Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We're live now. We are live now. This is Senate Finance, March 19. And bad news, I found out we have two more bills that have to go to appropriations. Cool. Cool. That don't have an appropriation, but that means they need to come out today. So they should be I put them for tomorrow because I thought they'd be really simple in and out bills. We're gonna start, and I know I've got two members who were on judicial retention. Yep. They were doing a special meeting. Is it tomorrow? No. It's next week that we have judicial retention, but they were meeting at noon and they thought it's, like, run over. So they will be here when they finish. The first bill I've got in the agenda is miscellaneous agriculture. And remember yesterday we asked for an amendment and Bradley. Bradley. Yeah. Do you have both your amendment and the one that Kirby was doing?

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Yeah. There's one amendment.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. We are again, apparently, half our staff has to sit in the house floor when bills are being taken up, we're also trying to get staff in and out of you. But this okay. Today

[Sen. Randy Brock]: this one is not enough.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: So that's Thursday. Let's update that. Okay. Now I'm finishing up here. Okay. So you also had some things that you were gonna, were in Smith, that weren't in ours, walk us through what we have.

[Bradley (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, I sent an amendment, draft 1.1 last night, and this amends at three twenty three in three ways. First, in the first two instances, it takes up the word enrolled, because as a copy and paste error, when we were drafting this bill, we were using donation language to edit the eligibility for the required agricultural practices. And then in section four, there's also that donation language. But initially, the donation language was made for current use, and so I mistakenly included that word. And so these two amendments would take out the word enrolled in those sections.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Okay.

[Bradley (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then so I can point out where those are in the fill. In the first instance, it's on section Senate Bill three twenty three, page five, line one would be the first edit we're moving. And then the second section would be page nine, it's on page nine in lines Okay. 14 and

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I know there was discussion when we got to that, because it

[Bradley (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that was, yeah, and that was just a drafting error. Yeah. And I appreciate the opportunity for No problem.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay, and then third, and this is what Kirby did for us, right?

[Bradley (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is correct, and then this would strike out sections five and six in their entirety, and then renumber the remaining sections to be numerically correct.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And that was the one that was, if you donated $2,000 worth of zucchini, you could get enrolled in current use, and I think we had some concerns about possible abuse in that area, And as far as anyone can tell, we know we have one person that seems to donate all of their food crops a substantial amount. But it just I think the two members that were most concerned were not here.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I don't

[Sen. Scott Beck]: see a fiscal note on the 03/23. Is there one that I'm just not finding?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: 03/23.

[Bradley (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think, JFO, you should have that fiscal note ready, if not now, shortly.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: That's right. This was a long, complicated bill, and they didn't have it ready. Is

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: this one medium to large farm piece?

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Yes, it is. No. So I

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: think that was the revenue loss. Yeah. Right?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Let's see what came up.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: And then the seed stuff was just moving it into different sections, Yeah. Areas as well. Because I think that was

[Sen. Randy Brock]: gonna be a neutral.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Was

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: there any thought more about the discussion of donation across? It might be a future discussion on increasing the amount, you know, what, 2,000, thousand, for it to sell it. If it's donated, maybe it could be a higher amount, because then I think it's a larger discussion.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah, I think it is a larger discussion and probably one that needs to start an economic development. It just no one could seem to give us an overriding reason to do it. And the big deduction would be it it wouldn't probably save me enough to try a new current use, and the fee to get out of current use would be significant. But if you had a nice place with a nice gift house, I think there's a farm going down towards the back

[Sen. Randy Brock]: road from

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Royalton over to over to Rotland. So

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: in the the other day or just the birds?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I don't know. They they they if it's a working farm, they put up, like, lodging on it, but it still is like a working farm. Yeah. If you donate all your food and you go you could don't know. It just it didn't feel comfortable yesterday. But we could start with the two technical changes, which is just cleaning up that enrolled issue. We do not have a fiscal note on this, and we can wait until Ted comes in. We also couldn't get a it sounds like you would be a larger landowner with significant buildings to benefit from this in current use, and remember, current use comes out of the Ed Fund.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: And the General Fund.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And the General Fund. Now it gets paid, but it is an expense and an unknown expense. It's funny. Probably was asking about

[Sen. Scott Beck]: the fiscal notice. I just wanna know if they had put numbers to the implications of these two sections.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Don't think they can because it'll depend on who Uptake. Yeah. Yeah. Who takes it up. It's right now, it's that would be comfortable given the state of the unfunded property taxes with setting up potential future reduction. Okay. Do you wanna wait and see if Ted has a fiscal note?

[Sen. Scott Beck]: Do you think Ruth and sorry. Senator Hardy and senator Gulick would wanna be here for this vote?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I don't know. They didn't ask me. We can go on.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: Promotion, which is I don't know if there's support for the amendment as presented. The first incentive is just clean up.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Right? That's clean.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: And then the third is I also have concerns about not knowing what the implications are of extending that to donations on. So I'm okay. And I think with what we heard yesterday, the day before, about the large and small farms and just moving those seed piece.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: What I need first is a motion to amend. Only I'm still on yesterday. I need a motion to amend s three twenty three with draft 4.131326. Sovereign. Senator Chittenden has moved that we amend S three twenty three with amendment 4.131326, and the amendment does some language cleanup with the word enrolled, and it also removes the sections that would allow people that donate $2,000 worth of crops to be able to put their land in current use. Think mostly because we just might be a good idea, but we don't have time

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: To figure out, especially the impact on the. Yep. So motion. Any discussion? Any amendments? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. I'm getting that one. Two. Three, four,

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: five, seven, two.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Who's on nobody's on the others?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: We don't We're No.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: We're not.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: So who do I put this? Can do it. Okay.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: I just don't understand current use. We'll have to be able to answer questions on what

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: we just struck. I I understand. I understand curtains pretty well.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I can probably get this one.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. It's a big enough pill. We're probably got a lot of questions. Just saying this is not the time to be setting up the potential to remove the money out of the in. Okay. So we got one down. Let's keep going. 214. That's Saint James is not here yet. Australia and Astra. Well, they've got three minutes.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: So this kind of reported

[Sen. Scott Beck]: once in the amendment and not to also that bill.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: No. We need to vote to

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: At the of

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: as amended.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: That's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: right. That's the amendment.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: And then you do it on the same sheet. That's what you thought I was supposed

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: to do. No? I don't think it's the same sheet. Normally, what I would do is say, the first one would be a straw poll on the amendment. Yes. And then the second one would be on the actual

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: The bill we actually called. Offended.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Because I just All

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: of those in favor of the bill as amended.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: All those opposed. Same vote.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Perfect. Because that that'll say favorable with amendment and it references our amendment that we

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yes. Just stay on my paper receipt.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: The secretary is going to regret telling me I have all power.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: No, I appreciate appreciate life.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: All right, he didn't say anything about which bill we voted on with the strike all, remember the transportation? Well, numbers are all the same. We're still looking for Beth. Today I found out we need to do yes. We're gonna put him on the end of today. We are going to have to do the optometrist bill because apparently, even though it doesn't have an amendment, potentially could have an appropriation or could in the future need an appropriation. And the same with licensure of internationally trained physicians and medical professionals. I'm still trying to find out who the internationally recognized surgeon working as a phlebotomist in Chittenden County is, but he's definitely not living up to his rejection.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: What's a phlebotomist? Blood blood.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: You take your blood when you go in. Yeah. Already need you. Yeah. So anyway, there other states are working with this, but it's how other than having to go through a complete residency, how do we find a a way to to get them licensed? And I guess the board of medical practice might need some money to do that. So we will get both of those out of here today. Okay. I've got Julie and Ezra. We don't have friends yet. We've got two new bills that or two old bills we didn't know had to be out today, so we are moving. Right? And you are here for a pretty big geographically isolated area. There's Beth. Okay. So, Beth, the minute you feel ready, we're just saying we've got about two more bills have to come out of here today. So I'm happy to be as good as you are. Go home in the daylight. It was just barely daylight, but I

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: got out of here yesterday. Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: This is 02:14, and I relating to the provision of pre kindergarten education in geographically isolated districts. Okay. So. Yes. Can I have a can I have a Zoom? Me try. Sure. Yeah. My arm Going back and forth. I'm not sure. I'll make sure I'm on today because I was checking out yesterday's. Okay. So okay. I do have sorry. Okay. This is a one page review. Okay.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Good. Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beth St. James, the Office

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: of Legislative Council. This is the I'm sorry.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is the this is s two fourteen as voted out of senate education. It was a strike all amendment. The bill originally only two sections, so not much longer. It is an amendment to section eight twenty nine, title 16, which is the pre k statute. It is where all of your pre k statutory language lives. There's a whole host of rules, but this is your statute. It does not change anything about any of the current law. It adds a new subsection at the very end, which reads, notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the any K choice school district may provide pre K to eligible pre K students by paying tuition pursuant to this section to one or more pre K programs operated by a public school in New Hampshire that is located in a school district within 25 miles of the Vermont border. The Essex North Supervisory Union shall be responsible for administering enrollment procedures and managing pre K tuition payments pursuant to the section in State Board of Education rules. The superintendent may apply for and receive a waiver from the agency of Ed and the agency of human services of any rule provision that is impractical for the NEK Choice School District or the New Hampshire program by demonstrating that a substantially equivalent provision is offered. And then

