Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: Welcome

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: back to the Senate Committee on Government Operations Committee meeting of Tuesday, 01/27/2026. We're gonna take a brief period of time to walk through S two seventy five, an act relating to creating the Cemetery Vandalism Response Fund. The main sponsor of the bill, senator Weeks, is with us to, walk us through. We're gonna talk also with Tom Giffin, 's the president of VOCA, which stands for the Vermont Bold Cemetery Association, and also John Gray, legislative counsel. So Senator Weeks, welcome in.

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: Thank you for joining us.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: Well, you all. I wanna thank the chair and the committee for giving some giving an opportunity to air through this this

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And just for the record.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: Oh, just for the record. Senator David Weeks representing Welland County. Yep. And a remodeled cemetery association volunteer. Yep. So I I also want to thank the Remodel Cemetery Association, particularly Tom Giffen. I believe he's the president, but I'm sure he'll clarify that in a minute, and all the volunteers and donations that folks provide to support the association and its work towards what what I would equate to a Vermont cultural Phenomen. Phenomen. So the reason why I put up this slide that I started with here is, one, just to recognize the variety of folks who come out to see the friar over here on the left side, supporting the VOCA's efforts flanked on right and left by just an idea concept of the level deterioration of some of these cemeteries and the fact that and then the the the photo on the right side of the middle, the three sponsors of the bill, We do this several times a year in and out of political seasons just to, support, the Model Cemetery Association. So I'm going to drop now that slide. So thank you for this always being with that. Yep.

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: There.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: Okay. So just very briefly, S275 creates the cemetery vandalism response fund. It's Page two of the bill highlights that VOCA, or I would say similar organizations, if there are any similar organizations or municipalities, what have you, would be provided funds via a new fee, but they would, but VOCA would be the ones, and this is again alternative, that you have to have somebody validating plans and repairing the vandalized cemetery. So, in essence, within thirty days of the discovery of vandalism doesn't mean that it's thirty days since it happened because sometimes you just don't know. Thirty days of discovery, the agency, the agency in this case, meaning VOCA, would receive a written note. Well, actually, I take that back. The agency is the the actual owners of the cemetery. That that's my my boss. That they would provide written notice to VOCA. They would provide written notice to the next of kin if they can be identified for recouping costs for repair of the headstones. And that they would they would seek insurance benefits if if there are any. So that there is no cost. That eliminates the need for any kind of repairs, but typically that's not the case. And again, I believe Tom Griffin can speak

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: to that. But within six months or reporting the vandalism,

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: they would have to apply to VOCA to try to gain these vandalism funds via a grant application. They would describe the qualifying damage, photographs of the damage, the date that they that the vandalism was filed, documented evidence of trying to obtain funding, again, via next of kin or any any other available source. They would provide reports of the vandalism. IE police report would be a good example. They would provide copies of contractors for repair so that the the repair effort is at least quantified. And that the cemetery commissioner would indicate that they lack the funds for the repair, which is typically the case. Again, we're talking about cemetery commissions, which also typically volunteer, unfunded or underfunded for these kind of repair activities. The VOCA rep would then verify the qualifying damage report and and do their due process before allocating any funds. Yeah. So, page five in the middle around line 13. What we're looking at enacting is a $5 cemetery vandalism response fund charge for each burial or cremation within a cemetery to cover this activity. Again, the activity of VOCA themselves is purely voluntary, typically rely on donations. What we're talking about is very high visibility targeted vandalism, and how do we respond to that? Because that that's way beyond the scope of what Volca is able to do. I'll leave it at that. That's kind of a 40,000 foot view of, S T 70 five. And I think that the I think that, Tom Griffin, again, as president of VOCA would provide insights far greater than I could.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Chittenden's on the screen. Any questions for Senator Weeks? Senator White?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Yeah. So I really appreciate this bill, and I'm generally supportive of it. But one of the things that's confusing me a bit is the definition of vandalism related to this. And I'm wondering why like, the way it reads to me the definition's on page two. Perfect. But it's used throughout in a couple different places. And when I and I mentioned this to our chair, but we have situations where I don't know if I would call it vandalism, but essentially someone stupidly backs into a gravestone or a monument and then dips, you know, like they're gone. And you don't get information about them. I don't necessarily know if that would be covered under the way that you framed up a bill. And if so I guess my question would be was, is your intent to include some of those more accidental forms of vandalism or unknown, accidents, and then we can also I'll ask one of legislative council, the definition.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: Well, again, this is a bill that can be, know, language can be altered.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Oh, okay.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: I would submit that, let Tom speak for himself, but this was really targeted towards malicious vandalism, not accidents, but

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator, what a question.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: So I also appreciate this bill. I've worked with Tom and other bills and other cemeteries around our part of the world. And I guess vandalism is just one thing. I mean, graves, historic old cemeteries have just things that happen and trees that fall on I mean, I would be happier if this bill really addressed all physical challenge, you know, all destruction of of of gravestones no matter why. I don't think it needs a reason so much as a as a a fact that they are have been hurt and destroyed and need to be reassembled and fixed. So I I I I'm hoping we might look at this a little more broadly and not just look at it as a vandalism thing. I guess my question is, do I understand correctly that the fees I would hope, I guess I'll just say what I hope, I would hope that this would be a statewide fund and it wouldn't be tied to the number of burials in a particular graveyard because I thought I heard there was a tie of the fee to the burial ground. Some burial grounds are closed and and not able to take any more people. So I would hope that it would just be a statewide fund that would go per need and go per, you know, brand based application rather than actually who contributed to it and how many how many new members to that secretary were added.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: So I I believe the intent is statewide. The intent is not about who paid in or who didn't pay in. It's about who experienced vandalism. And and why you focus on vandalism initially? Well, you know, like everything in this business, think you start somewhere. You see if there's reception. You know, we see if it's beneficial to the state. People understand it. They engage it and then potentially expand it. I'm I'm sure that Tom would be over the moon to have additional support in the future.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Any other questions for Senator Weeks? We'll let him get back to Senator. Oh, yep.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: I just have one other question related to, you have a whole section around what the factors would be that would VOCA would be considering. And I just wanted to ask, it's on page four and it's like you have, like, a whole you have a list of certain things that you would consider. I'm wondering I was surprised to see to not see something related to, like, a protected class of people, I guess. I'm not sure how to frame that, but what I have heard, not in Vermont, but something my family had described was a Jewish cemetery that had been destroyed where they were in New York City. So I was just I think that there are some extremely heinous examples of desecration of cemeteries related to specifically targeting groups of people based on race, religion, all sorts of things. And so I just wanted to ask if you had would be open to considering that as a a reason for prioritizing.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: because it's not called out.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: Yes. It's not called out. You know, really, we're focusing on vandalism,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: I believe. Or veteran status. Veteran status. Let's go with that.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: Whatever. Vandalism when vandalism's against, you know, a Jewish cemetery or or what have you, like, I think that they all, at this stage, they all apply in a from an equal perspective but it gives us the opportunity to do something. Okay. To for that vandalized cemetery. Regardless of protected classroom office.

