Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Living dangerously, Adam. I know. We are alive. Okay. This is Senate Finance. It's obviously Are? Running date. We were on the floor until about five, ten minutes ago, so the committee is eating lunch here. And we're going to start. This is s two thirty two. It's an Ag. Yeah. Miscellaneous Agricultural Subjects. And we have Steve Collier from the Agency of Education. He was here.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: 323. Think he's. 3.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, okay.

[Speaker 2]: I'm just without spot on.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes. 3 to 23. Ignore most of what I say until I've had more than one minute to sit down and get my head off childcare. This is the only doing a floor. This is miscellaneous bag. Yeah? This is miscellaneous bag, and I can get into it. We had several questions. I would let you start.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Sure. Good afternoon. Steve Collier from Agency Agriculture. I assume that you wanna focus on the money pieces. So what I Yeah. So I will talk about those, and please ask you about anything else that you'd like. I think there are planning on just going sort of section by section and putting pieces that it said that fees are running. The first six sections have they're they're about different issues, but they have three different areas that focus on donations. And so the first three sections are about restoring exemption for for farming, for municipal zoning. Section four is about accessory on farm businesses. Extension five and six are about current use, and they're all working toward a a single goal of essentially allowing somebody who gives away food, who grows and gives away food to treat it as the same as someone who sells it. Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Can I ask a question about that? Yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Thank you for turning off on this. So my question to you is do does the agency have any data on how many people this may impact how many landowners this may impact? So the there are farmers who farm and get revenue and that's their business. And then they also might donate some of their crops or meat or milk or whatever to organizations

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Terrible science.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Terrible organization or whatever. But then it seems like this bill is trying to not capture them because they would already be a parent, you know, could already be in current use, but they're trying to capture property owners who just do charity, don't also sell. Is that correct? So

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: it would enable people who only go and need to qualify for the same job.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Do you guys, do you, the agency, have any information about how many organizations or how many landowners, property owners that impact?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Well, as you alluded to, there are a lot of farms who currently give away food. Right. So part of this is to make sure that that thought that would be treated the same way. Even if they maybe gave away all their food, it would have the same impact. So they'd sell some to give some away. But I think the real the real the goal of this is that I think you all know, maybe maybe you don't, but many of you know that we continue to lose farmland. It's an ongoing issue. And so we're trying one thing that we always are looking at is ways to incentivize increasing food production in Vermont, increasing farmland. So anything we can do to have agricultural land be active instead of dormant and to be in use, we view as a positive. And what these changes would do is simply treat somebody who's generous in giving away their food the same way that somebody is being treated as a selling an effigy. So we don't see it as a an important I mean, in terms of a policy, what it does, it incentivizes people to grow food and incentivizes people to give away food. And given the food insecurity in Vermont, there is a there is a philanthropist who wants more people to give up and wants to manufacture food from those donations, so he really wants to feed Vermonters who are hungry with through these donations. So there is a sort of an impetus for that. But anywhere anybody was would be interested in growing food to give it away, I think we would view that as positive.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: I appreciate that, all of the things you just said. And However, generally, don't make policies that just benefit one individual. We try to make policies that are broader than that. So that's why I was trying to see. I was told actually that you all have data on the number of people who would be impacted by this. That aren't just farmers who give away food as a portion of their thing. They make revenue, but then they also might donate some of their cleaned crops or you know, seconds or whatever they do. I don't think interested in the data on the people who don't get revenue but just give it away and how much how many people are there? Were you asking that somehow many people do you think would become that if this were to pass?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Our data is very dependent on the program, and we don't have any data about people who currently donate food who are not trying to benefit from any of these exemptions, so I'm sure there are people who give away food that are not on our specific radar. There are about 6,500 farms in Vermont that's measured by the very low threshold of a thousand

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Yeah. Yeah. But those are mostly farms that are, you know, selling their goods. And that's

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: how that measure is made. Yeah. But I don't know how many people would do it, but Okay. But I think from our perspective, even if it was five, that's five more people. If if they would incentivize people to actually start growing food and giving it away, that's five more upon growing food and five more upon giving it away.

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: So I was told you had data

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: on it, so that's why I was asking. So sounds like you don't. And have you done any kind of estimates on on how what the benefit to the farmers or to to non farmers who are gonna grow food and give it away? Would it would what the financial benefit would be for this exemption from

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: all these things?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Well, in the the municipal zoning box, I don't think there's any there's there's not really a financial benefit other than could you wouldn't have to go through zoning perhaps. Accessory on farm business, it's really it I don't think there's a financial benefit there for the farmer who's donating. And accessory on farm business, though, it's right now, in accessory on farm business, they're they're the ability for them to process food is measured in their sales. Mhmm. And this would allow it to also be measured in donation. So it would enable somebody who's giving away up to a quarter of $1,000,000 of food to not able to sell it to to be treated like an accessory on a farm business. Right now, it's measuring sales. So that could really have a pretty significant impact.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Right. That one

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Even if

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: But what about the UVA stuff, the used value appraisal Well, the UVA stuff, mean crunching on that?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I don't think there's a way to crunch those numbers because anyone who wants to sell, it's whether you sell the food or you donate it, it's exactly the same.

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

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So if it's on the different ways to make your current use, but one of the ways is you have two if you're under 25 acres, you have $2,000 in crop sales, you can instead donate that. Mhmm. So you're not if if you really want to get that tax break, you just sell it. So you you can do that already. Can have a farmer. I mean, the the idea is to be able to grow food. So if you instead wanna give it away, I mean, there's no like, yes, you can get the same tax break, but you can already do that by making it proper, or maybe not even making it profitable, but making it profitable. Mhmm. So this would just allow people who wanna give away food to their neighbors or to to us, you know, certified entities then giving it away to someone else.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Yeah. It had to be in a special donation, I would assume.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: And that's just There is language in there that showed we want proof of the receipts. We don't want people just saying, yeah, we donated $2,000. And that that was a recommendation of the Legis Council and the tax department. Yeah. So if you're looking at the goals of get as much land and farming as possible, see as many Vermonters as you can. The legislature created a Vermonters a lawnmower program last year, where there's $500,000 that's given to the food banks to purchase local Vermonter products. This is a slightly different way to encourage the same behavior, but it doesn't cost anything other than current use benefit, which anyone who wants can already get by selling these products instead of giving them away. So we just see this as if those goals are paramount, growing food, helping hungry folks, it's a win.

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

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: If you're thinking about tax breaks, yes, current use could be, but it's always there.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Still be required to follow the route? Yes. Okay.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yep. Yep. All the same protections would be there, all the same water quality protections, and all the same. And if we can't regulate them through our if they're than what we regulate, then towns can. So they're not unregulated no matter what. The question would just be whether it's for us or these panels.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. I have an acre to nine acres right from the center of Montpelier. It goes straight up. It's kinda the other side of that kind of hill. But I could clear cut it, and I could plant on it, and I could then get my if I give away the tomatoes and tomatoes, which I saw last time I went to the farmer's market. It's so gonna What is $7 in tomato.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Oh, $7.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm a Yep. It's a good sized tomato. But it wouldn't take me a lot of product to take down and give to my local food bank,

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: k, to

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: reach $2,000. However, if you put my land in current use, I'm gonna save a lot more of a lot more than $2,000, and that impacts property taxes. So that, I think, at a time when property taxes are helping drive farmers out of business, we're going to allow people. I you know, I have a well paying job. I can hire somebody to ear cut, and I'm gonna do a little cost benefit and figure out once I do that initial setup, I'm saving a lot of money, and it is impacting our bill it's gonna raise everybody else's property tax to fill that in.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Well, I completely

