Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We're alive. We are alive. No. Okay. But, anyway, this was our first Friday to start at 01:00, and the floor went till 12:30. I haven't done agenda planning yet because I had Velco waiting to talk to me at 12:30. So but I wanted to talk a little bit about February, which is that taxes on higher income earners, and that was the whole what was it called? It was yeah. It was whatever was higher, your adjusted gross income, it's a 3.8 for incomes over 200,000, and it was set up in '13 to help fund the Affordable Care Act. And that's the federal tax. I think the 200,000 may need to be adjusted because those are $20.13 dollars, not $20.26 or $7.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: This is the investment portion.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: This was the investment portion. Wait, what are we talking about? This is Tonniesville Two Eighty Two. February. Right. So there's a couple of the concerns I picked up from the tax. The thresholds are different, federal and state, and that could cause heartburn trying to administer. So I'm trying to, you know, we'll have a discussion on that. I'm gonna see if I can get somebody from the CPAs in to talk about it.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: And then perhaps a counter from something like a tax on the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, I've I've I've got the chamber. I thought we talked to to see if they thought anything. And it's the super social responsibility, then I'd like to tighten up on the numbers. This seemed to be one that wasn't clear how much we'd actually make, but I want you to check up on that and then check back because that's one that we still haven't, we haven't finished. Well, nobody would go right if you had special funding for school construction. Right? That's what the bill proposed. And his supplemental is helpful. $2.82 the revenue goes to school construction. I'm sorry. That's correct. Yes. $2.82. Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Just like the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: just like mine, which is 2.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: What's yours? Making that more expensive to stay here? And I hope that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's Yes. That's That's right. The rooms and the

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: meals.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. To go again, fix our school building that are crumbling, including one of your at least one of

[Sen. Randy Brock]: your history. Which district? For my sorry.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It just goes into the bill that was defined in Act 73. That was like 20 pages, which the committee of conference was flipped over because nobody was changing anything even when we found any money in going there. Alright. Like, new computer works.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: That's nice. So One question. And as as we look at two eighty two, part of your committee's concern started out. It's something that we wouldn't even consider at all. I do. I mean, in terms of regarding the committee, essentially, they have made up its mind that it's gonna vote against it. Why do we spend the time? Why would we spend the time? I don't know if that's the case at all.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You might change your mind with the fact.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Let me say very unlikely.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Unlikely. Well,

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Well, mean, I know we have among the highest income tax rates in the nation. We have a situation in which we desperately need wealthy people because that's who pays the lion's share of the money, and this is the kind of measure that will drive them away rather than causing more of them to move here. And that to me is a powerful incentive because otherwise, if you solely attract people who are lower income taxpayers, we're gonna the problem we have now is gonna accelerate, not decrease. Okay. We've already seen how easy it is for people who are wealthy in Vermont to spend six months and one day here and then leave. So the tax burden doesn't stay here goes elsewhere. We now are going to accelerate that in a bill like this that increases income taxes on high income earners when we're already at top of the scale to begin with, and then does things like adds to it the increase on certain non homestead property that will affect providers to a great extent because a lot of known non homestead property is owned by Vermonters, not by outsiders. And even if and you can't divide the two, you know, constitutionally. So, I mean, on on balance, this is, I think, a horrible bill. And I don't think that we have a lot to do, short time to do it. And I my my deputy is just not worth spending the time to do something that I think is it would be disastrous for us economically. That's my 2¢.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I have a feeling it's my 2¢ that we're somewhat equally divided on. I wanna get all the information we can out on the table before we make up our minds. So I'm looking for who people would like to hear from. We did get a sheet from Jay Feldman. I'm still trying to find

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I got that from me.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: About it is on our website from a week ago, Thursday. Thursday at the Great Stent. Yeah.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And So I'll put the let's say, 22 or 26.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Done.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Does the bill contemplate a specific amount of the income tax surcharge? Just oh, the income tax or the Look.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes. Oh, wait. No. Oh, the property tax on

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: They go to property tax specification. Two eighty two is the investment income.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Right? It's investment tax.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Over single 200,000 herders

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: and married two fifty. Yes. Very investment.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Of his life

