Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good afternoon. Welcome in to the Senate Committee on Government Operations Committee meeting of Tuesday, 03/10/2026. We're back after what hopefully was a somewhat restful week for the 180 members of the General Assembly and our guests. First up today is some of you, two of you, three of you will remember last year passing out the early childhood education bill, and, it has gone through a couple of changes and started up again as a new bill this year in Senate Health and Welfare. So we've been asked to at least take a look at it. And joining us today, Jen Collam's gonna drive with us on this pretty much.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Hi, Andy. Thank you so much. May

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: I just ask a question?

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

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: course. What do you mean that started as a new bill? It started as our bills, new passed committee. I

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: know. It's bill.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Jen will do her best to explain very quickly, and I understand y'all have something else at one Well, no, we don't, actually.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: We have till February.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Okay.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: You know Senator Morley? I do because we've spent a lot of time on this bill and senate health and welfare.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Ah, okay.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: So s one nineteen last year was after this committee, it passed the Senate and it was joined with the OPR bill. Then it was removed from the OPR bill on the House side and the OPR bill passed, but then it was without a bill number. Year, we were asked to make some changes to the bill, which we did, and it was reintroduced through Senate Health and Welfare, where we spent quite a bit of time this session. A couple of just significant changes that we wanted to talk to you all about and make you aware of. We're headed to senate finance right after this, so the bill is, I believe, speaking out of term when I say it's expected to move.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And I'm just asking if I didn't Yes, sir. Identify you before. Oh, and I didn't identify myself.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: I'm sorry. Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation. Thank you. Thanks for Yes, having

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Senator Clarkson. What is the bill number? The bill is S206. Thank you. We don't have possession of it. This is our fly Correct. This is the driver.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Wanted to point out a couple of new features. You'll recall that this bill licenses early childhood educators who are working in programs that are regulated by the child development division, that's family childcare homes and facility based centers. We have four designations, ECE one, two, and three. In this committee, we also created another pathway for family child care providers who didn't want to get formal education and who wanted to stay in that family child care provider role. And we did that as as a means to not lose workforce. So that's been a significant focus on this effort. Well, in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee this year, that's also been a focus, trying to ensure that we don't lose working. And so we have there's a new pathway in this bill for the ECE two level, and that's a transitional measure. And we kind of consider the transitional time of this bill as the first eight years because there are transitional licensures that are available during that eight year period for people who haven't met the qualifications yet. So for the early childhood educator two, which is a lead teacher and that could be somebody who works in a facility or leads a family childcare home. We have a variance for obtaining the ECE two. And that variance is that during that eight year transition period, we're going to allow folks who have completed 21 core 21 credits in the core knowledge areas of early childhood education to get the ECE two. So if you've completed 21 credits, you won't have

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: to get the full

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: associate's degree. You can complete those 21 credits that are super focused on early childhood education, and you'll be able to get the ECE two. And that's during that eight year transitional period. Because one of the things that we've heard about from the field is folks who are concerned about getting an associate's degree, who have been in the profession for a long time, and Frankly, the general education credits, it sounds like could be a deterrent for folks who are in the profession already. We created this transitional pathway includes coursework or you can get it through experience. So if and I'll use CCD for Community College of Vermont as an example. They have a prior learning assessment program that you can go through where if you have college have had college level learning through your prior experience, they can afford you credit for that. So specifically in the bill, there's an allowance to earn those 21 credits or to get the ECE two through that prior learning experience evaluation done

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: by an accredited higher learning institution. So you'd still be evaluated? Yes. Right. Okay.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: That was my only concern. Yes. Yes. It still

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: has It's to be the same experience. You have to be evaluated.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: It has to be assessed as college level learning. That's right. So that was the really that was the main kind of exciting news to report to this committee. Also, we've put in a new exemption from licensure for folks who are working exclusively in public schools just to make it crystal clear. So

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Oh my god.

[Emily Tennantbaum]: We added that. Satisfied.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: We also added a report back, which I'm really excited about because I think this is such a big program and it's gonna require a lot of work from OPR and it affects like five to 6,000 people in the workforce. So we're happy to have a report back three years after we start issuing licenses. So that gives us the first initial license period, plus we'll see who has renewed. Mhmm. So that will give us a better understanding of the data, how many people are in the workforce and the resources that if they're, you know, whatever resources are required for further implementation of the program.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Morley. And there was a hiring of a couple positions That's right. And so there was some one time GF funds Correct. That was going to be taken out, but then the rest of the time just to get it going, and then the CCC tax is what I call it, child care contribution tax, which is past company's bill. Mhmm. Payroll tax?

