Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I will try and get you I'm gonna try I yeah. If I I would like to try and get you out by the four so you could go to the that mean we have to go from there. But we have and I'm told we will get the 09:55 on Tuesday, and they would like us to have it out on Wednesdays.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: That was

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: my was my reaction. Oh, wow. I've told them that they can stop the house from stealing our staff because getting staff time has been a major problem. So they too have apparently given up on doing an income tax increase or rewrite, I think. I don't know if they've given up on the tax, but I think they have dropped that, trying to get that bill through, which we tried earlier. So today, we are going to start with 09:55. First, the agenda is on Grace. Do

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: you want me up first? I'm happy to come up first.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Think you will

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: have What would work

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: in you? Guess I do I want

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: don't know what you're presenting, so what would work best?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I think you will have

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: more questions for her, Yes, thanks.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: And I can kind of walk through the timeline and then John could speak from the side first of to Okay.

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

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: on. Say good. You're welcome.

[Josh Schoenberg (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: So that has to. It

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: is not. The rest of the bunch is not going to be. That's true. But if they turn the air conditioning on, at least before they couldn't turn the heat back on, It's an all off or nothing's and will either be warm today or the rest of the week when it's going to be in the fifties will be cold. Yeah. That's gonna make sure. So we're warm today. It's pretty awesome. So pretty, Kirby. Good job. It's beautiful. Okay. All I

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: did was take John's document from last year and then make her with you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: John's beautiful.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Okay. And I think all I did was use the template.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is this the tile this isn't a tile line where the house built, or has this got?

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Superbeak English Legit Council, what I've shared is timeline for H September and the most significant sections of it and when they're set to be effective.

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

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: This is passed by the house.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: This is passed by the house. If you know the senate is planning on doing something different, just mention that. So

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Okay. I'm not aware of any that you mean to send Ed

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

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Their work. I'm I'm not aware of any changes. Did have Beth take a quick look at this and see if it was still up to date when she thought so. So I'll just start walking through for the education sections. You know, that's better for Beth when she's not here,

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: just to

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: let you know. But we start with what's on the passage, so the reserve fund account guidance and rulemaking, which relates to the education portions, and then the Act 73 tax specifications contingencies are repealed and replaced with new contingencies, thus take place on passage with this. Then you've got 07/01/2026, which is a lot of it is education related. The cease has become effective, appointments are made within thirty days, and the first meeting is held within forty five days, that's December. Data collection for tuition students starts and stay paid for school construction program starts. Then on October 1 this year, facilitators are hired, this is all for the education parts. December 1 this year, the study committee appointments are paid when the first meeting is held with also education study committee sort of asked. And then January 2027, on the fifteenth, the pre k funding report is due from building break futures, I believe. Mhmm.

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

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: So far we're all in the education area itself. And then February through March next year on February 1, Agency of Education Study Committee status report is due on March 31 of next year, the DQS rules.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: May I ask?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, it's John Gray, I'm solicitor counsel. This is district quality standards for intratistic budgeting, which if you'll recall is that kind of Burlington type practice for budgeting, and updates to the reserve fund standards. Then on the same date, education quality standards for the small sparse school determination, you'll recall that the framing for that is that you would receive from the advisory, sorry, from the state board recommendations on how to identify small sparse schools, and then the thinking was that these should be put into the rule, and further to this point in Act 73, the small sparse determination was gonna be an annual determination made by the state board, but I think that the language includes updating for AOE to make that annual determination based on the rules that are adopted and which enact And

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: this is sparse by necessity, sparse.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly, small schools and sparse schools for the foundation for the rollout are two pronged, as you have to meet a numerical threshold plus you're determined to be whatever the qualifier is by necessity, consistent with standards adopted here.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If there's a big school miles away, you're sparse by choice. If there isn't another school or it's over a mountain, then you're sparse by the sesame.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: That's for next February and March, and that means we're on December. December 1, the study committee final reports are due. And then into 2028, February and June, February 1, school boards are finished with review of study committee reports. April 1, the secretary of education finishes review of study committee reports and sends recommendations to the state board of education. Also, on April 1, grand lists. Finally, it's something for me. April 1, it's will start to include dwellings per parcel. So that's goes to the tax classification system. So the first item that happened with the transition to the new tax classification system starts with list of the number of dwellings per parcel on the grant list. Then June 1, the State Board of Education, issues final findings, and approval from the new Unified School District proposals. Brings us to November 2028, which is the vote to form proposed unified union school districts held on or before the election day of June 28.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Can I just add something? These aren't my sections, but this is you'll recall the contingency language that's in September. It's tied into the certification of results from the.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So what happens when if some of these folks go down? I'm sorry, Ann. I'm sorry.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So Ben Ben will be the best one to answer this, but what I recall is that the contingency isn't predicated on approval, but simply on the process having occurred. So I I don't think you a particular vote is required for the contingencies to be met. But, again, that that would be the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: best to ask. Okay. We hit best cut pretty short. You can can

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: possibly pull up the language because I understand that you wanted

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: to hear more about the contingencies today anyway. They're an interesting area of need.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: About the contingencies and where the money is flowing. I mean, this is both stand.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: But So, yeah, so the again, this one is there are contingencies that are related to this the votes happening on November by November 7. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So assume everybody votes yes. Okay. So July 2030, the foundation formula statewide.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I can go to section