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Well, not heavy, but

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You know, I've said it before. I don't know. What we're hearing in health and welfare is we are having a really hard time attracting medical professionals to this state, especially to the areas where large numbers of their future patients are on Medicaid who don't pay well, and then you add to the fact that they're probably going to fall into our highest pay, our highest tax category, which is up there second, third, fourth, somewhere in the nation. And so and yet we're hearing that upper brackets are getting a big tax break from Washington, and I'm gonna see a lot of these things they're still processing. I'm still trying to trace down impacts of HR one on the health exchange and did we see people dropping off. Finding who keeps those statistics if they're kept, because this is new. It's not there, but I would like to look at upping that that level up to something more like 500, but making it revenue neutral, which means I would have to do something at the top bracket. But if you can pay no income tax and be a doctor at Dartmouth, or you can pay a top tax bracket and be a doctor at giving our North Country. It's not quite an apples to apples comparison. So I'd like to see if we can do something with that. Thank you, madam chair. I think you've mentioned this proposal with the brackets a couple times, and I'm wondering, is that, if we could get some analysis of that. I mean, I'm really interested in what you're proposing, but I'm not sure I quite understand it. So Okay. If it's on, it, is it drafted anywhere or is it No. Very warm. Just thinking. Yeah. And I've heard you say it a few times, and so I'd love to see more details to see how, like, how it might work. Values. Is that that fiscal did some numbers. Okay. I would love to maybe have them in and talk about it. Yes. I'll go. That would be great. Mhmm. That'd be super great. And I just wanna, you know, Senator Brock, I've heard you say what you you you said many times, and I totally appreciate that. And I I I understand we need to try to keep a balance with, you know, how many and who are our residents and taxpayers in Vermont. But one thing I wanna push back on a little bit is is there's a lot of research that's been done that people who have lower incomes actually spend a higher percentage of their income in a local economy. Right. They are the people who are going to the grocery stores and, you know, shopping in our in our downtowns and in our, you know, the the stores in Vermont, and they so a higher proportion of their income is spent in state, and therefore, actually pay a higher percentage of their income on sales tax in the state than other residents. So when you look at the overall tax picture, including sales tax and property taxes, income taxes, all kinds of taxes, and this might be interesting to find out. I'm speculating here because I don't have the data right in front of me. Mhmm. But then a higher percentage of their income is paid on taxes when you look at the full tax situation. Full tax. And that what they're paying is staying in Vermont because they are less mobile moving outside of Vermont in terms of their their sort of vacations and that kind of thing. So I think we have to all be careful in making assumptions about how people make their decisions based on their tax status and their income status, and that we should really be looking at data to to make these pronouncements.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: We we haven't looked at data. What what are the follow ups that we sometimes do when we don't look at the right data? For sure. And because in some cases, we don't necessarily have the data. One of the things that we see happening, and we know that this happens, is this person who earns a lot of money and provides, particularly on sale of property, sale of business, sale of property, and then he moves out of state, we don't know the economic impact of the next level. What we do is that the impact is the level of a person who moves to Vermont with an income. Do we look at that income? That is the person who often is the lower income rather than the higher income person, except for the person that's there to, you know, buy a second home, and you're not necessarily gonna be a bond resident in the first place. And where do you get that other data that we've never had? We've never had all the people come before us.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The data people who leave, or the

[Sen. Randy Brock]: The data about people who leave, the notion that people leave. We don't know what they earn after they leave, and particularly when we recognize it so often, we're making information about what people end up on the basis of their last period of time here in Vermont, when we do know that so often it's the person who has the one time increase, the one time higher income that leaves Vermont as opposed to the Yeah,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I mean, I think overall, the data, the the studies on this issue have shown that that taxes are not the reason why people are mobile and move from place to place. They move for other reasons, you know, for a job, for family, for climate, for for, you know, other opportunities. And so I I think also we don't know not only do we not know their incomes, we don't know necessarily why they moved, but the sort of larger studies on this issue have not shown that people are moving because of taxes generally. Well, think what we heard is very little academic study. Public assets has told me they're gonna get me. Public

[Sen. Randy Brock]: don't have a point of view.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, no. But times when

[Sen. Randy Brock]: you look at the point of view, you also say, can you take independent sides, we can get the other side That the other point of

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: may be if there is very little, and that was Carl Davis who said there's very little, it was lunchtime we had this argument or discussion, but I think we need to make sure we're talking about the same thing because a percentage of somebody making $50,000 and they're paying 20% of their income in taxes is a different dollar amount. And I think what Randy's talking about is the total dollar amount. Thing we do know is I think it's the top 10% pay in, 50% of the actual revenue. It's like healthcare, there's a group at the top and when you look at the absolute dollars, they get paid in. It's a very small percentage.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: But