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: this provision would take effect on 07/01/2025. Okay. The reason. The reason? Yeah. Why are we doing this?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, as you know, I cannot breathe life into legislative intent. That is your, that is your area of expertise, but my understanding is that this language, there's a, that any K Choice school district, my understanding is that they lack of access to pre K provided in the state. And most of those children, if not all of those children receive their K through 12 education in New Hampshire. And because the way our publicly funded pre K program is regulated and administered, there's lots of references to Vermont licensed teachers, Vermont Ready Learning Standards, as far as who can be prequalified to receive public benefits. And so that that means that the New Hampshire programs are not eligible under those standards.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And there are no Vermont standards or Vermont programs in this area. That's what I was told is most of these kids go to New Hampshire and practice the rest of their Correct. Language is actually language that was put together by AOE, the agency of human services, in consultation with the NEK Choice School District. Okay. And I assume if New Hampshire says no, then we're back to square one, but

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: they don't say no to me.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I don't. I have a feeling that section of New Hampshire is in a much better shape than that section of Vermont. Okay. Any questions for Beth? This would basically allow students, Pre K students in That's one school district, already sends most, if not all, of their students to New Hampshire to also send their pre K students, which is just dealt with under a different statute. Absolutely correct. Got that right. Okay. Questions for Beth? Okay, now Ezra, you have no chorus. Wait, I have Julia first. Ezra's gonna take a lead on this and just hear us. In Sorrowful Heart. Okay.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Following our dating board director, Ezra Holden, joining

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: the physical office. Sharing the screen for you all.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: You never know what happens to Correct.

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So that thirty day grade walk through the dinner. So essentially, Joint Fiscal Office is estimating that this bill would increase education fund expenditures beginning in fiscal year twenty twenty eight based on conversations with members of the NEK Choice School District and the Department of Children and Families, estimating up to 14 students would gain access to universal pre k through this bill. And the estimated maximum impact is about $60,000 to the education fund, which would be considered demandless overall. However, as you all know, if you spend additional money in the education fund, an adjustment would be needed to the homestead and or non homestead property tax rates. But if we don't do that and somebody sets up a program here, it'll

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: probably cost a similar amount or more,

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: because it will only

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: be for 14 kids. Or these kids don't have the advantage of Pre K that others do in this space.

[Ezra Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And I would just note that universal pre K, so the student's parent or guardian needs to find them a SPAA and choose to enroll them. So it could be that you have fewer than 14 kids who take advantage of this. It depends on the family's decision. And so this is just an estimate based on if all 14 of the estimated students joined based on the UPK tuition rate for what we're estimating for fiscal year twenty eighteen. Okay.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Good rate. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Committee. Discussion. Our next agenda item is vote.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I would vote favorably as two fourteen draft number 1.2 as received to us from the committee on education. Okay. We

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Chittenden has moved that we report s two fourteen favorably. Is there any further discussion? Any amendments? If not, all those in favor say aye.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Aye. Aye.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Oh, say no. I've got that. It's five zero two. Okay. Well, we are on a roll. Like, 44 ahead.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I I can't even report to that center. I know that area. I used to have

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Oh, come in my office. Complex finance report, though.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: All

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: right, 198. Oh, tobacco sepsis. Happily that Jen lined up at 02:00? Melissa believed unless she stayed Not on on the floor. Members that are in economic development, and we sent you out yesterday with a task. Okay. What happened?

[Sen. Randy Brock]: We met with the group, and we met with other team, we met with tax department. Came away just on the tobacco piece with the concern that the fee, the rise in fee from $100 to $1,000 for retailers was problematic and it was not necessary, the amount of revenue we raised in terms of the total is not substantial. So we came back with a vote of the straw vote really that it probably should get back to something in the $150 range. Dollars 5,200 would be fair. It's just not fair right now given its impact on retailers. We agree with them.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: How about the, okay, it is tobacco.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: And I understand it's going to be coming back here as part of an amendment from approves? I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: don't know, I thought there was a floor amendment coming back.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Well, I take that back.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: It's a floor amendment from

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And the other part of that was doing away with all the penalties for

[Sen. Randy Brock]: We discussed the issue of penalties as far as juvenile offenders. The concern was that if the juvenile offender came in and fraudulently represented something as opposed to simply making a purchase, that that is something that is worthy of some kind of penalty, not necessarily a penalty that can result in jail or anything of that nature, but an administrative penalty and we believe that that would be appropriate to adopt.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay, is that gonna come as an amendment? Alright. We'll do

[Sen. Randy Brock]: this amendment to whatever comes from the Okay.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: We being Senate Economic Development, if you remember.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah, okay. I'm still a little concerned if you come in with a fraudulent ID, but if you come in and purchase it, you know you're not supposed to. We have 16 year old clerks. Mhmm. And we don't give them a buy for making a mistake. Mhmm. They end up in diversion. I assume if they make a second mistake, they end up in court, perhaps. But I

[Sen. Randy Brock]: mean What we did what what we wanted to do is strike a balance, though. Yeah. In that we did not want to do something that discourages people from telling us the truth about things that are hanging forward. And this hopefully has some sort

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: of that happy middle ground of doing bit of

[Sen. Randy Brock]: a vote. And that's the rashes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: I'm gonna add two things to what senator Roth just said. The other thing that I believe we were circulating is there's really two retailer fees we're talking about, one for tobacco and then the add on for vapes. And so I believe with the sense I had in the struggle discussion was the 150 for tobacco and then just to track with what currencies are 75 vapes. And then the other thing that is in an email, we didn't take up in Senate Economic Development that came up yesterday that I hope that you'll see in a Jen Carvey proposed amendment is what the DLL asked for, which is the wearables wholesaler fee. Wholesale tobacco? To track things Yeah. Like That's what I'm hoping you'll see. And then I guess Jen also has some cleanup language that she's asking to include that having to do with the pub language, not the change we're gonna make to pub language, but some other conforming language.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay, so we do need to wait for Jen on that one.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: So economic development is doing the fee or just the just the oh,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: go ahead. So we need to change the fee, and that is our decision.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: I think we need to, but it seems most appropriate for us to because

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I think that, you know, as we certainly reflected on the fee increase was excessive. And I know the reason why we did it, but I'm concerned about it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Would you like to leave a message, Jen? See if she can get See, yes, see if Jen is telling her we are running ahead and So

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: you're taking the three p's. You got your tobacco p, your substitute fee, and then this wholesale fee. Wholesale fee

[Sen. Scott Beck]: is what they're asking for.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yes. DOL supports you.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Yes, yes, yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: So we need all

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: of that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yes, they want the $12.94, whatever it is they get for wholesale liquor. They want for wholesale.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: They support that, but not the increase on the retailer. Right, Well, there's a decrease

[Sen. Randy Brock]: on retailer, but it's more to, in effect, inflations. Right. Last time it was on, I think, about $20.16 or thereabouts, to take it to 100. So here's my question.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Hypothetically, if we were to increase that fee, that will generate

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Right? Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'm sure got the title correct. Knight? Typically, commissioner Knight told us they don't need any more money. The money was supposed to be for the physician at the AG's office for online enforcement.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Well, that was the thousand.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: But that yeah. So if we go up by, I don't know, some nominal amount, then the.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: No. If the HE wants an enforcement officer, they should go across the

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: hall and tell

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: them they need an enforcement officer. Trying to do that through fees, it was we normally would do an inflationary thing for fees. If this hasn't been touched since 2016, we're losing money. And we saw no

[Sen. Randy Brock]: objection. Assistant AG who handles this area was in the committee when we had this discussion. I didn't have any objection to the change to $150 or their vows. Who was that, Ruth? Instead of 1,000 words.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Who was in the

[Sen. Scott Beck]: role of Who Who's second? Attorney General. Assistant Attorney General?

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Yeah. It's the Assistant Attorney General who handles tobacco and So they're not gonna be

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: That's not gonna They don't wanna do it.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. That's not gonna do it.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Commissioner Knight objects to it. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. I'm sentencing into provision. I don't Good sense. Think that the amount of money we're talking about is gonna make or break anyone. No.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I do like the bullshit of tobacco. See, I think that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I think everybody supported moving tobacco. Over there. The tax department didn't seem to be very sad about getting rid of it. We're gonna be putting a $1,200 fee on them and

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: And that money goes to DLL? Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Yeah, because they're taking on that administration, apparently the tax department was doing it without that, But I have a feeling that was okay. I'm looking because we don't have anything over stamps.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Did we wanna talk about the cleaning up the language just on municipality part of it? Give

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: us a section or pay.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: No, boy, okay.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Remember how it said you have to apply with your town, then you have to pay your town?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Oh, that's right.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: It said the statute, but in reality you've got That the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: was the enforcement officer that you pay the town and then the town collects it and sends it to the state. They would like it. This is for liquor, for tobacco Now

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: they just go online to deal

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: with Yeah. Now they just go statue. And that but the tobacco says still that you have to get a tobacco license from your town. Town collects it, and then the town sends it to the state, and they were saying it would be

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Just go right to DLL.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Just tell it to go right to DLL.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: It's like the thing we did today where they can't hand you a copy of your title. They have to mail it to you. Just haven't caught up. Okay, so we need Originally