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: Alright.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: That's where it's starting. Again, gonna take it, work in summer, make it better.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: But you did organize it. You'd be open to a conversation around that as a

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: Sure. But again, the subject matter expert is up on the screen.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Yeah. We have a question. I have questions.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you, senator. Thank you all.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: I appreciate it. You're welcome. Education. Yeah.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: Oh, I I already have the socks right here.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Oh, good. Helps the

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County)]: I'll watch later and see what, Tom has to say. But thank you all.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Thank you. Thanks for sponsoring.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So we will welcome in mister Tom Giffen, who is indeed the president of VOCA, the Vermont Old Cemetery Association, and also the Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner. And Tom and I go back always, I don't know exactly how long, but as Senator Biggs mentioned, the three Rutland County senators and some members of the House, we figure, have tried their best to make ourselves as available as we can in the summer months to repair gravestones and do whatever else, take trees off and all that kind of stuff. So Tom, thank you for joining us. And I know you have two pieces of testimony. One of them actually has to do with Windsor County. Know it There's like a five page thing on one.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Tom's second favorite county in Windsor. Absolutely.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Together four.

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: Well, first of all, I wanna thank the committee for having me. My name is Tom Giffin. I'm sorry I'm not there in person. I was planning on it and I apologize. Since I lose you, he gonna buy me lunch. It was worth coming up just for that reason. Said, I'm president of the Romano Cemetery Association and I'm also the ceremony commissioner of the City Of Rutland as I mentioned. I've been doing this work since 1984. I've done projects from Boston to Hampton, New York, and I'm accused for Hampton, New York as Hampton was once part of Vermont. Worked with literally thousands of volunteers from the. Middle school elementary kids to college students, the rotaries, the animal clubs, moose, elk and etcetera. I've worked for many legislators. I always whenever we do a project, I always invite the legislators to show up. As you can see for the three good looking men that were up on the screen there, they're always been a great, great support. So I I I wish to again the and the comment about if this bill could do any cemetery that had destruction. I would think that would be an amazing thing, but I'm I'm I'm working just on vandalism because so many places in Vermont do are hit with vandalism. The senator hears my testimony in the past and thefts from Vermont cemeteries and their burial grounds, and they have they passed legislation in the past to make it a felony to steal burial items from a cemetery, which I've always appreciated that the Senate especially has taken such interest in cemeteries and damage that happens. The history of Vermont is the history of The United States. You can't talk about Robert's Rangers, Ticonderoga, Ethan Allen, the siege of Austin, without acknowledging Vermont's contribution. Many of these individuals and the families who made this history are buried in our Green Mountain cemeteries. Vermont has close to 2,000 cemeteries within its borders. They range from the small family plots of long forgotten farm families that we see when we drive along the dirt back roads to large active cemeteries adjacent to our bigger cities and towns. Vermont's historical burial grounds had distinction of having 3,700 of the 6,300 revolutionary war patriots, including many of the Green Mountain boys buried behind its cemetery fences. Many of Vermont's 34,000 civil war soldiers and their families are buried in our hills and valleys. These monuments are numerous and difficult to repair when they have been targeted by vandals. But the marble and slate stones document our history and the history of the men and women of our Vermont and should be maintained. It's been my experience in the hundreds of Vermont cemeteries I worked in, that it'd be unusual not to have monuments to the veterans of the Revolutionary War and Civil War as well as their families following these historic burial grounds. We also have countless veterans burials from all the modern conflicts entered in Vermont cemeteries that need to be preserved. All 50 states have rules and regulations of cemetery vandalisms. Some states that oversee vandalism specifically include New York, Arkansas, California, Michigan, and New Jersey, Tennessee, and Washington. The New York State Cemetery Board oversees the vandalism abandonment and state aid fund that supports that's a primary sport by $5 free from every burial information performed at regulated cemeteries. The Ohio Department of Commerce manages a cemetery grant program funded by a dollar to $2.50 for burial permits to provide grants to nonprofits for monument restoration, fencing, and security. In the handouts, will see some of the vandalism that occurs too often in Vermont. It happens all over the state. No community seems to be immune. After vandalism occurs in a cemetery, the cost to the municipality could be in the many thousands of dollars. One stone with a single break could cost several $100 just to repair. You can do the math with the recent damage to the over 200 overturned monuments in Bennington and what it would cost. Majority of towns do not have the financial resources to do the necessary repairs. The historic monuments are left to deteriorate on the ground where they fell. It does not take long in Vermont's unforgiving weather for these stones to vanish, except for a few broken pieces to mark the burial site. Perpetual care is a rare occurrence and still does not cover financial repairs when vandalism occurs. Some stones are stolen for artwork itself. In the packet, there was one example of mine being stolen and recovered. I have reports of mine just being recovered and made the coffee tables put in fireplaces. Not long ago was notified of an old stone that was removed from Rhode from Rhode Island. It was for sale at a Connecticut, Vermont Connecticut River Valley antique store. These special target bronze and copper plates attached to memorials. Browns flag holders cast iron planters are often stolen and destroyed to replace cemetery funeral items at a cost is cost prohibited. I mentioned some of the historic people buried in our burial ground. Vermont's cemeteries hold the histories and stories of the hard scrabble citizens that brave Vermont's harsh winters, stony soil since the seventeen hundreds. Their hardships are also recorded on the weathered stones. When their monuments are pushed over and broken, our history is lessened. In the semi quintessential of America two fifty, which we're now celebrating, what would a better way to celebrate this ongoing nationwide event in Vermont that would have a specific fund that would allow historical burial sites in Vermont who had the ability to be restored after a vandalism instance. Once again, I greatly thank you for your time and the legislative session, and thank you for allowing me to speak.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, mister Giffen, for coming in, and I appreciate your work on this topic. You said some you said a phrase that I had forgotten about, but was kind of on my mind, which is perpetual care.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: There seems to be agreements that you in a public or private cemetery, there is a requirement for perpetual care. But you but so yes. So if you could just because that was I was like, wait a minute. Yeah. Why aren't they being covered by the cemetery? So if you could just go into a little more detail on that. And then one other thought I had that I'd love to hear more on is my understanding, and I tried to make a law many years ago to change this. But if a town has a defunct cemetery, like the the the cemetery itself still exists, but the board or the group that was maintaining it is dissolved or has been gone for many years. It reverts back to town. The town has to maintain it. Oh, okay. You're shaking your head. Maybe I'm well, I'd love to hear on both of those things, your perspectives, and maybe not printer going. Visiting. Oh, so we do always see you. Thought I was Sorry.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So let's get Well, first