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I think when you're looking at the individual human impact, impact on individual Vermonters, lower income Vermonters are paying a higher proportion of their income on taxes than higher income verbotters are, and they have less money to pay. Right. So, people like to use the term burden when it comes to taxes, I don't love that term, I think it's more of a responsibility, but a tax burden on the poor, poorer people, lower income people is higher than the tax burden on higher income people. And you're right about that, you know, a smaller percentage of a higher number may be a bigger number than a bigger percentage of a lower number for sure. But when we're talking about how it's impacting her monitors, which is, you know, I think it's an important perspective. What type of personal impact of attacks on someone with a lower income definitely burns more. Sure. That's why I'm waiting for it.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: No question it does. But the one thing though that I think we need to bear in mind is that the more high income people that we have and can keep, the lower the tax burden will be on lower income people because the higher income people pay so much more. How many people do you need to have in Vermont who earn $50,000 a year compared to the effect of someone who earns a billion dollars a year? How many of the lower people will equal the amount that one of the higher level will bring. And what I'm saying is we need a balanced policy and if our policy is to chase away the wealthy, we kill ourselves. Now, you want to know why do people move, I've got a long list of people.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Think we need to go Florida. I think we should do a committee field trip. Go to Florida and do a survey.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: And you probably

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: would get more people than you would if

[Sen. Randy Brock]: you did a survey in Montpelier.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. I know the club a lot and it is not the wealth ier, it is frequently middle income people who are retired and living on a fixed income.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Yes, that is a large number of people

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: as well. And then they come back as they get older and want to be near their families. I sold many of them apartments or senior living apartments. And but I would be quite surprised if that wasn't one of the impacts on the American bail lines. You know?

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Well, I mean, the other thing is go look at the tax reporting people have run for governor in the past twenty years as to how much of the money that they've raised have been raised from people who actually live in Georgia or in Yeah. Right now. So because that's where they're raising the money, in a lot of cases, from the voters who are involved.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I think, at least my personal goal, is to set up a balanced system so that we can relieve the tax burden on the folks, while it is a true burden, like I can't buy groceries. But we also treat people fairly. We talked about behavioral changes. I don't know why, probably when I was thinking around worrying about having lost my phone with my charge card in it, at four in the morning, I got to thinking about other behavioral changes. When we were looking at changing the tax code and we were not passing through an additional deduction for charitable deductions, Every cultural facility in this state was in here because they were afraid that their big donors would stop donating. Didn't seem to have worked out, but but I believe we had one donor that built a police station for one of our major cities and has we have wings of the hospital that have been endowed by wealthy families. We have I was told that the excess in the Higher Education Trust Fund was a deliberate we'd like to say lack of but this was deliberate estate planning to make sure that that estate money went in there. That's some of the behaviors that could change. You could find that those you know, it's all how people perceive how we're talking about them, how we're thinking about them, and they are not homogenous class. We may have some robber barons. I don't know. But we also have some mega donuts to clean costs. Thank you, Chair Cummings. We have a problem. We can admire it. We can sit here and admire it, but we can try to fix it. The problem is our school buildings are in dire need of help. And we are paying for the maintenance and the operations of those buildings, right? And they're coming through in our property taxes. And we know that the top earners, top 1% are paying less of a percentage of their income on property tax than some middle folks. That's not fair. That's fine. I've got I was just holding. I'm just holding. Okay. What is that? My point is that we need to do something, and two eighty two is an opportunity to do something. And we can either do it on the facts of the middle class and the low income earners, or we can try to fix the problem in a more equitable way. And I think that's what that bill is trying to do. And that's, you know, again, I'm really excited that that bill was brought forward. I'm not a sponsor of that bill because I kind of agreed that I thought the thresholds were a little bit low, but I am definitely in favor of trying to do something to fix this problem. Yeah. Do something to fix the problem,

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I don't disagree with. What I do disagree with is doing something that has a high likelihood causing that making things worse rather than better.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. We're gonna Michael's how it would make things worse. Okay. We're going to continue this discussion. Michael Grady is here. We're going to go to two eighty no, two twelve, which is an ad relating to potable water supply and wastewater system connections. It's an exciting build. And

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Looking forward to this all

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: week. Will. Take a look at this one, and then we will go back.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. From

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I need people who want to talk about 282 to get me some witnesses. Looking at accountants. I'm trying I could find Patrick. I'm trying to find the numbers that we would gain. I definitely am upping the 200,000 as married, filing jointly income because that is, I'm sure, 2013 number is probably up over 304 at this point, but we'll get, you know, and then we'll see what we can do with that. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't know if when you talked about witnesses, would you like to have witnesses come in and talk about their school facilities and how they're bumping up against the excess spending threshold. Think we've heard that. I don't think anyone I haven't heard anyone argue that we don't need I'm looking for the school to come in and say their roof doesn't leak. I know. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. Because I can I don't buy those folks if we needed to? When when once we decide if and how we're going to raise money, then we can argue about how we're gonna spend. They may have another idea across the hall. Right? And it will go there. But now we're going to waste water. Yes. We are. And that'll be a much easier discussion, I'm sure. Oh, is it okay if I'm watching him? Yeah. Okay. No. Just welcome. Super. Thank you. Yes. You don't tell them we're finding money over here. Like, go back. Okay. It's not like it's, you know

