Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good afternoon. Welcome in to the Senate Committee on Government Operations meeting for Friday, 02/20/2026. We have two items up for consideration. The first being S275, an act relating to creation of the Cemetery Vandalism Response Fund. Have had a walkthrough on this earlier in the session, but we're joined today by Tom Giffen, who's president of VOCA, which for those of you that don't remember, is the Vermont Road Cemetery Association, and also Chris Book, who's president of the Vermont Funeral Directors Association. And on the screen I see, I believe Michelle Hogle. I'm gonna give it a shot here, Michelle. Acciavati.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Almost acciavati.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Acciavati. She's a funeral director at the Green Mountain Funeral Alternatives. Mhmm. So We also have everybody else. Oh, okay. I don't have Larry on my agenda. So I don't know who Larry is, but welcome, Larry. We'll have you introduce yourself as we move along. Also with us is the bill's sponsor, Senator Weeks from Rutland. And for those of you who remember, we are going to, if this passes, give the cemetery association and then individual cemetery groups the ability to take care of damage, is done by, I guess, mother nature and intervention from humans in terms of vandalism into our cemetery. So Tom, I think well, actually, you know what? We're gonna start off, I think, with Michelle. Welcome in.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: She said she'd like my already before her.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Well, there's your show, Larry, letting us know who you are.

[Lawrence "Larry" Davignon]: I'm, Larry or Lawrence Davignon, licensed funeral director, owner operator of Day Funeral Home in Randolph. I'm also the Randolph, cemetery superintendent.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay, welcome. Thank you. The floor is yours, sir.

[Lawrence "Larry" Davignon]: Yeah, just, look looking at all of this, I have a few questions or maybe some comments. The first being in regard to collection of that $5 fee. Yeah. And there's, I would, I would think that there's already mechanism in place that when a death certificate is filed, the town clerks of the town of Death get notified of that death to where that they could invoice the providers, whether it be a funeral home or a disposition facility to collect that fee. And then they can then in turn send that fee to the old cemetery association, whether that's monthly, quarterly, yearly. That seems like, from what I've been thinking, a good structure to pass that through as opposed to try to collect from the different burials, whether it be a burial or cremation, you would would capture things more directly because sometimes there's burials that occur where that didn't necessarily,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you know,

[Lawrence "Larry" Davignon]: hate to say this, but sometimes people bury cremated remains on their own property. They don't necessarily get buried. They could get scattered. So that's one aspect to kind of think about. Okay. And heard someone mention acts of vandalism that also included acts of nature.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Oh, it could.

[Lawrence "Larry" Davignon]: It could, yeah. Because I didn't see that written in here. And that would be, you know, one of one of the other things that I was thinking, some of the cemeteries that we serve, tend to sit on the side of a hill where there's already general mass wasting in itself. Know, old stones, new stones get toppled all the time. So what that mechanism would be to kind of collect on that and how that would be determined as a vandalism or nature, something to consider as well as burrowing rodents, critters, so on and so forth. And then the last thing is so once these funds are collected by the Vermont Old Cemetery Association, what oversight or supervision of their fiduciary responsibility of those funds would be in play in terms of, you know, what's their oversight? And the reason I ask is that recently, you know, following something Where a nonprofit, which is in a whole another realm of housing. Had due to a data breach had lost a very significant amount of money. That was allocated for housing and all this other stuff, and they're now going out of business or dissolving because of that. So how do we protect those monies or the consumers that have paid into that?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Did you need us to hear anything, Mark?

[Lawrence "Larry" Davignon]: And that that's all I have.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. And we do have the sponsor of the bill and also, some folks here from Volca. So I hope folks in the audience took notes of what your questions and concerns were and can provide some answers. Those are legitimate questions. I think we did When we first took this up, it became obvious, I think pretty quickly that sometimes you can't make a determination on the spot as to whether a stone has been tipped over on purpose, whether somebody has accidentally backed into it at a service, or whether in fact mother nature has blown it over, in some cases maybe, or a tree falls on it. So that's a legitimate question, and I'm not meaning to speak to the sponsor. We could certainly amend the bill to include whatever we need to. The intent of the bill, I believe, because I also signed on to it, was at least to provide some monetary help for those folks who are trying their best to, take care of our cemeteries. You know, we at one time had the ability to use, incarcerated folks to, mow the lawns and, do some general cleanup and that kind of thing. That has not been true for a number of years. It's just the DOJ Department of Corrections policy that has changed over the years. So with respect to your concern about whether it's vandalism or occurs in some other fashion, I think we could amend the bill enough to address that that issue. Committee members have any questions to for Larry? Yes. Senator White.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Thank you, mister chair. So I mister, I appreciate you being here. And my question is, perhaps not for him, but about what he said, which is I think if we're going to move down the direction of the town clerk's collecting any sort of fee that we should have them come in and respond to it because my well, I appreciate the comment that this is something kind of in their wheelhouse that they do now with death certificates. I think any further requirement on them, they'd

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: probably wanna confer that. Okay. That's of more The only thing under 14, qualifying damage means that damage caused by acts of vandalism that cannot be repaired by means of regular maintenance. The regular maintenance means regular upkeep, including mowing and tree removal, so I don't know if that encompasses his concern. We'll take care of his concern.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. And again, some communities have organized themselves to send people out to do that work. Absolutely. Clean stoning, too. Yep.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Things of that nature, but some don't, so they're all different. Yeah.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Michelle, love to hear what you have to tell us.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Sure.