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And that's the concern I think this committee was looking at yesterday. I

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: completely understand the point. I don't think this bill changes any of that analysis because you could already do that. You could already do that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I dropped at 30 acres, and I have to make 50% of my income. Or I

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: could No. You can already do it. You just have to sell the crops instead of donate them. We're not changing them right

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: to make to be a farmer. Alright. I have to make a certain percent of my income in farming.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: But you're not a farmer, but you can to be enrolled in current use. You can you can lease your you can lease your land lease it to a farmer. To a farmer, and they can grow crops, and then you can enroll your land. Now when you want to sell your land, you're gonna pay a land use change tax, and that's the balance

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: of that. Farmer has to have

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: a certain amount of acreage to qualify for Caledonia District. Well, the farmer has to be a a sure, but the farmer doesn't need to be their land being in current use have nothing to do with your land being in current use. Like, your land can be in current use if you're leasing it to a farm to grow crops. The only change this makes is if you, instead of leasing your land to a farmer to grow crops, you donate the food. So it's But

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm not a farmer. I'm an attorney. I'm a corporate executive. I don't need the money for my crops. I'm just growing it as a hobby. I'm hiring some guy to grow it in my backyard. I put tomato plants everywhere, and I donate it.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: And The visuals are great here. I did

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the same thing with trying to put four quad reflexes in my back. I think that's a concern for me that it would make it so it would make it much easier for people to put land in current use.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I don't I don't think I understand your concern. I'm not sure that's true, because no growing crops is growing crops, whether you're selling them or giving them away. So I don't know that giving them away makes it any easier than

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Not just growing crops. Well,

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: but the way that you meet the threshold at our current use, one of the ways is you either sell at least $2,000 of of food, crops, or you could donate one. So that that's the only change is whether you sell it or give it away. So I I don't think you're making it any easier for anyone to enroll. You are changing the threshold, so you don't have to sell it. You don't have to charge. You can instead give it to them.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So if I sold $2,000 in my current backyard in Montpelier, and I sold $2,000 worth of food at the farmer's market from produce crops. I had to get my nine acres in current use. You know,

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: we don't administer the current use program. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: In fact,

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: the carbon does, so I I think you could, but you I don't think it would be all nine acres. I think it would be the acreage that you're using that for agricultural use. So if you're growing nine acres of tomatoes, yeah, I think you could. If you're growing in a 50 by 50 plot of of, then I don't think your whole land would be eligible. Tax department and legislative council can answer that better than I can, but you have to have your act. The land, can enroll for foraging purposes or agricultural uses. But if you have a thousand acre farm, one acre you're using right out of the agriculture, I don't believe you're a higher you're a thousand acre farm is the current use, I think. No. Acre is good.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is I'm a one acre lot in downtown, and I can have that one acre or that one or two acres overlooking Lake Champlain, and I can now put that in current use.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I don't think it's any different than it is right now. I mean, there's there's nothing about this language that changes how current you stop right except if you give away food instead of selling it, you can demo That's that's I mean, that's it. I'm confident of that. Whether or not you want to incentivize people to give away food, that's a different question, but you're not changing the eligibility for current use about whether it's sold or donated. We will check that. Okay. We

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: have one other set of questions. Oh, no. That There was just

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: was another section. Oh, I I I remember one I have, but you so you haven't gotten to the section yet because we've been talking about this. So maybe you're already planning on talking about the fees, Jeff, your the farm fees. Right? Yes. Yeah. I was planning on Okay. So when you get there in your testimony, I have a couple questions. Sure.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. Of course. So so quickly, I'll just say that the section 10 talks about pesticide licenses a little bit, and there's no change in fee for that section. That just consolidates some categories to make it a little bit simpler to implement. The only change in money in that one is right now, the first time someone takes a pesticide certification license, they don't have to pay the testing fee. It's $25. They only have to pay if they fail for the second, third time. This would require the first time test taker to pay the $25 fee, and it's just because some test takers don't show up when they don't have to pay. And because we have limited space, that means people have to wait houses to wait. So we just want the first time test takers to also have to pay so they actually show up. It'd be a very minimal change in in the cost, but there would be the there is a that's the only financial change to that.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: That's the same issue with drivers like I remember the agency of transportation last year. We do you guys remember we tweaked the because people were not showing up for their license for the Oh, that's right. Yeah. Tax. This was sustained.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. Yeah.

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

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Boxes people out

[Speaker 2]: of there.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. So in section 11 through 16 is all about seed language. Just want you to know there's no fee changes there. There's a lot of changes about labeling, registration, just sort of consumer protection, but there's no changes at all in the fee structure, which is $85 per per registrant and $10 per ton of seed per so if you're you look down and employee Cool. Did that just move it around from section to

[Speaker 2]: section on the bill? But it's

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: all the same. The fees are the same. Okay.

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

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: We did reorganize it. I think we'll try to make it clearer, and to make it more consistent with other states, but I think you choose the first two. Okay. Okay. So now to send your party's point, sections twenty four and twenty five are about the LFO and MFO needs. Yeah. So ever since 2015 and act 64, every large farm in Vermont and every medium farm, and that's primarily they need exclusively dairy farms, And large farms have 700 or more mature milking cows. Medium farms have 200 to 699 mature cows. Those all of those farms have to pay a fee just to operate. They're the only types of farms in Vermont that have to pay a fee to operate. There's always been a little consternation about that, that they they never been thrilled about paying the fee just to operate. There were good reasons for it, but the large farms pay $2,500 a year annually. Medium farms pay $1,500 a year annually. This last year, we had 97 medium farms and 35 large farms. The total fiscal impact from those fees was $233,000 for the for it can vary a little bit by year, but it's fairly static, although we tend to be going down instead of up, especially with medium farms as we continue to lose farms. So that fee, the reason that we're proposing that it be eliminated is there's several reasons, but one is farms are as you probably all know, farms have been struggling for a long time when we continue to lose farms and and farm land. And they they've really since, you know, they had COVID in 2020. In the May 2023, there was a horrible freeze, and then the disastrous flooding in 2023. In 2024, there was terrible flooding again. Last year, record drought in 2025. The commodity price of milk is extremely low right now. There's just a a litany of issues that are always there. There's not a lot we can do for a lot of those issues. You know, the biggest thing that threatens farms is viability. Very difficult to farm, you know, remain viable, and that's why we keep losing farms. We've lost 35% of our dairy farms since right before COVID in January 2020. 35%. We lose you know, we lost 11% of our farmland in the last five year census period from 2017 to 2022. We've lost 56% of our farmland since act two fifty was adopted in 1970 to protect farmland. So this is just an effort to give farmers a break where we can. We would yes. Sorry.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I just

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: have a question. I'm told I totally

[Speaker 5]: hear you,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: and and my question is, one, I believe that these fees were initially implemented to help pay for the water quality division

[Speaker 5]: in the Agency of Ag. Correct.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: So if these fees go away, how is that division going to be supported?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So in the recommended in the governor's recommended budget, it would be part of our it would be part of our general fund transfer to the water quality division. So Okay. We would not reduce our water quality budget. It would transfer it from the general fund. That's the it's from that fee.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Okay. That's part of the the GODS budget. Yes. Okay. So presumably, the appropriations committees are talking about that. And then my other question, you and I, among other people, worked together last year on the on the CAFO Yeah. Bill, and there are fees in that that they go to the agency of natural resources.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: So this doesn't touch those. It does not. Okay. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It does not. So it's basically just yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Thank you. Okay. Sure. Okay. Another question we had yesterday is in section eight, the local food grants and change that around a a board provide local grants or contracts. And we're wondering what were you thinking of that point?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Oh, sure. So this there's no fee impact here, but we Right. Part of the Farm to School grants, we we give money to third technical service providers to help schools get local food in their schools. So it's not grants to schools, it's grants to these technical service providers who have the expertise to actually facilitate it happening. That's a relationship that's much better governed by a contract process, including the request for proposals and and actually contracting for those services and grant. So we were you can do it through a grant, but better to do it