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Wherever you are.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Being published live or anything. Okay. Shall I just dive in? Yes. Okay. So, S212, which a couple of your members are already familiar with. Just to talk a little bit about the genesis of this bill, It came to my attention that as developers are going through their wastewater and water permits, that particularly for the places where you're connecting to a public water or a municipal water or wastewater system, that the municipalities really care about what that connection looks like. And so let's say that the state doesn't care, but there's a level of scrutiny that the municipalities often perform. And so then what is the role then of a state permit beyond that? And turns out this has been an ongoing question for a long time.

[Sen. Anne Watson]: Think it's very I'm close about to cheer. Yes. That's how the mayor Rutland and I tried to do over twenty years ago. So this is it's not going away, but the a little bit of and actually, Addison, mister I will speak but more to there was a time when municipalities could, well, still it's true now, they could ask for delegation of the authority to manage those connections, And there were a couple of municipalities that took that. But it came with everything. They had to manage all of those permits, and they actually gave it up. And so, where we're at right now is, with this still being a problem, there was a study, it was Act 47 of 2024, 2020 and that brought together a variety of folks to try to figure out what would be a logical path forward to making that simpler, to making the situation simpler. And they came up with some recommendations. The legislature ended up not taking that up. Then they ended up moving forward with saying, well, what can we design coming out of this Act 47 study? And so they started developing a program to simplify these connections, the permitting for these connections. And then in the meanwhile, as we were, or I developed this bill originally based on the Act 47 study, we had them in, came to find out that they were already moving forward, but it turned out, we heard from our legislative council, that they didn't actually have the authority to implement the program that they were designing. And so that is what this bill transformed into, was not just the authority to carry out the program that they were envisioning, but also directing them to do it, and making sure that they had the legal authority to carry out this program. And so, this does is it asks DC to come up with a general permit for these specific types of water connections. And just to explain a little bit about what that means, a general permit more like, instead of giving a fair bit of scrutiny to every single permit, it is more like if you're meeting these standards, if you are checking these boxes, then you can get the permit. So, it's a lot simpler to go through a general permit process. And so, that's what is laid out here. There is still the possibility for a municipality to request delegation for the technical review of these connections, so that is in there as well. But it doesn't necessarily come with, it doesn't come with all of the delegations that the previous iteration came with that municipalities found so onerous. So the reason, before I get to the reason I was gonna say, is there a fee in here? There is a fee in here. That's why I'm seeing the target. And I should've said this in the beginning, but in case it's obvious, I do view this as a housing bill. This is aiming to make it faster and in lot of cases, cheaper to get this permit and to build, which I know is a goal we all share. So, are a couple of places that you all may want to look in terms of the fees that are related. So, the first one is in section five, where a municipality could have delegated to them the technical, or they could have some technical review for the water and wastewater supplies. So, this makes it clear that they are allowed to charge a fee for doing that technical review, but that is still gonna go to, there is still a filing that will go to the state, and so there is a $100 processing fee that the municipality would need to pay for filing that. And that is actually one of the strengths that we heard about that came out of the Act 47 report, was that one of the strengths of the state is that they, it's valuable to have them as a repository of information. Right? Like, that they are keeping track of these kinds of permits, which ends up being searchable. And then the other place to look at is is it in the same section? I believe it is still in section five. On my version, it's page 11. But it changes the fees. So the particularly for this permit at the state level, if if that is the path that a permit has to go through. And so, just to be clear, with the with the general permit, we're directing them to come up with a guidance book. I forget what those phrases. Oh, thank you, Emmanuel. And the phrase that they kept using, as the folks from DEC were in the chair for us, was that they wanted more pictures and less words. Right? To be able to describe, like, this set of conditions, this is what the connection has to look like. And so, if that is what people are following, then we get to the fees that are for the different kinds of development. And it's by flow level. So, the lowest flow is 2,000 gallons per day, so that's a fee of $250 That is, I believe, your typical single family home, and that fee is down from $306.25 So, not a lot cheaper, but still cheaper. And then, you've got these two other tiers, for lack of a better word, levels of fees at 2,500 and then 5,000 per application. Or I should say, this was, these fee levels were the suggestion of DEC and recognizing that for some applications this may ultimately cost them more.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: There's a trade off there. There's a big jump between $250 for 2,000 gallons, then you're over that and it's $2,500 so the fee is 10 times as much, twice as much to the next level. Those are pretty large jumps. They

