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[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Welcome back to the Senate Committee on Government Operations meeting of Tuesday, 03/24/2026. Up for consideration now is H907. This is an acclimating to the legislative review of reporting requirements. Tucker is, as always, Anderson, done a great job. I believe we walked through a fairly high level overview of this bill, And he is here with us again to take us as deeply as folks want to take. I know, for instance, Governor Vyhovsky kept copious notes when we met with our house counterparts. And so I'm not gonna remember everything about this bill, Tucker. And we also have Thomas Weiss from Montpelier who has one request about one of the, reports that I think we indicated we might be ending. And I think he has pretty good case for keeping it. Congrats. So good afternoon.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. Good afternoon. Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel. I am happy to do as deep a dive as I can. Who knows how shallow the end of the pool I'll be jumping into is, but I am ready and able to tell you information, the statutory setting for each one of these reporting requirements, depending on which you wanna focus on, or an attempt to pull up reports from the reports database to inform you, for example, when a particular report may have been filed. Just out of curiosity, based on the testimony that you hear today, I did look into, the memo file by the witness who will follow me and looked up whether that report had ever actually been filed. I was able to confirm that it was filed one time in 2011. It was initially kept in session law. That session law provision, was passed as an ongoing reporting requirement, is being repealed, but it is being permanently codified, which I believe you'll find in the in the SIS memo, some recommendations for beefing up that future reporting requirement as recommended by your PEP's committee comp appropriations.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Very frothy, that would say.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So are there particular sections or provisions that you would like to take a look at? How may I be of service?
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I'll look to Senator Vyhovsky if she has any specific question about it. Because we did this at 21 state bill, and we did walk through a lot of it. Some of it is And I struck, and so it's not necessarily all of 21 pages. In fact, it's quite a bit less than that. But we may all not feel the same way about what the House did in terms of either not requiring a report, keeping a report alive, or continuing to ask for them on an annual basis. I know it's been a while since we worked at this.
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: I think that's fine,
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: because I know it's here.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. So if you have any specific questions.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. So the first question I have is around the Treasurer's Local Investment Advisory Committee. It was the House's position that the report was no longer useful. I'm wondering
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: if
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: there, if you have more information, is that duplicative Does it exist somewhere else? Is this one of them? Because I I don't know that I agree. I think we should know how the treasurer's office is investing.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Great one to start with. So if you take a look at section 19 on page 19, and as passed out by the Housekeeping Operations Committee and the House itself, that report is permanently required.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, okay.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So they did not end up removing it. If you would if you text in section 19, it is going to be exempted from further with dealing with peers. Okay. The
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: next one was the report on drone usage by law enforcement agencies. What I recall and what I have written down, and it may not be what finally came to us, is that the House's position was that the report is useful but does not have permanent importance. Is that where they landed?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So, that is proposed for repeal page 15, line one subdivision nine, and the list of sections that are being repealed in their entirety.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, so that's not one that they decided to keep for longer. They're okay. So, yeah, I definitely don't heard that. Does that information exist elsewhere? Is it duplicative?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: That I am not certain of. I'm just doing
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: a quick
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: check to see. It looks like it is annually filed. There was a short gap of about two or three years where the Department of Public Safety was not filing this report, but we do have instant reports between 2018 to 2021, and then 2025 and 2026 about Vermont Law Enforcement Agency drone use from the Department of Public Safety. So
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: it is I'm actually just going off the chart. I'm not in the bill itself. Page 15, line one. Okay. It would be great to have whoever, Department of Public Safety, end talk. I just, I have concerns about repealing. I think we should know how our government is using drones to surveil us.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Was it just the power
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: of the public The Department of Public Safety.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: That's where they were charged with being at all. It wasn't just It's
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: a report on drone use by law enforcement agency.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, just by law. Because we also
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: had one on drone use in other capacities. This particular section of law requires that by September 1 of every year, law enforcement agency in the state that has used a drone as part of their law enforcement activities has to report what they used that drone for, how they did the law enforcement investigation to the Department of Public Safety. And then by December of every year, DPS has to consolidate the reports they've received from all of the law enforcement agencies in the state and provide that information to the general assembly. Got it. Okay.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Do
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you still wanna have testimony on that?