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: 18 strange ones.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I see ceases and, you know, things going in, but we had a significant issue with the by the time we get to 07/01/2030, considering that everybody has voted their new school districts, everything has gone according to the way we've mapped it out, and we all know what chance of that is. We had a significant problem with ramping up and ramping down, and that seemed to be causing the most concern. And so I'm wondering, has anybody done any work on because I'm assuming Chittenden County had the highest spending, I think, per student, pretty close in general. That's where all the teachers wanna work. How do we ramp some of those schools down to the foundation formula and at the same time ramp Barrack City up with because that's not impossible. Do

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: you want me to jump in? Yeah. So, I I think my answer to this is actually language from Act 73. Yeah. There are transition measures related to avoid. Both to the educational opportunity payments that the districts would receive if your ed spending, if FY '25 hasn't played it forward relative to your educational opportunity payment, would receive. If your Ed spend is lower than the EOP, you would receive your brought gradually upward to it over like a five year period. And similarly on the other side, you're brought down if your Ed spending is higher than the EOP, you would receive That's just one side of it. There's also homestead tax rate transition, but if your rates are below the uniform statewide rate that would need to be charged to raise the EOP for all districts, you would similarly be brought up or down based on where your district stands relative to the uniform homestead tax rate. So both of those are existing measures. Yes. Then there's a separate transition related to supplemental district spending, which is part of how people were conceptualizing folks' districts themselves accounting for the changes, that they might have to include certain amounts of spending in their supplemental district spending. So for the first five years after the start of the transition, the cap on supplemental district spending would be at 10% rather than five and that would decrease.

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

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I guess that I understood. We're going to ramp Barry up. But once we ramp that up, I don't think anyone's going to object to having a tax ring. It's lower if we can and I can see where CESAs could save enough money to work with the high spending schools. We're we're ramping Barry and The Kingdom and Springfield, I'm sure, is the other school district that's always in the bottom. Even though we bring them up to this new rate gradually, it is still more than they've been voting on spending, and it's still and that's probably who's going to be screaming at us next, is we can't afford this.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So, might, yeah, other thing I might offer is that there is a report from the tax department on mitigating the impacts of the homestead tax rate transition, and I think part of what it's trying to do is identify some of the levers that could be used to ensure that at least the homestead rate itself is not rising. I could pull it back 73 to look to that language, but there's other levers you could place pressures elsewhere, and I think that's part of what's contemplated in the report, which in this bill, I think, would be kicked out maybe in the year

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: or There is the second homes tax. So if we take out the money take the money out of the tax rate that we've been using to pay the cost of the the income sensitivity, and we use that money to pay it down, and that's money that's going to come out of the tax rate. But until we know how many second there are, we don't know

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: how those numbers will work. Right? For the Julie Rickford, AFL for the second homes tax?

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

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. So so and as Kirby has walked through, that we still don't know Right. Sort of what that tax base is going to be. And so first, we need to know what the tax base is going to be. Then there's going to need to be the policy decision as to what multipliers you want to apply against that property tax base. How do you want to tax second homes in relation to homestead, in relation to the non homestead, nonresidential. And you'll recall Harvey can speak about this too. There is the that piece where if you're not setting those tax rate multipliers and the property classification sections are repealed. The tax department did come out with an awesome report this past January. January and December about this, about the property classifications, and that led to a lot of the work done on property classifications. They did some preliminary analysis into the second homes tax and what different multipliers could be. However, that was based and and they spell it out in the report really based on some pretty big assumptions trying to identify the second homes. I would also note the the other piece in addition to the property classifications that this committee did a lot of work on last year is the homestead exemption. And so you'll recall you were talking a lot about the shifting of the blue wave. Who's seeing a decrease of their property taxes versus an increase. And the conversations that you had were looking at targeting the homestead exemption into those communities that we're seeing and that would see an more of an increase. So those lower income

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: households. And, again, it's all hopefully, by next January, you should be able to start to get an idea as to what the grand lists are going to show. I assume, like most things, the towns that have professional listers.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: So I I didn't pull up the report that Julia mentioned. This is a very early, you know, estimate that was done by tax by the person's report. The first thing they were charged with doing would be to come up with a non homestead residential rate multiplier that would cover the homestead property tax exemption, And so that number was two twenty four for the non residential rate opposed to

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Do we put I thought we put everything at one point, nothing last year. Plus the report, I think.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Yeah. This seems to be slightly different terms. Alright.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It I mean, we it

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: was all set at one just Right. Because Because we didn't we didn't know what it report compares it to what what the non homestead rate was in that point. Okay. So you can see it's 1.39 for all non homesteads versus just a smaller portion that would be 2.24.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And a lot of this piece was talking about raising second homes tax to cover the expansion of the homestead exemption. If you'll recall, and I'm sure John or Kirby could speak to this better than I could, the language in act 73 that led to this report report charged tax with coming back with two sets of multipliers related to paying for the homestead exemption and something else that I don't remember what it was. But I I but part of this section is talking about covering the homestead exemption.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: If that was yeah. That was what we were just looking at. And then this other it would be to mitigate potential rate increases for homelessness, and for that, There are variables such as if the homestead rate was $1 and every district the state would see a decrease.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Ultimately, these questions of multipliers are the same questions that you grapple with when you're looking at the yield bill. You know a certain amount needs to be raised on property taxes, and then the question is, where are you raising that? How much are you raising from homestead versus non homestead? That's what you're talking about in the yield bill. Now this is how much are you raising from homestead in relation to non homestead, non res, and non homestead res.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We're just going to further our homes.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And we really can't do that work till in in earnest and and have good estimates until we know what that what that property tax base is. So that's why, like, setting up the classification structure, if this is the policy avenue you're continuing down, it's important to collect the data so that we can do the analysis so we know what the tax is being levied on.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: And so the first piece of information to start to figure this out according to the timeline as it is, we'll see you that April, when you actually start to have information about the number of dwellings that are out there. The second piece of information that you'll need is the parents will start to gather at the end of or during 2028 and near the end of the as they start to study for the transition, start to have an idea, after collecting data on how they will just dwell on spine.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: And so those are the