[Sen. Randy Brock]: in total, there's no rake off as far as the town is concerned. Is that correct? There's no what? There's no portion of that feed that goes to the town.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Not one of them does.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: That's what I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: was trying say. Liquor goes partly to the But not tobacco? But not tobacco. Because the town doesn't issue, like, yeah, maybe events with Kansas, and that fee was stayed with the town. Part of it stayed because the town will, and I assume they'll charge you extra for police protection or something, but there is a the town does regulate. You don't have a place where people all well, maybe with the hookahs, you'd sit around and smoke, but they do regulate bars and restaurants, and there is some oversight going on there and I know the standard question was do you serve food with your alcohol or alcohol with your food? Because there's a different license between a bar and a restaurant. Okay, so we need Jan Hunt back. She's across the hall and should be done any minute. Okay. It's a one

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: page bill. Why isn't it a huge bundle? Sorry, I

[Sen. Scott Beck]: thought that was like a one page bill.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: No. Didn't. Oh, there's two. Oh.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: Was

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: there an amendment on this

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: one? Okay.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: No. Not the

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Addison. Oh, yeah. Not the

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: And the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: no. Not the Under

[Sen. Randy Brock]: the reported numbers. Appreciate.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Who's are you doing Addison as

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: well? Yes. Perfect. Okay. Shine away. Jen will be here momentarily, and if we keep her, we we don't. Let's see how many of these pills we can get out. What did what did you find this? Anyone wanna A ad came out with the so the language coming up that's stripping out the Sure. If you donate $2,000 and Universal Pre K letting the kids in the Essex Choice School District follow all their brothers and sisters to New Hampshire Public Schools, probably stated. Those are the two we've gotten out. We have there will be a four amendment to our understanding from economic development. If there isn't, I'll have one. For cannabis or No, this is for tobacco. They will be doing a floor amendment that will reinstate the penalty for false ID, So there will be a penalty for breaking the law. Yes. Otherwise, you would be punishing the 16 year old clerk and not the 20 year old college student. Right. So they will do that and then they are willing we're taking they're willing to do away with the thousand dollar fee. Okay. And they're willing to go to $1.50. Alright. Hi. Hi. So, anyway, so just but that's powerful to make. Right? That and the the $1.50 would be a inflationary increase since 2016, I think. When you catch your breath, I don't think over there. It's just Well, we gotta get all these pills on over there. And it just told me two more need to go. So we're trying to knock them out here too. And I know he get they're losing two members at 02:00 tomorrow. And I think senator Hardy may be there. She's going somewhere to testify. After and was looking, so she may be across the hall. She's in education right now. She's in education. Okay. You'll get to places she needed to be. That's the. Do you know? So which bill do you want to look at? Well, the next one on the agenda is $1.98. That's tobacco. And I think it's our understanding there will be an amendment on the penalties for purchasing coming from the other committee. So we are looking at the fees, and it has been agreed to our understanding between the two committees that going from 100 to $1,000 is probably a little steep and that we would go back The department says that we we they don't need any more money, but economic development thinks that going from 1 to $1.50 would be an inflationary Adjustment. Adjustment. That would be appropriate. It would be appropriate.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: So can we entertain some higher numbers? I know I heard that New Mexico's $7.50 and we've heard some other numbers. Can we

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Other numbers that are in the $207.50 dollar range. We felt that an inflationary adjustment probably more appropriate for the retailers since there are lots of punishing money involved in the sale of the product that is recovered for the harm that the product does, but laying it all on small Vermont retailers was a bit overburdened.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Didn't you vote it out of

[Sen. Randy Brock]: your committee though? You unanimously? We certainly had second thoughts.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Not your names. Oh, great. Sorry.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: Four to one. But with the thousand dollars. So now it's been

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: second thoughts asked about it. Okay. There

[Sen. Scott Beck]: were second thoughts before we voted it out, admittedly, that we thought Senate Finance is appropriately having a discussion.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Gotcha. It was a police department. I understand. The other one we wanted to do an amendment on, I think, is the the whole issue with I guess now to get a liquor license, you can go online and get it directly from the state. But with tobacco, you're going to have to get the license. Now that it's been separated from alcohol. You're going to have to get a license at the local level. The local level will collect it and send it to the state. And the suggestion from the enforcement people was just apply to the State Department of Liberia and lottery, get your license, and pay your license. Because the city the towns don't like now they license the sale of alcohol in their town, but not tobacco.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: So, Chittenden, legislative council. It it sounded yesterday it sounded a little bit more complicated than that because it sounded like they still applied to the municipality, but the money didn't need to go through the municipality to the state, but there may still need to be an application that involves the municipality. I wasn't,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: oh, thank you. Hi, Ann. It's all one system. So you currently apply for a tobacco license or liquor license all through the same online licensing platform. That should direct if that fee goes to municipality and then is transferred to the tobacco liquor lottery. We bought good compliments. It just goes directly to us. So, there's And it's all done online now? Yes. Okay.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: May I ask a question on that? Sure. So, do municipalities still have the option or do the applicants, can they submit a check at their local city clerk, city clerk and then they submit it? No, it has to be

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: done online, not required.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay, so it's already being done online and going directly to you, either with a charge card number or something like PayPal. Alright. So it's not good. I've never known the town clerks to object to having work taken away. They have enough of that city. So

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: it seems like the LinkedIn language says, for a license or endorsement required under this section, a person shall apply to the legislative body in the municipality. So it sounds like they're no longer applying to legislative body of the municipality, or they do? No, they

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: applied through liquor lottery from the public. Think they did, they may have, when the licenses weren't together.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: Well, they're still together right As they could be. You're, right, separating. Right, right, sounds like right now they don't apply to municipality. Even though they

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: are, I never had to do a cigarette license, I did a lot of liquor licensing when I was in the municipal office. So then it seems like, let me just pull that switch up so we can all look at it.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: Eight and seven.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: Alright. Can I have to clarify for me? The

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: municipality has to approve it, but it is not their back to our system,

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: I guess. It is through the flow of

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: go to municipalities approved by the.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: Payments cannot be accepted at the local level. They have to go

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: on to this website platform.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so then we would want to keep the language saying they have to apply to the legislative body of the municipality, especially if the order doesn't go to the municipality, is that what I And I wonder if we would want to take out A here, let's say, pay to the division of glycerin control a liquor license for a liquor and tobacco license, because that's, like, now decoupled them. I feel like that's something I missed the first time. So I think we would wanna take out a and then just remove the legislative body of the municipality in b and c. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And we're taking out a thousand dollars.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And I've got an amendment work going for you already that will do that change, but we may need to amend more. Here's I what know

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: we've got 150 in there. Right. Here's what I have for look one. There's a

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: working draft of an amendment that would strike out E and C and put in go from one ten to one fifty, one fifty to 75. What I'm saying, we may need to get rid of A, and we may need to strike out to the legislative body of your municipality here, if that's not where the theme is.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: So now I have to go into the clerk's office. She gives me a license, but I have to go home and pay for that license online. That sounds high risk. No. Sorry. It's all at once. You don't go into News Valley to apply. You apply online. It is routed technologically to News Valley or Google. So I sit down at my computer and I wanna sell tobacco at my store in Montpelier. I go online and you issue the tobacco permit? Yes. And I pay you.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: Do you you issue the permit or does that have to be approved by the local municipality?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: It has to be approved when it is issued by the department. For tobacco license?

[Bradley (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Should we your medicine

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: hold and let the other body figure it out?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Oh, it

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: does. I was wondering if that might be better.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: That might be. They're gonna have more time, and we could make things worse rather than better. And

[Sen. Scott Beck]: give them something.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: You you would change the

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: the fees the way you want them to do with last week.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Change how it feels with. Leave the language. It's maybe less convenient the way it is, but I think we should find out who was actually fighting. Yep. You may need that permit when they were together. It I never heard it was sent to a tobacco license, but we'll let the other body have some of that.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: So Put this language back up,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: then amendment if you would like.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: We can talk about these numbers, so here again is where I had changed, at least for your discussion purposes. 110 going to 150 rather than 1,000, and the 50 going to 75.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. And then we have a couple of

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: others where we change things. Yeah, yes, instances of amendment, putting in the license fee for a wholesale Right, almost 55. By the Nessus to match the amount for the liquor wholesalers. This

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: is to transfer in some tax.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: And I do think we may need to do some additional changes, and maybe this is another housing as well. There is the term of the license in existing law is, I think you get a license and you keep it as long as you continue operating at that place. I don't know if the department has a different take on renewals.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I think the email even sent just to

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: make that initial renewals and they don't seem to do renewals in

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: the whole zone. We don't know what to add. I can get back to your preferred term ones.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: So for now, at least I say the license fee shall be- $12.45 dollars for each outlet, which is the same as the per location wholesaler license fee for alcohol.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: And the towns are not involved in that at all. Is that correct?

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: I don't believe the towns are involved in a wholesaler case. And then I struck the language in, it's taken from existing laws. I'm just showing you that it would come out, that it is without charge, because now we're putting in charge. And then the third instance is just cleaning up in the following provision. It uses the term fine, but that implies criminal, and then throughout the rest of the chapter, we talk about civil penalties. So I'm suggesting that we change the fines to penalty subject to a civil

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: penalty. Okay.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Can you

[Sen. Randy Brock]: scroll for the first instance of the defendant? Okay,

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: So, those all be amendments?