[Michelle Acciavatti (Funeral Director; Operator, Vermont Forest Cemetery)]: I'm a funeral director. I also run Vermont Forest Cemetery, so we don't have upright monuments, so it's not a problem. But some of the thoughts that I had reading this bill was I'm concerned about passing this cost on to funeral consumers. As Larry pointed out, there are a number of funeral cons like a lot of people that choose cremation are not ever going to have a monument. So it's, know, for me it's an equity piece in terms of or, you know, people that are buried at our cemetery won't have a monument, so they're bearing the cost for repair. And And I mean, I believe in social welfare and we should all look out for one another, and a beautiful cemetery is valuable to the community, to mental well-being of the community, to the scenic beauty of the community. I'm not arguing against that, but funeral poverty is a really real issue in Vermont and I realize we're just talking about a $5 fee, but at some point there are other costs are if people make a pre need agreement, that's already taxed to pay for a fund to protect people. So I'm just concerned a little bit about beginning to come for funeral consumers for costs that are not necessarily related to the care that they're receiving from funeral homes. I'm concerned about the relationship between consumers and funeral homes where, again, costs are an issue. A lot of funeral homes are operating on really thin margins in order to meet cost concerns. And if the funeral directors are responsible for costs for this, that that could lead to further stress on the relationship between community members and their directors. And as somebody that operates a cemetery, we are required to put 20% of every lot sale away into a perpetual care fund for the maintenance of a cemetery. And we carry insurance. And I checked our insurance rider and it covers damage to monuments even though we don't have them. And so I don't have knowledge about what led to this bill, but in an active cemetery, there should be funds being generated through cemetery operations to cover these issues. For me, my comment is more, is it necessary to pass this on to all funeral consumers or can we maybe look at methods of the way cemeteries generate income and make the cemetery responsible for, the cost of the repairs for the services that they're providing to their community?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. That's a fair question. Committee, any questions for Michelle?

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Yeah.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I don't know who wants to, Chris or Tom. Chris? Thank you. Take the chair. Sorry. Would you please identify your state of record?

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: Christopher Book. I own four funeral homes in Rutland County. I started in the funeral industry in 1992. I've been a funeral director and embalmer since 1994. I've owned a crematory since 2017. I've been involved in several cemeteries over the last twenty years, serving as board president, advisor, and an unofficial superintendent of several cemeteries. I'm also the longtime treasurer of the Bronx Cemetery Association. First, I wanna address Larry's comment. I agree with Larry that the town court's probably the best avenue to collect these fees, kinda like they do with the dog license fees already, and that kinda fades. We would agree that the bill should only be for vandalism. The Vermont Cemetery Association gives up several grants a year to do pre removal and other kind of repairs to cemeteries, and we've been doing that since, I wanna say 'seventy four. Been now Like, 1954. 'fifty four, yeah. We've given out several grants. Also, the $5 fee that we talked about is already in statute. There's a $5 burial permit fee that was instituted in 1963. Back then, we would get the death certificate from the doctor, and then we would have to bring it to the town clerk or their appointed deputy, and they would sign off on the burial permit authorizing us to do the burial. When they did the change in 1999, they changed it that the funeral director could sign the death certificate or the burial permit fee once they filed it online. So that $5 fee would technically, it goes to the person issuing the certificate given permission. So that fee's already in the statute, and I just want that fee to be transferred to this fund for Venden. So

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: currently, a funeral director gets to $5? The way the

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: law is written, yes. Most cemetery or most places don't collect that, but it's in the statute.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. I didn't know that. Questions for Chris. It would seem like we're gonna have to tinker with a bill. Not that I was planning on voting this out today, but Oh. Senator White.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Oh, thank you, mister chair. So I respect your desire to have the town clerks do the fame. I think if we have the town clerks in here, this is the hypothetical fate, I think, would probably say no thank you. We would prefer not to do that. Okay. Do you see funeral directors having the ability to collect fee if the town clerks are unable to, and how would you envision that?

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: Yeah. I'm sure that there's it wouldn't be an issue

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: for the field directors. Okay.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: So you already collect fees. You take payment. Would you be do you think that's something your directors would be able to do in the situations, you know, speaking to what Michelle had shared with us? Could you see collecting fees even for the subset of folks who are planning to get some kind of headstone monument? Is that an easily distinguishable group of people?

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: No. Okay. We're black stones. We don't know what they're gonna do.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I can imagine.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: So I think the fee has to come from when the death certificate's issued. When there's a death certificate issued, the permit is issued from that, and then the fee is created. The only way to track it.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So one of if it's already in statute and and you're not collecting it,

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: why would you now create a bill

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: that puts it in statute?

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: I hate that. Well, they're just

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: Because it's for a different reason. Okay. Alright. The statues for our signature on the burial permit. That's what's in the statue. K. And where does that money go currently? Most people don't collect it. So I have the right to collect $5 for signing that burial permit Yeah. According to the statute. But I it just doesn't get done. It was a way ahead of them.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. So this would be moving in now, though, you would collect it. When did you go to the association?

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: No. It should probably go to the state. The association shouldn't be involved with that aspect. Okay. That The association should be involved going to the cemetery, assessing the damages. K. And then notifying the state that they need to cut a check to the cemetery. K. We don't need the money.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: K. Do you have a reference for what title and section of that federal? It's always everything. Okay. Title 32. Taxation and Finance. Senator Vyhovsky, did you have a question?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I mean, my question is fairly aligned with senator Morley's question. And if you already have the ability to do this, why not just start doing it? Like, if we can all this money can already be collected. Why not just start collecting it?

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: So you want the funeral homes to do it outside of the state? I mean, I would think the state would want that responsibility to keep track of it.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: I think I'm confused about the process. You think I hate it, Chittenden? Yeah. So So do you mind describing to us, so currently there is on the books a statute where you can collect the fee?

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: Once we file the death certificate, which at this point in time, they changed it so we just have to push the button to file it.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: Once we push the button, the funeral director's side of the death certificate, the demographics, marries up to the doctor's point where the cause of death, and it becomes the certificate where the town clerk can now print out certified death certificate. Okay. All right? Years ago, somebody had to sign underneath the funeral director's signature on the death certificate stating that they issued the burial permit.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Uh-huh.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: Alright? So that's where the $5 comes So if you weren't a deputy in the town,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: so like I would be

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: a deputy in Rutland City and the towns around me because I just did so many of them.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: But like if I had a

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: death in Montpelier, I would have to find either the town clerk in Montpelier or a deputy in Montpelier to sign the desk. That deputy would get the $5.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: Ah, I see. So it's a payment now that's already going to, like, a group of people who are performing as who

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: are Who were are part of the service.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So now whoever signs so

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: I signed the burial permit now.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: You get it.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: I could keep the fight out for us, but

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: it's not charging.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: But you're not, okay. This is yeah. So I guess it it is for a different purpose.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: It was for a different purpose.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So we just wanna move that to the

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: vandalism fund. It's a win win for everybody.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Do you know if anyone now is currently collecting it?