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: of all, one of the comments you made before my testimony was on on like Jewish cemeteries. I have restored two Jewish, the oldest Jewish cemetery in Vermont is in East Pultely and I restored that. I also worked with a couple of the other cemeteries. They also are subject obviously to same vandalism issues we have, but we work with all these. It's just a matter if they want us in there. Regarding the perpetual care, yes, people pay for perpetual care. What's happened is over the years, the funds have been depleted and perpetual care may only include just mowing. One of my favorite slides, I do PowerPoint presentation. I have a big monument being lifted on a crane as we pull it out of the dirt at the bottom of the stone is a perpetual care. So some cemeteries still do, but most of us just to try to keep their heads above water because they don't have the resources to do the work. And I'm sorry, your other question was, oh, if a cemetery is dissolved, several things. If it's a family cemetery, the cemetery belongs to the family. If there's association involved, the way the law reads, and I know this very clearly now that I'm on the board for the Evergreen Cemetery issue in Rutland, it says the municipality may

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: take

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: over, not

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: shall. So basically what happened to be the cemetery would revert back to the, as one mayor of a town told me to the birds and the bees, it would not be maintained. And it'd be up to the family to maintain their site.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Okay, that is really helpful because I believe my town is still under the impression that we're supposed to be taking ownership of these cemeteries. That's

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you. If it's okay, yeah. Senator Clarkson.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Tom, thank you for your continued work on this. It's just it's a real work of love, I appreciate it. And it's I know how statewide it is. Of those

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: have two questions. Of the 2,000 plus cemeteries that exist in Vermont, what percent are municipally owned, what percent are owned by churches or synagogues, and what percent are owned by their own commissions? Do you have a breakdown on that? I

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: don't have exact percentage, but having gone through so many cemeteries in Vermont, most of them are all by the municipalities. Yeah. Are obviously Catholics and Protestant and Jewish cemeteries. But what's happened is a lot of these small cemeteries especially have like under 100 burials. As it was just mentioned, the association or whatever goes under, then at town meeting, three members can vote to have it taken over. So towns are taking over their history. I've involved in so many different, like there's one in Moncton down a few other places. There's small cemetery, but municipalities come to the plate and take them over. But I think they're the biggest group. And the religious cemeteries, they're having a lot of problems obviously. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: I don't know any of that are still just in our neck of the woods are maintained by a religious entity. My other question is on insurance, and then I have another question in terms of the number of graves you consider that may be vandalized per year that you have an estimate on. But I'd love to ask you about insurance because why aren't I mean, are municipalities insuring against damage to headstones? Question one. Perpetual care is only good for the last like fifty or sixty years. Mean, Revolutionary War soldier did not exactly think about perpetual care. So, I mean, the vast majority of the graves are not perpetually cared for, nor would we expect them to be, given how many are seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century. But current insurance, do these private commissions, cemetery commissions, and municipalities carry insurance against damage?

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: The larger ones do, the smaller ones do not. But like for example, you mentioned about when a car backs into a stone and you catch the person, their homeowners insurance will cover it. Or if you catch the vandals that often are children, not always, but say children, their parents' homeowners insurance would cover it, but usually you don't catch them.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: The

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: insurance will not cover vandalism, will cover if somebody falls and gets hurt in the cemetery or something. Like when I do a job with the high school students, for example, the school insurance will cover it or the town insurance or the city insurance will cover it. But to my knowledge, I remember it was Arlington, I believe they called me and wanted to insure every stone in their old cemetery. The cost was huge. And the cost was in case there was damage to trees or vandalism, anything else, it would cost prohibitive to do that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Yeah, the damage is significant. And so what would you guesstimate are the number of damaged headstones in the state? Just in thousands. And do we have a way to do, do you take an inventory of them every year or?