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: That was it, that's all I'm aware of so far in this committee?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: That's, that's pretty much our domain in this one. If the other body comes through with their amendment, if not by it, then they put in. Not the other body, the other committee.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: I have every reason for the senate economic development to be supportive of that.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Rediscussing or or reactions to any questions for both. We don't have a motion yet. This is the proposal. Okay. Here I know there's some people who would like to have that fee not go up, and there's some people who would like it to go up more. But this is the fee that gets charged the general store and the gas station for the privilege of selling cigarettes and other products.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I mean, it's not a good issue.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I think we know, and Yeah. Have we haven't had time. Normally, when we do anything like this, the folks on the Connecticut River border are here being concerned. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. I don't have the draft numbers yet.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I guess she's gonna have to send it over.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, it's 1.1.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'm too sure that right now. Okay. Committee, can we live with this one?

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: Sure, I mean, I'll just state for the record, I think 150 should be higher. I heard the AG's office wanting to

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: sort of

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: reflect the cost of what Vermonters are paying for the health outcomes associated with tobacco and that a higher fee would be helpful in that regard. I also fear all of you in wanting to protect our local businesses, but I just wanted to say for the record, I wish it were higher, but not a thousand, but.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: I would say keep the same because what these fees are used for is the enforcement and what we heard the other day is that enforcement in our stores is quite high. So by punishing our retailers by increasing the fees, subject for that enforcement, I think the next committee over might take that position out. By increasing those fees, I think it's in the wrong area, and also adding this wholesaler would be a revenue increase as well. I would leave it at the 110 and 50 while adding the Bolt Cycle, this new license. That's kind

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: of where I fall.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: I was looking at statistics, it looks like this use is coming down across The US, is what I've seen.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Cigarettes, but not vapes. And not with the other people? FDA said Oh, that's okay. Okay. This would be wrong.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: FDA.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Would like to know that too. Yeah. Okay. It has leveled up. That's good. I don't think that includes cannabis.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: I don't I don't I

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: don't think tobacco use something to do with the.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: There are other options, please. Alright. Figuring in, I think you could figure that the $1,247 per outlet would probably get reflected in the cost of the product.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yep. So

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: given that, do we want to raise that fee?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: The wholesale fee?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: No. Given the no. It's it's charged to different people. Alright.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Are you talking about the tobacco wholesale fee?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'm trying to do I'm trying to get a vote count for the $1.50. I think I've got one yes. I've got one no. Two yeses. I'm gonna guess on the $1.50. $1.01 50. Okay.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: It will be a very good luck to guess. I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: we've done as much as we need So to we have I mean,

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: at the end of the day, it really

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: is

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We have a draft amendment number 1.1 to bill one ninety eight. I assume it's dated somewhere around 02:10 today, and it would raise the fee from 110 to 150, which has been estimated as inflation, that's for your local retail license. It would put in the wholes to back up wholesaler fee of $12.47, $12.45, which is saying this is to cover the cost of switching program over to liquor and lottery from tax, they will have to

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Do that. Do that. To their administration. Just as they do for administering the the Liquor wholesalers. This is what they get for liquor.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And are we doing we have one other change. Even the fine to civil penalty. Fine to civil penalties, which is a yeah. It's a should We don't use the word fines anymore.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: We do for criminal context, not for civil context. Okay. No. I don't think anybody's going to jail on

[Sen. Randy Brock]: 16 year olds.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: No. That's the unlicensed wholesaler.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Oh, the unlicensed wholesaler? Come on.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: So to be clear, we're voting to amend the bill. Not letting the whole bill. Right now, voting to amend. Three instances of the moment. Since it's an event, I need a motion.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I would move committee draft amendment 1.1 on s one ninety eight with the.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Further discussions? Not

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Do you wanna roll on this or not?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I don't know. Would you rather I not do it?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Well, we've had a lot of debate, Jen.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Alright. I'll defend it. Mean, universe says

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I have all power. Oh, great. Yes.

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: He's ruling with I think I have a bunch of other bills with you, and I don't

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: know Actually, any we have you for every bill this afternoon. Well, as

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: soon as they pick up my bill in the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: house floor, I'll pick Well, we're gonna move right on to internationally trained positions. Okay. Yeah. I mean I just found out we have to get that one out. Alright. Alright. If we would prefer, I will just ready? This is the motion to amend with 1.1. All those in favor say aye.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Aye.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Opposed? Nay.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Nay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I've got four two The vote I heard was four two one. Yeah. Alright.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. That's what you got. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Now I need a motion on the bill as

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Meant. Amended. I will move s one ninety eight favorably as. K.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Motion is under Chittenden to move S 198 favorably as amended. On this one, why don't you call them up?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Just to clarify, so that means it's 198, so it still has the issue about

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Pup loss. Pup loss.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Still has that in there, correct? Yeah. Got our feet changes. Didn't touch anything on ELL.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: No. I just wanna make sure

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: I know where I'm at, my head.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. We are just looking at our sections, which are the fees.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Oh, we're looking at whole thing.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah, and there's a whole other section we understand that, some of us had concerns about that will be subject to an amendment from economic development, which was the underage purchasing. If they don't put a floor amendment out, I will.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: So that's what I was gonna say, like, it'll be a no right now because

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Right, of that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: we have not touched it, it really is We in our ask them to please make sense if we feel comfortable. Okay. So, court call All person to further discussion. Okay. Court called the vote.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Chittenden? Yep. Senator Beck? Yes. Senator Hardy? Senator Brock?

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Yes.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Gulick?

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

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Senator Mattos? No. Senator Cummings? Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. I've got that as five one one.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'm reporting this

[Sen. Scott Beck]: unless somebody else get on

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: the tubes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Somebody else really wanna Don't have You can

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: So, Ron, maybe you want this? You

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: can Alright. The room can now empty because we're going internationally.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: I'm not interested in this one, but

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I believe because the rest Well, quick. I'll be back. Well, we don't have Jen in here, and I need Thank you, Jen. That's solved. So we can get back to that. After that is optometrist.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Well, I'm here. You're here.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: True.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I've only got a short window.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Are you here to talk about 142. 142. Alright. And we have Jen here. You no. You're optometrist.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No. I'm

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'm optometrist. She's of bed. Yeah. Alright. Talk to us about 01:42 on your short window.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sorry, right in

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: front That's okay. What's it gonna cost?

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So for the record, Noel Langwell joined the fiscal office. So won't talk about, I haven't been drafting the bill so I'm not going to go into the weeds about it. But ultimately the bill does, it proposes to establish a pathway for licensure, including provisional licenses to practice medicine with supervision and a limited license to practice medicine for internationally trained physicians and medical graduates. It would also require the health department in collaboration with the Board of Medical Practice to provide the committee's jurisdiction a report that details the pathways licensure for internationally trained physicians and medical graduates as an alternative. So in short, it's just basically a way for folks who are, as a shortage of providers, it's a way for folks who have been trained elsewhere to find a path to licensure to practice and provide us to help with the provider shortage. In order to implement this, the Board of Medical Practice actually would need resources to do this. They don't need it till fiscal year twenty twenty eight. Now it needs a program that includes one to three FTEs for registration, for credential verification, training program approval, clinical evaluation oversight and other stuff. The annualized cost of each position includes salary, including salary, fringe benefits and other costs could be as much as 150,000 per person. They might need between one and three people. The reason why they don't know what it costs is because section four says do a study that tells us how much it costs. So the bill sort of says go do this and do a study. And so we don't know what it costs until we do the study. The other thing we don't know is so other states have done this such as Colorado and Iowa, they hired staff but they also hired consultants at a cost between 150,750

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: thousand to sort of

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: do the program. So again, the Board of Medical Examiners would have to tell us this is what we need to do the program. There's no appropriation in this bill, but it does have financial resource needs for fiscal year '28 when it goes into effect.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And there's no fee, but there might be a different fee if So we go to license

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: here's the issue on that. So there's no fees and there's no appropriations in this bill. Normally the board of medical exam, that's what they're called, the board of medical practice, sorry, health department told me they're fully funded by fees. The problem with this is that there would be so few people that do this, the fees wouldn't come from costs. So you probably would need an appropriation as well. But we don't know what that appropriation would be until they do the study and tell us how much you need. No,

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: I'm sorry.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Is that the MSO news that provided to us? Know, so?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Different life. I also do being paid. No idea.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Board of medical practice, they regulate doctors.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, they regulate the professional. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: In short,

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: there's no appropriation in this bill, there's no fees in this bill. By voting this out, are, in the current form, you are basically committing to a future program that the governor would have to come in with this fiscal year '28, assuming he signs the bill, is what we But you'd also have a study that would say this is what we need. So it does have fiscal impact, it will need an appropriation, it potentially could use fees, you just don't need to do them now, but by voting for it you are committing to moving poverty.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: So at least moving forward. We do, in health of America, unanimously, in health of all. We have some very highly trained medical professionals, but most these are doctors. Right now, I think they're one I'll try is to go through an entire residency program. Is that right, Jess? That they that they have to go through residency here. You don't I'm not ask.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Area they don't do? I meant to say that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. They would It's the board of medical practice. Yeah. For many of them, they yeah. They can't have been out of practice for so many years. And so we have highly qualified people who because they're here need to support families and find that residency is very difficult. We need doctors. There was some testimony that immigrant doctors are more inclined to stay in rural areas, if they come from them. So this is starting the process. Depending on what we find out and what it's going to cost, we can say not worth it in the future, we can always step back, but this is a I've assumed there would be A to B for licensing and A to B for special license or Renewals? Yeah, renewals at some point.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Well, they'll all be part of this report.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. It should be.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: If it isn't, then it's right. We'll do.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Chair Cummings, I just wanted