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: like

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: a contract

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: than a true request. That that might be it. Judy, any other questions? Getting around for me as you have?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Judy, the only thing I I don't wanna invite, unnecessary discussion, but the, I don't know, the hemp fee, there's some language in the hemp about fees too. And just to just to quickly tell you there will be no immediate fiscal impact except possibly positive for the state because we haven't been licensing we haven't been collecting any fees at the agency of agriculture for hemp since 2022 because in 2022, the hemp growing shifted to the to USDA federally. So we stopped collecting grants, and that hemp processing was intended to go to the cannabis before boards. This language is really just kind of formalizing what already informal had happened. So there are some fees in here for some hemp processors. There So might be some new revenue for those hemp processors, but they really need a home, and they don't have one right now. And so or so the the their whole idea is to because hemp is legal throughout the country, is to give them a more formal home. So there will be some fees for those rough processors to register, but I can't really give you a great sense of how that will be impacted because we had a very different fee structure when we were doing it, and we were licensing both growers and processors. And so we had all the growers, and so there were some significant fees, 150, 200,000 maybe annually, but when that shifted to the cannabis control board along with our people who did that work, we the the I think it's hard to estimate the fees. Maybe there's 10 to 20 processors who might get $500 a pop, and there's also some per product rates in there. And James Tucker, the chair of the board, is here, and he might have some better information. But I think we can't give you a great estimate, and I know Ted Barnett reached out to us, and we have some information, but I'm not sure how helpful it is because we were doing something quite different than what in terms of the growing and the processing compared to what would go forward, But if anything, fiscal it's benefit for the state.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: And these fees would go to the Cannabis Control Board, because it's just moving everything over there. Correct. Yes. Okay.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Any kind of other questions? Or

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm wondering. Sorry. No. I'm still looking.

[Speaker 5]: On the

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: use the UVA. I mean, I don't know where you're at, madam chair, but I'm just wondering if there was ever a consideration of for people who are donating the food, making it a higher amount than what for people who have this ballot. So, like, if it's 2,000 and 5,000, making it 5,000 and 10,000 or something, making a difference so that, you know, in fact, that we would be incentivizing more donations in order to get into you to produce value for protein.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So we haven't talked about that. This this was not something that we proposed, but it is something we support because we think the more food we can grow and more food that can be given away help hungry farmers, better than what we are. But we we didn't talk about whether those thresholds should remain the same or or different. And I think for ease of implementation for the tax department, it might be to keep it the same, but but that's certainly a worthy thought. It's not something we sought significantly to see us in the fifties.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Okay. Just don't like to give away pass breaks for nothing. You're gonna pass special treatment. Yeah.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I understand that right, since I would just say from our perspective, one reason we didn't have any concern is anybody who wants to enroll in current use can do it just by selling the food instead of giving away. It's it's that's just the truth.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Yeah. There's more involved in selling food and shipping away.

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: It's true. But you can

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: have but you can sell you can have a farmer do it and sell. You don't have do anything. It's just about how the land is being used. And so if you're if you're having your land be used to to grow food, then you need then you can have somebody else sell it. Don't have to do anything except to have somebody sell it. And so, I mean, I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: understand You have to

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: pay for people to sell it. You have to, you know, you have to market. You have to find buyers. You have to, you know, have the infrastructure of being business. And I think there is a different cost to somebody who's trying to make money off off of it. And I'm and I'm not I don't wanna discourage, you know, charity or contributions. I think it's a great thing. And it's just there is a difference between growing a bunch of tomatoes and taking them down to your local food shelf versus growing a bunch of tomatoes and then trying to sell them to the coop or the farmer's market or the farm stand or how you know, the grocery store, however you're doing it, the the restaurant, it's a lot harder to to be doing that. And so it does seem like it's it's equivalent only in that the land is used the same and maybe that's the point with UVA. I don't know. But or that's one of the points, but there's a difference in terms of effort. Get tomatoes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm just gonna pull up my hostess on my backpack and put in zucchini.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: That's not easier for a good tomatoes. It

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: is. And in August, there's

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: How many people are gonna say don't ship

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: your car window down, and you'll find a zucchini donated in it, which is the difference. If you have to sell, you have to be able to figure what the public is going to buy. If you're donating, I can dump a whole lot of zucchini in the food bag, which they will probably get stuck with.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. I mean, I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I mean, it it's and and the value the use value for most properties is going to be worth a lot more than $2,000 worth of.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I mean, I completely understand your concern. I think most people who anybody who wants to enroll in current use by going through can do it. That's how I see it. Like, you don't have to do any work. You can have a farmer do it, and you don't have to do a thing except allow your land to be used. So I I feel like anyone who wants to can do it, and most people don't enroll in current use because they don't want the current use change tax in the future, or they don't they're just not interested. So I don't I don't think this is going to create this rush of people donating food, But if it did, I don't think that'd be such bad food.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, that's good. I don't care. Yes. We do have a call us currently to see if we can get it. Was a come down and go through the current use. But I Yeah. I thought you had to have at least 30 acres. Reviewing the parameters would be helpful. Yeah. Yeah. We're trying to think about that. Okay. Any other questions? If not

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Well, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: K. Pepper. You're here on chat.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Here on him. And if you

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: guys get to it today,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: One's on the note. For

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: the record, James Keppard, Chair of the Cannabis Control Board. Section 27 of S-three 23 transfers authority over hemp processors and products Right. To the cannabis control board. I can give you the history of this if you'd like, but, right now, the people that are converting hemp biomass into intermediary products and then putting those into other products don't have any regulatory oversight. The agency of agriculture originally had a hemp pilot program, And then in point one and two, they decided to discontinue that. But the market continued to resist and evolve. And so right now, there's a decision in this bill to shift oversight over those processors and those products to the cannabis board. And this comes at a very unusual time, where the federal government in November 2025 effectively killed the hemp industry, hemp product industries, but they put a one year implementation date on the provision that does that, and so we really don't know what the future of hemp production, processing hemp products is gonna look like in November 2026. So what's good about the language that you see in section 27 is that it accommodates kind of multiple pathways. It's flexible enough that if this turns into a purely intrastate market, much like the cannabis market, because these products are considered cannabis federal level, not hemp anymore. It allows us to regulate them as an interstate market, or if we do, if there is a delay to the implementation date or some kind of legislative fix at the federal level, and we continue to see a proliferation of hemp products entering into our state, it can accommodate that as well. So the fees, you know, it's hard, I know you're more probably concerned about what the fiscal impact of these fees are, it's going to be revenue new generating no matter what, because right now we're not we're not collecting any fees from the hemp industry. Mhmm. But how much or whether just it's a national market that's coming into Vermont or we're exporting the products from Vermont to other states, Really hard to tell until November.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So this is just kind of help them as tread water and prepare for what might or might not show up.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: That's right. And then this the language defers a lot to rule making, and by the time we have

[Speaker 2]: a rule drafted, we'll have

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: a long term clarity as to avoid that this will happen in November. But as far as the fees go, I mean, you know, If we have thousands of products, if that practice continues, we have thousands of products, it's gonna generate a lot of money in these fees, and we're going to repurpose one of our positions at the board to be in charge of them. If it's a purely interested market, you know, think a lot of interested in getting hemp places.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Questions. We have you coming back with a cannabis Right. Okay. Is that gonna work for you?