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: two pieces that need to be done. Would be going into 2029 that you would have the quick picture of that. But we do have a contingent effective date. Objection. So

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I think I got a question that I think is gonna pick

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: up where you're looking for, Kirby.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Can I go back to I wanna confirm my understanding of directed question? This H nine fifty five doesn't change any of that five meter on RAM off RAM for the EOP and the detective. Other than pushing back the two years. Two years? Yep. Okay. And then my second question, and I just don't really have a grasp of this was answered in Act 73, and then feel free to for the 10% supplemental district spending during that five year rent, is it 10% of the EOP or 10% of the EOP adjusted slide? It's 10% of something slightly different from EOP.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I think I get what you're asking. So the first thing I would say is EOP is a weighted amount, It reflects your weighted student count multiplied by the base amount. The supplemental district spending cap is determined based on an unweighted student count rather than a weighted, so it's not a straight 5% of EOP, 10% of EOP, 10% of an unweighted EOP is the way to think about it. I think your question is about is adjusted? Is it an adjusted EOP transition, like reflecting the amount that you're above or below? I would need to look at the language. We definitely included transition marriages to speak to You understand my question though? Yeah. Is it

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: the EOP or the adjuster as the slide goes down, is it 10% of that level that

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: they can go above or is

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: it 10% from where the EOP is targeted to be based on that calculation?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm sorry,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: say that again. I think it's 10%. What my recollection is without looking. Sure. I think it's 10% of the unweighted EOP, the full unweighted So unweighted, and the reason we landed on unweighted is because that we had a whole conversation about if it if we use the weighted EOP, then it's actually adjusting for, you know, sort of poverty or value twice because the if you recall, the supplemental district spending is adjusted based on grantless value, and it's set to the lowest, I believe, the lowest grandless value in the state. Per people. Already adjusted for the sort of quote unquote poverty of the district. So, by using the unweighted, it would double adjust it for poverty. If that's a so that's my recollection of our conversation about it. Yeah. I I

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I think so the supplemental district spending just is calculated as the base amount times the pupil count times long term ADM. The EOP is calculated as the face amount. It's a weighted pupil count, long term weighted ADM. So when when thinking about what you're phasing in and phasing out in the EOP transition, it's completely distinct in the amount that you're looking at in terms of supplemental district spending. It is not associated with the weights.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And that's more fair. It's for everyone. Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I guess to wrap this up, I

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: I think I heard

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: you say that senate ed is not looking at adjusting the house timeline, which gives me a good peace. I'm happy to see that because that just sounds like a a big ball of the angle of wires that is gonna be

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: invested in all of our disgrace.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If we push it too hard too fast Yep. It's gonna crash and burn and we go back. Yep. And part

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: of the reason I think it needed to

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: be extended, my understanding is that the task department actually need more time to be able

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: to implement the new classifications. And part

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: of the And the school districts.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And the blisters that have all the all the houses. Yep. They've been remarkably quiet this time. When we've looked at doing second homes or unoccupied, you know, unoccupied for six months, They were very vocal in this committee about the quality and how do you not earn it? Well, I think

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: it's because this has been so, you know, laid out incrementally with such a reasonable process where it makes it easier to grab it with.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: So returning to, we were talking about the tax rate multipliers and the timeline and related things to keep in mind with that. So 01/01/2029 is part of it. This is the transition language for the for tax to start collecting a lot of the data that's that informs the multipliers that Julia was talking about before. This is contingent though on a few things. The tax won't do this unless the new unified union school districts have done the vote. That's November 7 here. An expert tasked with developing a cost factor formula has provided a report by this point, and JFO has provided an analysis comparing state funds provided to school districts under the current and new foundation formulas. So those are the three contingencies that are tied to tax starting to collect information here. I will also point out the contingency that's on 07/01/2030 for classifications, is in bill section 63, which would repeal the tax classification system if you have not set new tax rate multipliers by this time. So you have, between this 01/01/2029, starts to collect data until the middle of the next year where it's repealed if during that 2030 session you have not set a temporary multipliers. Is that clear about how that will work? Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Can you overlay that construct with the foundation formula and how the foundation formula would ultimately go into effect when district boundaries are voted on by this legislature? Is that correct?

