Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: My tune is

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: They got off that camera.

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: Five or six in the mid eighties.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: But I do want to stay on Wednesdays with you.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: It's drying out. We are live.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Okay. Right.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good afternoon. Welcome into the Senate Committee on Government Operations Committee meeting of Tuesday, 01/27/2026. We're gonna begin today with the requests from the Ethics Commission, and Paul Earlbaum will join us first at the chair.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: I'm

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: just kidding.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: The

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: floor is yours, sir. Thank you. Thank you, senators. Thank you for inviting me here to tell you about the status of the Vermont Ethics Commission. My name is Paul Ermbaum. I'll skip my autobiography. I'll simply say that I'm the chair of the Vermont State Ethics Commission. As far as the current status of the Ethics Commission, the continued existence of the commission is precarious, put it that way. And I'm paraphrasing with everything that I have in the statement. And my understanding is that in order for the ethics commission to get an appropriation through the appropriations committee, they need a recommendation from you folks to go to the appropriations committee. Am I understanding that correctly? It certainly helps. It helps. Alright. They will take testimony on their own and make final decision. Well, I'm hoping today that I can convince you to recommend to the Appropriations Committee an increase in our budget such that we can get two new staff people. Right now, we have a half time executive director and a half time administrative assistants, which is not nearly enough staff for us to fulfill the duties that were assigned to us back in 2018. And then in 2024, with Act 171, the legislature created the Municipal Code of Ethics and assigned the Ethics Commission the task of providing municipalities with advice on this new code. Of course, a flood of municipal requests for advice flowed into our office, and our staff tried hard to respond, and we could not respond adequately. And unfortunately, we just couldn't keep up with the demand. So in May, on the top of our website, now there's a message saying, With regret due to lack of staffing, the State Ethics Commission can no longer provide advisory and complaint services to municipalities. Also in 2024, act one seventy one granted to the ethics commission its first, I'll use the metaphor, teeth. We've been a toothless organization.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Finally don't.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Right? Investigatory powers, hearing powers. But H1, last session, pushed that date a couple of years forward because we didn't have the staff to implement it. We still don't have the staff. So at this point, with those two unfunded mandates, we're just tiny. We don't have the staff to do what we've been assigned to do by this legislature. TJ Jones will be speaking with us a little later. Worked with ethics commissions around the country for years now, and he can give you a little perspective about what other ethics commissions, state ethics commissions do. In my write off, I mentioned just one, the state of Rhode Island. Rhode Island has just slightly less than double Vermont's population, but their ethics commission staff has 12. They have an adequate staff. They have significant authority. Our budget has been quite modest for years. Dollars 250,000 is our core budget for this year, and it's pretty much the same as it has been for several years. And if we were to secure more staff, it would be more than doubling our budget. But this is what we're looking for, and we know this is a really, really tight budget year. We're we're not we're not doubting that. But the commission staff is just treading water, and, frankly, we're gonna go down unless we get staff. As tight as the budget is, we believe having substantial ethics protocols should be a legislative priority, and we hope, we urge this committee to recommend to the Appropriations Committee funding to work two positions. I'll take any questions if you'd like, but we should be hearing from Will Stevens, another commissioner,

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: as well as CJ Jones,

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: and from Pat McDonald, but I'll

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: be glad to take questions. So I noticed in your written testimony the total proposed budget is $601,000 Is

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: that right? That is correct. Okay. Senator Clarkson. Oh, good. So six zero one,

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: that is two positions. So we have a new member, Paul, did you meet? John?