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: No, are not, what we do is a community calls us like Windsor and we go in their cemetery and we go in and do a massive restoration effort, repairing every stone, straightening everything, clearing everything we can possibly do. And we do projects from the May 1 till October 1 and we've we've done hundreds of I've done literally hundreds of projects with VOCA doing restoration work in cemeteries. Somewhere in the middle of the woods somewhere, you know, a lot of times it depends on the community. If a community values its history, they seem to want us more. The communities they don't that are not so interested in the cemeteries because they don't call us. But we do a lot. We have expanded our range. We go Northeast Kingdom to down the Benning effect that had the West, we're having doing finishing up our job in Westminster, where that made very famous cemetery where the patriots from the Westminster massacre were buried, along with dozens of Revolutionary War soldiers. So we're going in there to restore that. So we do a lot of work. Unfortunately, about every cemetery you go into, there's always some vandalism damage from something.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So I've got two questions. I think we we've been joined by legislative council as well. I assume there's a Vermont Funeral Association or something like that. And maybe in, like Mhmm. Cremation association, what would be the likelihood that they would be supportive of this? In other words, we'll probably have to take testimony because whenever we do a bill, we try to get both sides of the coin. What you fashion with senator weeks help is is great, but there probably will be somebody that came in or will come in and say, oh, no. We don't we don't support that at all. So have you got any sort of idea about how because we're gonna have to nick somebody for the $5, and I assume it's gonna be the funeral is it funeral directors?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: I don't know something Directors Association. Greg Camp Greg Camp was chair of it. Okay. I don't know the

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: But we'll have to find out, and maybe Lynn could just make a quick from them. Regular testimony again. And I assume the same because it it it applies to cremations as well. Yeah. And there's probably a group that does that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: I think they do both, funeral directors and they do green burials.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Do the whole grandparents. So the second question I have, we'll get people in on that. And I know that every year it's different. How many funerals or and or cremations are there in Vermont every year? In other words, if we have, I don't know, take round numbers, a 100, and we're charging $5, we're we're not gonna really be able to give too much money to get to to do this. If there's thousands of funerals and cremations a year, that tends to be a different story. Do you have any idea?

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: Yeah. Well, to answer your first question regarding it's been my experience with bureaucracies, is that anything that caused them extra paperwork they're not supportive of is what I've seen. And then let's just say, Lunenburg has like one burial every couple of years or something. I mean, don't know how willing they would go on to beat it. There's little extra paperwork for that. And as far as the number of deaths, I mean, varies year to year. Mean, we are getting overpopulated. But my research, what I've seen with the other states that have done this, it did start out small. But then over the years increased dramatically. So now that these towns and villages can now, like when New York can now contact the city, hey, or contact Albany and say, no, we have a situation, can we use it? But I do think that eventually it would be a substantial fund at very little cost to anybody and it would do a huge, I mean, it's something that would affect every town and city in Vermont. Yeah. Be very helpful.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. I didn't know where the five came from. And I'm not suggesting you're talking to, let's say that generally doesn't like creating new taxes.

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: I know.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Just to be fair. But is five the right number? Could it be a dollar? Could it be $10? I guess it could Ohio,

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: it's $1 to $2.5 So I believe New York is $5 I mean, you can make it anything you want. My thing would be even if it's a quarter, don't think people would thrilled about that. But having it on the books that there is a fund that's available to towns when they need it. History is I worked with Department of Corrections and I also was very active with the work crews.

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: What I would do is- I would

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: work crews back and I think we should. I would send these work crews to small towns who needed work and I'd often show up and help them. And it was again, a very efficient way of doing it. So even if it's a small amount of money, you'd be surprised what you can do with several $100, have somebody who has a chainsaw, might come and cut the tree out of the cemetery, or maybe buy the cement to fix the bases or buy the epoxy that you need. I mean, it's a start and it also shows an interest from the state of Vermont that we care about our historic burial grounds and we want to preserve our history.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay, there any other Senator Morley? So

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: there may be a crematorium or someone's going to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: The funeral directors will weigh in.

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: Yeah, but they're, okay, they're gonna pay, but they're also gonna be receiving the money through

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: They'll pass them off. Exactly. It's gonna be

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: passed on to when, you know, you set up your arrangements and all that Special. It's gonna be an extra $5 on there, whatever it shall be. It's not actually costing the funeral directors anything, in

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: my opinion.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: It will burn them

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: a little bit more, I'm guessing, with a little bit of paper.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: It's just adding on, I'm guessing, charge on the bottom of

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the thing.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Okay. I just wanna make your idea.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And and I don't know these days what a funeral costs. A lot. Yeah. I'm I'm guessing the $5 is gonna be about If

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: if I can may, the, I believe a cremation's around $5,000 and a hill burial is around $20,000 So a $5 fee is not really going to impact that.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes, Senator Clarkson.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Yes, and the Bureau of Directors actually have a fund for people who can't pay. I mean, they are already taken care of. I don't I I think I think this is a great idea. JFO could do an analysis, financial analysis of this and do a fiscal note for us. We have an aging demographic, so we are only going to see this fund grow over the next twenty, thirty years. And I think it's a great start. And I think all towns will be just delighted to know that there may be help for them. Tom, have you worked closely with the Division for Historic Preservation?

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: In different avenues, have not been successful with anything with cemetery. For example, there's a cemetery in Cuttingsville, but with the Bowman Mansion and there's a wall, cemetery wall that needs to be replaced and I would like to have that would be nice if we get some money from somebody to help repair that. It's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: historic a- preservation hasn't been because it would be great to get them in as well along with the field. They

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: have had helpful other areas, but cemeteries I don't think are the. The priority.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Any other questions for Tom? Well, Tom, it's great to see you, and I thank you for, taking time out of your And welcome to stay with us. Jonathan's gonna join us at the table and walk through the bill in case we have questions about what words are on the paper.

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: No, I'll be happy to say to listen. I'll just mute myself. And again, thank you and I apologize again for not being there in person.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: I hope

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: that taken you a couple hours to get up here today.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: It's a good thing you didn't come today. The roads were not great.