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Yeah. We could we could just pull up the language for that.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Is it it's Section 18 is the place to

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: And then step is it all of

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: f one? Yeah. F one is the big one. It's page 48. Yep. So here's the contingencies for

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: there's a lot of consternation in my communities that this foundation formula is not perfect. I know we're getting more information, and so what they really want to see is just force the next legislature similar to this tax provision, the sunset of that tax provision for the secondary homes tax that it just in law goes away absent an affirmative action by the next legislature. So I I just need to better understand what's on course to happen with this foundation formula that is not ready for prime time and how to, allay those concerns, forcing the next legislature to have to do something to affirmatively enact a foundation formula that's more sensitively designed.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: So I'll I'll see all the sections, the areas that are that have the the big contingencies, and then we'll go back up and look at what they are. So, John, know that first one? These are best,

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: but this is tuition sections, this is money following the student under the foundation form. And then

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: we get the transaction, the cost factor foundation form, you have the statewide education tax, all shift pending tax changes, you have the new homestead exemption.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry, just to call the deleted sections that you see here, or at least a number of these in the pre section 51, they are transition measures, and the reason they're deleted here is that their updated timeline for September is set later in the bill, and their effective date is set in the effective dates section for September. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So this is where she had to delete a whole lot that was in '73, doesn't seem to Exactly. Be Put in another one.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Exactly. So those are some of the big components. Did I leave anything else that's also

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: tied to these? No, I think that's right. Within the updates to the act '73 timeline, it's the core foundation formula pieces and stuff, I'm set exceptions to new tax rates, any new transition measures that accompany that, and to the extent that you had anything curbing related to the classifications, but

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: I think you've already spoke to that. And, yes, so classifications are also tied to many of these. Okay, so here's what contingencies are. All of that stuff depended on it. One, school districts have had an opportunity to study this by disability, and to have a district vote on a proposal to inform a unified municipal district honorable for November 7. That's the timeline item we've been talking about. And then pursuant to legislation and act by the general assembly 2026, that would be this, that requires each school district to participate on a study committee to study the advisability of forming a unified meeting the school district, has certified the results of any vote to the extent that any set votes occurred to the Secretary of State. So to stop requiring approvals, we're just requiring to vote. The second contingency, these are all required. The expert task of developing cost factor foundation formulas provided in the report. The third, our report 12/15/2029, JFO has done its analysis. Legislation has been enacted that addresses suitable geographic measures for determining sparsity, whether it costs more to educate a secondary student than an elementary student. There's a study on this, though. Yeah. All of these, these are part of the contingencies that

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: So if I could just continue this thread. So I'm a no on this bill, but I could be, I will likely be a yes if I can look my constituents in the eye and say that when these soft contingencies are met, that the foundation formula contemplated in Act 73 will not go into effect, and that foundation formula has to be updated with those new rules, and so I'd like to sunset the foundation formula that's constructed in Act 73 or zero them out to a dollar. That would get me to a place where I could tell my constituents the next legislature has to take affirmative action, and it won't just lie into into effect as soon as we have a a group of lines. Am I making sense?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I know what you were asking. Okay. For it's essentially a prospect of repeal and repeal with no way if particular contingencies were met. That's the issue. That would get me to a yes.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: So I'd like to see that language discuss it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is that a fifth question?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: No, I mean it's an update to the effective dates.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: It's a check back. I want a

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: check back. A harder check back.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I would just note that if you do this, which There can't be

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: will be a check back, trust me, no matter whether put it in here or not.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Check Next

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: next legislature or the next two, has that word notwithstanding?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So if if you wanted to do a concept like this that is a prospect of repeal that otherwise maintains all of the other provisions of nine fifty five, we would need to duplicate all of the sections and change the underlying law that they amend. Basically, we have to contemplate a bunch of different routes that the bill could take. It's all to say that it can be done. It's just probably gonna add hundreds of pages.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: It's a it sounds so I have to follow along on the education section, so it's, like, obviously, John Best. Like, isn't it implied that the things the senator's chairman was talking about have to occur? You

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: do need to meet these contingencies for those things to come into effect. I appear an urgent need to be asking for an outright we can talk about it, but I, maybe the three

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: of us should just go ahead.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: And maybe it could be Senator Chittenden, we could figure out a way to make it narrower, still have the same impact but narrower so they don't have to redraft fill twice. Yeah. And so that it's just a specific section or something that is very key to the foundation formula actually working.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Would that be? Absolutely.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: And I have started this conversation prior to now, so that

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah, no, I know. I've heard you say it multiple times, but I'm just trying

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: to figure out a way to

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: make it, to get what you want, but also make it a little easier for the drafters than everybody else. I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: understand. Foundation formula is to prevent schools from really exporting their costs. Very small schools, if they're providing right now, the cost all goes to the education fund. And, essentially, I think Chittenden County and a couple ski towns are paying that cost. So they get yeah. I mean, very few towns are are covering the cost of their education and their property grand list.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I get your point.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I just don't want the foundation for the tax

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. What I'm saying is because Chittenden County is different, especially Winooski, that if this ceases and the voluntary mergers can save enough money so that the property, you know, the property tax pressure, which is now extreme, is relieved that the state wouldn't have to put them on a diet. I mean, that would be the the goal of all of this is to get better education for many kids, not take down anyone's standard at at a price we can afford. But we are this is like COVID. We are developing the map as we walk it. And I can guarantee you by this time next year, that timeline will be a little different, and there'll be things added and subtracted as we go through the process. But if can find a way to get that down, then that would work or suggestions. In Sure. It's pretty would prob to me, that's you know, it might not be an even trade, but there would be a decline in the cost and an increase in some quality. And then there's little issues about how we're gonna bring everybody up to Chittenden County's teacher salaries, which will cost more Or have

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: a labor differential based on the region of.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, we do now. Okay.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: So, unfortunately, I'm double booked with ways