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: It I know you guys had a you guys got started late because of a flu.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. I've noticed.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: It was scheduled for 04:00.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I think I could try it at 04:30. 04:30. Okay. It's it's at the the latest. Yep. I have you on at 04:30. Does that work? I think so. Okay. I could take you now, but it would probably just confuse issues.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Alright. Thank you.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: Yes. Well, I'll come back.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I think yeah. We're still getting our heads off childcare and licensing and Yes. To agriculture. Okay. I have this on from. However, I want to hear from Kirby. Do we have any ID with Kirby? I'd be free. If I send him a message, he hasn't responded. Okay. So we will yeah. I wanna renew review that and see whose memory is correct, but I thought you had to have 38 or probably the farmer can make that up by leasing, but the farmer can't

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: He can lease land for people. You know, if at least they've got it. That's You know, crooked side.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: That's not This past important.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Michael O'Grady, maybe. Yeah.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: They they share that portfolio.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: They share that? They share. Okay. Alright. That's my Kirby sometimes is usually easier to get than Michael said.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: It's 25 acres. 25 acres, dollars 2,000 per this is in our bill. Dollars thousand per parcels of up to 25 acres. Dollars 75 per acre for each acre over 25 acres for the total income not required to, required not to exceed 5,000. That's in this bill? Well, it's not changing it. It's just in there as part of, it's on page 10.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Kirby's the draft no. Yeah. Yes. Kirby's the draft session. So we will make clear exactly what this proposal is and what it's opening up. Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna go on to a new topic, not involving anything you eat or smoke, which is s three twenty eight, and that's an act relating to housing and common interest communities in Cameron. Is no. Cameron is not here. And we are right on schedule. It's without Cameron, it's gonna be a little hard to do more do a physical look for it, but we can do that. Why don't you give us a physical note? Sure. That will this one. Housing. Okay. This looks like it might be a little more complicated.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: There's quite a few different things in the bill, and I will do my best to provide a little more context rather than zooming through things as I would as if there had been a full walk through. And

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Mhmm. Oh,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: that. I'm going to

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Seed the chair because I haven't even started.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, yes. Sad to see the chair, but it really will help us if we know what we're getting at this.

[Speaker 2]: I apologize for No. We're just Already has

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the schedules today. It is that week.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The record is Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel. I'm trying to pull up a Zoom, and we'll do a walk through of S-three 28 as it came out of the Senate Economic Development Housing and General Affairs Committee. Sorry.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We were to stop these committees from throwing five huge bills on us in the last day. We should just not get to one or two of them. Development has virtually the chair since I've been told to have all power. Is every years. It's been through any number of chair. The last week, there's like five or six and health and welfare does the same thing. They just don't usually come here but rather than do one at a time and they're big bills.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Particularly because there's so many things in them that relate to each other, the subject matter Okay. Drives

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: can we go?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: You're at

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: 3.1, running through, starting with section one. As you can see in the reader assistance heading there on line seven, this is gonna be amending the requirements of a municipal plan, and in particular, amending the housing element of a municipal plan. So it's adding language in, starting there on lines 18 and moving down, that would require that the housing element to include an analysis of any regulatory and physical constraints preventing housing development or redevelopment sufficient to meet the housing needs and targets, and a description of what actions the municipality may take, moving to the top of page two, to accommodate the projected housing needs for the municipality. And then if and when the municipal plan is amended or adopted excuse me, amended or readopted, the housing element there on lines five needs to include progress towards the construction of the housing units. I think five is needed to meet their housing targets. So they need to include information of what's prohibiting them from meeting their housing targets, what they're going to do to try to meet their housing targets, and then progress that's made towards the housing targets if they amend or readopt.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is there any guidance anywhere on what their housing, how their housing target is calculated?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The state, as part of those statewide housing needs assessment, has targets for, I believe, each region and municipality. They can also come up with their own targets, is my understanding, but they could refer back to, in the regional planning chapter, it requires Department of Housing and Community Development to issue that statewide housing assessment.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Okay, moving

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: on to section two, tax credits. This would extend certain tax credits within the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. You have a lot of lead in language. The change is going to be down here on page four. But this is specifically for on lines 12, the down payment assistance program. So this is BHFA offering certain down payment assistance, and then when the individual goes to refinance or sell the home, the individual has to pay that down payment assistance back to BHFA, and then they put it back into the circulation to help the next set of individuals, and as you can see there in the subdivision one and two, this goes all the way back to 2016, and statute here was initially 125,000. It was pumped up to 250,000. They're set to expire this fiscal year '26, and so this would extend those tax credits for another five years and increase it from two fifty up to three fifty. Tax.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Can I be direct? Is a

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: grant. Right? So that didn't we just extend these last year, and you just said they're expiring?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yep. Maybe didn't make it.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: I Or was it It

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: it was proposed in the housing bills, if I recall, but I don't believe that

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: it Okay. It was

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: struck down. I think that there's, like, a four year, like, it goes up and then it goes down. I remember these charts from JFO.

[Speaker 5]: You probably made them.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: You might see another one coming up.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So that's that's what

[Speaker 5]: this is. Yes. It's the up and down.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: But I feel like we did it. I know we did it in '22 when I was in here before. I remember learning about these the first time, and I felt like we did it last year. But you think it was just proposed that maybe

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Trying to recall what the proposals were. I feel like there were a few different ones, and I believe that this was included last year, and I think they just I mean, ultimately, they were stripped out and

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: never made them back. There are

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: other programs that work like this too? Isn't there one for manufactured housing? Oh. That does the up and down thing?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Not to my knowledge on manufactured

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: I know that's technical term. Like the visual in my head of this kind of tax credit.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I know exactly if you remember that.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Okay, see, it's a fact that visual.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I know there are multiple different programs that are administered by the HFA, this is just one of them. Don't recall if there's one specific to manufactured housing similar to this. There is a manufactured housing improvement program that has been in existence with DHC for a few years now. That was made permanent or put into statute last year.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes. But that's not a tax credit? No, these are tax credits that are sold in order to finance To raise the the money. Yeah. Okay. And then, yeah, that's right. They can, they have so many years to reclaim them, thus the up

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: and down. Exactly. And it feels like every year somebody comes in and says to us, they're expiring this year, so you need to redo them. And there's so

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: many The only issue we have for you. Tax credits. They are, we do have a housing tax credit, affordable housing tax credit, and they are all funded. That's how we gain money to fund essentially our housing and redevelopment programs. Otherwise, we would not do them, or I guess the state would collect the money, which probably wouldn't equal as much as

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Yeah, they're sold usually at around 90% of their Okay.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This would raise it to $3.50 for the next five years. And the testimony from BHFA was to, you know, this extension of five years will continue to build the money, the total amount of money that they have, you know, kind of loaned out for these assistance programs, and that should make that fund somewhat self sufficient at that point in time. You have a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: feeling burnt out, plus the cost of it keeps going up, the amount of down payment necessary keeps going. Okay.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Section three is related to the Vermont State Treasurer's Credit Facility, so currently in Title 10, Section 10, I'm sure you all are aware, the treasurer it's actually been in the news recently with some loans that have been issued out, the treasurer there in sub A has the authority to take 10% of the state's average cash on hand and loan those mines out, and this proposal is raising that from 10% to 12.5%.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Credit facility, that's not a physical facility, it's the facility to establish credit, right?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm not sure why it's titled a credit facility. The credit facility is