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: We've said hi to you,

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: John And not everybody was here. Brian and I were the two that were here when we formed the Ethics Commission. Thank you, Pat, who was one of the great pillars behind making it happen. And we have failed continually to be able to put teeth behind by finally creating a state code of ethics, as you mentioned a couple of years ago. But we have always, from the beginning, really failed to put the teeth behind making the Ethics Commission a force in this state. And even with So you are charged, for John's sake, if you just be kind enough to remind us all what your duties are, because you intake, you take all the ethics complaints and you farm them out to the appropriate bodies who oversee some of them. But you also are charged with training. And I believe that also has fallen, by the way, training, municipal bodies training, all bodies that ask for in state government, out of state government, and municipal government do ethics trainings for each one. If you could just describe some of what you're charged with doing so that we can appreciate why we other than the fact that we need more staff to process all the complaints that have been coming in. Of course.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: And when the Ethics Commission was first created in 2018, excuse me, in 2018, frankly it seemed like a silly setup, because we were charged with referring complaints, ethics complaints that would come in, whether it was the executive branch, the attorney general's office, or this or that. But there was really no need for us to do that because a citizen could go directly to the attorney general's office or directly to the human resources department. So it just seemed like it was putting in an extra step. But in 2022, I believe it was, the legislature passed the state code of ethics. So without any enforcement, at least there were guidelines. What is a gift? What is a conflict of interest? Etcetera. And then in 2024, with Act 171, the legislature gave us powers to do investigations over public servants, not municipal, but state public servants, and conduct investigations and hearings. And to the extent there was any teeth, it was the power to scold, to publicly scold the face.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Oh, the power to follow-up.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: And to follow-up, that's true too. And to make recommendations for training or this or that. But certainly no monetary penalties or anything like that. As far as training goes, we have devised an online training for municipalities, as well as for state workers. Senator Clarkson, you're right, our in person trainings have largely, not altogether, but largely fallen by the wayside for lack of staff. Again, a halftime executive director and a halftime administrative assistant. And so we continued to get requests for advice or guidance, both from municipalities and from state public servants. We're doing our best to keep up With the state public servants, we've given up on the municipalities. It was just a flood. We couldn't do it. Yeah. And that and in

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: some ways, they are now your greatest need because for legislators and attorneys and various other entities, we have our own ethics panels that address once you send us those complaints, we deal with them. But you deal with a lot of the other complaints that need to

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: be addressed. We do, and so we give advice as we can, give guidance when we can. And just to follow-up on Senator Clarkson's example, when a complaint comes in about a member of the House or a member of the Senate, the Ethics Commission, as of last year with H1, is now required to provide an opinion to the House or Senate panel as the complaint is sent over. What areas of law do you think do we think are covered by this? And, of course, it puts us in the fine position of being asked for an opinion before there's an investigation. We asked for that not to be concerned last year what it was. So we're doing the best we can. Sarah Vyhovsky?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: My understanding is that we actually further delayed the investigatory and even the required opinion in H1 last year.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I think the required opinion has kicked in already and we've already provided one to the House Ethics Panel.

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: Okay.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: But as far as the investigation powers, my understanding from this committee is that it was being postponed to September 2027 because we said they don't know the staff had implemented.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Would these additional two staff people give you the capacity to bring the municipal oversight back on board?

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Yes. I mean, really frankly, and again, TJ Jones would he can give all of us a better idea because he knows how other ethics commissions work. It would still be quite a spare staff. I think what TJ has said to me is that we need a minimum of four and a half full time. But if we now if we had two more staff people who get us up to three full time equivalents, that would be great.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. No. I really appreciate that. And I certainly know within the municipalities I represent, I often get sort of frustration from constituents that there is no mechanism by which to even ask, is this ethical? Because what it ends up being a circular process where we require to make how we still have an ethics officer, but that's usually a member of that group who's like, yeah, course it is. Not an ethics professional, not someone who really can weigh that from a legal standpoint against the law. So I definitely see the credible need there. Of course, so do you, given that there was such a flood of those when when it went live. My other question for you in terms of this sort of toothlessness. You know, you you had referenced that you have an ability to reprimand. Is that true even when the ethics complaint is surrounding not core legisl issues that are not core legislative function? Because my under my understanding is for poor legislative function, the Senate and the House respectively have the only authority. When it's not within the realm of poor legislative function, the authority, I'd assume, falls to the ethics commission.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I believe you're right. I think you're right. And if I could just interject just a stray thought that's come up, because you said how important it could be for the Ethics Commission to be able to give advice. What I'm hearing through the grapevine is that municipalities are, because they can't come to us at this point, are going to from our League of Cities and Towns. My feeling is that the League has a conflict of interest. They serve as insurers to the towns. And giving an opinion on an ethics question, I'm sure they're good people, but it's hard to separate economic interests. So we feel a lot better if municipalities were coming to the Ethics Commission rather than to the League of Cities and Towns. Make sense?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. We're gonna switch witnesses and I have Will Stevens up next, but if Thomas Jones wants to jump ahead of him in the lineup, feel free.