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: in Yeah. The next the

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: next crew is arriving. So a few more highlights to try to wrap it up. You know, 12/15/2029 is when the tax department had to come back and propose rad boundaries. So that's 2029, so presumably in 2030 legislative session, those boundaries would be put into law, and then the regional assessment districts would take effect starting in 2031. The boundaries

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: good event of the regional assessment districts based on the mandatory CESAs and then any school districts mergers that are voluntarily abroad gap within the CESA district, and we're gonna give this all time to gel before we go on.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: The RAD boundary proposal is supposed to be based off of school district boundaries. Right. So that report you receive going into the 2030 session should be based on the strict boundaries and also parcel numbers and those things. But of course that should be a proposal from the department. It will be up to the general assembly to act on that proposal and to actually fully rule out if the boundaries are. There's different ways to do this. I flag for ways and means a little bit of concern around delegation of legislative powers. Like, you did something where you gave tax too much leeway determining these boundaries, that could be a problem and done without the legislature being controlled. This approach does not have that issue at all, because they'll make a proposal and the general assembly will decide what those boundaries are. So if

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: general assembly at this point is not happy with the way numbers are looking for foundation Mhmm. You could just

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Future legislature can tank this as much as they want. Ever

[Josh Schoenberg (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: since they're right.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: There's only one that's all.

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

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: I think the major contingencies which we started to go over relate to the foundation formula, supplemental district spending, homestead exemption, classifications, and provision on fees or tuition. So those big pieces were related to all of those contingencies we went through a moment ago. If all of that works out, regional assessment districts will take down effects. If those contingencies are met, which are not, the full list of contingencies

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Sounds good. Okay. And

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: if you're looking for these afterwards, go to page 40 of the SPATH by the house for second 19. That's where they're at. Yes. It's because there's two effective date sections you actually Exactly. They're they're all over.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Another place to look is you can look at the summary we made, and for each section, we use completed the effective date information. Okay. I think that might be the easiest for you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. That probably would be alright.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: The fiscal note also has an appendix that has all of the sections and the effective dates.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Those are all on the website. Right? Think so. Alright. Thanks. Fine. Okay. That was a good marriage. Alright? We are definitely gonna have to. Alright. We can just dump the stick today as I get. It's crazy. I mean No. You're right. There nothing in here changes what we did in 'seventy three. They've made changes to the timeline, they've made changes, but it's all education contingencies that have to be met before the finance goes into effect. So we can look at either now or in some future state. We'll be looking at the economic the dollar impact on the mergers or lack thereof, on the CESA's savings or lack thereof, and things that we have not figured out, like the cost of transportation. Is this still provisioning as it was presented to us by the administration with the state picking up the full cost of transportation and special ed who's yet to be Caledonia. I mean, do you Yeah.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So so act 73 included those special education weights and required JFO to with their contractor to come back with special ed recommended special education ways. So that work is being done by the contractor. With respect to the transportation reimbursement, that's an outstanding policy decision that hasn't yet been made. H nine fifty five, as you have it, or as I guess, Senate Ed has it, as it has passed out of the house, includes a report for recommendations as to how transportation should be funded under the new government requirement.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That will make a difference both to the districts and the mergers and

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: okay. Yeah. So one of one of the the big inherent questions is what is the education opportunity payments supposed to cover? And then, what are other grants or funding streams that you all want to add in addition to the education opportunity payment. So, the other example that you've been talking about, and I know you'll talk about more school construction. It's not typically included in a foundation formula payment. It could be, but that decision needs to be made one way or the other. CTE is another one. Transportation is another one. And right now,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: school constructions visualize just still being towns bonding and then state putting money in to help with bond payments as it becomes available.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, there's sort of the, I think the term that folks have been using is capital stacking. Right? So there's the there's the aid, the the state aid, there's the legacy debt aid, there's the supplemental district spending, and then there's the bonding at the state level. And I don't I I do genuinely don't know because I think that the the school construction piece is the piece that finance and senate ed have done jurisdiction over.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I don't know if there

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: will be changes before the full construction piece makes

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: this complaint. I I the last communication, that was probably sometime last week, that Cher told me he had or was or wanted to take out the legacy debt which the bill proposed paying off because that was a 600,000,000 or something. 61,000,000. 61,000,000. Alright. Maximum. Yeah. Went mostly to Chittenden County, and he would rather have that debt just spread out mostly over the rest of the state who will probably need to do some bonding to find a roof that doesn't leak. Is $61,000,000 of legacy debt?

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: In a single year.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: In a That's So annual.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Annual. Annual. Debt Alright. The the The annual maximum is of debt service is 61,000,000.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Debt service. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: we would be obligated to pay that first, the state?