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: to add, we're not breaking any new ground here. This is something that's already happening, I don't remember the numbers.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I was surprised. Was a

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: large few states are already doing this to great success. And that's what's gonna happen with this work, is they're gonna look at what other states are doing and try to come up with a plan. No one's saying something wrong. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: That's just

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: me being have away across the valley.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: More jobs than us. Yeah, New York is one of the states, and there was some discussion about maybe we could have New York do the certifications for us because they do so many more that we would ever do. We're we're looking at probably three, four people.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Could just have him be part of the belt and have our.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. They've gotta get licensed. This is the exploratory part. What would it take? Go look into collaborations with No money with any any work. Yeah. Maybe money or major fees. We don't care if it costs money, but maybe just fees across the hall. But we would, we desperately need, especially primary care doctors, but a lot of specialty doctors too.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'll write the physical note online.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: Would you like me to make a motion? If

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: you are so inclined. I'll make a motion to vote S-one 154. 142.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: Sorry, sorry folks.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Not to vote 142 Favorably? Okay. The city on health and welfare. Any further discussion? If not, that clerk wanna call him a roll. A roll. Sure.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Chittenden? Yeah. Senator Beck? Yes. Senator Hardy? Senator Brock?

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Yes.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Gulick?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Senator Meadows, yes. Senator Cummings? Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: 601.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: 10 helix, would you like to report that one? Okay. I am not gonna do the next one without Jen. Would you like me to see if I can get John's here by chance? See if John is free because I think we need to do the homework. Senators? Vandalism.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: The other two seven 275 in 64. We're we're cooking. Wow.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: 64. What do you think,

[Sen. Randy Brock]: man? You knocked on door.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: On do you think? Yeah. 64. Yeah. We could yeah. 64 is optometrist, and my emails falling positive. Jen, can you talk to us about optometrists?

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: I'm happy to. Thank you so much.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: No. We're trying to get Jen. I'm so excited. Many Gets. Well, we're trying to get Gets by.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: I won't measure out to you, Jen, but I'm Jen Coleman. I'm the director of the Office of Professional Regulation. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Yes. I'm here regarding f 64, which is an act relating to amendments to the scope of practice for optometrists, and OPR police supports this bill. We have studied eyeballs for way too long at OPR. That work started back in 2019. We've done multiple reports. The first report, these are Sunrise reports that we conduct in accordance with 26 DSA chapter 57, which gives us the criteria to study and research when we are contemplating either regulating a new profession or contemplating a scope expansion in a in an existing profession. This would be a scope expansion in an existing profession of optometry. The scope expansion would be for advanced procedures. These procedures are laser procedures, surgical procedures, and injection procedures in and around the eye. So we started studying this in 2019, and we reached out to all of the optometry schools in The United States asking them for information about what's taught in their schools to confirm that there would be adequate educational foundation for optometrists who get this credential to be able to do these advanced procedures. We heard that from no one, so the result of our first report was that we could not support the scope expansion because we didn't have adequate information to assess the foundation. Seneca op asked us to give it another go, and also to study in addition to educational curricula in the different schools. They asked us to take a look at state by state, what are other states allowing with respect to this. Excuse me. We gave it a second crack. We heard back from all of the optometry schools. They all provided information that there is substantial educational foundation. This is being taught in all these advanced procedures, are being taught in all optometry schools, and that the advanced procedures really were being taught and practiced in labs and on models. One finding that we did have was that there's not most of the schools were not able to allow students to perform the procedures on live human subjects. We came back in our second report and said, we think this can be done safely, that the educational foundation is there, but that some additional training would be needed to ensure that practice on live human patients is a component prior to getting this specialty. You'll see in S-sixty four that there is a component where everybody who seeks this specialty has to do an eight hour preceptorship with somebody who's got experience in performing these procedures, and they have to do a certain number of certain types of procedures during that eight hour preceptorship. With that and with the educational requirements, OPR felt that it is safe from a public protection lens and we support this effort. In the OPR statutes, the general OPR statute for the Title III, there is a fee for specialties. It's not a new statute for specialties, which is, I think, kind of why it wasn't obvious in this bill because it's not set out in s 64 what the fee would be. So it is a $100 to get a specialty credential from OPR. There's no renewal fee, at some point we're probably gonna address that, but for all professions, not just this time. But right now, there's no renewal fee for that specialty. It's just a $100 to get. Also, we're not asking for any appropriation. I think this bill started last year, and I may have mistakenly in a committee said that we needed an appropriation, and I was mistaken. We do not, because optometry is an established profession, and we get licensing fees from that profession that can support whatever IT work we need to do to get this going. And and then we'll have that $100 specialty credential fees. Happy to answer any questions.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Questions. We're looking at the fees. Yes. For health and welfare was $3.02, right? I was one of the two. Yeah. But I will probably vote yes to the fees because that's what I'm looking at. Okay. And the fee is just the $100 specialty fee? That's it. And that's similar to other professions that have All professions

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: that have a specialty. Okay. Unless the specialty exists solely for our data gathering purpose, you know, and there are there are only a couple of those. But for all of our professions, the fee is a $100 unless there's no fee for it. Okay. But this one would be a 100.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. Committee. Let me ask you a question. So how did all

[Sen. Randy Brock]: the fee based on anything? Or is it based on the average amount of time they take care of?

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: Well, was going to say, that's right. For every specialty, we have to do IT work, and then there are additional educational requirements or practice requirements that our licensing administrators have to assess whenever we get one of these applications. So, I think generally we've arrived at $100 being an adequate fee for the work that it takes to do that IT setup and process those initial applications. And this might be, I'm assuming Ted's coming up to Maybe not. Is there

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: an estimate for how many people you think

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: are gonna get these specialty licenses? Well, what I can say

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: is that we have 168 optometrists in the state, so that's a very small group. Then I think we estimate about a third of those would be interested in this specialty based upon data that we retrieve from other states, extrapolating. Okay, this state allows these specialties. Have 40% of their optometrists have this. This state has the specialties and only 15%. We just came up with a median range based upon what other states got.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: 5,000 to $6,000 fees, about a third of them. If

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I can't temper it at our fiscal office, I did, I worked with OBR and they shared the information they gleaned and they went about it in exactly the same way I would have gone about it. So yes, it is about 5,000 to $6,000 on that initial hit of folks who would adopt the specialty, and as additional optometrists decide to take it on in future years, you might see $100 here and there. It's relatively small in scope of things, and it would go to

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: the VR, professional regulatory fee fund,

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: to be used for the board of optometrists.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: That's right, and we are a special fund agency, so we don't generally ask for appropriations. We exist on fees.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Committee. Are we reading for Jen or can we vote? We're looking at fees. I think this Jen has

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: She's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: on the floor. On board. Beck has moved that we Yeah. Favorably s 64 as it was sent to us from Yeah. Senate health and welfare. Is Is there any further discussion? If not, the clerk call the ruling.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Chittenden? Yes. Senator Beck? Yes.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Senator Hardy? Yes.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Brock? Yes. Senator Hewlett?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Yes. Senator Mattos, yes. Senator Cummings? Yes. Seven zero zero seven. Okay,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: thank you. You would like to report the center of Mattos. Yeah,

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: sure. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I think, center Now who's doing it? Are you too straight for health and wellness? Morley. Morley. Okay. I could've watched the video, so I don't feel comfortable. No thanks. Okay. So next we have oh, get out of here. We don't have any where do people keep asking me about a psychiatrist, psychologist. It's an age. It's an age. Not here. Well, it's here. I don't have to

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: get it out. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's here. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Okay. So so that one, I do intend to get out. It probably was first thing. Of course. Alright. Martine, they gotta start getting for you to shine. Okay. Oh, we We are. Did you do that? We have one more skill to do. We're done. Wow. See?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: We've done everything for today, so

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: now he's 75. That's maybe did you do that? Did you Yep. Okay.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Tripped up the. Right?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Have

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: Alright.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: So

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: if we get all of these done, I'm not gonna start age pills tomorrow. We'll see if anything comes over. So you say, well, let it off. Well, only if nothing else pops up. We will see. Let's see how we do on this one, but I think this will clean our board. So John went up. Lose Ted. He lost Ted.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: He'll be back. Unlocked, slowly.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: That is not one of your characteristics typically.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Contra what my high school classmates told me, John Gray.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: It is the end of crossover week, yes.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Here we go, S275. I understand from Tenth there may be a slight wrinkle, but I don't know that has to be resolved today, so I will walk you through what came out of government operations. So this is a bill for the creation of the Cemetery Vandalism Response Fund. See if I can make that a little bit larger.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Let's try. There's something else here.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So section one is amending the existing chapter of Title 18, our health chapter that governs cemeteries, to add a few definitions that are specific to this response fund. So this is generally targeted at certain kinds of damage that occur in cemeteries, it's an attempt to gather contributions that would go into a fund that would be used to provide discretionary grants to repair those cemeteries that were damaged by vandalism. So the first thing I'm gonna pull out here is you'll see the addition of protected category. This is pulling in the Title 13 definition of protected category, which is what is used for hate crimes, so that includes things like race, age, sex, religion. It will be clear why this is pulled in here later.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Dead people?