[TJ (Thomas) Jones]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it might be better to hear from both the Commission members first, unless it pleases the committee for me to go ahead. By the committee,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you all have the written testimony from Will and Paul and TJ. Hey, Will. So go ahead, Will.

[Will Stevens]: Thanks very much. And in light of the conversation that's just been had, I feel like some of my testimony will be redundant, but I'll stick to the script for the record anyway. My name is Will Stevens. I'm from Shoreham in Addison County, and I wanna thank you very much for taking the time today to hear from us. I'm a vegetable farmer, a former state rep from 2007 to 2014, and a public servant who's served as the Shoreham Select Board, the Planning Commission, town moderator, and other offices. I was appointed to the Ethics Commission by the Senate's Committee on Committees a year ago last December after what act one seventy one expanded the commission's membership by giving both the house and the senate the authority to appoint a former municipal officers to the commission. As you know, the act also expanded the commission's responsibilities to include municipalities and municipal officers. The governor allowed it to pass without a signature, and at the time he expressed fears that it amounted to an unfunded mandate because it did not include the resources needed to perform the commission's expanded duties. Ethics commissions exist to ensure good governance by issuing training, advice, and opinions while acting as a neutral third party that gives the public a sense that a representative form of government is acting in their broader interests. Governmental ethics became a big thing in the post Watergate era about fifty years ago, prompting several states to embed ethics commissions in their state constitutions because of public distrust in their elected officials. Today, as you know, we again find ourselves living in a time of shifting norms. A neutral and independent perspective on governmental ethics is perhaps needed now more than ever. Like Paul, I worry about the future of Vermont's the Vermont Ethics Commission. In my brief time in the commission, witnessed a dedicated group of people who are stressed out and struggling to perform the tasks assigned to it by the legislature because of a lack of resources. One part time director, one part time administrative assistant, and five volunteer commissioners simply cannot adequately administer good governance programs and practices to all of Vermont's elected and appointed officials and civil service employees. For the last two years, we've we've asked both the administration and the legislature to include funds to support the two additional staff positions that we feel are needed to do the work that act one seventy one tells us to do. And unfortunately, that hasn't happened, which is why we're here today. I understand that economically times are tight right now, and I was there for the recession budgets of 2008 and 2009. So I know what it feels like to shake the couch cushions looking for spare change and to fund essential programs. It isn't fun, and it's excruciatingly hard. That said, I'm inclined to acknowledge that the government the governor's words about accents 01/1971 now seem prescient, that the legislature, while acting with good intent, created what's what amounts to an unfunded mandate. It's a time honored practice to ensure an entity's failure by giving it more to do while limiting their resources. I respectfully ask this committee to advocate for Vermonters funding for the two additional staff positions that were promised in the discussions leading up to the bill's final passage last session. The ethics commission needs to actually perform the job it's been tasked with and not be a performative body with no actual capacity. That's it for me. Thank you very much.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you, Will. Any questions for Will?

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: I'm so glad you're continuing to serve Will, and it's great to see you in addition to the capacity. Thank you.

[Will Stevens]: Thank you, Senator Clarkson. Nice to see you.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: It's so good to see you. Okay,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: we'll turn it over to TJ. This is the chart that you all have that you can follow along with. Welcome, sir.