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I think that'd be a question for John. I don't know in terms of obligation if there's a priority structure.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: That's way it's set up in the bill is that it'd be basically a category for eight grams.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So we will we will have John walk us through that session and Kirby because I know Sandra Bahoski, we're trying to get her in, has another proposal for some of this, we'll see where it goes. Okay, we are going on to five sixty seven and after relating to unclaimed property, state retirement systems, and capital. Cameron, yours here, and I've got David here. And David is No. No. Alright. Steve. And the proposal from the treasurer is that you're going to retain 6,000,000 of the money that now for unclaimed personal property. Some of it never gets claimed, I think it's ten years. And after ten years, it gets transferred to the general, you keep some, some goes to the general fund. You're asking to keep more in order to capitalize the Vermont Saves program, right, which is the program that businesses could sign into for retirement savings for their employees, and that money is invested and managed by the state. But it's still in the capitalizing phase and you would like to retain that money to capitalize. Broadly speaking, Senator, yeah, for the record, David

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Shear, Deputy Treasurer. I do have a brief presentation here that I think will-

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

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I'll keep it tight because I know this committee has heard from the gentleman over here, from legislative council and JFO who've explained it, but wanted to just run through it to make sure we're all clear on the mechanism that we're using. We're reconfiguring an an existing transfer.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'd like to give them a five minute break before we start on 248A because it probably won't be this copacetic.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Sounds good. So I'll keep it moving and I'll I'll go somewhat quickly because, again, I know this committee is fairly familiar with the substance, but I just wanted to let you Don't hesitate to interrupt. I also wanted to note, I know that there had been some questions about pieces related to retirement and our director of State Retirement Systems, Tim Duggan is here. So after this, if there are questions about that, Tim would be happy to jump in. So a quick overview here on ETSaves, which is the retirement program that you were mentioning, madam chair. It's been operational for sixteen months now. In that time, it's gone from zero accounts to more than 6,000, and it's gone from zero assets under management to more than 7,000,000. So this is this program is working very well. It's, accumulating, accounts and assets quite quickly, means, you know, Vermonters are saving for retirement. This is exactly what we wanted to see happen, folks who didn't otherwise have the opportunity. We have been running the aberration at a very in a very lean manner, which is the treasurer wants to not toss Vermonters' money wherever possible. The initial request for resources from the legislature was 750,000. That's significantly less than any other state that has done similar programs. This Vermont SAES program is part of consortium of states that are all doing the same thing. In order to bridge the gap to bring us to sustainability, we do need to find a funding source to sort of cover those remaining years before the program becomes self sustaining. We have submitted for your review the projections that back some of the, or the the data backing the projections that we've used, and that hopefully will be in your materials online. As I mentioned, the treasurer's philosophy is really finding the win win initiatives of high impact for Vermonters while keeping costs as low as possible. It's true of the retirement program as a whole. It's also, we believe, true of this particular solution to the funding gap. And although, of course, we would say that, we also have spoken to others, beneficiaries of the the higher interest fund. We have discussed this with them. They have no objection to the proposal. And in the legislative history, it's fair to say that every committee has had questions about this particular provision, but ultimately has felt comfortable passing it unanimously. So what are we doing here? The proposal will do three things. It's gonna fund the Vermont Saves Program to reach itself sufficiency, gonna do that without impacting the general fund, and it's gonna provide greater revenue to the Higher Education Trust Fund than under current law. How does it do that? The proposal reconfigures an existing transfer from the Unplanned Property Fund to the Higher Education Endowment Trust Fund to allow for an additional transfer to the Vermont Retirement Security Fund, which is the technical name for the fund that supports the VTSAVES program. I'll just say VTSAVES program here. As legislative counsel and Chris Ruth talked about from JFO last week, this is the current relationship between the Unbanked Property Transfer and Higher Education Trust Fund. Accounts that are more than ten years old and worth less than $100 are transferred to the higher education trust fund. And just to note here, people ask about this, but money does always still belong to the rightful owner. If they come and claim it, they will get that they will get that money. But as a matter of reality, a significant amount goes unclaimed or is extremely difficult to find the owner of. So every year, accounts going from nine years to ten years are transferred to the Higher Education Trust Fund that accounts under $100 This does make up a small portion of the total annual contributions to the Higher Education Trust Fund. The largest percentage really comes from the windfall estate tax that comes in every once

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: in a while, but kind

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: of uncertainly. And I know that this has been a topic of discussion for you all, but here's a a graphic just showing the the scale of the annual contributions. You can see the the big bars are the state tax windfalls. The last five years of the Higher Education Trust Fund Transfer is noted over there on the right hand side of the screen, and so you can sort of see them on the bottom, but compared to the higher compared to the estate tax windfall, it's really quite a small amount that gets added to the principal fund. The proposed changes, again, as well described by JFO and the wedge counsel, instead of ten years old and less than a $100, it would be ten years old and less than a $150, more funds will be eligible to be transferred, but there will be a 300,000 cap on that total annual transfer. That's sort of to smooth the provision, otherwise it could be like a huge sweep in the first year, which would kind of not be the intention here, but just have a very nonvolatile change, it's a smooth nonvolatile change. A waterfall structure will be set up so that the amount needed to meet funding requirements for VTCaves, the amount needed to cover that will get attributed to that, and the remainder will go to the Higher Education Trust Fund, and I will give you a graphic showing that a little bit more. This also may be familiar to you from the JFL presentation. This shows, again, there's a $300,000 cap. This shows the numbers in blue. You can see what goes to the amount saved Security Fund in orange, the Higher Education Trust Fund. And so you can see that as the Vermont Retirement Security Fund revenue increase and therefore becomes self sustaining, which we project will happen at FY '33, you can see over there towards the right, then the full amount of the 300,000 will be transferred over to the Higher Education Trust Fund. And on the right hand side, you can see a historical comparison. And let me actually do another slide to illustrate that more clearly. This is the historical impact in this proposal that we're bringing forward to you today had existed over the last five years, you can see it has a pretty meaningful impact in terms of an increase to the Higher Education Trust Fund. It did receive a total of almost 624,000. If this proposal had been in place, it would have received 1,460,000, it's a 43 percent increase. So this really is beneficial for the higher education trust fund overall when you look at if this had been in place previously, it would have. So that was a historical look looking forward. Again, under the projections we have, Vermont saves will receive $706,000 not all at once, but spread out over about five years as it comes to six years as it comes to self sustainability, and the Higher Education Trust Fund over the duration of this provision will get more than $3,000,000 Even if you were just to take those five years in which we're funding the VTSAIS program, you're still looking at almost $1,100,000,000 so really, again, even in the shorter term, the Higher Education Trust Fund is doing fairly well under this proposal. This is just a graphic showing the impact on the Higher Education Trust Fund. There is a dip in the next two fiscal years. Again, this is not a dip in what the Higher Education Trust Fund has. Nothing is being taken from the Higher Education Trust Fund. I wanna emphasize that. It is just a fact that there will be a bit less going to it, but already by FY twenty nine, you're going to see more going to the Higher Education Trust Fund than has ever gone to it historically under this transfer, and it goes up from there until you hit the full 300,000.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. And that's the impact of the money you're sending over, right? Not the trust fund as a whole.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: That's correct, yeah, that's correct, that's exactly right. Just that is the higher transfer.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We're going to be lowering the trust fund as a whole. We might have more of a problem.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: That is correct, and we are certainly not And giving it we are not touching the principal, and this next session goes a little bit more to that exact point, Senator. I know this committee knows the background well, but just briefly, the total principal balance in the Higher Education Trust Fund right now stands at 59,000,000. Principal cannot be distributed under current law, Only interest can be distributed