[Tom Giffin (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association; Rutland City Cemetery Commissioner)]: Yeah, I figured. All right, well, again, thank you very, very much.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good to see you. John Gray from Legis Council is gonna join us, and this is S275 we're talking about. We did have some questions earlier about some of the phrasing in here, some of the definitions, and I'll just let you walk us through the bill. And as you do, if committee members have questions, just raise your hand and we'll get to them. Perfect.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: It's so nice to see you.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: It's amazing have you on. Be such a new get to a different room. John Gray, I'm the split of counsel. I think you guys sounds Sounds like you've already gotten a decent sense for what this bill is. So hopefully, my job will be relatively simple. I'm gonna put some words up on the screen so you can look at them with me. S two seventy five. So this bill proposes to create the Cemetery Vandalism Response Fund to assist in the repair of Vermont cemeteries that have been vandalized. We're starting out with section one, which is amendments to your definitions section. This is within your title 18, so health chapter one twenty one cemeteries, and then it's in sub chapter one, so just general provisions, section of fairly large chapter. But this is adding some new definitions for purposes of this cemetery vandalism response fund, and the way intuitively just think about the section beyond what it offers to the mechanics of the bill is this section is telling you what counts, what counts for purposes of repair. We do have a couple of definitions included here just for context, So agencies, this is who would be receiving, as I'm sure you guys would be part this is who would be receiving those grants for purposes of repairing, and it picks up a broad bucket of the town cemeteries, religious or physiological society cemeteries, cemetery associations, and then you have this big bucket that captures everything, any person from incorporation or an unincorporated association engaged in the business of a cemetery. And I don't have it on here, but I think it's helpful for me to say what the cemetery is. It is maybe broader than you might expect. It's any plot of ground used or intended to be used for the burial or permanent disposition of the remains of the human dead in a grave or mausoleum or columbrium, a vault, or other receptacle. So any plot of ground used or intended to be used for burial or permanent disposition. So it's pretty broad. And if you link that with the vestiges of agencies, that final clause, any person engaged in the business of a cemetery, just noting conceivably this could be a quite big bucket. But if you were concerned about that, I think when we get to the discretionary aspect of the program, which was the actual allocation of the awards themselves, some of those fears may be mitigated. You might for instance, they here's this huge bucket. If I just dig a hole in my backyard, like, can I get a a cemetery grandpa? Seems unlikely under this, but theoretically, could be possible. Niche, that says there are recess and equilibrium used or intended to be used, for permanent disposition of human remains. But our real core definitions here that we're trying to get at on page two, Qualifying damage. So not all instances of damage would be available for instances of remedy under this response fund. Qualifying damage is damage caused by acts of vandalism that cannot be repaired by means of regular maintenance. So if this is gonna be picked up in the ordinary course of caring for the cemetery, that is nonqualifying damage, and you would not be entitled to receive or you would not be eligible to receive grants under the fund. What is regular maintenance? It's a little bit of a throwaway definition, but I hope that it's clear. Regular upkeep, including mowing and tree livable. It's kind of I don't think you have to define this term. This is giving some examples. When you have an inclusive list like this, it's just giving indications of the kind of thing that might count, you can put all kinds of things in here just to clarify for folks who are administering the program what does and doesn't count, but you don't have to have an indicative list of examples, and you don't also have to have a definition of regular maintenance if you feel comfortable that it's sort of readily understood. Because the difference between regular maintenance, regular upkeep, you know, it feels fairly interchanging. Last big definition that we have, the definition of vandalism. So page two, line nine, means the willful or malicious, and I imagine that folks might have had questions on these pieces, the willful or malicious disruption or defacement of property in a cemetery, and again indicative lists such as the top limit of memorial stones, and damage to crypts, niches, gravesites, monuments, or memorials. So we do have a mental element here, willful or malicious. I will say that these terms can be more flexible than we might like them to be, unlike the criminal code where we have sort of understood, readily identified terms by which to identify you know, crimes have a mental element to them, and we assign liability on that basis. It's a little bit different outside of the criminal context, but I think it's helpful to point to some of the terminology that's used there. So willful, the common term we would use in the criminal context, and I think you could use the same here, and I think you could use this to replace both of these if you wanted to, is intentionals. Was it done with the purpose of achieving this outcome? Malicious raises similar. I think willful probably suffices, but intentional is a more common term that's used, at least in the criminal context. Again, we're not in the criminal context, but it's maybe useful to think in relationship to that. Malicious raises more questions as to what that means to my mind. Does that mean that someone had to have, like, evil in their heart as they instruct the grave? Does it just mean that they need to have taken in insufficient care when they were doing something? In different contexts, people have used malicious differently. So in the criminal context, we're typically thinking it's, like, intentional, like you had to have intended this bad result. Sometimes it's used in a way that's almost, like, reckless

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Yeah.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Where we say that you just you ignored obvious risks to this thing that any reasonable person would have taken account of. It's not just negligence where you missed something that a reasonable person would, you consciously ignored these bad outcomes. But it's also used more broadly in, for instance, the libel context, to say that you knew this would be the outcome, and you still went ahead and do it. My point here, just to say all of these things, is you could just use the word intentional. You don't have to spe I mean, I think it's useful to specify a mental state in this context because you're trying to get at a certain kind of fact, right, that is accompanied by some kind of mental state. I don't think you have to stick with willful or malicious. If you do, just note that they are broad terms that are subject to reasonable disagreements of interpretation, and you just have intentional or you just have willful, maybe that suffices for your purposes. But something to think about. Is this a place where people have questions, I'm guessing?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, back on line nine, but I think you've already answered it. So, yes, in a way it is. If somebody accidentally backed into a gravestone and knocked it over and then left the cemetery not aware that they've done that, this would not be under

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: That would not pick it up. The theoretical plot, I would say 99% of case that that's not gonna pick it up. The 1% I can think of is what I just described. If someone used an interpretation of militia that was more like reckless Yeah. And a guy's just in there willy nilly driving a trap, you know, they're just like doing tricks in the cemetery, that potentially could constitute Okay. Vandalism. But in that case, I think I and that wouldn't necessarily be picked up with intentional right because they didn't intentionally damage. So you could say means the intentionals are reckless. Okay. You could do something like that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Well, it it fits with the judicial world in a way. It's intent. Intent is the key piece here, and I I agree with you. Think intentional makes much more sense. Okay. But you had a you had a question.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Yeah. I mean, that was the exact question.

