a fee, it just says that if there is a fee, we will

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: They're gonna recommend the fee, and then if you wanna apply the fee, you have to approve the fee. And that's in there specifically because when exempted raise the needs the first time, you gave AR the ability to allow the the contractor to charge a fee and ways and means that we're

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: the ones that that approve fees, and so it has to come through the general sense. Okay. And

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: then the last contingent implementation funding, any new program that you're seeing where the appropriation is not already in the budget or in some line item has this clause and or will not be required to implement any of the requirements of this if it does not receive sufficient funding. Yeah. It takes effect on passage. James has a fiscal note up. Well, I don't actually see it on the he has a fiscal note.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Okay.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: I think I did just post that. Pardon? I think I did just post that.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's in there. Refreshed. Okay.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. There it is. And, you know, because of

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: it's

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: going back to the previous iterations of the bill, it started out with a $150,000 appropriation that was stripped, then it was a $125,000 appropriation that was stripped. Then it was a $250,000 appropriation for the contractor and a 150 for staff person at A and R. That is all stripped. So you see James is talking or addressing what those estimates are. 350 will be necessary for program implementation, a one time $200,000 per contract service, a 150 per per one permanent classified position, and that's if it would be funded, it's implemented. And so that's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: But does the bill call for funding through fees?

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, report, remember, is when you solicit from third party vendors, they find out what the cost would be, they find out what fee would be,

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: and

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: then they recommend that fee to you. So you're gonna I can't

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the to tell us how much the patient pee.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And whether or not that pee can be for the. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is different. Usually, counselors with a fee.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: I mean, I don't mind refer the bill here. I would

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: refer them to the government, and so that would be fine with me. But

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Are many questions.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We've got some more testimony. I don't know that needs to be it's side by, you know, walk through, but we will take some more testimony. And if anybody knows anybody that what was this wants to know.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: And then this might be what we can move it.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Yeah. Mean, think we actually had this bill last year here already. Yeah. Was done. Natural Resources Committee has done twice. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's already been passed in both bodies. You've you've missed the yeah. Yeah. The long tail of its trips.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: No. I've been there for

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the whole time. I did not.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: It usually doesn't say anything. Yes. I'll report to, and can that be clarified? What

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: it does is prevent

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: No, I heard that what it does.

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: Yeah. If we get to the point where our rivers have under a TMDL, that would be way more expensive than doing a voluntary

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: I was wondering if when, you know, JFO look at it. Is that they look at what it costs, but should anybody look at what does it potentially save or is that quantifiable?

[Christa Shute (Executive Director, NEK-CV Communications District)]: I don't, I mean, I can't speak for JFO but they don't usually do that kind of analysis or put it in their fiscal note about like future savings.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Senate Finance)]: We should ask our citizens advisory groups what they've done

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: some modeling. Yeah. Committee, we we are in position to have a ten minute break. Wow. We're not used to that. So have you got any questions? Thanks, Michael. Thank you.

[Michael O’Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Have a good one.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. We would our next witness