[Sen. Anne Watson]: are large jumps. This is something, I mean, you may want to hear from DEC about why those are the levels that they recommended. We will hear from them. We'll hear from the league. Because, yeah, these are The initial fees don't look too bad, but when you get up to $13,500 it may get people's attention. Yes. And for very large projects, this, I believe, may yet be a cost reduction. Yeah. That's what we need so much. Yep. That's gotta be more like a municipal system. Sure. Or, you know, if you're looking at, you know, multi family housing that are, the, with a big, a big building or ski resorts, you know, that kind of thing. We'll get 90. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Thank Yes. Walk through this. We might not even go back to the accidents we're getting from actually we're we're going to go back well we are

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So good afternoon, I thought that was a great overview by Senator Watson, this is the Micrograve Lunch Council, but I think I'd like to provide you with some more context. So portable water supply and wastewater systems require permits in the state. What does that mean? That means wells and septic systems. But part of that program is also the connection of existing sanitary sewer lines, wastewater lines, and existing water lines to structures, new structures or existing structures. That requires what's called the connection and the potable statute of the potable water supply and wastewater most require a permit for that connection. Now that program, the potable water supply and wastewater system program works a little bit differently than most other programs. Most programs you apply to the agency and you say, hey. Can you give me my permit and tell me what I need to do in order to get my permit? For portable water, swine wastewater, a licensed engineer or a licensed site designer together called licensed designers, they submit an application. With their application, they have a certified plan and a certification that says they meet the state standards. Now statute says ANR is supposed to give deference to that certification, but they don't give as much deference to it as they could. And that's important because, you know, you all heard of, like, discharge permits and CSOs and TMDLs. They're like the high profile. They're like what I call the diva section over at A and R. They get they get the spotlight. Right? But the the entity that is the permit factory over there is the groundwater and wastewater division. They produce more permits than any of the other divisions at ANRs. And one of the things they wanna do is they wanna make some of their permits simpler. And the one permit that is really kind of easy for them to do is this connection permit. And as senator Watson has noted, you have tried multiple times to address this issue in legislation. You first tried to say, hey, municipality. You wanna do connections? Fine. You get delegated. But you said you have to take the whole program. Like, you have to take all wells and all septic systems, and only two municipalities did, Charlotte and Colchester. And guess what? They gave it back. They don't wanna do it. Then you said, alright. In certain designated downtowns, municipality, if you apply for this approval and you have the licensed designer that meets the and the the standards and this, then you can do it. Nope. Nobody did it. Then you were like, oh, what about partial delegation? We'll just give you the connections. And you just have to do that, but you have to meet still nobody did. And but you still have this issue of it it's right now not as easy as it could be. And what K. ANR themselves proposes to have a general permit, to have the umbrella, uniform requirements for connection when there's areas of commonality between connections, and you don't have to apply for an individual permit each time. You just need to have your licensed designer submit that application with the certification that they met the standards for connection. And ANR is gonna give deference to that certification because you tell them in this, give deference to that. So it should reduce a time. It should reduce the cost, and it should reduce the burden on ANR in doing connection permits. With all that said, some municipalities still wanna be involved with this because connections are also a land use term because it can direct where you allow development or where you allow new structures and new connections. And some of those municipalities have a fee on those connections to kind of drive development or uses to certain places. And the fees in those municipalities can be significant. So you don't necessarily wanna take the fees away from those municipalities because they're not gonna be happy. So they still get to charge their fees, and senator Watson says. They also can apply to get partial delegation too because we heard from the like, Vinnie heard from a couple of cities that they might be interested in that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: This,

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I think, is probably your best effort to address this issue so far. And I think it doesn't need municipalities to step up and say, we wanna do we we wanna get delegated or we wanna be in the one it's the licensed designer just needs to meet the general permit. You don't need to have a licensed engineer on staff in your municipality. You just hire somebody. They're gonna have to figure out what they're over time, I bet you the the licensed designers try to undercut the licensed engineers to be cheaper for what they're gonna pay for the connections. But over time, you're gonna bring that price down. Because right now, it's about $2,000

[Sen. Randy Brock]: per connection. And

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: so this will also bring that price down. And the fees are less than what the fees are for an individual permit. And that's jump. It seems like a jump. But when you look, why don't I just step through the whole thing at this