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: That's what I have in my mind. It

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: is a lender that's used in issuing loans, etcetera, but I'm not quite sure that it fits exactly this, you know, what's kind of contemplated here, but ultimately it is giving them the authority to issue out 10% of those funds in loans and typically they do that through you know working with local banks and credit unions etcetera to actually distribute the monies but. So 10% for Vermont.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: Yes ma'am.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So we're making it 12. Doesn't do so well. I've got the we'll have treasury the Zoom in or somebody from his office just tell us You have some You're there, you're here, all right. I So can take that note

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the change here is just increase to 12.5. The remainder amendments in that section are just technical. Here at the bottom of the section, there is a report from the treasurer about activities that they've taken for a specific subsection under that section, and I'm assuming that you all wanted that information annually and not one time, so that it in the standard language that we use regarding expiration required reports and notwithstanding that. Then So we get to a section on common interest communities. The bill in different iterations when it was in Senate Economic Development had certain sections related to prohibiting common interest communities from regulating certain activities, so it would require leasing, for example.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: It would

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: be like the condo association?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yes, ma'am.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. Think of your, you know, kind of referred to these as homeowners associations, it's statutes that are called common interest communities, and there were different provisions about whether to allow them to regulate leasing, and there were a lot of concerns with the language that was drafted. There was some language in there about requiring them to authorize

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: in home childcare centers.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: There was some language about requiring the installation of electric vehicle supply equipment, and there are a lot of legal or a lot of legal issues when it comes to a common interest community. Are you making it retroactive, are you applying it perspective? I'm trying to keep. And so the committee ultimately took all those sections out and asked our office to do a report providing the committees of jurisdiction with report outlining the legal issues associated with those different provisions that were in the bill.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm remembering many years ago and having to report the Universal Commercial Code on condo associations, and there was something in there about the percentage of units that could be leased to Brendan, and I assume whatever we do has to comply with the UCC.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes ma'am, there were some concerns about certain mortgage underwriting, etcetera, having to have limits on how many units can be leased, and the ability to resell those mortgages to the secondary market. Those were some of the issues that were raised in the economic development committee. And so the committee decided, should we not, we have two members of the committee here with you, but ultimately I think the committee decided it would be better to gather that information and be able to review it next year to move forward. Okay. And so then you can see the list on page six of the specific things that were in the bill that would be included in this report when it comes back to you. So the things that I mentioned, authorizing leasing of residential units, authorizing certain commercial purposes within a dwelling unit, permitting the construction of ADUs, and allowing electric vehicle supply equipment to be installed. When we get to section five, remind economic development authority, so this would amend the definition of eligible facility or eligible project under BETA, under the chapter governing BETA, and the key language here is on page seven. It would authorize VIDA to finance multiunit housing development of five or more units if it's requested and jointly financed with a financing lender. However, VITA has to consult with and defer to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, and VITA would not be able to fund the project if the project was receiving funding from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So just trying to get more money State money.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Trying to get more money into the availability to fund housing.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Then

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: this next section, section six, would create the Services Supported Housing Advisory Council within the Agency of Human Services, Department of Disabilities Aging and Independent Living. This is a continuation of some work that was in the housing bill from last year. There was a study group to look at how to create a state program to provide more housing for individuals with developmental disabilities. That study group came back and part of their report is a recommendation for kind of an ongoing council to review this. It would live within, as I mentioned, it would live within Dale, has a specific number of individuals to be included on the council. Ultimately, the purpose is to help identify opportunities for increased alignment between human services programs and policies serving individuals who receive Medicaid funded development disability services and housing capital. So an ongoing council to continue to look at how to get housing for these individuals. Annual report coming back to the general assembly. Then moving forward, ah, I can pause because there are a few sections that Ellen's gonna walk through, but before we get there, I'll just run to the end and talk about the positions and the appropriations. It does have in here two positions, or excuse me, three positions for the Department of Housing and Community Development, two full time classified grant management specialists, one full time exempt position to increase capacity to administer programs, and then there are two appropriations, dollars 250,000 for municipal and regional planning grants for meeting our housing targets, and then 5,000,000 wanting to go into the base budget for the Vermont Housing Improvement Program. That's a big difference.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: 5,000,000 total or 5 Is this in a

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I believe

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I think so. Right. This an did they have 5,000,000 last year? Did they have nothing last year? Did they have 5 last year? This is an additional 5.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't recall what they received last year, I just want to double check. My understanding is the governor was recommending 3,000,000 for BPIP this year.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay, so this would be an annual appropriation and they're asking for five, okay. Okay. The appropriations, which should Do you wanna keep the Can I keep your line high? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Okay. I think I'll be clear. Okay.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: I'm Jake House, yeah, from

[Speaker 5]: the legislative council. So, there are three sections in here that are related to land use. So, section seven is a municipal zoning section, and it has three zoning amendments.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Sorry, that's not in our domain. So

[Jake House, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the first one is about manufactured housing and making sure that zoning districts treat it the same way as conventional housing, the same way that they treat conventional housing in their year round residential zoning districts. Next is that duplexes shall be a permitted use as opposed to an allowed use. Currently, allowed use allows towns to do conditional use review for duplexes. And then the third zoning change is related to the quadplexing, so in areas with sewer and water infrastructure that allow residential development. Multi unit dwelling with four or fewer units shall be a permitted use on the same size lot as a single family dwelling. It's striking the caveat to that, which was unless the zoning district specifically requires structures more than four zoning units, so it was giving this option of if the town didn't want to have these smaller multi unit dwellings, they could not do that by then requiring larger multi unit dwellings. Some towns went with, you can build a multi unit dwelling here, but it has to be at least 10 or more units. That led to these not encouraging these smaller unit types.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I hadn't read this when I made the reference to visualizing triple plexes in my backyard, which I think my region of my lot is one acre, not the hillside we got bonded. And I was having a hard if a town has one acre selling and I can put a house on the one acre or if it has quarter acre zoning, I have to put I have to allow a quadruplex, which is four parking spaces. We're not allowed to require two. Right? So you'd have to have and I was having difficulty seeing how that would work. Well, I live over there. Okay.

[Jake House, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm happy to show you what my house looks like.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Down in the meadow? Yes. That that is as close Yeah. To yeah, we probably have, but even those are single family homes. There is one where there's another home attached that's on the other corner of the block. Looks like there was grandma's house attached to the family house, but

[Jake House, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And that's probably the format of some of them a lot of

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: them will take, is the conversion of an older home that was put into four units. Up to four units. They could do four. They could do two or three, but

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: zoning down there, I'm pretty sure, is an eighth of an acre. Does this say that you have an eighth of an acre for single family? I guess you would have to allow one quadruplex. Yes. Okay.

[Jake House, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Section eight is slightly related to this because it's about the definition of what these areas are. They're areas served by municipal sewer and water infrastructure. There has been some conversation about how large are these areas that are served by municipal water and sewer, where additional densities like the quadriplegic would be required. The Center for Economic Development Committee added this specification that it's an area where residential connections and expansions are available to a parcel or portion of a parcel within 2,000 feet of the municipal water and direct and indirect discharge wastewater systems, and the connections are prohibited by restraints. It's trying to put a bright line distance from the municipal system so that you can visualize where the areas are.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. There may be changes to that in the future. Then finally,

[Jake House, Office of Legislative Counsel]: section nine. Section nine is related to the Community Investment Program, which is what was previously the designated downtown program. There are a couple of cleanup things that are being changed, which is new town centers are being grouped together with downtowns and village centers, and new town centers are inherently younger than downtowns and village centers, and so the requirements to get these designations require that a portion of the center is listed or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. However, most of the Newtown centers are not old enough to qualify, and so it's adding the caveat that unless they are a pre existing Newtown center, they will not qualify for the benefits of this designation program.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Because we were talking about Berlin Mall. Just now putting in a significant amount of housing, and I believe I was told they have applied to be, I know Berlin has been trying to do it down center.