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yes.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Should be funding should be funding it all. Right, it's gonna be funding this going forward, but there is an initial Probably. There is an initial hiring a couple.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: That's right. So, and in S one nineteen, you may recall that we had not just two positions from the first fiscal year, but we included kind of future language for further positions that we thought we would need, we took that language out. So right now, we have two positions, and we have asked for a general fund appropriation for that. And then we do expect that for year two of the program and, again, it's before we're issuing licenses. So we haven't had any revenue come in from license fees. We're going to be coming back and asking for next year to fund those two positions that were created this year, but we took it out of the bill this year because future appropriations, I guess, we

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: we shouldn't have. So why isn't this coming out of our payroll tax revenue? So Because this is to improve and better the delivery of early childhood education. I mean, this fits into the purpose of what would raise that A

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: 100%. And so the payroll tax revenue really goes to help families afford. I appreciate that. But also is to that I to enable the betterment of the profession. That's right. And so people can also use that funds. There are programs for those funds to help people get scholarships for getting this new education that's required. It will help people get to the qualifications that they need to get this licensure. But OPR is a special fund agency, and all of our programs are funded through the licensure fees that we get from the profession. So Okay. So model is consistent. Yeah. We needed to keep that consistent. So Too bad.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: What is revenue source could use. I

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: mean, for the per an important perp. Yes. But

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: You're you're being good. Yeah. I try to be.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: So we did limit the positions to the two that we're gonna need for this fiscal year, which is a general counsel staff attorney position and and an executive officer to help us because this is gonna be a poor profession. It's gonna be a substantial effort. The other thing that that is is gone from the what you saw last year, you know, we had a provision for the first two rounds of licensure fees to be paid from this fund for the child care financing from the payroll tax. That is out of this year's bill. And the reason that that's out of this year's bill is simply because our understanding is that those funds are being used by families and for subsidies and by programs and by people getting to that education, And there would not be enough funds left to fund those licensure fees for the first few years of the program. Senator Vyhovsky.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. This is little is related, but it's a little bit of a broader question, and it is around funding OPR. I know that for many years, probably as long as I've been in the legislature, there's been a shortfall every year. And I also have continued to have concerns with the equity in the funding only coming from whatever license is being overseen. I think early childhood education is a perfect example of a not incredibly highly paid profession that's going to need a fair amount of oversight, thus making those licenses incredibly expensive. And so I'm wondering if there's been any movement on revamping how OPR is funded and how OPR silos those licensure funds and instead to work towards allowing commingling so that we might drive down the cost in lower paid professions for licenses.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Understood. So and thanks for that question. So as you may recall, OPR has been operating at a deficit for quite some time. Currently, it's at the lowest point that it's been in in quite a few years. We're at about a $300,000 deficit. Because of this deficit, the legislature asked us to study how we're funded because our funding scheme was designed in the nineteen seventies, and a lot has changed in professional regulations since then. So so we submitted an interim report last year. But in that report, we said we needed a little more time because we need data to figure out how much time we spend on each of our professions. And it goes to the equity point that you're making, Senator. So as of now, OPR employees and SOS employees are doing positive reporting. So on our time sheets every week, we have to report exactly how much time we are spending on each of these professions because we need to have an understanding of what the program actually costs to run. And then we've got a report that we'll be submitting before January '27 that will come up with or that will provide the data so we'll all understand how much time does OPR spend on what professions, what are the advisor professions cost, what are the board professions cost, what is enforcement cost, which is one of our significant expenditures? What is the IT cost? And we're gonna see where we're spending our money, and we're gonna have some recommendations about funding structure and how that needs to change. So that report you will have in hand before January.

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

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Thank you.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I remember I believe we had a seven year ramp when s 01/19 left here, but you mentioned it's now 08/08.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: It's an eight year ramp. So there are transitional licenses that you can get, and you can have those transitional licenses kind of as a matter of course for the first for the first cycle when you first get the license and then two more renewal cycles. And then if you need more time, you'll have to show cause as to why you need more time to get to those qualifications for a fourth renewal. So because we're on a two year cycle and you now have four

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

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Yep. It's eight years. Yep. And so since you know, hopefully, if if this when when this bill passes, it'll be two years before we implement. So what that means is people will have ten years from now to get to these qualifications. So we we feel that that's a a great ramp.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And as I recall, the I don't wanna say pushback, but I think it was. A to space. From two quarters. One of them was AOE, and then the others were the folks that are already in this space working Yes. Who didn't want additional requirements of them. So I'm hoping that the two new provisions, certainly the first one has to satisfy those that are currently working in that space. We hope so. And I don't know about where the agency is on this, but

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: We did hear testimony in Senate health and welfare from AOE, and their concern focused primarily and I think, actually, it's solely around the use of the word educator.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I think I got an email today. I'm pretty sure I did it from someone. I don't know if they were representing the agency or just had a comment to make, and there was still some

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: consternation. About it. Yeah. Well, they are educators. I mean, parents are educators, but I think when you're paid to be an educator, you're an educator. That's right. Mhmm.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Sounds to me.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator White.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Thank you, mister chair. So we're just oh, and I see Tanya. That