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

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And I'll point out to the. So the first section is is changing the purpose section for the for the chapter as a whole in stat in statute that previously said that one of the purposes was delegating the whole program, but you're not gonna delegate the whole program anymore. What you're gonna replace that with is new ability to issue general permits for connections. So that's p one, line 16 through the high speed. Then you get the definitions. Really, you know what these are. It's it's Wells, p h two, line three, portable water supply. The change here is is clarifying that a service connection to a public water system is also potable water supply for this purpose. And then on page three, section three, you see the permit requirements. The first thing I wanna point out is what's already in statute in page three, lines 12 through 18, how the secretary is supposed to give deference to the certified licensed designers and permanent. They they need to give more deference. You try to tell them to give deference, they need to give more deference, and this is what they're trying to do. On page three, line 19 going on to page four, this is striking one of the attempts you've made to try to address this issue in the past. Your designated downtowns with the licensed designer could be able to to to accelerate this permit process. Nobody did it, so it's being struck. On page four, lines 13 through 21, this is where you give ANR the ability to adopt a general permit for those connections. Under that general permit, they may give reference to an application for connections. Why does it say May? Because in the larger projects, you're probably still gonna want ANR to go out and look at the project itself. There's a housing development on Shelburne Road. I don't know. Like, right before you go to Shelburne Farms, pull off. That thing got I didn't even it's, materialized out of the blue. And it is huge, but that kind of thing needs some oversight because you don't know what its impact is gonna be on the existing infrastructure. You don't know what the impact's gonna be on the water resources. So you have the ability for ANR to still look at an individual permit. And then they publish a manual. So as senator Watson noted, there's ease for looking at what is required under the standing for connections. And so that's on page four, lines 17 through 21. So that's the general permanent authority for a connection, but ANR is also looking to make, to have more general permits to make some of those permitting easier. And so on page five one through three, you give them a broad general permit authority, which you do in other programs for low risk, low impact, and low complexity projects. So ANRC is something like, when you subdivide, Sherry, you probably know this, when you subdivide land, you have to get a wastewater permit because you have to ensure that when there's development on that land, that they have the ability to put in a system that meets the state's damage.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That's what used to drive it. They were hooking up to the municipal system and they had to get a permit that said that the municipal system could handle their capacity and that the state said that the municipal system could handle their capacity.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, capacity is still an issue, you will see that going on to page five in section four. The first thing that section four does is it gets rid of that full delegation, the Charlotte and the Colchester, what they tried to do, and they tried. They sincerely tried, but it it is more difficult and more expensive than they expected. But it still gives them the ability of municipalities the ability to seek partial delegation, which is page six, bottom eight six, going on to page seven, for connections. But the problem or the issue or the concern is for any connection is whether or not there's capacity in the system for the proposed development. And it's hard to it's hard to determine capacity. The the committee heard from witnesses that some municipalities, they can't really determine capacity because they may not know where their system is.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I know one local town that doesn't know where the system Right.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So it doesn't know where all the payers go, doesn't know where the supply is. And so one of the things that that manual that ANR is gonna come up with, it's gonna come up with guidance on how to determine capacity for the purposes of connection. So there will be some uniformity in how to do it, but it's not a mandate. So you don't tell that town that doesn't know where its system is that it has to determine its capacity because it can.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You know what private sewer system and lines out there that may or may not be documented?

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Hope it's working.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, I'll tell you this one day about the well. It's to work.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's where it's going.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And I had a significant portion of this city pumping mud out of their faucets, the private water suspect.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: If the municipality applies for partial delegation, one of the conditions is that they are going to apply the manual, apply the standards of the general permit so that you do still have uniformity. You don't have a municipality that's gonna go back to the days of saying, oh, you can put a Volkswagen bug in, and that meets your standards. And they have to give deference

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Ask and talk too. Ask

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: and they have to give deference to the licensed designer. So uniformity, they have to determine capacity.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: And one of

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: the things that they need to do is they have to file their authorization with ANR for inclusion in ANR's database. I think most of you have heard the term Bianchi versus Lawrence or Hunter Broadcasting versus South Burlington. That's where the court's found that if you didn't have a permit, it was a blight on your title, and it could affect your ability to get title insurance. It affects your ability to convey property. ANR's permit system is basically a backup to the land records. If somebody fails to record their permit, which they're required to do in the land records, ANR's got a backup for them. And this may ensures that that that backup exists.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: What what year was that for that? Wait. One. The The ANR's annars database.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I'll park

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: back so you go.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So you went to universal jurisdiction initially in, like, 2001, and then in 2004, you, like, you it was a it was a ramp up to it. And then in 2005, you make it full. Yeah. And they weren't really they don't really have a database now. That came about five years later. Is 2007 a date? It's it's it's that's 2005 is when you enacted fully universal jurisdiction, and you got paid two years to to ramp up. And I know because I've been here, though. And

[Sen. Randy Brock]: then just one other

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

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: The connections is is it just municipal connections? Not a private