[Jake House, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, and so they won't qualify for any of the historic tax credits, but they may qualify for some of the other benefits of this program. You

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: can't put a new facade on them all?

[Jake House, Office of Legislative Counsel]: They could they could try. Someone someone might

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: give them funding for that. Okay. Yeah. But I know they are they can't. They have fraud. The state bought a plan they were looking at. Okay. And there's I think we've been through it all. Right?

[Speaker 2]: Yes, ma'am.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And the section that we have is and we've got Chad Simmons' coverage, DHFA payment assistance, and prob and the treasurers up to 12 Great. So she's which I think is what's in our jurisdiction. So we got any questions at this point for you to No? Nobody? Okay. K. Thank you.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yes, ma'am.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Jen, we're gonna come up, and then we'll do Peter? This

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: is And I was looking.

[Speaker 2]: Last year, you had you were addressing the first generation home buyer tax credits and the down payment systems was both in the senate and the house bills as they came out of committees, but I'm assuming they were stripped out, not make them into the budget. I don't think either one would be. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Okay. That is why I feel like deja vu.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Okay.

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: And I haven't and even another reason why they might seem like deja vu. Okay. I'm gonna go to the house

[Speaker 2]: for please let me know

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: if Fine. You need

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And I'll I'm available if you need any. This one is feeling nice and clean unless someone messes it up.

[Speaker 2]: Good afternoon, everybody.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: My name

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: is Chad Simmons. I'm the Executive Director of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont. We represent a number of organizations and individuals who support state efforts to improve our outcomes for homelessness and increase affordable homes across the state. We have large slate of priorities for this year, and this happens to be the down payment assistance, which happens to be the only one really focused on homeownership. So, we wanted to come in today and just voice our support for this program. I previously worked for the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, so I

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: You used might be be a a member of the family.

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: In this position, and so know the program well. Senator Hardy, you are correct, there was a bit of deja vu. We did come in last year asking for this tax credit to be extended because it was ending last year. And more was in, and a couple months ago, I believe at the January, had just shared that the last tax credit had been sold. So at this point, the down payment assistance program is just running on autopilot. There's no more funding coming in to be able to support those. That deja vu. Yes, yes. So you were not caught up

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: with that.

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: And so just as a reminder, that state housing tax credits in 2000 as a way to support rental housing development, and then again updated in 2009 to add state home ownership, which does include manufactured housing. That was added after Irene. So the state tax credit is a way for the state to raise revenue to pay for housing related activities. The Down Payment Assistance Program was created as a part of the State Housing Tax Credit in twenty fourteen and first sold in 2015. It has raised just shy of, just over $14,000,000 and to this date, 11,000,000 still remains kind of in circulation. Dollars 3,000,000 has been paid back to the state so that the FHFA can then use those dollars provide down payment assistance for others. The reason why we support this provision, and the reason why the HFA has come to the legislature asking to increase it and extend it by five years, is the impact it's had on the state. It's allowed over 2,100 Vermonters were eligible go from renting to home ownership. It allowed them the financial flexibility to get into home ownership. And that's

[Speaker 2]: what we want to

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: encourage as a state, for people who want to and are able to, to get into home ownership. Secondly, it has generated over 137,000,000 worth of equity, if well, for those homeowners. So these are low and moderate income Vermonters who, with this assistance, have been able to generate long standing home ownership security and be able to generate home equity in their homes. So we see this as a really powerful tool to encourage Vermonters to have that financial and homeownership security. I'll just point to some of the data that shows that a lot of Vermonters are cost burdened in their housing. Than 50% of Vermonters pay more than 30% of their income towards housing, and a quarter of those, 25%, pay more than 50% of their housing. So whatever little step that we can do as a state to encourage people to get into homeownership is really valuable asset. So we are in full support of this provision of S-three 21, and ask for your support as well.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay, any questions?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Thank you for the clarity on our deja vu moment.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I can tell you from my former profession, even before this big spike in housing, if you're paying a thousand dollars or more a month in rent, you save out a twenty, ten, 20% down payment is virtually impossible. But if you don't, well, it impacts the rates you get, but it also, you have to pay for mortgage insurance, which used to be over $300 a month. I'm sure it's much higher now, which adds to the cost of housing, which makes it prohibitive for people to afford housing, but housing is the greatest source of wealth for most people. So it it is an important service. Alright. Come on up, and then we will catch Ted.

[Michael S. Pieciak, Vermont State Treasurer]: Hello, welcome back here. Peter Conbley, I'm the state treasurer. Would it be helpful, madam chair, for me to briefly go through a refresher of what the 10% in Vermont program is?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Of course, let me hear.

[Michael S. Pieciak, Vermont State Treasurer]: Very quickly. So the treasurer's office has always been charged with managing the state's cash on hand in the time when collected it and when it is needed to be spent. Since the pandemic, the state has had substantially more cash in any given moment than what it needs, which means we've been allowed we've been able to utilize an authority that our office was given back in 2014 to invest up to 10% of the state's cash in more long term investments in the form of loans around the state. Since Treasurer Pietczak came into office, those loans have been squarely focused on housing, and to date, we've been able to support the creation or retention of over 1,700 units of housing, as well as the creation of over 140 permanent jobs, and I actually looked it up, and we've invested in housing projects in every single one of your interests. True. What we're proposing to do is adjust the threshold from 10% to 12.5%, which when combined with a different credit facility that the state has for climate resilience lending, would bring this total amount of state lending up to 15% of our cash balances, leaving us at 85% liquidity. We are relatively conservative in how we make these loans in two key ways. One, we assume that the state has less cash than it actually does because the state's cash balances have been trending downwards since the heights in 2023. And secondly, we offload the risk from these loans to the extent possible to an intermediary. So what we do is we loan to a financial institution like the Vermont Housing Finance Agency or a local bank or a credit union, and they make the final loan to the housing developer. They guarantee us repayment, and in return they add a small amount to our loan. So we protect the state's cash investments from risk if the underlying loan could the developer just fail or

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: any reason or whatever. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That's good to know. And there was a long history starting with the group in First State Bank. Yeah.

[Michael S. Pieciak, Vermont State Treasurer]: A very long history.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. Very long history too. Having the 10% from Vermont. It was Beth Pierce when she was treasurer of that put that into effect. Mhmm. And it is an investment of the state into local development projects, which keeps them from having to go to Wall Street as much as they would otherwise. If

[Michael S. Pieciak, Vermont State Treasurer]: I may, I know Ted will get into this as well with the fiscal note. The fiscal impact here is there tends to be a differential between what the state would earn if it was keeping this money in cash, and what the state earns on a loan. We, on average, are lending our money out of 1.5%, and right now we're earning about 3.5% on short term cat investments. A few qualifiers to that difference, interest rates are coming down on our cash investments, so that difference in our earnings is getting smaller and smaller every year. We also don't always have every dollar of the credit facility out at any given time, so even if our capacity has increased, that doesn't necessarily mean that all of that money will be loaned, some of it will be held in cash investments

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: from

[Michael S. Pieciak, Vermont State Treasurer]: time to time. And finally, we don't have any quantifiable figures for state revenues that are generated through the loans we're making. We've created quite a few units of housing and jobs which bring in revenue to the state, but we don't have quantified figures for those.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: This is probably heading back to the pre COVID norm where the economists didn't even look at interesting, and suddenly interest income was a lot more than a decimal point, but like revenue and a lot of other things, we seemed to be trending down and everything other than the costs seem to be reflecting those national economy there. Okay. Any questions on this one? We've got more money, so we're gonna load more money out. We may not make as much of that, but we're getting we're building housing units. We're getting housing. We're getting property taxes. We're getting people housed. So okay, no questions? Thank you.