[TJ (Thomas) Jones]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've had the pleasure of meeting several of you, some of you in person. But for those of you who I haven't met yet, my name's TJ Jones. I'm an instructor of government accountability and governmental ethics. And I consult with state and local governments on those matters. Previously, I was the executive director of the Fair Political Practice Commission in the state of California. And prior to that, I was the first ethics enforcement officer appointed in the state of Connecticut. So I'm here today. I've had the honor of being able to work with the commission over the past several years. And I want to thank the committee again for tolerating me coming on and talking to you again. The written testimony that I provided to you was intended to kind of underscore where the commission is financially with respect to, in the first order, New England states, but then in the second order, other states that have formed commissions over the past decade and compared to their trajectory. The third chart is a rough cut chart that I'll get into in a second, but it might help if I give you sort of the general arc that I've seen of successful ethics commissions across the country. And the arc is that a code of ethics gets instituted, and then there's a period, you know, what are, depending on the size of the jurisdiction, six months to a year of just training. There's not even advice, it's just training. You train people on the code of ethics. And then an advice function is added after that. Because once trained, people have questions about their own particular circumstances. So the arc goes from education to advice. And then after a full fleshing out of advice, when those requests start to wane, then the enforcement begins. And up until the advice part, Vermont had a laudatory trajectory. It was exactly what successful commissions have seen in other places. But it has seemingly stalled out at the advice part and not just stalled out this past year, but it's begun retreating. And as somebody who tries to promote good government nationwide, it's somewhat troubling. And I hope that I can help the committee turn that around. The first chart here is a comparison of just a straight comparison of budgets and staff across New England. You're probably aware that New Hampshire does not have an ethics commission yet. They're one of two or three States that don't have one right now. The main commission you'll see that I've footnoted there are a little bit different in a couple of ways. The first is that they factor the pension payments to former employees into the agency budget. And then they do two year budgets. So you have to kind of figure that out. They also govern elections in the state of Maine, although that's not the bulwark of their work. So it's a little bit different in their state. But the raw numbers might help. You see Vermont, Vermont is a smaller state than all those, and you would expect it to have a smaller budget in terms of ethics and a smaller staff. But these are mature entities, particularly Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. So you expect them to have more staff, it's a higher degree than I thought it would be when I set out to make these charts. The second chart, as I said, was states who are following a similar trajectory. Wisconsin, New Mexico, North Dakota, and New York. And they all came to their ethics commissions, their new ones in different ways. But they've all been established within the past ten years. And they too are at the sort of following the same trajectory. All of them have begun enforcement to date. They've gone through the education phase, the advice phase, and now they're starting to enforce. So I thought I would compare staffs and budgets to those states. North Dakota is probably the most comparable state in terms of state population. And you'll see there that their budget is roughly, it looks like six times the amount of the Vermont commission. And they have three full time staff people there that are working for their commission. They have not fully implemented their enforcement plan. So these are just people who are working with the education and advice function. The last chart to me maybe the most telling, and this is a comparison of New England states with respect to many employees there are at the commission per population.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: We have a question from one of the committee members.

[TJ (Thomas) Jones]: TJ. Oh, absolutely.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: It's great to see you again. Thank you for continuing to have faith that we'll actually get this up and running in a substantive way. The thing I'm missing on this, and it may not be comparable enough to even list it, which is the number of cases in each state. It's and I don't know if it's you know, I know they're apples and oranges, but do you track the number of cases each one of these commissions hears a year?

[TJ (Thomas) Jones]: I do not do it as a routine matter. I'm happy to provide that to the commission. The timing of this hearing is great, because everybody either has or is about to submit their annual report, including the Vermont Ethics Commission. So those numbers will be in there. I'm happy to, when those numbers come out, share them with

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: I just think that in addition to, as we look at numbers, numbers of complaints would be great. And of course ours, given how kind of crippled our commission has been, our ethics commission has been and we've had to turn away being able to accept complaints. For us, I know it's hard to actually have numbers because we haven't actually been able to take enough cases. But it would be interesting to hear the number of cases the other states are dealing with this with the staff and the budgets that they have.