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. It's the municipality has to own or control the sanitary sewer lines because there are fire districts within municipalities, and fire districts are technically municipalities, and fire districts is a misnomer because they're mainly water districts. And so the the encompassing municipality can't say, oh, we're gonna get delegation for that fire district. That's That's the fire district's authority.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Martine Larocque Gulick was a fire district. Yeah. Congress broke the two fees.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So let's talk about the fees now. Yeah. And that is on page eight going on to page nine. So municipalities that are already doing technical review of connections because it's either a land use or or it's something that they they use to measure their development, they still get to do that. They still are allowed to do their assessment, their fees.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Okay. But

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: they have to pay an administrative processing fee of a $100 to ANR for submission of any documentation of the municipally permitted project. So if they get delegation and they're the one that's permitting, they have to send a $100 in. If they're not the one that's permitting, they can still do the technical review fees. You know? Towns can still charge a couple thousand dollars for a connection in order to drive development to a certain place as opposed to another place. And then I want you to look at the fees that are not changing, but which are the existing individual needs. So the design flow is on page 10, line seven. Design flow under 560 gallons per day is $306.25. This high flow is greater than 560 and less than or equal to 2,000. That's 870. So you're seeing tiers before that that senator Brock, do you see how there's tiers there? And then on the new general permit, the design flow is anything under 2,000 is 250, and anything between between 2,000 and 6,500, that's 2,500. And they're more expensive because you're starting to trend into those projects like the development on Shelburne Road. But that probably that system probably has a design flow greater than 6,500 gallons per day, and that's gonna have a $5,000 problem. And that's probably still Brian Redmond, the head of the groundwater division, told me how much that permit cost as a percentage of the overall project. It was not much, but I don't wanna say what that number is because I Yeah. Slightly misstated.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. Those are big projects. So Right. It looks like a big number because we usually deal in hundreds, not thousands, like license fees. And this is a it's a big deal to look at.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And then the the last section, there are provisions in ANR's rules which now would potentially conflict with what you did. Like, you took away full delegation. Well, there's full delegation requirements in the rules. You should just repeal them. And that's what section six does. It just repeals those provisions that are no longer relevant in the in the ANR rules.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: There are some new fees in here. That's why we've got it.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: There's yes. And there's that $100 fee for the municipality, the new fee for the general permit, and that's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We'll have to leave you. We should also have Brian Redmond. Oh, yeah. And the DEC. I mean, Michael explained this super well, but Okay. Yeah, we will have the Ann, I assume they'll send us to come over to. I think this might be progress In thirty years, you passed.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's like try number five.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. I forget he was headed. He had a heartfinder, Douglas. Jeff.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Who was who was what?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, the at the end that he left he was head of ANR, I think, under governor Douglas, then ended up as the mayor

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Jeff Lindbergh.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Jess Lindbergh, and I tried to do of the because a lot of it around here was it was the hookup fee. I mean, people forgot that they had to get a state hookup fee, and you've got down to the end, and why do I have to pay the state to hookup to the but that's not all that there is. So

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: No. And and you're still gonna have some of that because you give municipalities that ability to charge a fee for their tax and all reviews.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes, they will charge a fee. Yes, they will charge. Yes. Okay, any other questions? Welcome. Have

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: good weekend everyone. You too. Thanks, Gail.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That was a nice relief. Now we'll go back to the department about taxes. The last one I've got is $2.86, and I think we can see the argument that money for school construction is something we need to do.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Two digits.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm looking for the numbers from last Thursday that we got. Yeah. That's when we got it. To write that. 286. Yeah. Okay. That's But I don't know. Yeah. So the ed fund, this money would normally go partially to the Ed fund if it did defer it. You talking about rooms and meals tax here? Yeah. Yeah. 25%. I was looking. That's the revenue estimate. I was looking. I thought we had got numbers. I'm not seeing