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: There's a town There's a couple towns that have done it.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So we'd be, in essence, subtracting it from there.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: But they don't have they shouldn't be collecting it because in in that statute, they don't get it. The guy that signed the burial permit gets it.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Right.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: Okay. He fights over five. You know, nobody fights over that five bottles. No. This thing has to be done

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: with. K. Interesting.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. This is a little more Yeah. Squiggly than I thought it was at first.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: In my experience, cemetery bills are always more complicated than you thought they were at first.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: Anything in the death industry.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Now that is a weird phrase. The death industry. I think

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you have to be in it to appreciate that. Only once. Okay. Anything else for Chris? All right. Tom Giffen.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Tom

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: has been with us, I think, once before.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Yeah. I wanna, again thank you for having us again. He's on screen, but I appreciate the opportunity for you. With the weather coming, I'm not gonna be here very well. Again, Tom Gibson. I'm the President of the Vermont Hole Cemetery Association and also the Brooklyn City Cemetery Commissioner to address a couple issues. One of Chris said, the money would not be collected by the Old Cemetery Association. It should

[Senator Randy Brock]: go to the state.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: We would not be the fiduciary part of that. Would be able to go in and say, this is the damage that's been done. We need X number of dollars and we would support that. Also regarding like cemeteries themselves, the people who are requesting this, I did 25 projects last year myself and we did some other ones. Most of the places we went, I did it in Bennington, I did it in South Burlington, I did Burlington, are not active cemeteries. So they're not getting any money. I mean, like the cemetery in Brooklyn City are not active cemeteries. So when you go into, like we did the cemetery in South Burlington, which is I think partially active, but they didn't have any money and it was all vandalism that we repaired. I did a departure in West Rutland. We repaired the cemetery and two weeks later it was vandalized. We went back and fixed it. They had no money, not an active cemetery. The most of the places we go to and all the projects they go, I don't think there's a cemetery in the state that does not have, unfortunately, some part of it that have been knocked over over the years, whatever. So the communities have no money, no ability to do that. We used to use the workrooms, as Senator Collamore meant, and I would certainly support the workrooms again because it's a witness to everybody. But the majority of the issues we have are with cemeteries that have no income. The towns have no do you fund school books for the school or do you fix the cemetery? And obviously, that's what you know is going to happen. So what this bill would do is give these towns the opportunity to have no resources to repair their cemeteries. With the two fifty that's going on now, all the celebrations, would think this would be a great thing, that Vermont has the ability to go into cemeteries, which everyone who had a Revolutionary War soldier is in it, to say, Here we are. We have passed something that will help us maintain cemeteries in Vermont that are historic, that have the veterans so they're all over world, Revolutionary War, Civil War, and we can go in and repair these at a minimum cost. It's a win win for the state of Vermont, and that's all I'm going to say, but it's certainly something I think is a very positive bill. I don't see a negative side of her. Senator Vyhovsky?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I absolutely appreciate and also want to take care of our historic cemeteries, but I also know that a large percentage of providers can't afford funeral costs currently. And so I certainly do worry about the impact it would have. How much would it potentially expand that number? How do we navigate that? So I don't see that there are no downsides because we already have a population, a fairly significant population that struggles to afford their funeral costs. Yeah. Why is it Again, the small money would cost for

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: a funeral, I don't think it would impact it that much. Also, these same people who are upset about funeral costs, they want their cemeteries to look decent. They want to have it look good. And so this would be the, mean, if you have a loved one buried in there and then there's vandalism, it would be to their they would want the cemetery to look decent too. I understand what you're saying, but I don't think it's the real big cost when you see what a cost of a funeral is for something that you would buy a couple sodas for on the capture period today.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Can I ask the question though?

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Sure.

[Michelle Acciavatti (Funeral Director; Operator, Vermont Forest Cemetery)]: So you say the cemeteries don't have any money, but if they're active, they should be collecting for their perpetual care fund and carrying an insurance policy. So I understand for a historic cemetery perspective, they may have run out of resources, but whyagain, I'm confused as to why this isn't going back to cemetery and enforcing cemetery management and cemetery budgets rather than getting passed on to funeral consumers.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: And my answer is that, because I already mentioned it, these are cemeteries that have no resources, have no funding, There is a cemetery that had a perpetual care fund that's now long gone and they have no resources as an act of cemetery. They're not getting funding from burials or cremations. Basically it's a cemetery that's fenced in, no resources, no waiting for general income, towns don't have the money to repair it. A lot of times towns are now taking over the religious cemetery, especially that have no resources and what this would do would give them the opportunity, we have vandalism, to go in the repair of the stones where otherwise there would be no money available and they would stay on the ground.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Where in the state, you mentioned that you feel it would go to the state, what department or where is it going to move through in the state? Or is that across? I mean, I guess I I

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: could think of different committees. Would think that the monies that would go above my pay grade would be something that would have to allocate monies when you apply for a grant. Could we open this for preservation, for example, to take it, and then say, we could go in there and say, we have all this happened in South Curley to build the stones in front of that airport that were not built. And we said, need X number of dollars to go in there to repair it. So it would also give the opportunity also for, like, if you want to have a monument company who's willing to do it, they give an estimate, say this is how much it would cost, and they go from there.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So we probably should have, as Senator White mentioned, the municipal clerks come in and find out how much more work for them this might create and get their kind of opinion as to it. I had the question where in the state would it go. Those are the only question I had for Tom. And senator Weeks is with us, so I'll be speaking to him over the weekend, and we can confer and maybe make some changes to some of the provisions here, I guess. Does that sound right? All good. Okay. Tanya Vyhovsky?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, mister chair, and thank you for being here. So I do just wanna reiterate one question that I asked at a I think you actually answered it in part last time you testified, but I just wanna reiterate it. Now how our vandalism repair is being paid towards.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Yeah. What happens is, I'll give the example. I think I sent the documents to you when I testified before Bennington, but 300 monuments were knocked over. So I saw that, I contacted the town of Bennington and they went down with a crew twice. We also had a lot of community and state police, the public service, we had CAP, we had legislators, and it was amazing. We came down there and before we were done, we had every one of those spells that was October we had repaired. But again, we can't do it all, and we trip right now with many cemeteries that have literally no resources, no money, sort of vandalized the day that stays there and Vermont, their marble stones, especially if they were deteriorating. And we have this larger number of especially historic stones of Revolutionary War soldiers, Civil War soldiers. I mean, to have them deteriorate is certainly lessening our history, especially now, again, with the two fifty. I would think it'd be something One of the nice things, state of Vermont said, if we passed this bill and the requirement is for the two fifty celebration. That's interesting. It'd be something I see nothing but win win for the legislature, but something could use as