[TJ (Thomas) Jones]: Thank you, Senator. I will do that. Will collect that for you. Correct. With respect to the third chart, this is an attempt and I'll admit that it's a rough cut way of doing it. But trying to figure out how many staff people per body of population in all these states. And Vermont in its wisdom got to municipal ethics before a couple of these states. Connecticut is still, it's an evergreen each legislative session to try and get municipal ethics. But that puts the total of people that the Ethics Commission is supposed to give advice to much higher than it would normally be, say, the state of Maine. These numbers are all from The US census on state and local employees. And you see in that far column there that the one staff member, and I'm using one as half of an administrative assistant and half of an executive director, has to take care of almost 46,000 people. And it's very fortunate for everybody that there's not 46,000 requests for advice every year. But it does underscore one of the problems that the advice function really is critical for people to understand how the code of ethics might apply to their own personal situations. And if they can't receive that advice, it's both inefficient for them. And there's research that talks about how ethics commissions actually save states money in the long run. But over and above that, they save state employees and state officers time money themselves, that they're able to ideally get quick answers to their questions. But that's impossible, and it has proven impossible for this commission. And the numbers sort of underscore that in the third comparison here. Massachusetts is the next closest, and they also have municipal employees. And I know from my own experience with them that they are overtaxed right now. But they've had the luxury of being able to set up a system with the municipalities so that they managed to spend less time with the municipalities by filtering information down to the municipalities and through ethics liaisons at the municipal level. So those three charts are intended to demonstrate on paper how the Vermont Ethics Commission has been lagging. And it really is almost solely related to money and staff at this point in time. I did advise earlier on, because I've been involved in budget processes with commissions before. Told them that based on my experience, they probably needed four and a half people right now, for the obligations that they have, before the enforcement function kicks in. They would need a full time executive director. Absolutely critical. A full time legal counsel, whose job would be to answer state advisory requests. A full time municipal counsel who can handle and become an expert with the municipal code of ethics. And then a part time paralegal, a part time office administrator, and then for the early parts of the year, a part time ethics trainer. And so this would amount to four and a half employees. So having experience with state government, I suggested that they ask for six people in the hopes that they could get at least three. But they've come to you with a bare minimum. And I'm hopeful that they'd be able to engage in all the functions at least an acceptable level if they get the staffing that they're asking for here. This will be just a I don't wanna give you any spoilers, but when the enforcement function kicks in in another year and a half, I think you will probably need to supplement the staff there again. And in addition to the four and a half people that I would recommend right now, I believe you would need a full time enforcement attorney and a part time investigator at that time.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you very much. Senator White?

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I thank you, Mr. Jones, for coming in again and speaking with us. It's nice to see you on the screen again. So I appreciate your charts. I'm wondering if there's any data related to any of the states you've listed in comparing to Vermont, just like the number of incoming contacts. Like I assume you track incoming contacts or incoming requests. So I'm wondering if there's a way to compare those. Because although we because I I think if I'm understanding the point you're trying to make, at least with the last chart, it's that Vermont for every one staff member is working along the lines of a group of around 45,000 people versus like Connecticut, we're looking at around 4,000, 5,000 people. So I I understand what you're saying in that regard, but is the number of folks who are or or the number of incoming contacts or requests the same as what we're seeing in Connecticut, less than what we're seeing in Connecticut? I guess that's more

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Well, that's sort of what I

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: asked for in terms of the number of cases they get set every year.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Yeah. I I don't just want the cases. I wanna know, like, how many people are actually reaching out. Like, if if you're truly to shut down your website with you miss municipal requests, that makes me think you're getting, like, five a day. Well, that's I think

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: that's what I was asking for.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Oh, is that It's like,

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: who who's who's who's asking you to weigh in?