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: might be a legacy hand.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Oh, sorry.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: No? Okay. It's a big a new band.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: So you're just providing us with an update on the bill. We're not taking it into committee and making any changes, but we should expect to see it on the floor at shortly.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: We would have an amendment.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I would not offer any amendment this evening other than to maybe bring it back to the original parts of the bill that have been changed. I think the original seven years was fine. You know, there's lots of little things that I liked how we did it, and I respect the changes, and they seem to have moved everything a little bit more expansively rather than strictly. Sure. Yeah. That's the other way you'd say that. The influence on

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: the committee is profound.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: And my only initial thing is that I really appreciated the auditor's report that just came out. And I think that the timing of this bill, particularly when we think about the safety of children and the

[Emily Tennantbaum]: professionalization of this workforce,

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: the auditor's report made me go, oh, wow. Yep. The reason we're doing this is because there's safety on the line. And I think that in any way that the health care committee is going to present the bill, I'm not sure who's doing it. But I would make sure that they stress that the reason we originally put it in the OPR bill was because we are protecting your responsibility as an organization is if there is harm that could be done to the user of that service. So I do hope that and whatever the presentation of the bill is that that's stressed because the auditor report really shocked me, when I had thought we were further along and has even made me feel more strongly that this bill is a necessary step. So thank you

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: for your work. That's your

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: That's your Maybe I'll give that maybe I'll say it.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: But that's your force behind I

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: might have to say that.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Standard and Vyhovsky. Great point.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. I know that when we worked on this last year, there was a concern from educators, like K-twelve educators, not just about the use of the word educator, but I think it was the ECE three category being an almost exact copy of a current teacher's license. Is that still an issue that they are having?

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: That's not something that's been brought forward this year. It's that we testified and did not. They said that their concern with the bill at this point was the use of the term educator.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. And did the NEA or any of the folks that represent educators weigh in at all? Because my understanding is that is exactly the same in this bill as it was last year, so it would surprise me if suddenly they don't have that concern.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Yeah. I remember. Yeah. Don't think they testified. Okay. Thanks.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yep. Any other questions for Chad? Do you know what the well, I couldn't ask him. Good morning. What was the committee vote? I think it was a five-zero. Okay. And then it's Gulick, I believe, that's going to be

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: The presenting. Yeah. Is presenting. Okay. She needs to get better first. Yeah. Do we she's She's upset.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Oh, I thought you were making comment on. No. She

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: has a great Abeligator report. Martine, if you're listening

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: to this, your fabulous reports. Sorry. Sorry. I ask, maybe Emily has the answer, maybe Jen does. What is our payroll tax now producing in revenue a year?

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: I don't wanna speak on the record, but I

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Is it she's Yes. Sorry.

[Emily Tennantbaum]: On the record, Emily Tennantbaum, the busker transaction network. I don't wanna state the exact number on the record because I don't know it off the top of my head, but I do know we are under projecting. So, like, we are the proposal in the budget right now is to have general funds come over to make sure we fill the deficit that's gonna be. So great news. It's performing. There's a lot of uptake, and it's at capacity. There is, in short, no childcare contribution funds available at this moment for extras, I guess. Like, in the past, it's been a little bit opposite. Right? We've been able to but the projections have been low. So right now in the twenty seventh budget, there's a $6,700,000 shortfall that is going be made up in general fund over to the child care contribution fund, which means that we're seeing what we wanted to see in terms of uptake in the program being by family. Substantially, yes. And just as a reminder too, we draw for childcare, both from the general fund and the childcare contribution to all the implementation across the board of the childcare system. So it's not just childcare contribution fund that's supporting childcare system across the board. Thank you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay, Jen, thank you.

[Jennifer Polin, Director of the Office of Professional Regulation]: Great. Thank you so much.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: We'll see you back.

[Emily Tennantbaum]: I'll be in that seat shortly. Just going to go

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: If there's this kind of a deficit. Are we online? Yes. If if there's a substantial deficit every year, I think it would have to be revisited. Think there's a huge challenge getting there.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. No. No. I agree with that. And then also the fees, so I recall that they presented some information where the fees go up. I think it's every two years.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Oh, yeah. No. Fees do go up.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. The fees, but no. No. The payroll

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: tax creditors. So unless they unless we raise it. Right. So Right. But that's still the bullying. It told me what the deficit was. I had not appreciated that there was a deficit in the in the child care fund.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Because there's more people using it? Yeah.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: The uptick is so big. It's great. But I mean, we needed it to be good because we need people to get back into the workforce. I mean, it's so important, but as we had suspected well, it's even more successful than we then just did. I think that's a great point. Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So our next event is until 02:30. So my suggestion would be to take maybe a half hour break and, come back in around quarter after, twenty after, and Good. I'm not gonna work. Maybe not Wow. Planned as well as I should have.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: No. That was just speedier that you

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: It's the first day back.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: you.