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

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Of some kind.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: They're they're they're The the I guess my response, just thinking of the line that you might be going down, the question that will help the committee answer what you want here is what kind of things are you trying to prohibit. Like I would ask yourself that, and that will give you a better answer than if they happen to use it in an accurate context, right? So that's part of why I raised someone doing trips in the cemetery. It's like you probably don't want just intentional because someone who is taking really insufficient care Yep. When they're in a cemetery and damages something, you likely want funds from this fund to go to it. Right? I would just ask, what kinds of things are you trying to provide funds to? I am guessing it's things like when someone intentionally defaces something, but also equally, when someone is just misbehaving in a cemetery and damages a credit.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. So

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I might propose, if the thinking is that intentional and reckless could be Yeah, would I would.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Be.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Section two, so section two, grants themselves. So here we're talking about the application process and the discretionary elements of this program. So, the Vermont Old Cemetery Association shall provide grants to an agency to repair vandalized cemeteries. If you just read this line, it almost might sound like an outright directive right, but as you'll see with the remainder of the section, this is discretionary, right, because the grants are themselves awarded based on a determination under subsection C. So this is just setting up the basic thing. It's the Vermont Old Cemetery Association that is providing these grants. So what are the timelines here? This sets up an obligation for an agency, which again, that's that person in the business of the cemetery, within thirty days after discovery of an act of vandalism, an agency shall, so mandatory, the agency shall within thirty days of discovery report the act to the Vermont Old Cemetery Association, either verbally or in writing. So notice to the Vermont Old Cemetery Association who is administering this program, but also under two written notice to the lot owner or next of kin if damage was done to a crypt, niche, gravesite, monument, or memorial. The notice shall advise the lot owner of next of kin to seek insurance benefits. And I think that that's some of the conversation that I heard as I was entering into the road. Sometimes folks are covering this to the homeowners insurance, so advise them to seek insurance benefit that may be available, and a copy of the notice shall be maintained by the agency on the top of page three. So just kind of flagging a theme you're gonna see throughout this bill is the grants are really meant to be targeted, direct, and limited exactly to remedy the damage that's done, and reducing the amount of funds that flow out to do this. So it's asking people, you should try to seek other funds before you first seek this branch from this program, basically. This is saying, in that notice that you sent to the lot owner or next of kin, let them know, hey, look at your insurance policy and see if you can stop it there. Page three, so we just talked about an affirmative obligation. The agency has to do this after, within thirty days of discovery, but within six months after reporting an active analyst, the agency may apply to the Rutland Old Cemetery Association for an arrangement. So this sort of makes sense. The agency is the one seeking the funds, so it's whether they want to seek a grant in this case. It's discretionary. The agency may apply for a grant to repair the qualifying damage, and it really is that narrow, you have to return any funds that don't go to the purposes of repair. So, often,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: with many of these backcountry cemeteries, people may not even know about them for thirty days. They may not even know about them for they happen in the winter, and it's on a class four row. You may not know about them for wrinkles. I think the time frame is a challenge. It's when it's identified.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. It's it's thirty days after discovery. So it's not thirty days after the vandalism itself.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: And I I appreciate that. I guess my question for all this is, how do we know it's vandalized and not just damaged? I mean, that's, to me, a question here, and that's why I would rather see this as damaged and restoring damage in cemeteries and having these grants for that rather than vandalism, because often you don't know whether it's vandalism or it's just damage.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a policy question. I think there are instances where it would be obvious that it's vandalism if it's defacement, But you can have all that. It's not. Just my intuitive read of the section, but again, it's policy choice and I don't know the motivations it does behind it, but I would think given the limited pool of funds being proposed to be available, the idea is to mark out those that seem especially demanding, like something was done to disrespect the property rather than just you incurred some damage. It's trying to kind of target, that's just my read, is it's trying to target a limited pool of funds to those acts that you might think motive, but it is a policy call. So page three, the agency may apply for this grant. They apply to the Vermont Old Cemetery Association, and then there's a list of items that they have to include in this grant application. So the grant application shall include the following, and it's all of these items. Right? This is an inclusive this is you have to have each element of this list, A description of the qualifying damage, photographs, and the date that the report of vandalism was filed with the Vermont Old Cemetery Association so that they had to mandatorily provide that notice, and now they're submitting the grant application. That they provide a copy of any letters, newspaper ads, or other documented attempts to obtain funding for the repair from the family of the deceased. This is part of what I was talking about earlier. A is a description. B is kind of good faith fundraising. Did they go out to the natural places and seek funding to repair this? C, a copy of other reports relating to the act of evangelism filed in accordance with law. So what legal documents what's been done in this space? Was there any kind of case related to this? Provide those forms. D, a copy of bids submitted by at least two contractors for the cost of repairs. So this one I wonder, question for you guys, I don't know how readily folks secure bids for these purposes, Just ask yourselves the administrative question of, this is a mandatory element of this. Each person submitting an application will have to have two contractor bids. If you didn't have this, you would have an inefficient print application. Noting that this one, to me, raises a bit more questions as to its I'm gonna be mostly

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Well, that was sort of getting to my question,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: and I

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: think it's not for you, but you're bringing up the point of how many people even do these types of repairs in any given town. Is it even gonna be possible

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: to get two different bids? Yeah. Right.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: And and if and if the vandalism is, like, paint on the thing. Right? Like, do people go out and see? Like,