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Notwithstanding. Under current law.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: All UP transfers add to the principal. Then here's a brief summary of how the distributions happen, which, again, I think this committee is familiar with, but I'm happy to answer questions on that piece if there are if there's any curiosity additional on that. Noting where the real, so this is another graph that just shows the total principal of the Higher Education Trust Fund and how the contributions have impacted that and can see where it really jumps up is what these big estate tax windfalls, 39% jump in 2011, 11% in 2021, 4% in 2025. So by comparison to that, you can see there's little rises in the other years, not huge. So how much of the UP transfers add to the principal? They're not huge percentages. As you can see over the past five years, we're looking at less than half a percent each year. We say that not to minimize the importance of the transfer over time, it is meaningful, but just to note that a temporary dip will not have a significant change in how much is being contributed to the principal, and that I believe is part of the reason why beneficiaries were not overly concerned about that temporary debt because it's not having, as you can see in this slide, a huge practical impact on how many contribution, the amount of contributions going to the principal. The difference you're looking at in FY '27 is a reduction in contributions to the principal as compared to the entirety of the principal of zero point two four percent and then 0.09% in FY '28. So you're looking at a very small dip as compared to an overall benefit over the duration of the provision that would contribute an additional 5% as compared to the total of the current Higher Education Trust bond principal. And that's assuming current state, admittedly, of the Higher Education Trust Fund. You could, the numbers would change a little bit if there were to be changes to that principal amount. But wanted to give you the picture of what it is that this provision's doing, the benefit of the Higher Education Trust Fund, the funding to self sustainability of the VT saves program, which is going very well and accumulating assets and retirement savings quickly as we hoped it would. It is in line with projections that support these numbers.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Did have the opportunity, I was supposed to be with the treasurer, but he said I'd up to visit with one of my local, actually, farm stands, farm operations. And their employees were very happy with this. It was a couple dollars of paycheck that came out, and the employer said, you do all the pay It's they didn't have any they didn't have to do anything. And, you know, saving for employees, and these are running a farm stand, farm workers, not generally highly paid people that would save for retirement, be able to save, and this was a way where a small amount of money invested in a larger amount of money was very helpful.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: That's great to hear.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. They were they were very pleased. So okay. Questions. This one is pretty rare. Senator Hardy. Thank you, madam chair.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I don't know that I have any questions because I I haven't talked to deputy treasurer and treasurer about this proposal. Do you want me to I mentioned what I said to you, or do

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: you want me to hold off on that? Let's finish the test Okay. Witnesses, and then we could do committee discussion. Okay. I'm gonna try and get you five minutes before we do 02:48 a. So we open the door, get some oxygen in.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So Are we voting

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: on this bill today, the trigger?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I don't have it on. Okay. Put it on. I don't have an amendment. Yeah. Okay. So it's not on for voting it out. So we'll see. Okay. Alright. Thank you.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And Josh

[Josh Schoenberg (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Thank you. Josh Schoenberg, VLCT, for the record. I'll be very brief. I believe maybe you wanna hear us speak to section six and sections 22 in here. Those are the only two sections that involve BEAMers, and if there's anything else you'd like me to speak to, let me know. I may not have the answers, but happy to try. The treasurer's office has communicated to us along the process of this bill what technical correction they were trying to make, and what the impacts, if there were any, with BMRs are, or municipal impacts. The section six regarding enforcement provisions that are related to employers, it actually just copies the BMRs language that already exists, and puts that forward for the other retirement sector, so there's no impact municipalities would fully support in doing that. Section 22 around union presidents and a leave of absence for a year, and then neutral effects. Again, we do not have any concerns with this for our members that would opt into this and participate, So happy to support the treasurer's efforts here in both these sections.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Good. Yeah, simple. Thank you. And See, Colin Robinson, and I think Colin is here. There were some questions that just asked for clarification about this section, about the union president that serves on the investment being able to buy this year's service would count towards their retirement. So, why don't you talk?