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: positive. No. Thank you.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Okay. Well, you. Well, thank you very much for hearing me again. I certainly appreciate it. Sure. Thanks to Senator Weeks for prompting the bill. We all are very appreciative of everybody here.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Have a safe, proud back. Oh, you too, Leish.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: No, no.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Doesn't look like something

[Carrington Skinner (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: really just

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: starting south and moving

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay, let us quickly then pivot to the Act relating to legislative operations, government accountability. We're joined by Senator Randy Brock, who is the co chair of the summer government accountability committee. And Ken, he promised he'd only take a couple minutes to brief us on what the work of that summer committee was.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I didn't see him. I was like, are we doing?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Randy takes no offense, Trevor.

[Senator Randy Brock]: I think it's always useful to be as small a target as possible.

[Michelle Acciavatti (Funeral Director; Operator, Vermont Forest Cemetery)]: I agree.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well put, Senator. Word got to Tim Ash, he was gonna join us in this regard as well, and then a couple people from NCSL. I see one

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: of them already on the screen,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: that's great. So I don't want to hold you back from attending this finance committee meeting, but I don't

[Senator Randy Brock]: have any money, so those meetings are quick. Yeah. Thank you very much for inviting me. Accountability, as we talk about it, for any of you who've been around for a while, is something that comes up every once in a while repeatedly and never gets the attention that it deserves because we're too busy going on to do something else. And we've had accountability committee back and forth for a number of years. And in fact, there was a government accountability committee and I know I was on it as were several other people who got so frustrated. I asked not to be reappointed because it wasn't doing anything. It creating a lot of paper, was creating a lot of thought, creating a lot of thought. It wasn't doing anything. And one of the things I think that bothers so many people is we pass a bill that's supposed to accomplish something and we don't go back and look at it. Particularly if we know instinctively that it isn't working, we definitely go back and look at it because in some cases our fingerprints are on it. And that is a major problem in government. Is we spend a lot of money doing something that we believe is supposed to be a good thing and a useful thing, but there aren't measurements done in any kind of a consistent way to tell us whether or not it's working as intended. One of the things that we've seen over a number of years is that the first of the year, there's a piece of paper, a stack of paper that's passed around to each committee, it shows these are the reports that

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: you're supposed to get.

[Senator Randy Brock]: You're supposed to look at that and say, Did we get them, and were they useful? The majority of committees that I've been on have the piece of paper. It's saved till the last day before it's due, and if it's acted on at all, it's acted on of We thought, some of us, that it would be useful, at that time, both the Pro Tem and the Speaker thought it would be useful to go and take a look at accountability and say, are there things we should be doing and is there somebody who should be doing them? To say whether or not the amount of money that we spend and time that we spend doing legislation results in something that's actually useful and actually moves us ahead and actually achieves some objectives. And that's what the purpose of this summer government accountability committee was. The committee composed of four members of the House and four members of the Senate, and met for a number of meetings in the summer of, it was the '3, as I remember. And it did in fact produce a report,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: and the report

[Senator Randy Brock]: contained 11 action items of things that the committee thought based on testimony that we perhaps should be thinking about doing. And the testimony, it was not just something that we made up. We went around, we used NCSL to assist us, and we went around and looked at legislatures throughout the country to say, what do they do and are there any that really do this well? And how do they do it? What do they put in and what they do? And then from that, we created a list of 11 recommendations for strengthening government accountability. Then we put a fair amount of detail into each one of those as to ways that we could go about it. Unfortunately, when it came to be the legislative year to deal with that, everybody was too busy to deal with accountability. They were too busy doing things to be accountable for. And we didn't do it. And so here we are again. I was co chair of the committee and who was it? Yeah, Jessica Brumstead was the other co chair. Yeah. If you remember Jessica. And we had a number of people on it who are still here, those that are still here. Emily Kornheiser, Matt Walker from the house, Wendy Harrison, Tanya Vyhovsky, you were here.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I'll get there.

[Senator Randy Brock]: Yeah. And Irene Renner.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, okay.

[Senator Randy Brock]: And so that basically is is the project, the concept, the file. And I report in detail is out on the web. If you go to the Government Accountability Committee, can pull off the report. It's fairly clear. We included in it a number of appendices of things that we had looked at, including among the better states that we found that had processes in place that seemed to be doing this well. New Mexico was one, and a lot of that material is here. A list of the summary of what it is we wanted to do and why, and then a kind of a short executive summary of the 11 items we recommended that Vermont adopt to deal with government accountability. So that's kind of it, background in a nutshell. Questions for Senator Brock?

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

[Senator Randy Brock]: Yeah. Always appreciate seeing you and likewise. Thanks. I don't know. You should

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: probably work very hard on this.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Hopefully, it gives us the year we can get something done. Yeah.

[Senator Randy Brock]: Let's hope. Take care. Thank you, Ray.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So we are joined by couple of folks from, CSL. Let me see if I can William Clark and Carrington Skinner. I don't know if you have time constraints. One of you can go first if you like.

[William "Will" Clark (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: Absolutely. Yeah. Can you hear me okay?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: We can.

[William "Will" Clark (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: Excellent. Alright. Let me share my screen.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: There we go.

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: It looks like that okay? Yeah.