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I just don't know clusters. You know? You get it all. Yeah.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I fly guys. Yeah. I I think that is a real question about how accessible the grant application will be to folks. Because if if plenty of places won't have this, maybe in your more populous places they could do this, you could end up with a program that only makes funds available in more populous places. So just, I would ask that. E. A. This is not just an attestation that you've tried your best. A statement signed by the cemetery commissioner or other proper officer that the agency has no available funds that it is authorized to use for the burglary affair, that has not been able to obtain sufficient funds from the family of the deceased, including insurance benefits, which again, that would have to be in that notice that goes out, notifying them that they should seek insurance benefits if they can, and that the proposed policy of payer are fair and reasonable. The attestation of the need for a grant. So ABCDE, of damage, good faith fundraising, any accompanying legal documents, have you gone out to seek contractors, and then an attestation that you do need the grant. That's what those are publishing in the grant application. Page four is the PX4 review process. So a representative from the Vermont Volt Cemetery Association shall review the qualifying damage within ninety days after receipt of a complete grant application and make a determination based on the following factors. You could this language is pulled from a rerun, so Yeah. This is not all I'll just suggest when you say make a determination, you could say approve an application based on the following factors. Right? Like, you could be more specific as to what determination is. I think it's clear what it's intended to be here, but a bit of looser return. So representative to review within ninety days at the receipt of that application, complete application, and makes a determination whether someone's gonna receive funds based on the following factors. And if there is qualifying damage, so they could receive the application and say, You know what, we don't think that this is vandalism. You're kicked out. Severity of the qualifying damage. If we're imagining that there's an onslaught of applications, lots of damage across the safe, There's there's gonna be some prioritization because there's limited funds available, so how bad is the qualifying damage? Whether the vandalism is part of a wave of vandalism, broad term, I don't really know what this means, so I would just flag that this is quite easy.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: The whole neighborhood had damage.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, and to me, we're setting out these factors for the representative to consider, but we're not saying the way in which they should consider So we say, consider whether it's part of a wave of vandalism. Well, does that mean that it better warrants funding, or does it mean that it warrants less because everyone's equally disrespected and listened? You like, you can make arguments either way. So I just you could have greater specificity as to what this means, and my my wave of vandalism is sort of odd phrasing, but I you take the point if you're trying to target if it is a cemetery vandalism response fund and you're trying to respond to targeted efforts to do this, it would make sense to note when the literal It's a blanket. Yeah. Except as as brief. The next the next section in Subdivision D is I think more obvious to understand from an application review process. Emotional distress to visiting families. So how is this affecting folks at at the cemetery? And this was some of the point that I was raising earlier when I said, you know, cemetery really is a broad term, a lot of land, and agency is quite a broad term too. If you're thinking that theoretically this could capture like a home site and why would they be, know, reaching out for a Cemetery Vandalism Response Fund grant, you could think of this emotional distress piece to visiting families as not really picking up someone that isn't administering what we think of typically as a cemetery. Right? So so kinda pointing out the statutory definition of cemetery is quite broad, but I think that the application review process naturally narrows the places in which the funds will go out. Other things to consider are appropriateness of prior use payments from the Cemetery Vandalism Response Fund. I take this to mean, has this agency in the past sought out aid and have they complied with what they said they were going to do, or do we just think this is someone seeking money from us and kind of taking advantage of a program? Priority of application based upon previous allocations, and again this is one where I could see it cutting both ways. You could say, Well, they've received previous allocations, so out of fairness, we think someone else deserves the grants, or you could think, They've received previous allocations, they've used them correctly, and they continue to suffer all this damage. Maybe they warrant more to completely repair the place that is. So for your specificity, it could be helpful. Then the last one, most obviously, the availability of monies within that response funding. So those are all the pieces that the representative would review in making a determination whether someone's gonna receive that grant fund. So in contrast to the subsection a that says shallower grants, this subsection is making clear. It's a discretionary determination. Right? Look at all these factors and then provide

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the grants. Senator Vyhovsky?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: This question really is for John. From a legal perspective, should we have something that is discretionary be labeled in the bill as a shall and not a may?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I think that I would propose changing A, which is I think the question you're getting at, to say shall provide grants to an agency receiving approval under subsection C, something like that, and then it links to the discretionary aspect of C, so you aren't led to misread. I completely understand it's not even misread. If you read A alone, it just sounds like Vermont Old Cemetery Association has an obligation to just be handing out grants. Right? But if they receive no satisfactory applications, they have no such application, and they can choose to prioritize. So I agree. I think it would be clearer if a linked to the discretionary element, so it's you only provide it if you've been approved, not you outright have an obligation to confidently spend the funds of the function.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Because I'm just gonna ask you to pause a second. Yes.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: I sent it to everyone. Was their work.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Oh, it should Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Today? Yes. Or So I was Thursday.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: To vote it out here or go

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: to the floor? Oh. No. We have it voted out of here by Thursday. Committee bills. It's very more comfortable

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: if we, because I just shucked my head note on Wednesday, which means it won't be on the notice calendars. It just needs to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: be voted out of here by Thursday. Are you okay with that?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: That's fine. Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So I'm sorry, John, to interrupt. It's okay. Just one quick reaction to this a, b, c, d, e, f, and Yes. Don't know how you define wave Yeah. Of vandalism, so I would, well, I'm not gonna suggest anything, I'm just making points. I don't know how you determine emotional distress, the visiting families, if you don't interview every person that came in the cemetery. I don't know how you make that judgment. E and F seem to me to be the same thing. If they've used the payments before, previous allocations, to me, they're sort of really similar. And g to me is obvious if there isn't any money left in the fund, you don't have to worry about that anyway. You have to say it just because that people won't

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, so I I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I think wave evangelism is quite I don't exactly know what that means.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Doesn't matter. It's been vandalized. It's like, really, does it matter that there's It just matters that the cemetery has been banned.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: To your point on D, emotional distress, it does raise the question, how do you determine this? One thing that it would automatically pick up is if the damage is done in such a way that it is obvious to the agency