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The idea, as we'll come to it, is that among the considerations that the entity authorizing the grants will look to is whether or not the vandalism to the damaged property appears to be based on it being targeted to someone's membership in a particular group. It would just be one of the considerations that they undertake, but that's why you see protected category pulled in here. No new definition created, it just uses an existing definition. Qualifying damage. This is the kind of damage that would be repaired by these grants. It's damage caused by acts of vandalism that cannot be repaired by means of regular maintenance. So two pieces have to be from vandalism, which we'll come to that shortly, and also that they cannot be prepared through regular maintenance. So as you can think of this, your standard operating budget for cemetery would cover the repair for these damages. You're not gonna get a grant to cover that cost.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: But if it's a $17.50 grant and it's only snowing.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, you may need something beyond regular maintenance to repair it, so that's what this response fund would be for.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Just not over setting it, resetting it?

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I doubt that that would constitute, I mean, could constitute vandalism, guess, which we can look at that definition. Regular maintenance, it's almost a useless definition because it tells you the same thing that it says in the words, but regular maintenance means regular upheap. Helpful, including mowing and will debris from your point. Just say that this was de good thing with those things. This is a rerun of a film from years ago, so don't blame me. Or do. Vandalism includes a mental element to this, so it's not just damage. This is why I was talking about the knocked over. Vandalism means the willful or malicious destruction or defacement of property in a cemetery. And then we have a list of examples. Could be the tockling of memorial stones, damage to crypts, niches, grave sites, monuments, or memorials. The mental state here is meant to get an intentional activity or activity that is, like, targeted, someone that's intended to cause harm, so it's not accidental. It's not even reckless conduct. So you can imagine someone undertaking regular maintenance to upkeep the cemetery that accidentally topples a mourn of stone. That's not vandalism. It's only willful or malicious destruction or defacement, but it does include things beyond writing words. Right? It's actual damage to the property. So there's a broad bucket of things that could fall in here, assuming that they met the mental condition required here. And I will just say that as we'll come to it, the considerations for extending the grants are gonna require the VOCA from an old cemetery association who's making this determination to examine these things, so ultimately it's gonna be part of their call as to what counts. So that's your definition section. Section two adds a new section to the same chapter, the cemetery's chapter, for cemetery vandalism response grants. Under subsection a, you can see that it's the Vermont Old Cemetery Association, VOCA, that will provide those grants to repair vandalized cemeteries. And then there's some pieces leading up to the extension of the grants. So within thirty days after discovery of an act of vandalism, an agency, an agency means cemetery, effectively, that's what agency means in this context, a cemetery shall report the act to VOCA either verbally or in writing, so it is mandatory just to call it out. This does require the cemeteries to report to VOCA within thirty days after discovery of act of vandalism, provide written notice to the lot owner, or to the extent practicable, next of pin if damage was done to a crypt, niche, grapeseite, monument, or memorial, and that notice would have to include material to advise the lot owner next to a pin to seek the insurance benefits that may be available pursuant to a homeowner's insurance policy. You can think of this as ensuring that when this arrives to BOCA, all funds that would regularly be available to repair that would have already been sought, so you would decrease the amount that would be needed here effectively. And a copy of the notice would be maintained by the cemetery agency. Within six months after reporting an active vandalism, the agency may apply to VOCA for a grant or a care to qualify them. So B is saying, Provide these notices about damage, and then C is saying, If you would like to get points for this, you may apply to the Royal Cemetery Association for a grant to repair that qualifying damage. On page three, have the requirements for the grant application itself shall include a description of the qualifying damage, photographs, and the date that that report was filed with VOCA, a copy of any letters, newspaper ads, other documented attempts to obtain funding for the repair from the family of the deceased, copy of other reports related to the act of fatalism, filed accordance with law, these are the sorts of things that might assist in that consideration we talked about before in the targeted tort protected category, if there had been an investigation, for example. A copy of the bids submitted by at least two contractors for the cost of repairs, I do recall in my first testimony to government operations, there was some question raised around whether or it seemed impractical for folks to get to bids from contractors on this, but ultimately, the committee voted this out with this requirement for bids from at least two contractors. And then the application should also include a statement signed by the cemetery commissioner or other property officer but the agency has no available funds specifically authorized for repair of the vandalism, that it's not been able to obtain sufficient funds from the family of the deceased, including those insurance benefits that would be noticed in the notice that goes out to them, and the proposed cost of repairs are fair and legal. So basically an attestation that they've done all they can to get the funds and they're gonna put the appropriateness assessment. Those are the elements that are required for the application. Description of damage including photographs, copy of letters, ads, attempts to obtain funding, copy of reports filed with the principal law, bids submitted percussive repairs, and then an attestation of sort of good faith attempts to seek funds for this. Give me a pause there?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: One thing you said is they have to say they don't have funding.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Specifically authorized services. Specifically authorized. This is something that gov ops did change, as this was initially drafted, it was something along the lines of has no funds available for the repair, and the testimony that was heard from the cemeteries was that they might have a general bucket of sort of maintenance funds, and they wanted to make sure that having that bucket of maintenance funds didn't exclude them from the grant. So this is saying what you have to certify is that you have no funds that are specifically authorized for the repair of that vandalism, meaning do you have a pool of funds that are for

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: repair of vandalism? Think if I were on the cemetery commission and I knew there was state money available, I would make sure there was no local money available even though I had

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I'm sure

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would too if I were a strategic person. Yes. Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Good thing you're not.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not a strategic person, so

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: it doesn't occur to me.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: These are very practical.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But it is something that the committee of government operations took a specific position on. They were concerned about the breadth of the first language. So that's what's in the grant application, and then there's the discretionary review to actually award the grant itself. So under subdivision two, a government recognized shall review the qualified damage within ninety days after receipt of the complete grant application and make a determination based on these factors, whether there is qualifying damage, so you could submit a report and it turns out it doesn't meet the definition of qualifying damage, it's something that, for instance, could have been repaired by regular maintenance, in which case that sort of addresses somewhat of the concern that you're pointing out. If it was conceivably covered through regular maintenance costs, then it might not be qualifying damage. Severity of the qualifying damage, consider whether the vandalism is part of a wave of vandalism. I frankly don't know exactly what this means, but perhaps it's the cemetery is struck by many acts of vandalism.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Just happened. Or several cemeteries in town. Right. Yeah. Probably maybe the spray paint came out.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So Went through. So while I don't know what it means, I assume that this is a meaningful part and means something to cemeteries who have presumably experienced things of this kind.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Well, you might be able to fix one broken gravestone. But many broken or defaced would be much more challenged.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: A part there, what you'll run up against, is picked up in one of the later considerations here, which is the final one, H, availability of monies. Can the fund actually account for the cost of officer repairs? The healthy end So part the D, emotional distress to visiting families. E, this is the consideration we've previously spoken about during the definition section, whether the vandalism appears to be motivated in whole or in part, so it doesn't have to be exclusively on this basis, but in part it is motivated by a person's actual or perceived membership in a protected category. The term a person here is intentionally generic, right? It's not saying that it has to be the damaged property's perceived membership in a protected category, even something that is targeted against a group that is not, versus the family that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: you What is the caustic

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is on all credits? Exactly. Whether the vandalism seems to be targeted to the participants perceived membership in the protected category. Presumably, of this would also be picked up in subdivision D emotional distress to visiting families, but this is to give it some additional consideration. As the appropriateness of priorities and payments from the cemetery vandalism response fund, I take this to be getting at has the cemetery in the past, acting mid phase with

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: the I was going say, this isn't an, I haven't seen any numbers, but this isn't an unlimited fund.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, I think it's fairly small

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: actually. Yeah.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The priority of allocation based upon previous allocations, so that cutting either way, frankly, if you've received previous allocations to repair a number of things, they're trying to get you to completing all the repairs and the chairs, their cemetery, or as I said, you've previously received five validations from us so someone else is deserving. It doesn't tell us in which direction, but this is one of the factors that VOCA would consider. And then lastly, the piece that we talked about, availability monies. I think even if you don't include this as a consideration, it is obviously something that would be considered. It's gonna be hard to award a grant with no grant money. So This is a lot of

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: stuff for a little fund. Yep. Yes, it's.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: More mechanical pieces here. Upon approval, the book of treasurer would disperse those funds directly to the appropriate cemetery commissioner, public officer, and the agency would apply those disbursements to the repair of the vandalized property described in the application. The last sort of important piece here, any funds remaining after this has been performed would be returned to VOCA for redeposit in the Cemetery Vandalism Response Fund. And then there would be a report that accompanies this, so within ninety days after receipt of disbursements, the the agency shall make a final report to VOCA would include the repairs made and by whom the amount of funds expended, the amount of funds to be returned to VOCA, if any. If they haven't been completed, because this is within ninety days, right, the reason shall be explained, and the anticipated date for a subsequent final report shall be provided, the report and any additional report shall be sworn by the officer. So, together, what you see in this section as a whole are requirements for the grant application, prescribing the factors for consideration by the local representative to extend the expression of the grant, disbursement of those funds or requirements for the return after you've completed the repair, if you have any leftover, and then a final report essentially accounting for your efforts and the monies. On page five, this is standing up the fund that's been implicit in all of this, so a new section that has the Cemetery Vandalism Response Fund. It's established to provide, let's say, discuss grants to agencies to repair vandalized cemeteries.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: It would be administered by Every cemetery shall contribute

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: $500? Yes, so this is fairly limited, as you'll see. We have some pretty big cemeteries. For each burial, cremation, and proclaiming, yes. So not for existing properties, because this is

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: not Okay, alright, part or cremation, if

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it That would be quite different,

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: What about cemeteries that are closed? They're full, they've been closed?