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Yeah.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: How many cases? I mean, each one

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: is Okay. A

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Go ahead.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And I

[TJ (Thomas) Jones]: I will provide that to the committee. I'll I'll provide whatever whatever I'm able to acquire.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Yeah. I guess just to differentiate, like, I know what you're saying, Alison. I'm saying before they even become, like, a thing. It's like how many people are just straight up reaching out to them. Because I think that is different. Because I I think that you might see more folks. You almost wanna see I would love to see like a chart of like over time because I think that will help make the case. If we are going to increase your budget, like, what does that look like? Because I don't necessarily think an incoming contact like, the the next step isn't case. That actually might be it actually might be the exact opposite. It might be what I hear from municipalities is someone says we're acting unethically. They get a call. They call someone. And no. It's completely irrelevant. Unethical. No. Them disliking you and snubbing you with a does not mean that, you know, that that's an unethical piece of behavior. So it it's almost like your job is not just following up on those complaints. It's giving people the tools to make a decision about if that complaint is relevant. And it so I I don't see cancel. So Yeah. So I guess I'm just trying to make that point.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: And if I could interject two quick points, Senator White, that's exactly what we do our best to do, informal resolution is part And of the now that we have on our website municipalities don't bother contacting us, the number of contacts have gone down. Okay, sure. That's a great point.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So I have a question and I don't know who can answer it. I don't think Pat McDonald can, And she's gonna join us here in just a minute. I don't see the f y twenty six budget figures. I see '24 and '25. They're not on this chart. Can someone tell me what the FY twenty six budget

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: was? I

[TJ (Thomas) Jones]: know that I can't and the reason is because many of the states are going through that right now.

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Okay.

[TJ (Thomas) Jones]: Calculating. These were the most recent numbers I could come And

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: again, I don't know who can answer who can't. Is your request for that six zero '1 in the governor's recommend budget? The

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: governor's not recommended that, if that's We after asked for that to be recommended, but he has not. Okay. I think it's level funded at $2.50. It is. All right. In the governor's budget. Just point of information. No, Greg. So Pat McDonald from Campaign for Vermont,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: a few places who would join us at the table. We have about 15

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: public We'll minutes do this. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. For the record, my name is Pat McConnell. Among other things, I'm president of Cabinet for Vermont. How do they talk you into things like that? I don't know. But anyway, for those of you I don't know as well, I know somebody pretty well. I was twenty years in state government, worked for Governors Snelling, Dean and Douglas, and had seven appointed positions. I think I hold a record. Courtney tried to get to me, but I, after I left in 2006, I ran for the legislature and served in house government operations. And then when I left in 2010, I started Campaign for, I started working with Campaign for Vermont and also doing a public access TV show, A Vote for Vermont, which is still going and very popular. We reached about 20,000 people. And I'm very interested. We got interested in ethics, think about 2017. We've been in from since the beginning Campaign for Vermont. And while Paul didn't mention it, Senator, I wanted you to know that in the beginning everything is confidential, which gives people a really good sense of security. And that's what I wanted to talk about actually is Vermonters. And it isn't discussed much in this conversation about ethics. And I'll give you an example of why I got involved in this. When I was commissioner of motor vehicles, I would take new employees over here to give them a tour myself because that's our building right out the window and we would see it every day. I thought, you should know who's, you know, sort of approving your check and So writing the we would come over. And one day, walking over here and I hear this noise. And I looked behind me with the young lady that was coming over with me. She was just drenched, nervous, just a wreck, sweating. It was really and breathing heavy. I'm like, I don't wanna give her name, I said, Sally, what's wrong? And she said, I've never been here before. I don't know what to expect. Oh. And I'm very worried about it. And since I lived over here for twenty years, I was looking well, at that time I was 10. I was looking at it like, what? Because we all take it for granted what happens in this building, but the public doesn't. And I started asking all the other employees that I would take over, have you been to the State House? What do you think? And they all said pretty much the same thing, except without the DrMax. And when ethics came up, thought, who is going to go to the legislature? The name Senator Lucey comes up and says, you know, complain about a senator you may know, and in the courts, the same thing. Who's going to go and complain about a judge? It's so important to have this ethics commission because it's confidential. It's not in these two buildings. And you have a chance to talk it out and to hear yourself what you're saying or asking about individuals. I think that's critical to get Vermonters to come forward and speak up. But interestingly, it's exactly the opposite in my mind on the municipal side of things, because as I'm sure you've all been involved, as I was on select boards, you know them, they know you. And you know how small towns work. So if you choose to bring a complaint forward to who, the town manager, good luck. It doesn't work well. This way, you go to the ethics commission quietly, privately, confidentially, and you're able to talk it out, and in some cases resolve the issue without it becoming public. And then at the point where it becomes public, you know you've got people behind you supporting what you're saying. And, I think that's critical. And I've not really heard people talk about that. We talk about ethics, what what it means tangibly about what having conflicts of interests are. But we don't talk about Vermonters. And I think they're the most important part. And like my employees, afraid to come over here. Never been over here yet. They've been staring out the window for, you know, ten, twelve years at this building, not having a clue what's going on. And I think that that's wrong. I really support Paul and all of the others who spoke about supporting the Ethics Commission with funding. We started talking about this a lot last year with Christina, Ben Kinsley and I. And I really support that. This is something very important. We were sort of tired of getting Fs from the federal because we didn't have an ethics policy. And for the legislature and the judiciary, your policies can be stronger than the ethics policy in spite of the relationship that the state has with the feds. The feds pass a bill, ours can be stronger and wider, but can't be weaker and narrower. So they can all work in harmony because it'll all be the basics will be the same. It's a very basic policy that we've come up with. And I think if you ask people what should be in the policy, they name exactly what we've got. It's not brain surgery. It's really common sense. That's my testimony, and I thank you. Okay. It's like riding a bike.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Let them travel. Any questions for Pat? Yes, senator, by