[William "Will" Clark (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: Excellent. Great. Well, yeah, thank you chair and members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be back in Vermont virtually. And I'm joined by my colleague Carrington Skinner. And today we're just going to be going over some tools that are available to legislatures to conduct legislative oversight. For the record, again, I'm Will Clark. And I work in the Center for Legislative Strengthening at the National Conference of State Legislatures. And I work on a lot of issues related to separation of powers. Legislative oversight tools are a main issue that a lot of states are starting to look at. So I'm going to be going over this more generally, and then Carrington is going to follow-up by looking at some performance measures and giving some examples of specific states. My section today, I'm just going to be talking about, again, just legislative oversight generally, just kind of what is the intent, why do states conduct these activities. And then I'm to go into some tools. I'm going talk about sunset reviews very briefly, spend some time on administrative rules, and then talk about performance audit and program evaluation. Really, when we're talking about legislative oversight, we're really, as the member was just speaking to, you're really looking at the work that you all have done as legislators when that gets turned into policy. How are you ensured that that policy is following legislative intent? Is it effective? Is it enabling good stewardship of taxpayer dollars? A very important one. And if there are any issues with these, is it in need of modification or elimination? And so this kind of follows a fairly standard process across legislatures, US legislators. You pass laws that gets turned into code statute, possibly the budget. It goes to the executive branch who's responsible for implementing that through state agencies. And ultimately, you're serving the public. Those agencies create programs, provide services. And really the goal of oversight is to have kind of, again, this wraparound. So is that program, are those services being provided in the way that you all intended? And you have various tools at your disposal to do this. The first one, which is more of an obvious one, is incredibly important, that's the work of committees. So that can be a standing committee dedicated to performance program evaluation oversight, or that can just be regular standing committees. And all the debate and deliberation that you all conduct, the testimony received from the public and from expert witnesses and agencies, this is an incredibly important area. Really, all the other tools come back to that once you can process that information. Also studies and analysis, won't spend a lot of time talking about this, but they can be very important. Well, one thing about these typically is that they're conducted by agencies. So again, you're taking the agency's word for it when you're getting these reports and analyses, as opposed to some of the other tools where agents that you work with, legislative staff, can actually go in and look at those records and provide that to you directly. Sunset and Sunrise processes are used by some states, used to be more so. Will be talking about Sunrise processes because that's really looking at gaps in regulation. It is related to performance, but it's less oversight. I'll be talking about administrative rules review later and then also getting into program evaluation and performance audit and talking about some of the differences between those. But really today, I'm focusing on those last two. Those seem to be areas where states are really dedicating resources. They give legislature a lot of control and direction over looking at agency policies and how things are implemented. And so I think legislatures over the last couple of decades, especially, and then more recently, have really been looking at these tools and ramping up these offices. Just looking at sunset reviews, I believe Vermont had a sunset review process previously, but they're an automatic termination of boards, commissions, agencies, and other entities unless the legislature takes action to reinstate them. They were first implemented in the 1970s, and really these tools were around because legislature had fewer resources at their disposal to conduct oversight activities. And so this really was a way to get agencies to come to you all and kind of talk about their programs, show you what they're working with, show you some numbers, and kind of give you more assurance that the agencies and the programs were operating as intended. As legislatures professionalized more, got more staff, got more capacity, those started to phase out in favor of program evaluation and performance audit offices. But at some point in time, 44 states had some kind of process, and there are many states that still use this tool. Texas is a very prominent example of that. Administrative rules review is a very it can be a potentially very powerful way to review the performance of agencies. Administrative rules are typically regulation standards or policies that are issued by the executive agencies to implement statutory provisions. And 43 states have some kind of authority to review administrative rules right now. So then if they wish to revise rules, there's not a formal process to look at those. They would just need to pass statutes to modify that. And the core reason why this exists is because you as a legislature, you create programs, you modify statute, and then agencies are responsible for implementing those programs. But to do so, there's also a lot of details that they have to sort out. They create those rules that have the force of law. But sometimes those rules are not necessarily following legislative intent. And so a lot of legislatures have set up these review processes to assess the constitutionality and ensure that legislative intent is being met. And if not, then they can take certain action. And that action is really kind of on a spectrum. So again, seven legislatures don't have a formal process. There are many that have the authority to review rules, but they're limited in terms of what kind of actions they can take. So they could talk with the agency itself, negotiate, Maybe if they think a rule is not doing what they want it to do or is violating intent, then they could negotiate with them or the governor. However, if they weren't able to come to some sort of understanding, then they would need to go through the regular lawmaking process and modify the statute in question to provide additional clarity. There are two other forms that are fairly similar that provide legislatures with a sort of veto of administrative rules. So that can either be through a two house veto, which is a joint resolution, or through a special committee, which actually would be reviewing rules and then has the ability within the committee to actually halt or revoke rules. So these vary quite a bit across legislatures, but generally the idea is that legislatures would have the power to halt a rule or to even revoke it potentially. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you have states like West Virginia. There's a unique case, but they actually treat rules like statute. So all rules have to be approved and reviewed by the legislature, so really the whole spectrum of authority. I wanted to touch on program evaluation and performance audit. So these offices

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: are in place to really review

[Tom Giffen (President, Vermont Old Cemetery Association)]: Wanted public

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: programs and ensure that resources are being spent effectively, efficiently, economically, and ethically. And there are a lot of offices that do audits and

[William "Will" Clark (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: evaluations, performance but they really are very distinct in terms of what they look at. So audits are systematic reviews of financial statements or processes and procedures, and they're really looking to ensure compliance with statute, and they do that through use of standards. So you might have heard of the yellow book or GAGAS that generally accepted government auditing standards. That's a really important part of auditing as they follow those standards, and again, they're really looking at compliance. And that is opposed to evaluation, where they're doing systematic reviews of programs or projects to really look at effectiveness. And Carrington's going be touching a bit on that. But in terms of audits, the focus is really on looking at accuracy, financial controls, internal controls, again, looking at compliance, whereas the focus of evaluations is looking at outcomes and impact. And performance audits do a bit of this as well, so there is, again, a blend, and offices might conduct evaluations and audits. An important distinction across states in terms of these offices is who appoints the director, because that will impact what they look at and I'll talk about who they report to. But currently, there are 36 offices that are legislatively appointed,

[Carrington Skinner (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: five that