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Presumably they would be performing that burial, cremation, in which submit it. I would say the fund is available to all cemeteries, it's not on the basis of your having attributed to it. So the fact that you do have properties that could suffer vandalism, but you aren't submitting contributions that wouldn't exclude you from this. Right, and you're no longer an active cemetery, you're full. If you're not engaged in the, let me scroll up to the first page, just so we can see the definition of agency. Town cemeteries, religious or ecclesiastical society cemeteries, cemetery associations, any person, firm, corporation, unincorporated association engaged in the business of cemeteries. So I'm assuming they need one of these town cemetery religious or enthusiastic Yeah,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I know there's a religious cemetery in Montpelier that's full, and it's no longer, can accept burials, but could be subject

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that. They could receive a grant under this program. Okay. You don't have to be submitting contributions to receive a grant.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Scroll back

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It down to the would be administered by VOCA, and monies would be used solely to provide these Cemetery Vandalism Response Grants.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Does VOCA assume that VOCA is a voluntary, doesn't have paid staff organization?

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would speak to the folks on GovOps to talk about that. I think the little wrinkle that I mentioned at the beginning has to do with how funds are routed. This has a sponsor administered by VOCA, and it has them determining the grants. It's not around, while the collection itself, which I'll come to, goes through the Division for Historic Preservation, they don't actually administer the fund, so there may be, this may need to be updated in a way where the money flows through the Division for Historic Preservation, rather than them just collecting it and the checks being made out to BOCA. I'll need to

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: talk to Ted about that. But that's what I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: That that was Ted's concern, that we don't normally appropriate money directly Yeah. Out to an agency, that it goes through a state agency so that we have oversight.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. So that is the complication on which I might need to draft an amendment for this.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: How quickly can you, well I guess if we send it out, it's gonna go to approves.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, and they could do the same, frankly. And you could do that there, alright. I think that's smart also because in talking to Ted, depending on what that requires, it may disrupt some It was an intentional choice by government operations to have the vogue be the ones doing this, and I don't think that the idea was that Division for Historic Preservation would be taking on much other than collection. If this starts shifting actual responsibilities, I think there could be questions.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: About if

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. So there I need to talk

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: no appropriation that

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I I haven't seen need to talk to Ted if there's a way to do this that doesn't disrupt the practicalities, but somehow rounds the fund.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: So, this is here because there's a $5 fee?

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will not presume to guess what brings those statistics. Okay. So, the contribution shall, the collection is every agency shall contribute $5 to the fund for each burial or cremation forms. It shall not be double collected, is what the second sentence is saying, shall not be collected upon the burial of the remains of a deceased person where a contribution was collected upon information, so you don't get double headed. And then the statute isn't specific as to where that $5 comes from, but as you can imagine, it might be natural for the cemetery to pass this along to the family of the deceased, and so what the final line says is an exemption from that potential pass through. An agency shall not charge a fee to cover the cost of the contribution to any person that's receiving financial assistance for the burial or cremation, which there are federal, state, local programs that provide financial assistance, this is said, you're not gonna be hit by a $5 fee if you're already receiving financial assistance for the burial cremation. The way that the collection itself works is not upon each burial information, it's done annually. On the report of January 15 of each year, every agency that has performed a burial information during the preceding calendar year shall submit to the division for certain preservation a check made out to VOCA, which this may have to change for the total amount collected during the preceding year, so they're aggregating all of those for the preceding year, sending them to the division for certain preservation. Payment shall be accompanied by a statement signed by a secretary commissioner or other property officers certifying the number of burials and cremations, the amount transmitted, and that they would be dispersed to VOCA on January 31.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: This is getting weirder and weirder. We are telling cemeteries, which are owned and operated by a wide range of organizations that they have to pay to a private non state fund in order for them to get a payment, maybe if there's enough money in there to cover the cost of vandalism. But I'm fine. I can't ever remember telling the that they had to pay a $5 fee, which would go to another private non state organ or the fee is going to go to historic preservation who then just takes First

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is it to your

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: transfers it. Can we tell private cemeteries that they have to pay?

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We charge fees of private individuals.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: But we aren't I mean, what if they have vandals of insurance? I mean, we we're telling essentially private organizations, Montpelier has a cemetery commission, but there's, you know, at least one large religious cemetery, Slants are like family cemeteries. But we're telling them that you need to pay us so that but we have no guarantee. What if there's not enough money? If somebody goes through and spray paints a major cemetery in Chittenden County and there isn't enough money in the fund to cover that cost and then somebody else gets spray painted or and does this cover theft of things like civil war markers? I know there was a big market in civil war markers. We had their naked, doubly criminal to lift them. Now it makes sense to me. I might have just performed that. Sure. I figure it out.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The thing that I might offer is that even if we solve the routing problem, which Janet identified, I don't think that resolves the point that you're making. Right. Like the point that you're making is about collecting fees from cemeteries that could then be distributed to other cemeteries, which doesn't have to do with the routing of the money. That's a kind of a broader point. So I just wanted to call out that even if I do talk to Ted and work out the mechanics of this thing, it sounds like you have a bigger objection.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Well, just can't remember us telling a private organist We might tell them they need to have insurance because if they don't, there will be harm to people. You don't have liability insurance and somebody gets hurt if it's open to the public. But this just feels a little different. I mean, they can't assess a $5 fee on their members if their members agree that it would be worth it to purchase vandalism. Right. So maybe we need to hear from the chair. Where is the chair of the office in the afternoon? Oh, we say go ops.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: The ground office

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is very right now. Yeah. It might be done.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: We'll see the preschool.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Can you send an email over and see if he would like to come talk to us about mister Bill? I didn't want to be just Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Let me

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: go see him. Sure. You wanna walk?

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm I'm happy to whoever wants to

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: walk, but I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: doesn't wanna sit here anymore than he has to. He has to be smoking.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The other thing I would say, I'm happy to stay here as long as you guys need me. I know that Ways and Means also wants me for a photon to be able to bill, but we can

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: do whatever. Think the concern that Chittenden brings with me, and if this is in fact going to approach, you'd have time to fit, is that we don't normally allocate money to a private agency. It's under the supervision of, but we don't know if they're in a position to take on the supervision.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, and I think the point that I was trying to make is that even if you stripped VOCA out of this entire thing and said that this is a discretionary grant making process by the Division for Historic Preservation, which hasn't at all indicated, but just pretended that they would be capable They of doing just want this work. I think your objection is still

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah, that's another Of the form

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that you're collecting a fee from the cemeteries from the

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: summons dispersing bunks. They've been accomplished.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Very good. I do.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: This this will be the one thing I found a thousand

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: on today.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Would you like me to finish before?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yes. Let's finish. If if have you got any time to start?

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, I've

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: done all of this.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: This is our last bill. We thought it was a simple little one.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Oh gosh, don't I tell me know.

[John K. Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Two quick things. As we talked about the annual collection that happens in January, so we have a section for the address of the initial fee collections. That's Division for Historic Preservation collecting those initial fees beginning on 01/01/2027, and that would be on the basis of the burial circummation that occurred between the date of effectiveness and December 31, end of this year, and so the effective date is 07/01/2026. You would be picking up the fees from the date of effectiveness to the end of the year, but they wouldn't be collected until January year. Okay. And that is it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. So, like, Yeah. The first question, which may be the easiest. Yep. Watch that chair. Is we don't normally directly allocate money to a private agency. Normally, state money goes through state agency to manage it, make sure there's no slippage or other things that happen. The other one, and it's occurred to me, is the state is assessing the fee on a private voluntary organization. I don't think you have to join the Newmont Cemetery Association. We're assessing a fee on a private organization in order to help those private organizations pay for vandalism. That's also rather unusual. We usually assess a theme for a state service, not, they could assess a fee on themselves, arguing. I think it might be helpful to know what you heard, why you're doing it. Sure.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So for the record,

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: senator Baltimore represented the Ruth Hardy District. This goes back a little bit. Tom Giffen, who is the president of VOCA, which is the

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: group that we're talking about,

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: the Long World Cemetery Association, came to me about ten years ago and asked me to help him when the weather was the way it needed to be to replace headstones, dig stuff around the cemetery, whatever. So two or three times a summer, he gets legislators in Rutland County. I think he's been up to Chittenden County doing the same thing. And it's all volunteer. And we help him out. We do like an eight to noon kind of thing. So at some point he said, geez, I wish we could find a way to buy more shovels for people to have, more rakes, that kind of stuff. Maybe hire somebody with a big tractor to pick up because these stones are very heavy, that sort of thing. So it was at senator Weeks initiation that the bill went in, although I did sponsor it along with senator Williams. So that's the idea behind it. It is an outside agency that's coming in. Most town cemeteries, I don't think, get funding from their own municipality. Some of them may do.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Some of them do. Some of them are private. Montpelier is a cemetery commission, and there's elected commissioners, but there's also a large religious cemetery that's closed. It has no more space, but it's pretty isolated and could be vandalized very easily. Yeah. Also, it's fossils, but which could mean some vandalism. But yeah. It it's just an unusual and I remember once before a couple years ago, there was an there was a private cemetery that we had to do some changing Mhmm. For. But I'm just mean, because if you're a cemetery, you don't have to belong to Boca, do you?