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Spray pain in it or something.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, it's creating emotional distress, That would automatically be factored into the application without any kind of like, let me go out there and ask everyone what's going on. So, it wouldn't necessarily pick up things that might be useful in making this determination, but if your point is you don't want it to create some kind of independent obligation to conduct I those would just say it's discretionary, so it's up to the agency to I'm make this sorry, it's up to the representative to make a determination. I don't know what their capacity will be. Mean, Yeah. In part, that's a question to them as to their capacity to determine these things. And I do distinguish P and F, but I think you're right that there's some overlap. E is about having complied in the past. Have you acted as a good faith actor in this space? And I read F as saying kind of like a justice or equity concern about the way they've allocated amongst different cemeteries. But agree. I think that these could be changed and improved and clarified just depending on preferences of the committee.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Let's move on.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Subdivision III on line 13 of page four. Upon approval, the Vermont Old Cemetery Association treasurer shall disperse funds directly to the appropriate cemetery commissioner or other proper officer. The agency shall apply all disbursements to the repair of the vandalized property described in the grant application. Any funds remaining after repair must be returned or re deposit to that response fund. It really is exclusively for purpose of repair, anything left over and you've got to send it back, and doubly adding some measures here to ensure that that is what's going on. Subdivision four, the agency shall make a final report that my blood cemetery association within ninety days after receipt would include the repairs made and by whom, how much was expended, amount of funds to be returned, they haven't been completed, why, and then an anticipated date for subsequent final report, and that would be attested to, it would be sworn by the secretary commissioner and the drug officer. So returning and providing a report and why they did or did not use the full scope of funds. On page five, have the creation of the actual Cemetery of Infamous Response Fund itself. So it's a status to provide grants, agencies to repair, vandalized cemeteries, funds shall be administered by Vermont Holt Cemetery Association and monies would be used solely to provide those cemeteries and respondents grants, which I've been talking fee and collection piece of this. The way that the bill is currently structured, it's funded through a fee for each burial and cremation. So every agency shall contribute $5 to this fund for each burial and cremation it performs, and it wouldn't be they wouldn't be double hit. So a contribution shall not be collected upon burial of the remains where the contribution was collected upon cremation. Don't double hit anyone, but each burial or cremation, that agency has to contribute $5 as you guys talked about, you would imagine that would be passed on and picked up the $5 And then on report yep.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: I just understand oh, thanks. No. Mister chair. Can I just understand how does this actually make that happen? You know, like, how who do we need to say who is paying for it?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think you have to unless you care. Like like, you want a specific party to to pay. I mean, it's gotta be gathered from someone. In this case, the cemetery evangelism. Each agency is likely to act in self interest and assess, write a $5 fee on the burial cremation. But they don't have to, they don't have to do that. They could say, we're really invested in this and we're gonna take it out of our pocket. This gives them the choice, they can pass it on or they can take it out of their pocket if they have sufficient funds available to essentially reduce profits. All this is saying is the section only cares about getting the dollars to the fund, It it doesn't care where they come. I mean, it has to come through the agency, but it doesn't say agency or family of, you know.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: It's but it so the my yeah. To our point before, but the person paying could be the person who's paying for the burial themselves. Could be the funeral home. Could be the church. It could be

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Could be hospital. Yeah. I mean, depending on where they choose to assess the fee basically.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Okay, but we are not assessing it.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: No, is just saying agency figure out how to get $5 to this fund.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Okay.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: You deal with us. Okay. They can take it from themselves, they can take it from the, but I'm guessing they would tack it on to the person barrenade. Yeah. That would be the natural place I would think, but I don't know.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Shelby each funeral demand $5.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So, Baskin's mad. I don't know all the things on those receipts, but I imagine they're quite long. So, they didn't listen. Okay. So, there's two on line 17, on or before January 15 of each year. I would say once a year, this is an annual thing, every agency that has performed the burial or cremation during the preceding calendar year shall submit a check for the total amount collected during the preceding year in court payment to the fund. So it's a once yearly collection based on the preceding calendar years performing burials or cremations. You can think of that as administratively less burdensome than every time you do this you gotta check, but it doesn't mean that you're just getting a lump sum each year, and it does mean there's some timing issues in the first year, which we'll talk about in a second. Payment shall be accompanied by a statement signed by a cemetery commissioner or other proper officers certifying the number of fairyloot information, and they are transmitted, and funds would be dispersed January 31 of each year, or excuse me, the Medical Center Association. So once yearly, check for cut, mid January, and they go actually into the fund January 31 of each year. On page six, this is what I was just hitting at. As you can imagine, because this is an annual collection, what would you do if this goes effective then in summer, as traditionally happens. Effective date here 07/01/2426. Section four spells out some of the way of dealing with this. It doesn't tell us

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I mean,

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: it does tell us something. So the cemetery panel is in response fund, concession law provision, initial fee collection. The Vermont Old Cemetery Association shall collect initial fees for the response fund beginning on 01/01/2027, which means the fund has no money between 07/01/2026 and 01/01/2027, and potentially it's a little bit later than that because they would begin the process of collecting. So it's potentially not till 01/31/2027 that you would actually have the monies available for the purpose, but if you stand it up through I-one twenty four-six, applications could commence as part of its ascension could happen absent the consideration of Subdivision G because there will be literally no money. So they would begin that collection 01/01/2027 for each burial or cremation that occurs between the effective date and 12/31/2026. So it's essentially collecting a half year set of fees to initially fund the response fund.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Any other questions for attorney Greg Hess? One quick question, John. Page four Mhmm. Warning 13. Okay. Upon approval, the Volkage treasurer shall disperse funds directly to the appropriate cemetery commissioner. So, typically, cemetery commissioners, I think, are acquainted by the sled mowers

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: that I put out. Yeah.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: So lots of times there's line items in the sled sledman's budget. Okay. Sledboard's budget, for this type of activity. So when the money comes in from VOCA, I don't think it probably should go directly to the cemetery commissioner. I think it's gonna go to the town

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: would be my guess.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Yeah,

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know. Mean, I think, yes, so part of it does speak to the breadth of the, you could have a non town cemetery to which this is being directed, but I think you also have this, I think you're onto something. On line 14, think there's a general call out to pick up a broader basket or other proper officer, but it does leave it discretionary as to who it goes to. I think this line is saying book a treasurer to disperse the funds directly to the appropriate party, and it's saying we think that likely the appropriate party is the cemetery for the sheriff, but it could be another proper opportunity.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Okay. As long as that's the Yeah.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Just But but I think that's something to maybe draw out of testimony is where Okay. What is the best party? Is this the correct kinda default? That's the way I think about it. Is this the correct default option?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Because it's gonna be different.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Go get it.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Any other questions for, attorney Greg? Okay. Tom, did you wanna add anything or, have any questions? Tom Gippen.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White]: Tom had to leave at 03:00. I'm here taking notes. So I will, shake his chain and, and relay anything, any questions that you might All

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: right. Okay. Great. Well, John, thank you very much for coming in. I've got a lot of hands scratching on this, we're going to, I assume we'll take it up again, we've got some other witnesses to hear, Carmel, and some questions to be answered.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Sounds good. I love to introduce head scratching, so be to

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: have one of my main goals. Alright. Good work on this first day back of our fourth week, and we're gonna end for the day and see all of

[Lynn (Committee Assistant)]: you