[William "Will" Clark (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: are appointed by the executive branch, and then 25 that are independently elected. And so there are many states that have both a legislative audit office and an independent audit office, they'll look at different things. Another important thing is just who these offices report to. So you have 76 are reporting to some sort of joint legislative committee, because that's the most common reporting mechanism, even for independently elected offices. 13% report directly to legislative leadership, and then in 11% of the other offices, you have some sort of mix. So maybe a combination of reporting to legislature and citizens or just releasing a report to the general assembly. These offices overwhelmingly provide reports again, so performance audits in a report, program evaluation, some sort of policy analysis, but they can also conduct other activities as directed by either the legislature or the office itself, and so they might conduct financial compliance audits. Increasingly, these offices also conduct technology and IT reviews and short term policy research and various other services that you can see on this slide. And I just wanted to round out by just showing an example of another office. So the Joint Legislative Audit Review Committee in Washington, they provide a lot of information on their website. So this is something that legislators can look at, also the public. And so you can see on the left side their performance metrics. And so it's just a way for a trusted entity that takes direction from the legislature to provide this information to you all and collect it. And then on the right, you can see just an example of a report also that they can publish, and they can publish these reports on any topic as determined by the legislature. One nice thing about legislative audit shops is that the legislature can choose the topics they look at and they can meld that with legislation. So you can see here there's a biennial work plan. And then on the right side, you can see a lot of audit topics that are directed by legislation. So it becomes a tool that the legislature can use to direct audits to look at, again, at topics that you all care about as you pass legislation and as you review existing statute. So with that, just some resources to share. Happy to answer questions after you hear from my colleague Carrington Skinner, who's going to talk about performance measures.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you, Will. Appreciate it.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White]: You have the e board. It's very interesting. Yeah.

[Senator Randy Brock]: I'm just So welcome

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: in. It's

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: good to

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: know. Great.

[Carrington Skinner (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: Thank you all very much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. I'm going to share my screen also. I've got a few slides here. Great. All right. Can you all see that? Yes.

[Senator Randy Brock]: Yes. Great.

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: All

[Senator Randy Brock]: right. Well, great.

[Carrington Skinner (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: Well, thank you very much. As Will said, I'm Carrington Skinner. I'm also a program principal at NCSL. But I'm on a different team called the Center for Results Driven Governing. So we come at this oversight accountability question from a slightly different angle. We're really looking at how states are bringing performance evidence and data into this work and help them do their jobs. I just want to start with a broad overview of the concepts as we talk about them on our team and then look a little bit more about how states are measuring performance. And then also, we'll look at a few state examples, as Will mentioned. Our goal is really just to provide some food for thought for some different options about how states are bringing performance information, evidence, and data as tools for oversight and accountability. So as I said, my team, the Center for Results Driven Governing, focuses on a question that a lot of our states that we talk to are grappling with, which is how to bring the best available data and evidence into state policymaking to help inform decisions and to understand what's working and what isn't in state government. So we talk about evidence informed policymaking a lot on our team, which can mean a lot of different things to folks. But when we talk about it, we're referring to activities that are rigorous, using that best available data and evidence to help inform decisions. We're looking for things that are actionable, that's identifying tools and practices that states can actually use as part of the decision making process. It's all often results oriented, finding what works and where some more information may be needed. And finally, it's always important to keep in mind that it's an ongoing process of building knowledge to help inform future decisions as states go along. So just to look at the national picture and performance measurement, performance measures and metrics are very commonly used. Virtually every state collects performance information in some form or fashion. As you can see there, about 36 states in DC have statutory requirements to collect performance information. They're often used as a tool, as I said, to promote accountability, to increase transparency, and to really encourage the efficient use of resources. Performance information can also allow decision makers to understand how programs and policies are performing against set goals and targets over time. And for most states, this process is really embedded into the budgeting process.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So

[Carrington Skinner (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: just to go walk through a few common features and considerations before we look at a few state examples. One that we'll talk about, timely reliable data is very top of mind for a number of states. These performance measurement systems and evidence informed policymaking in general are really dependent on having access to accurate relevant data. Also, thinking about the big picture, many of the strategies that we'll talk about are really part of larger efforts by states to do performance management, strategic planning, those sorts of things. Evidence also plays a role for some states. Some states have created requirements for evidence of program effectiveness to be provided. We'll also talk about some structures. Some states have created formal structures and processes, including establishing new offices and agencies to handle this work. And finally, reporting and communication is quite critical for states because this is where the information enters the decision making process and can be viewed by both policymakers like yourselves and also the general public. So for our first example, I wanted to talk about Utah. Many states have formalized work that happens across agencies and across branches. And Utah has done that in statute as part of their performance measurement process. They passed legislation in 2021 and 2023 to formalize that cooperation between the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget, along with the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analysts. They both play a role in developing, reviewing, and approving performance measures. And those defined roles are really provided right there in the statute. There's also other collaborative work that these two offices do as part of performance measurement. They work on developing a performance measurement dashboard and also develop resources like the performance measurement playbook you see there, as well as do training for staff across state legislative and executive branches. Also wanted to mention New Mexico. I believe that New Mexico came up earlier. Their legislative finance committee has developed what they call a legislating for results framework that's based on their state's accountability and government act. It's really about tracking performance data throughout its life cycle. They have five areas of emphasis that you can see there that start with identifying priority areas and doing program inventories, all through overseeing implementation, and then finally monitoring outcomes. One of the things that they do as part of this initiative is produce these things that are called agency report cards. They help provide program ratings and analysis of performance data for state agencies. These are all publicly available online and typically produced on a quarterly basis. There's an example on your screen from the latest report card from the Department of Transportation. They include a number of different measures for each program that may be hard to see, there are several measures there for each program. And then color coded ratings that are really meant to indicate how close an agency is to meeting their targets for the time period, so green, yellow, and red. As also mentioned, many states have been looking capacity to facilitate data sharing and to build data infrastructure because of that recognition that the basis for making evidence informed decisions is having access to that timely, reliable, and specific data. An example of this comes from Indiana. They have a management performance hub, which was initially created in 2014 and then codified into statute in 2017. They support the work in integrating, sharing, and using data as part of the decision making process. One way it does this is through their state's data hub, which compiles data on a number of subject matter areas from across state government. They also have many interactive data dashboards that are publicly available. They have a number of visuals like the one you see there. It's a heat map of naloxone administration that's updated regularly. Some states have also been setting standards for collecting and reporting on the level of evidence that's supporting how effective programs and policies are. Colorado, for example, passed a bill in 2021 that incorporates evidence based decision making directly into their state's budgeting process. The current law spells out five designations that you can see there, proven promising, evidence informed, insufficient evidence, and harmful. These are used to describe the level of evidence of state programs and practices based on the best available research evidence. So basically these evidence designations are provided by agencies and then they're reviewed by staff at the Joint Budget Committee. They're really intended to help legislators prioritize funding requests and better understand how much evidence there is to support how effective state programs are. And here are just a couple of other quick examples of evidence scales. A number of states have developed these and they all look a little bit different. North Carolina there on the left and Rhode Island on the right, But they're all trying to categorize levels of this program effectiveness. State agencies are often asked to put this evidence information along with performance metrics and data into their state budget requests. Very briefly, I wanted to touch on an issue that came up a lot in the past year. A number of states took action to really focus on government efficiency and effectiveness, including through creating new task forces, legislative committees, or offices to manage this work. There are a few examples that you can see there on the screen. In some cases, states altered existing legislative committees to focus more directly on efficiency and effectiveness to make it part of the legislature's role in oversight. Overall, work has included conducting evaluations, identifying cost savings, adding requirements for tracking and reporting performance, and also incorporating technology, artificial intelligence to help improve government service delivery. So it's a very quick overview of how some states are using performance information and evidence to support decision making and to also promote oversight. Here are a number of resources with links that we'd be happy to share from NCSL and other organizations. I did very briefly want to do a little self promotion. Will and I are teaming up for a session this summer in Chicago for NCSL's legislative summit. If you're going to be there, we'd love to see you. The session is called Modern Oversight, Tools to Track, Monitor, and Measure Results. We'll be talking about a lot of the issues we've talked about today, and we'll have some interesting panelists from different states talking about it as well. So we'd love for you to join us there. But with that, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. Happy to answer any questions or follow-up after the meeting, if