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: the It reminds me that we should maybe circulate our state code of ethics just to remind ourselves how common sense they were because we bashed them out. We really worked really hard on them. You haven't been you were a chief architect right from the beginning.

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: It's a good reminder.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: It's a good reminder. I mean, we don't do that at the beginning of session. We don't circulate our our code of ethics. And it really would be a good thing for us to do at Deputy MBA. Now I think the governor

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: actually has when we sign on to be exempt employees, there is something that we if I remember, it was a while ago. There is a a sort of a code of ethics that you will do this and you will not do this.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Right. But we don't do that. We do not do ethics training here. Do sex. No. Transport training. We do respect training. We do not do ethics training, and we need to do ethics training

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: every I totally agree with you. Because you need to be reminded. Because it is, and as I said, brain surgery, it's pretty simple things. And I think everybody could say what should be in it, and it is.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I think there's an ethics panel involved in.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: There is an ethics panel.

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: But they're not very vocal. Don't hear about it. Yeah.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Vyhovsky.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: As a member of the ethics panel There you go. I would have actually asked the pro tem to hold an ethics training for the senate. Oh, great. He had a lovely one. TJ and Christina presented to the ethics panel and found it incredibly informative, incredibly helpful, and we have asked to schedule that for the whole Senate. We have not heard back yet, but we have made that recommendation, so we agree with you. I'm wondering, I know prior because I was in I wasn't in this committee, but I was in the House Government Operations Committee when the Ethics Commission was stood up and fought really hard for it to be as strong as it could be and continue to fight to make it stronger. And I know at that time that we got an app. Do you know where we are now? Because I thought Possibly. We were a seat.

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: This one. I do not know, but I think we're sort of I'm sure we're way up on the scale. I don't know about a because we don't have enforcement, but I would think

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: maybe We are B or nowhere near an A.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: No, thought we were a C or a D last time I checked.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Thought we were But gonna maybe TJ

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: or Paul. That's a good question. I was thinking about that this morning, I was thinking about what I wanted to say, I hope somebody's gonna ask. Thought I don't know. But it's gotta be

[Paul Ermbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: don't know the answers. Was for public integrity. Know, you know, a few years back it was D minus. I don't know if

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: that's what I remember. Was not D minus.

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: Yeah. But I think you're ahead of it, and I thank you for your support because that's really this is so important, especially if I might say on the municipal side because Yep. There are lots of stories. And, you know

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: the vast number of the complaints the Commission gets are municipal complaints.

[Pat McDonald (President, Campaign for Vermont)]: Right, I would think so.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Pat. Thank you.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Pleasure to see you. Thank you, you too. Committee, let me suggest a five minute break And I see Senator Weeks has joined us with the next item. So we'll take a break. Please be proud