[Speaker 2]: Thank you. Okay,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Ted. That was what all these good things you have cost. Then I'm hoping book was spelled out.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Chad Barnett drawing fiscal office. I will share my screen. Particularly for the up and down chart. So, broad, high level fiscal impacts, I will summarize them. The fiscal note provides more context on various programs. What's the AI Oh, can. Let's see. They used it to full screen mode. Should get rid of it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: There we go.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: It goes back.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Great. Thanks. Sure. Nice. Yes, we are, this work is all qualifier. Disclaimer, no AI was harmed or involved in the making of this fiscal note. So first, the bill would authorize $350,000 in first year credit allocations per loans to the BHFA Down Payment Assistance Program in fiscal years 2027 to fiscal year two thousand and thirty one. That impact would be $350,000 in the first year, those first allocations, and increased by $350,000 per year. The first year allocations represent five years of tax credits that folks can claim, and so the fiscal impact would peak at $1,750,000 in fiscal year thirty one before phasing back down. This is summarized on the next page. We use the graphic from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. It's a great graphic. We would be able to do better, and so yes, that shows the mechanics. The current commitments through the down payment assistance program are shown in blue in this chart, and then the proposed additional credits in the bill are shown in green, and so you can see the amounts and how they scale up and down our fiscal year.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: It's exactly the chart I was

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

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: had a feeling that might have

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: been placed.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes, yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: And in my brain I was like, that was last year, it was actually, just time. It was a couple months ago. It's time. It's time. It's It's Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes. So we are investing 350,000 for the next three years, five years? Five years. Five years, and that's not cashed across the hall. That's tax credits that we're selling. And then those tax credits get claimed, but this money also gets paid back, is that?

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: No. So the way that works, right, the tax credits are sold, then the citizens can claim those over a period of five years, and uses the proceeds from the sale of those tax credits, and so, yes, they make that money available in down payment assistance, and that money goes out the door, and these folks are repaying their down payment assistance, and come back in, and there's a pool of money

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's like over five Yeah. Years or Yeah.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: So, it's generally the mechanics on that program. Very high level. The difference in interest that could be generated on the cash balance versus what would come in if the credit facility for 10% for Vermont was increased from 10% to 12.5%. That differential at max deployment based on where we currently are with the state's average cash balance would be up to $600,000 That is not a fiscal year twenty seven impact. I must be clear on that. The treasurer has indicated that it would take them time to make credit available to folks. It would take folks time to draw down on that credit that's made available, and given some of the qualifications that the treasurer presented to you all and the fact that it's unlikely that the full amount that's made available is out the door at any given time, the $600,000 is really a theoretical max impact.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And that doesn't count any revenue we might pick up if they're building housing units, won't be online this year either, unlikely, and so, yeah, what we pick up from the investment, this is just out the door, not coming in.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yes, as you've, I'm sure you've heard JFO say many different times, right, we stick to kind of near term state fiscal impacts and don't try to estimate behavioral secondary, interrupt impacts, because it requires a bunch of engine Yes. Yes, let's start getting complicated. There is, this is more of an appropriations issue, but there is a service supported advisory council that'd be created by the bill that they would be able to receive per diem and expense reimbursement.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And that goes on the wall.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: And then, yes, there are positions that would be created. There are three positions. Information from ECCB is that these positions could come off at about 400,000 annually if they were authorized, but funding's not provided in the bill.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Not out.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Exactly, and then, yes, I could run through the appropriations, but again, that is.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No, I'd like to get it to appropriations so

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Exactly. That you can Yes, I will hold commentary on those parts, but yes, happy to answer any questions about the tax and revenue pieces.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Thank you. What is this, you may have said this, but I'm tired, missed it, this chart that's titled Center Benefits?

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Oh yes, I should mention that. Ellen was talking about making sure that Newtown centers would be able to participate in the center designation process. This is showing, so Newtown centers, if they came in at a step two or three, this shows the various state benefits that are available through those designations. I will, let's see, reviewing many of these. So, in step two, state water and wastewater permit fee reductions, those are capped at $50 compared to the fee schedule where it normally is, so projects within a new town center. My understanding is this primarily applies to one new town center that would qualify for everything in step three. But yeah, so there's an exemption for the land gains tax. There's a whole set of tax provisions, fee reductions. In step three, folks would be eligible to participate in the sales tax reallocation funding program, so it unlocks projects. It's impossible for us to forecast how many projects would take available of these benefits, but I appreciate the question because it is absolutely something that's within your jurisdiction, and it would there are currently three Newtown centers. It's Berlin, Lancaster, and South

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: Burlington. That's right.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. But if it didn't become a Newtown center, we wouldn't be getting wouldn't be getting fees anyway. They're getting a reduced fee, but if they weren't in a new town I guess if they were just to

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: develop and not going in as a new town center. Wouldn't be thankful, afraid,

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: yeah. We

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: have no idea.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: No, that is connected to, I think it was two twelve that's part of the conversation that ANR is trying to figure out the size and scope. This is within the neighborhood designation, which also has a similar provision. So, yes, ANR, it requires understanding within the neighborhood designation, which areas are gonna be mapped as neighborhoods, understanding which projects are currently falling in those designations, it's a bit of a mapping of the gate that I understand. A and R is looking at how various designations will impact their fee revenue, and I think once we have more information.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That's Yeah. It's like when we made things not need to go through at $2.50, we had to come up with another source of funding because we still had to fund the court and the board and yeah. Okay. Alright. So that is being looked at, and we will know in the future.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Particularly for ANR wastewater and water piece. Okay. Committee, questions?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's on for both. I are pretty comfortable at that this point with voting this one out. It's on so far. I I love emotion. Can I ask a question for some Yeah?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: For my morning. Like, did we vote on our wedding this morning? I had to step up. But Or No. Just now. Don't

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: No. I don't think we did.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. So that's. Okay. I would Thanks. Go ahead. I'm

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: favorably s three twenty eight draft number 3.1 as received from the committee of the economic development housing project affairs.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Deputy Chittenden has moved that we favorably approve draft three twenty one of s three twenty eight as it came to us from housing and general payers. Are there any amendments? Any further discussion? If not, I'll be rolling. You want to roll it?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Senator Chittenden, go. Senator Beck, yes. Senator Hardy? Sorry. Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Senator Changed the order.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: I did not. He didn't. It was without me.

[Speaker 2]: Senator Brock? Yes. Senator Gulick?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Yes. Senator

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Mattos, yes. Senator Cummings? Yes. Zero zero.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Seven zero zero. I'm looking for somebody from economic development that might like

[Speaker 2]: So you're doing the other line bill?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I can't remember. Doing that. Either one. It's fine.

[Speaker 2]: Your choice, madam chair?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I don't know. Randy, do you want to Okay. Sandy Brock will report that. You want them?