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: that would be helpful. Thank you. I want to thank both you, Karen, and also William for joining us today. Have you talked with any of the members of the House Government Operations Committee about this yet?

[William "Will" Clark (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: Hey, thank you for the question. Yeah, we not this session, but last session we did talk. Yeah.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, we're hoping that we will have in harmony with them a bill that comes over from them after our crossover date and then begin work on it here and get to resolve that whole thing by the time the session concludes this year. So, again, thank you both very much. And, not sure where you are, but, have a good weekend. If you're aware of the snow falls, that's fun sometimes too. It's supposed to start here pretty soon. So thank you very much.

[William "Will" Clark (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: Thank you for having us.

[Carrington Skinner (National Conference of State Legislatures)]: Thank you for having us. Appreciate it.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Take care. Our final witness today is former pro tem and former state senator Tim Ash, who's now in the audit department with, actually your, the deputy and, have announced that, you have future plans,

[Tim Ash (Deputy State Auditor; former Senate President Pro Tem)]: Well, those future plans are for discussion another day, but yes, I'm the Deputy State Auditor. Good afternoon, everyone, and Senator Morley, congratulations on your arrival to that August chamber. My first term was, I believe, your last term in the house, and I got to watch you, and I thought you were one of the most effective house members, so glad you're there. Thank you. I'm going to be as brief as you'd like me to be. I'm not between you and Emile, but I'm between you and the snowstorm, so I am sensitive to that. I find myself a little torn because there's the bill that's before you, but then there's work being done in the House, as you alluded to, Senator Collamore, and I just want to maybe speak a little bit more thematically to provide encouragement from our office about just what you said, finding a way to get to the finish line this year for something that's been elusive since the original Government Accountability Committee was eliminated. Back in 2023, I was one of the people who testified on behalf of the auditor's office to that summer committee. We had raised a few issues, some of which were more timely than, one of which was actually consistent with what Senator Brock mentioned about the legislature passes things, then you find out they didn't really happen. We had done some work around rulemaking, and all of the pieces of legislation that set in motion different rules for different activities of state government, and we did what I think was really the first ever review to determine whether those rules that were set in motion actually happened, were deadlines met, were the rules being put into legislation in a consistent format so that legislators really knew what they were asking of the particular departments, and as a result of that, both your legislative counsel have a more systematic approach to that now, and we've noticed that in legislation, it's far more tightly constrained so that the legislature is more likely to get what it is looking for, but the bulk of our testimony got to the heart of something that Senator Brock said at the first meeting of that summer committee a few years ago, and he said that what we really need is a targeted, focused legislative oversight committee, and the auditor's office agrees very strongly that that would be a great benefit to the House and the Senate. The House is a little bit further along. They've taken testimony, I think, three times now on an equivalent version of this concept. It has the same goals, I think, of what this joint committee that's on S-three 24 has, but it takes a slightly different form. I'm just going to say what I think, from our office's point of view, are the key elements of a reconstituted oversight committee of some function. One, and this is the way it is constructed in the Senate bill, is that the voting members of the committee should only be legislators, in our opinion. This is a legislative oversight committee. The goal is not to tear down the governor, or this governor, or a future governor, but it is to hold the executive branch accountable to further the things that have been enacted in legislation, and so while consulting with and receiving input from different executive branch officials may be appropriate, Any voting members should, we believe, be legislators themselves. The House bill, just to describe why I'm emphasizing this, rather than your version, which has eight members, four House members, four senators, The House version, in its current form, has five members, two of whom would be House members, two Senate, and then one appointed by the governor. I think that what they're trying to achieve is to make sure that this doesn't seem like a politicized tool to go after the executive branch, and we certainly appreciate that, but I think that the way that the Senate bill is constructed and previous years' efforts that didn't get to the finish line can achieve that objective by making sure that the composition of the committee is truly bipartisan in an equivalent fashion. The Senate bill before you has eight members, and from each chamber, note more than two can be from the same political party. That effectively protects the executive branch from inappropriate politicization of the work of an oversight committee, because it creates this even vote, if you will, from a partisan point of view, which then would require the selection of things to be reviewed to be embraced by more than just one of the parties sitting on that committee. Independent of the executive branch, key. Nonpartisan in that sense of the way it's constructed, absolutely critical. One of the stumbling blocks in previous years, I think there's been a worry that a joint oversight committee would turn into, I don't know, people think it would be some kind of joint committee on steroids that would go out with badges and try to be a super committee in a way that exercises almost like policing functions within government, and I know that's never been the intent, but where that plays into the bill's design would be trying to create the parameters around which the areas of review will be selected. The Senate bill, as drafted, would allow the committee itself to select if the issue area or topic fits a description of a topic of, I think, significant concern, is the term, and it uses a monetary threshold of over $100,000,000 if it impacts many Vermonters, things like that. That still leaves open a lot of room for debate about what that constitutes. The House is exploring a slightly different approach, which is that every committee, every standing committee in the House, would forward topic or area that they wanted this committee to review. The Senate side would do the same, and then three of those items would be selected for the upcoming year from both chambers to be reviewed, so there'd be a fairly manageable number of areas that were going to be subjected to the kind