[Colin Robinson (Labor union representative)]: So, I believe it's section twenty one and twenty two and what this section would do, as I'm sure you've already heard, would make time serving as president of employee organization, union who serves employees, workers in the VMR system or the VISTA system eligible to have their, employee organization, the union, purchase service credit for the time that they serve in that role. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's They wouldn't be working at their regular teaching job. Correct. They would be working as the union president. Okay.

[Colin Robinson (Labor union representative)]: And it only allow it only makes it allowable as it is for other service credit purchases. People can purchase service credit right now for various things, and Tim Duncan here is here from the retirement division. I'm sure could tell you chapter and verse about that. But that this would simply add that as an allowable option. It doesn't compel, doesn't require, as was mentioned previously, and I think you've heard previously as well from other witnesses, it is cost neutral to the system, so

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: a quick question? One of

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: the questions that I have for,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I think, both of these sections when they came up was, why is it only the president? Are there other officers who put in as much time?

[Colin Robinson (Labor union representative)]: I I would say I don't know of other officers that are full time levies. Okay. And therefore, so therefore, in a situation where they might be missing out on being able to be eligible to get a full service credit. And this simply allows them the option to purchase the credit if they so want to. They might not want to.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Uh-huh. Right? They might have Okay. But they're the only full time person. Is that Okay. You. Okay. That makes clear. I don't remember who has the question.

[Kirby (Legislative staff – Education)]: Oh, yeah.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I have a question.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So if the years count towards that service and it's based on your last three for your salary going into retirement, is that, say, president goes up their last three years as president and then they retire. Is it based on their years of three years as being president? Because I'd imagine that's

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: a substantial increase in salary over

[Colin Robinson (Labor union representative)]: My understanding, and I am gonna phone a friend on this one, it would be their last three years in the system as a VISTAs member. So the final AFC teaching. Their final years teaching. And to be clear, you know, you could have a situation where somebody is, let's just say, a teacher or a school bus driver, just because those are two types of folks we represent, they're working and they're member of vistors or beamers, they decide to run or are elected to office, they serve for three years the Romanian prison, then they go back to teaching or being a bus driver. There would be an option to purchase credit at a central way for the interim free period.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I remember, and it may have been when we were changing, and it was a long time ago, allowing members to purchase time. I think it was if you wanted to retire a year or two early or if you moved to Connecticut and worked there for two years or whatever, two years off to raise a family, you could come back in and you could purchase, which basically is you're you're paying in what you would have paid in to the the system.

[Colin Robinson (Labor union representative)]: Yeah. And definitely, Tim Duggan can speak to all the various contours of that. What I will say is the dollar amount, as I understand it, is unique and specific to the individual, the point in time, and the circumstance. Right. So that dollar figure can be quite substantial when you talk about service purchasing, service credit, and years of service. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I mean, tens of thousands But nobody is nobody has to do any No. For missing. Right. Right. Anybody have a problem with this? Okay. Any more questions for the call? Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you. Senator Hardy, we've got ten minutes

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: of the gun. I don't have the enough if you want me to wait I thought we were voting this today. We have if we're not voting it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. No. No. I need to get all of these done.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I will say, I I mean, it's no surprise you guys are you know, that I'm concerned about the use of the Higher Education Trust Fund. So I wanted to include language that future uses of the Higher Education Trust Fund. There's more protection of that, especially a principle. So having a vote of there is a there's a council that oversees the fund. Sorry. It's in the and having you know, if there's going to be a proposal to use the fund for something other than the original purpose. It's an endowed trust fund that was set up for a specific purse purpose. So if it's going to be used for a different purpose, then it has to it has to be vote of the council to use it for a different purpose. That was my general idea, and I also was thinking and of putting their seven members on it right now, and which is UVM, the state colleges, the VSAC, the president of the Independent College Association, represented from business industry, and then a senator and a house member. And I think it might be nice to have a student on it because they're scholarship funds. So maybe an appointed student appointed by the governor or something. I haven't done this amendment yet. I just talked to Cameron or emailed Cameron earlier. So I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: can I can just grab something and bring that back? Understand it. Yeah. That was that.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I just wanna hear what

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: so what power are you thinking of giving them?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Something about if there was going to be a new use of the funds when I proposed in both of these proposals.

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Yeah. You said, oh, let's build an ice cream.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yes. It's for

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Do you disagree with that?

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I For example, like, building a multipurpose supports complex

[David Shear (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Just

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: for example. That it

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: has to, you know, be approved by this council beforehand to say, yes, that we're okay with that. And before that, it would have to, come before the legislature because the law is that it's supposed to be used for scholarships.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So if they said no, that could come before the legislature? Yeah. They was done. But I haven't talked it all through.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah. Understand. So I'm

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: trying to say, I know. I don't just like you can take up any Yeah. I'm more than take. Listen. I just Yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I I have to work through this. I'll talk about it, but it it's just obviously a certain thing. I think making sure that this goes to scholarships is important.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Sounds like a good idea. Okay. Get that to us because this is Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we can try that out without controversy. So I can talk to Camden. I'm not sure. That could get us in a lot. Yeah. I'll talk to him about it and see what So something else in this bill says you have to be 18 at this bill? No, but this

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: would be college students, so they would be, you know 18. They would be 18, and there are college students. There are students on other councils. Correct.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay, committee, ten minute rate. And if you find pizza