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: No. It's a voluntary group. The other fly in the ointment, if you will, town clerks, municipal clerks, are the ones, I think it's under the title 18, that have the ability to issue certifications for burial. And they charge a $5 fee or they're granted a $5 fee in order to do that. So initially in the bill, we were gonna take that little piece and repeal it and instead put this $5 fee in so there will be revenue.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: You never take that.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: You you counselor. You read that situation very well, Tanya.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: You should learn that

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: very carefully. We have the municipal clerks and treasurer's association came in, they said, please don't take that money. Even though for the most part, it's a $5 fee, think there are about 3,500, maybe 4,000, maybe 5,000 burials a year. So you're not talking about millions. You're talking about literally $3,540,000 dollars. But for them, that was an important thing. So we said, okay. We won't repeal that. Well, this would be an additional charge that a funeral director would collect and send to the historic preservation division. They would send it up to BOCA at some point in yearly kind of dispersal. They would be BOCA would be the ones deciding which cemeteries got it based on a whole bunch of enumerated pieces of information that they gather. So this may not be the best way to do it, and I'm certainly wide open to suggestions. I'm just trying to help Tom Giffen find some revenue to help cemeteries from all over the state be able to repair acts of vandalism. Does it include mowing the lawn or if a tree falls over? This is deliberate, malicious vandalism.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Halloween with a sprinkler.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Or in this day and age Yep. You may get more prejudicial motivation. And there's

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: a provision in there about that, both from the Jewish cemetery and people who are Yeah, so I appreciate that we don't normally do it this way, and if that hangs it up, so be it. We can say that we tried, maybe come back and and try a different way to do it. But VOCA is a totally voluntary move.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And not all cemeteries belong.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: No. They do not.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: The ones that aren't doing burials. And right now people aren't going through funeral directors. I understand that the crematory place will send you a cardboard box and you can put your beloved in the box

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: That's take them true, and this bill does include cremations, because some of them do have little

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: heads Yeah, on they have, yeah.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: And the green burials are something else, the entirety. So I appreciate you're at least considering it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: I know Tom's hopeful, but and he's a great guy.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Maybe you don't like him.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: No. No. I know there's a problem.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'm Yep.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Can I ask a quick question? Yeah.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: This may have already been said, so I apologize. But are so are they right now relying on private donations?

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: And some municipalities do award an align by item in the budget a certain amount of money. Rutland City does not. So he fundraises on his own, buys the shovels and the reeks that we use, and then begs people. He's got the moose club on one of the projects, that kind of thing. It's kind of fun to do. Yeah. It's one of those rare physical things that when you start something and then you finish, you can actually see a difference. Yeah. Yeah. But

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. Okay.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: So you're working well. I'll certainly understand if it doesn't move forward this year, and we can

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Maybe find another way to do next year?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I know senator Mattos would probably just write a check for the whole thing. There we go. I think it's happening.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I I have

[Jennifer Carbee (Senior Legislative Counsel)]: a With our

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: aging population, the $5 fee on burials is probably gonna be increasing revenue. Yeah. But

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I do have a section by section in case

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: you open for me. We get that.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: I always try to mister Gray help with that. I'm always trying to look ahead.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: As always, thank you.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. Thank you. See you later.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: And you might be done for the day. Is

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: our last film that we know of. We might be done for the week, but we were here until almost dark last night.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. I checked in the calendar to see if it was but yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We're getting there.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: This one I was gonna do tomorrow before I was told I had to go to a prose. But there is no. Well, it does. It appropriates the funds once we collect the funds. So committee, what do you wanna do with this one? I can always say it's a little bit unprecedented, and it's.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Don't know

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: you're comfortable with. The not the fee, man, itself, but leaking that fee and then Yeah. Bringing it outside.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'm not comfortable with it. It's it's pretty loose on the financial. You know? I I don't wanna pay it. I'm having a hard time, but, you know, I I'm not covering my cost of burials as it is. I'm not paying you $5. Our families

[Sen. Randy Brock]: have don't a problem, if anybody

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Right. And you typically charge a fee is going to a state program, by the way. Yeah.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: Mhmm. That'll concern. That'll go on. Yeah. We'll go and create a state program and fund We usually do things. Do you all mind if

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: I run away some meetings?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Absolutely not.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Let me know if you need an amendment, or I think I'm going to end this conversation. Thanks, Joe.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'll see you guys. See you.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: I mean, it's a worthy thing to do. Just the mechanics of it, I think, is the only issue that we have. How much is it gonna raise? 20 five year?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: 25,000. How much money will it raise? 25,000?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: What'd he say? Is this 3,500, I think 5,000 top burial at $5 each? 25,000.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: You can you can but if we work on it a little bit more, is there something else we could attach it to?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Oh, there's always something. It's a fee.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: This way, it's. We need

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: to all work on

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: it a little bit more.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I mean, it's something there's no actual yeah, it's strange, but we do what happens when in this day and age, the likelihood that somebody's gonna come in and put graffiti or spray paint all over a cemetery is increasing. I mean, long before no ice starts to get spray painted on cemeteries?

[Sen. Randy Brock]: If want to put cemetery commission in every town anymore, what we voted for, we could charge them with enforcement, But unfortunately, that doesn't exist anymore either.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. We have a cemetery commission.

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: Have a voluntary group that picks up trash.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We have a voluntary group that picks up

[Jennifer (Jen) Coleman (Director, Office of Professional Regulation)]: So what's to keep that group from saying we'd like you to collect these and then disperse them to us? Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We have what do they call? The trash something in Montpelier. They go around and pick up cigarette butts and other things out of the sidewalk. Yeah. And, I mean, there I don't think this one is We We still have that. Oh, it fills up that water. Yeah. Yeah. It would have to be.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: I think it's just awkward how it goes for and it's, you know, it's

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: There's no control. Sign and save your mom's attack.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. I mean Right. Yeah. It's a good thing to try and tell one's good guy out. Yeah. You know? But $25,000 is not covering the replacement of a headstone, never mind cleaning a 100 headstones.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: I think they do important work, and I definitely want to find ways to fund them. Like the idea of collecting revenues and routing to a third party through statute. That does feel

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: The third party who is all volunteer, who has who knows if whoever's in there knows how to want books

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: or Maybe it could be a grant program that Yeah. Right. Somebody administers at the state

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: and that money goes Mhmm.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Or Yeah. Go go go go out and say, yeah.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: I don't know about the whole state. We certainly have some neglected cemeteries in the out of a town or region. Having a

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: pool of money to draw from the vampires is something that I certainly support.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I sold the house with the horses cemetery in front

[Sen. Randy Brock]: yard. Interesting.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: He had a very nice headstand.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: Burying a horse, not Mr. Cooper.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Well, what else do you have to bury a horse? The wound factor. Tell you the story about my great grandfather's horse that got stuck in the quicksand.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: What's the price?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: He yeah. It's a need. And as burials change and more and more people are going the cardboard box cremation route, there were a lot of perpetual care funds, and it was much more important a generation or more ago that my grandmother wouldn't miss a memorial day or for actually, think she went every other week to the cemetery to weed and clean Out of New England, you go to Pennsylvania, you can't have a headstone. You get a little thing in the ground so you can ride on board and mow the whole thing. No headstones.

[Noel Langwell (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Not great for granite,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: isn't No, it isn't. That is why but there's all kinds of plastic flowers stuck everywhere. It's this ugly field of plastic lilies.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: We have pretty stringent rules.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I mean, I think we are we are going to have to, at some point, deal with the preservation of our cemeteries. They are historic. They do contain a lot of history.

[Unidentified Senate Finance member or staff]: Oh, god. This

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: isn't enough, and it isn't. Yeah.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I mean, I think Oh, still fine. Yeah. Alright.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: Did you see it as salvageable with changes or just bring

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: it back next year and take another question you have?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I don't know. I don't.

[Sen. Scott Beck]: Mattos lost fees. What do you want

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: to tack a fianic upon that sheet?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Taxes. Well, got even tax after you're gone.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I mean, and if we had time to have historic preservation come over and think through this, and we could ask them. We could ask him to come over tomorrow and help us think through it with what? We'll find some place to hang.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: That's all we said

[Sen. Scott Beck]: are going to Zoom in. I think

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair, Senate Finance)]: she's looking forward to this late afternoon.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk, Senate Finance)]: Supposed to snow tomorrow too, madam chair.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: It was. I just saw stuff there now. Oh, that's worse than snow.

[Sen. Randy Brock]: That's all.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. Right now, I think

[Sen. Scott Beck]: It was a highly efficient afternoon. It was.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We are a highly efficient community.