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Are

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: you talking about numbers for February? For where the Now that's the third tier. That's property tax. Okay. Now I was looking for the numbers as to where those increases would put us.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Are you talking we're working on the release and yield stats?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. Where that We're at the top. Right? Yeah. I know we're at the top, and I know what we looked. We did that. We did the three I know we saw them. I just can't find it. When we got the 3% surcharge that was dedicated completely on short term rentals, We looked at because I was concerned about doing some short term rentals and not others might give us a common benefits thing because we weren't doing motels but if we had gone up then we would have been the highest by far in doing what I have had a email from the wedding planners, but it does hit them that that was some of the because you're doing a $100,000 wedding and that's laid out in that big number is sitting right there because a lot of what they do is rooms, meals, alcohol. My local barb provides rooms, some rooms, but if you're renting out rooms even in a local hotel it it does give you a competitive disadvantage. But that was the other one that we have, and I'll get the wedding planners we'll get probably the tourism division and I don't know who else, it's your bill, right? Yeah, well I was just wondering, can we get data on our room, what are our hotel room availabilities throughout the course of the year? Okay, so we can ask, that would be commerce and community development tourism.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Would be occupancy rates, maybe? Yes. Occupancy.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Madam Chair. Yes. I don't know if you know this, but there is a bill that's similar to this. It's not the same one, but it's down in housing and economic development, it's related to using the funds for housing. Just so you know, I don't know what they're doing with it, but it is something that is on their I'll talk to the chair. Yeah. It's increased.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Change that for that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's, I mean, it's different than, it's some differences, but it's for It's hitting the same tax. It's a, well, it's a mix of different things, but it's for, it would put it toward affordable housing. Yeah, I know they're looking for a funding source and not having to have to come in and get a budget allocation. Yeah, and it would switch around something in the Ed Fund actually, so you might want to talk to Everybody senator Clarkson about wants to steal it. I think it swaps it out.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: What she does in that bill, which is interesting, it came up a few times, was the sugary sweet beverage tax to basically supplant the money that currently is collecting for short term rentals to payment that to housing, to have the sugary sweet beverage per ounce excise tax go to the fund to pay effectively for universal meals. So it's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: just a swap. It's a swap to to make it sort of the revenue. Well, new tax.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: It'd be a new tax. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well It's not a swap.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: It's a new tax.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It swaps out the existing.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Swap out the existing.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: But choice of drugs

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: and replace it with a new tax. New tax.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. We had the bottle distributors in to talk about sugary beverages bought in Lebanon and Richardson. You talk to Senator Clarkson first because who knows what they're gonna do. Warning. Okay. Yeah. We'll waste our time if it's not coming to us. Yeah. But she's So they won't play with the house without talking to her, so I don't know even why she hasn't talked to us, especially if she's altering the infant. Right. But that will get us to I'll find out what's going on down the hall, and we will There's no. There is an association now. Short term rentals has an association. We will hear from them. I'd like to hear from the tax department. Everyone has some some stuff on collections and what they found out with the last round that we did if there's been any issues with collecting. As far as I know, there is no What we we yes. We were that would if you go through Airbnb or any of platforms, I think that's where it's getting collected. So that is what's the easiest.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: One thing that came up in Southern Economic Development, let me discuss how the lodging tax that would be related to this that I'd be interested in understanding more of is the notion of a luxury rental versus a traditional rental and price elasticity of demand, so the traditional rentals are much more sensitive. You increase those taxes, people, the mid range and low range will then go on vacation elsewhere, but luxury end, I think Vermont has a fair amount, to our rates, inelastic, but your wedding planners might contradict that point. So that's why

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I wanna hear from them. But It won't.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: If there is an easy distinction between the two. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I have not been able

[Sen. Randy Brock]: to do

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Did you guys get testimony, Hunter?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Did one day on this.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. That came up. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: They're gonna touch taxes. It's gonna come here. So, it's their advantage going to us. Is. Wow. Who knows if it's coming? Like that, I think

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: that bill covers. Received very positive.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah, so I mean that's why I just was, you know, wanted to know if you didn't know. That is good. It might not come to us, it might not be that many. And then the other thing is, will it make it through? Right. If it gets vetoed, that comes into how much time you have. Wait a minute. Okay. I think that is it. Next week, I think we took it back in just It like it was three weeks out. It does. Yes, Okay, are we done? Yeah, we're doing S-one 138 clean energy products next week. Property

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: tax.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Property tax delinquencies, I'm still trying to chase down. It's another one of those statistics we should have, but nobody collects them. But it is an economic indicator and especially ones are we playing with taxes that get property. Wait. What is it that you're The the property tax delinquency rates. Oh, yeah. Seems to tap those. Okay. And on Thursday, we're getting well, if we've got them, they published rates for this year, and then 02/22 is going or 02/20 is back on. Early college. Oh, oh, this is alright. This is their day at the legislature. Alright. And we also have an ALE on Friday. I have a Okay. And then I'm gonna try and get more information. Preliminary. We'll plug in those that we did today and try and get those in rooms and meals and the get more information on that higher income tax and see if we can make that something that think it's gonna be a relatively limited impact that we can make it work so it's not just the structures overburdens. Can I ask a quick question? Yeah. So we're gonna hear from the ARB on the numbers for '27, and then are we gonna get a similar kind of spreadsheet for joint fiscal for 02/20? What do you want on it? Well, sort of that 02/20 modeling for the twenty something. I will ask. Okay. Yeah. I think that's what the plan was from the other guy. I thought so I was gonna clarify. I will double check. You. Okay. Would you like to go offline?