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: We're going to steal the spotlight.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I was like, oh, okay. Did the fuck off. Her feet and common interest. That's the old. Okay. Who did that? We're going on to s one ninety eight. I still want to check on that.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Current use? Current use.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Would you like current use dot five message? Yes, please. Before we vote that out. And I've got one ninety eight, and I've got that Rebecca needs to go first. Is that

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: That'd be great. Yeah. And also more flexible than I thought, though. Someone else also Very flexible in here.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Considering we're starting in now, we're gonna I will eventually have to go to the house floor, I think, but I'm out there under your roof. Okay. So You're here. Oh, you're here. Alright.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: So we will take you. Anyhow, Alright.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If Deb wants to do

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: a walk first, that's I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I mean, what to do to the split yourself. So we're not gonna get Well, we're on a bill before mine. I can come when I'm done. Okay. And this is yeah. Something tells me this bill is not coming out this afternoon, so we can just take testimony. Right. I'm when I'm done with billing for it, I'll stand. We'll deal with that. Let me not do it for you. And then maybe We'll take

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I'll deal

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: from this now. We'll that. Take testimony.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: And we will do This

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: is the first time this year in my past every divorce or. Traditional people sound the windowsill or the seats.

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So, Rebecca, that's

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: the patient.

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: It was you. Hi. Yeah, Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Taxes. So, I'm just here to speak on a couple of the sections of this bill that implicate the tax department. It should be straightforward. I know no concerns in what we see here. Section four of this bill is a tax confidentiality statute amendment, and this is amending our discretionary authority to share tax information with our colleagues at ELL for their enforcement purposes in Title VII around tobacco, the tobacco products chapter.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: This has been this will

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: just, like, streamline with, you know, there's Plunkiness in their enforcement that I'm sure commissioner Nick could speak more in more detail on, but no concerns from our our position. I think we'll really streamline things between our departments.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: And where you are. Yeah. I'm sorry. I missed

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm I'm reading from notes that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I do have a note to the bill. You know, this is where general. Alright.

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: I'm seeing it on the bottom of page 15.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Confidentiality and tax records. Mhmm. Okay. Yeah. And this is,

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: you know, kind of like the standard side in order to add a keynote allowances for, you know, folks who have administrative needs that rely on tax records. This is all at the discretion of the commissioner. So, you know, if at any point we felt like the integrity and confidentiality was in jeopardy, we have we

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: would able to address that and,

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: you know, make a call as to whether or not information was appropriate or not to share. But this is, like, a known a known need of DLLs and one that makes a lot of sense for us. So moving right on to their sections five through nine talk about shipping licensure of wholesale or of wholesale dealers of tobacco products from the tax department to DLL. This is, like, a wonderful example of something that we both feel is a really great idea and will really, I think, especially for DLL, really streamline, you know, their role in enforcement and licensing. It's act with sole the taxation of these wholesalers, and that's, like, very normal for us to have, you know, to, be administrating taxation in an area where someone else is doing the regulation. So this was an idea that we both think would better align, yeah, our department's role and responsibilities. And just, you know, for for background, this was originally cons conceived of as a study where we would, you know, go and look into it, but we were all enthusiastically onboarded. So I like that. Yeah. And so that would be effective on oh, I don't forget. I think July 2027. Okay. I'm seeing that.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: I'm seeing that from the audience.

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Yeah. Yeah. So no concerns there. Apologies. And then lastly, section 11 of this bill, which I will

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Section

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: 11 does contain a report. This is a report on taxation of tobacco substitutes and tax stamps in general. I think it is, yeah, a worthwhile questions to explore more. There's in in the prior committee, there was, you know, the intention to create stamps for tobacco products beyond just, like, packs of cigarette right now. You know, when you buy a pack of cigarettes, there's a stamp on it that, you know, is like the proof that the wholesaler, you know, collected and remitted. Tax on those packs of cigarettes, you know, it's helpful for later enforcement to make sure that packs can apply to everything. It gets a little, like, much more nuanced when you're in the world outside of just packs of cigarettes. You know, we're talking about, like, vapes and pouches and, you know, all these different, like, know, just, like, the physical shape of them is weird.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Stamp on it.

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Yeah. Like, where do you put the stamp and also, like, what does the stamp mean? Like, some of the you know, the this report actually is, like, asking a group of us, tax, but also in collaboration with the LL and the AGO to, you know, make recommendations for next January about a whole tax structure, including, you know, the use of stamps in the new structure and also the use of stamps today. And I think the right people are at the table to have that, to look into this more deeply. Yeah. I think it is we would be you know, if we move forward with having a a stamp, you know, like, stamped type of of tax and regulation on non cigarettes, that would be like a first in the nation move. So, you know, we're talking about, like,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: pretty novel. But it means that you don't, without some kind of marking, How does enforcement know if the tax has been paid on that shelf of vapes or Right. Out your What do do with chewing tobacco?

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Really good question. So, like, you know what? You know, from, you know, kind of like like, my world, like, in the in force in someone in the, you know, in the business of enforcement who could come in and say, let me see your invoices for all these products here on the shelves, and let's check and make sure there's an impact on that invoice and, know, like, checking records, you know, that kind of world, which the and this is, like, an area that I think shares a lot of expertise in, but more than I have, at the very least. But, you know, it's like the the stamps on a pack of cigarettes kind of allows you to do, like, you know, a quick quick check. Like, these all have the tax applied. But as you consider more nuanced tax types, like, you know, it's, like, part of part of the tax structure that this this report will look at is, like, you know, taxes that are different based on the concentration of what's inside the vape or, you know There's vape specific price. Tobacco base. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Just

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Yeah. There's a it's just a whole world, you know, a whole a whole more nuanced world and, like, does it really make sense to have a a sticker on something as, like, to see an indicator of if the correct amount of tax was paid. It could be, you know, kinda it could open an enforcement gap, you know, like, you're you have stickers on something that says tax was paid, but it's not specific to, you know, what level of tax or or what kind of tax. So I think they're it's good questions to explore, but I'm glad that this is being, you know, pitched as a a report where we have actually, you know, time to learn about the industry more and, you know, what what's happening nationally and and report back with a little more expertise on stuff. Yeah. So overall, no no concerns with the tax related elements, and excited that this licensure handoff to DLL makes

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: sense for both of us. Okay. That'll be helpful. Okay. Any questions? Are there? Are

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: there new taxes in here? Okay. Yes. Are you not seeing the resolution of those?

[Speaker 2]: The PLO report.

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Well, yeah. And also, I think a lot of this has been restructured into

[Chad Simmons, Executive Director, Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont]: a report back next year.

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: So I'll let but there's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: There's definitely fee, a license fee in

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Oh, right. Yeah. So, sorry. Everything that was in the tax space has been of uttered into this report.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Yeah, other groups have said. Yes, but

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: that's We're kind of, because we've lost Jen to the score, we've kind of lost continuity of the flow of this, but I have a feeling both the tobacco and the cannabis bill that we are coming after are not really. I am because the secretary's office is in here. I am going to try and get out 323 if you could find me a tax draft so we could talk to us about current use. Kirby said he'll be here about 04:15. Okay. So when Kirby shows up, we will do that, and then we will You wanna take

[Rebecca Amarocque, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Taxes]: a break?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You wanna take a break?

[Speaker 5]: Well, I just I agree. Okay. Maybe

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: I mean, if it's if it's proper,

[Steve Collier, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I know.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Alright. No. I think long day. Alright.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: But We can if we are finished with Rebecca, you can have a five minute break. That's alright. We're here without cancer until we finish. Okay.