of scrutiny and review, and that there would be clear buy in from all of the standing committees by virtue of that process of feeding the issues up. That, I think, was an attempt to make sure that people wouldn't worry about a rogue joint committee that just started kind of going off on different topics because they felt like it was in the news or was going to be an effective political cudgel for some reason, so this would mean it's coming up through that process. One thing based on the NCSL folks who just spoke, we would really strongly discourage the legislature from adding any performance audit function to any joint committee, and while the NCSL guys were sort of speaking in very general terms, performance audits using generally accepted government auditing standards, they're not the same as a policy brief or a short white paper or the kind of analysis that this committee envisions. Those types of performance audits take a long time. They follow very rigid standards that the auditors have to follow. The number of people who do this work is fairly limited, so recruitment is really hard. That's what our office does, so if, for whatever reason, there was an extremely strong desire to get into the auditing business, it would make more sense to have a discussion with the auditor's office about how to perhaps collaborate a little bit in a bit more strong fashion. I would not try to create a second auditing function. I think you'd be setting yourself up for a lot of pain and suffering, and it's not quite what I think the motivation behind this is. Then one final word of recommendation, and this is as someone who's followed the plight of this attempt for the last three years, is I would recommend that you don't over engineer how the committee will do its reviews of the topics that are on its plate, which is to say, Don't try to create an entire set of procedures that the committee is going to face, because then it's going to cause more confusion in the process of trying to pass the bill. It seems to me that the most important thing is that people understand the need for an independent legislative oversight committee, and then give the committee some time and let it have a track record to show what it's capable of doing on behalf of all of the peers in the House and Senate, but don't try to overprescribe how that should look from the outset, because I think this joint committee would clearly need to work with joint fiscal and wedge counsel to think about how to have a nonpartisan objective way of reviewing how things have gone, and you might not be able to anticipate what that ought to look like when you're drafting this bill. So that's just a bit of advice. And then finally, I'm gonna wrap where Senator Brock started today when he talked about the frustration sometimes that you pass a bill, then the thing doesn't happen. Our office just sent out a memo that many of you may have seen yesterday about radon testing in schools. We became interested in a bill that passed, I want to say in 2021, which required that all schools test for the presence of radon, and then a year later, the deadline was extended to 06/30/2025. Our office, we didn't want to set out and do a full blown audit, but we just did a bit of an investigative piece of work. Our core question was, they were required to test for radon in every school in the state. Did they do it? The reason we had to do this was because the legislation didn't require schools to actually tell anyone that they complied. No one at the Department of Health, no one at the Agency of Education had a list of who did or did not do the testing. We reached out to every superintendent in the state and found that 70% of schools had followed the law. 30% had not. Now, from our point of view, that's discouraging, because the law is the law, and it was there to protect children who are susceptible to radon in the lungs, as are the staff and teachers who are there day after day. The good news is that because we contacted those school districts who hadn't yet tested, many of them immediately said, Oh, whoops. We've got to get on that. As a result of our poking around, we think that most schools will have probably tested within the next six months, but it was concerning that four or five years of runway to follow the law, 30% of schools hadn't been tested. We were going to continue on and look at the independent schools. They were also required, but the lessons we learned, we'd already established through the public schools, and just from a resource point of view, we told the Department of Health and the Agency of Education, We're handing off to you to do with this information what you will. I mentioned that example as just one of probably many, where the follow-up isn't clear, and so having a committee that is there to make sure that government's performing the way it was intended to, the kind of value that it could offer. So I'll leave it there.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Questions for Tim? No? Okay, thank you very much. I was a member of CAC. Yes. For, I don't know,

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: four or five years.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I shared the frustrations because we we just kept together. We had all psyched up. We're gonna get this done, and then

[Christopher Book (Vermont Funeral Directors Association)]: nothing happened.

[Tim Ash (Deputy State Auditor; former Senate President Pro Tem)]: Yeah. So it's I I think it's an exciting thing. It could be it could be a really fantastic joint committee, and I think there's been a tendency in the past, people say, Oh, well, Joint Fiscal Committee does everything in the off session. Joint Fiscal Committee is supposed to have a fairly limited role, which is to make the financial decisions on behalf of the legislature when the legislature's not in session, and then maybe to get updates on some things. What this joint committee concept has in mind is quite different. It is overall government performance, making sure that Vermonters are getting the results they're supposed to get from the programs. It's not about political score settling or making people look bad. It's about improvement. Some of the examples from other states, know, do you need the fancy, glossy websites and brochures? Maybe not, but conceptually what they're doing seems really powerful and helpful.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay, Tim. Always good to see you, and I hope you have a great weekend, and we'll be in touch.

[Tim Ash (Deputy State Auditor; former Senate President Pro Tem)]: Well, Senator Collamore, it's not every day I get to talk to a Hall of Famer like you, so I think it's a great way for me to finish my week, and I'm wearing a tie that I put on just for today's discussion here that was given to me by the late Senator Mazza, who always told me that I looked too dour, and so we had these sort of peppy springy ties. Okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: A good weekend, Tim. Good to see you.

[Tim Ash (Deputy State Auditor; former Senate President Pro Tem)]: Bye bye. Drive safely.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. That is what we have on our agenda today, committee. Anything else? With that in mind, we will adjourn for the day and the week and see all of you on Tuesday.