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[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Hello? Okay. We are live. This is Senate Finance.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: This
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: is Friday, May 22. And we have one bill. I think it's our last bill to get out, nine forty two, that's miscellaneous agriculture. And, you have a
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I am here. Can give
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: you more. Amendment or is it a strike off?
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: It is an amendment. Okay. So yesterday's committee asked me to replace the equine current use piece for the study and then strike the retails and use tax exemption piece entirely.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, just what they added?
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: That's the yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: it's essentially not not tax and skitters. I remember when all those logging trucks came in and stuff Cheryl Rivers' card.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: A policy.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, they bought it. She sold it. They bought it. Bought it down here. I don't know what Cheryl did, but they put her car out and smashed it.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Was uncomfortable with this, or did they do it maliciously?
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It was a demonstration of feeling. But, no, I don't think she knew. I
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: heard that story. Sounds like that story for a new plumber. That guy took his truck and drove over all these. There's a guy in Westford with a statue that has the Oh, I see. It
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: is the end of the session, and and things are getting a little off track, let's go look at the agenda. I started them off track. So
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Okay. And, she'll be on the legislative council. And so the first instance of amendment, this is draft 5.1 of an amendment to eight nine forty two, the first instance of amendment we showed you yesterday. But it's essentially the commissioner of taxes shall study and provide recommendations for including equine farming and the use value appraisal program. And the commissioner shall submit the report to the committees on agriculture, food, resiliency, and forestry, and ways and means and the senate committees on agriculture and finance on a report on 12/15/2026. Commissioner's recommendation shall include an analysis of the potential fiscal impact of permitting agricultural land and farm buildings that are used for equine farming to enroll in the use value appraisal program. And then some definitions that the commissioner will use. So just kind of using the definitions that are already in statute with exception of equine farming. So agriculture land, farm buildings, and farmer. The equine farming piece, they added they wanna take a look at equine farming for gain or profit. And so they recommended not looking at enrolling equine farming that might be just for show or something of the Yeah, and this is what they recommended.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Tax department.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: That's what the tax department recommends.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So,
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I just want to flag that for you folks so you are aware that that's what that says. I could change that if the committee would like, but that's what that says.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If that's what would make it easy for the tax department, I think that's probably signed.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: The second instance of amendment is striking out 32 VSA nine seven four one in its entirety. So it's that's essentially that section. We're not changing the law in any way. We're just taking that section out of the bill that has to do with
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: out of the law ring. The ununderlying parts remain in
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: the law. The underlying
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: parts are gone.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: That's a good question. Use
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Value taxation.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes. Risky.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: And the third instance is just renumbering the or editing the effective date section because the equine farming piece had a different effective date than the rest of the bill. And because that has been converted to a study, it's just the entire thing is going to take a take effect on July 2026, the entire national study. And that's the amendment.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Admitted. Discussions, questions. You wanna you wanna give it to the clerk or do you wanna do it?
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Just let me see if you're ready for a motion or not.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If there are no questions, and everything else in the bill were made, all the changes to the pricing and yeah. So all the rest all the water, apparently that had been through the house, all the water training, clean water training for farmers and yep. That all stays in. This is our tax impact sections that we are So
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: the reader assistance heading, that's the pricing stuff. Right? And and are you looking at Third instance. This is this is actually just the effective date section. And so so it is striking out newly renumbered section seven, the effective dates of the bill, and its reader assistance heading in their entireties, and inserting a new thereof, a new reader assistance heading, and a new section seven to three to follow effective date, and then the effective date is But it's okay. Yeah. Maybe I can but so this was the bill that had the the pricing? Yep. Update my pass on that as well. No. Senator Beck, if I think My confusion. Yeah. So we are amending the senate agricultural report Right. Not with the underlying bill. The underlying bill still has those sections because they did, like, instances of amendment report. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Yeah. That's bit confusion. Sorry. Gonna Yeah.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. You didn't change it.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Just flip the page one again, but it's just Yeah. I just
[Maggie Lenz (Association representative)]: want Maggie Lance on the record to the Association. They just want make sure. So the Senate Agriculture Committee did amend the unit pricing piece. So I just want to make sure that their amendment of the house unit price of piece can be left as is.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Still in here. That's not our domain. Okay. Thank you. Was I was originally thinking that they had damaged all. We're not stretching that here. Okay. We are not stretching it. Yeah. No.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: And if I could clarify that these are instances of amendment. So the underlying report that's said in agriculture community is otherwise untouched.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The only thing we're striking is the current use for equine farms until we find out how big a hole it puts in. Yeah. What's the number? Taking the extension of the sales exemption for logging because it gets to be things that are not exclusively for logging and has some risk. And it also
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: would put a whole The rationale for this amendment, the rationale for this amendment, we have insufficient information to understand the full fiscal impact, etcetera, etcetera.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You might get to a fourth person. Okay. But that is exactly why we're doing it. Okay. If there are no questions, I could use a motion. I
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: would move favorably, h nine fifty the nine forty two, as amended with as amending the Committee on Agriculture of the Senate's report with draft number 5.1 dated 05/14/2026, 08:37PM. You're working late. That's when I first made it. So, yeah, it's my apologies. I I I usually just update the draft number and not the date, so I apologize for that. We're hearing about that piece.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Senator Chittenden has moved has moved that we amend h nine forty one.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Two. Two. H
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: nine forty two. I do need your glasses once I get out of here. 51426. And are there any further questions, amendments? If not, all those in favor say aye.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Aye.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Jose do. I am hearing that as six zero one, and I need a reporter. Nobody's on agriculture.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Happy to do it unless senator Brock wants it. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's all that's essentially all he's doing on this. So
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Well, I'm I'm happy to report if you could
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: show Okay. I I think you just gave the perfect I
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: wrote it down.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay, thank you so many. Thank you, Bradley. I think that is it for official meetings. I'm assuming things will be coming back from the house that we may have to check-in on. We will. Committees of conference will be bringing out reports on the two tax bills and the education bill, and they are all intertwined. It's going to be a very interesting floor presentation, but I will keep you posted on that. And I believe we technically do need to need to approve the reports of the committee of conference or not. So stay tuned. Maybe if you can all email me where I could text you. Like your phone number or so. I don't have them all. I don't know that I have I have a whole string in the Democratic string, but I don't need it attached to the number. Send it to me.
[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Sure.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If you could I shot up. We That's all. Chris.
[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: And do have that all for me?
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. I'm you. Well, we have a clean copy of the amendment.
[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: The one that you read says clean.
[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Yep. So we have a clean copy and we need to find that bill. The bill's in that top zone two.
[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Thank you.