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Probably. I just, I don't, I don't see a case where it would not make sense to have that report available to us. And so if someone wants to make that case to me, like, So I don't know if that's the department, and they're doing the report.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, sounds like there's two reports. There are individual agencies that are using it and then reporting to DPS, and then DPS has a report to us. My guess is you could get that information and report by just asking the Department of Public Safety to provide you with it, but I'll do whatever you suggests.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I think let's start by hearing from the Department of Public Safety. Okay. And then my understanding is the temporary employee is employed by the Department of Corrections report is duplicative, that information is available elsewhere. But I think that information is available on a yearly basis, and we were looking at it quarterly in this report.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: A look because there's there's quite a few of these temporary and four to zero purposes. Yep. I believe that actually two of them are repealed in here. One is. So I'm gonna try to differentiate. So the general report on temporary employees from the commissioner of EHR is repealed in section two of the bill.
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Okay.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So that is the reporting on the
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Each and the state government wide use of temporary employees. Yeah. Haven't heard about it either. Okay. Now the Department of Corrections, temporary employee report was removed completely from the bill. So the Department of Corrections temporary employee report will still be it is not contained with the information. It will be still quarterly? It'll be reviewed in four years and still reported on the same underlying terms as is currently required. So the DHR report on all temporary employees consolidated has been removed. The judiciary report of temporary employees has been permanently required, and all of the other intermediate reports from specific agencies have been left in place for the time being.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That seems sort of backwards to me, that we would instead have individual agencies do it instead of the like, I don't think we should be repealing reports tracking state government employee usage. You don't? No. We should be. Both so what I'm hearing is that the judiciary and the Department of Corrections reports remain intact, but the general report that looks across state government at PEP usage is being revealed.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. But just the reporting requirement to the general assembly. This only touches on the specific requirements for public agencies to report to the general assembly on a specific matter. So the underlying requirement for the Department of Human Resources to track temporary employee usage stays twice. It is the requirement that they submit an annual report concerning all of the temporary employees of the state government to the government operations committees that has been revealed.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. And that information is still generally available to the public or generally available if I ask for it or generally available because my concern is if I have to ask for it, is my experience sometimes when I have to ask for something is I get it four months later.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So the answer to all of your questions, I believe, is yes. So still available to any committee of the General Assembly to request, if any, the agency responds to the request, and available to the public because this is very likely under the statutory definition
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: of the public record and public records act. But
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: then the public would have to file a public records request to potentially pay for
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Correct. They'd have to go to the ending ongoing public records, but in this case, it might be all under the routine basis sort of thing, three business days, and likely not triggering more than thirty minutes to work for But who knows? I don't work for DHR. Senator Wygant.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Mr. Chittenden.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: So I had thought on this question that they do have a dashboard that we can look at and you can see at any given moment the number of temporary employees and you can even do like report is not the correct word to use in this instance, but you could basically you can ask to download data for a set time period, which I think if I'm understanding correctly, the point of your report was to track. So if you you could ask the the portal to say, wanna get this period of time from this period of time as, like, a data. That's my understanding. I mean, I can go try it out in the portal, but I remember Beth's pastigi walked people through it. And I think you can download essentially the data you're looking for from the portal. Okay. But that's if you are not able to do that, I would be very interested in your perspective being corrected in the bill. But if you can, then that feels like
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. If it gets easily accessible, quickly accessible, then fine. They don't need to to report it. But then why would we keep the individual departmental ones if it's easily accessible and could easily be downloaded? Yeah. This is a bad,
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: maybe we can test it. Maybe if you
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: did. Yeah.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay, let's have her, somebody keep me notes hopefully because I'm not.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I was hoping.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: You can in fact on the open data portal website sort by temporary employees which will at least give you account. It also tells you the job title and department for each one of those temporary employees including their salary, whether that's salary, salary, other wage and the date range of the employment for that individual.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So I don't know then why any of the temporary employee reports are necessary, if I can gather all of that information in a moment while also lawyering.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: What a point.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. While you think about that, I'm just gonna ask because doing this taking this bill up again, please. We think about the work that we did in on our end. We have not incorporated our work on our decision making, have we?
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: No. This is the way the house passed.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: This right. So they've done their house their first bonds, and then we can see what's been incorporated from our work going through this or by the time. What hasn't?
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: We certainly can modify their bill. This was passed by the house.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: No. No. I I appreciate that. I guess I'm
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Although, to be clear, I think I know what you're getting at. The house committee on government operations did take into account any and all feedback we've seen from senate. And we
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: put this together in a joint The last walkthrough, I
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: did note that there were no senate committees save one who returned their servings.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: We did. We did ours
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: with them. You did yours together. We did ours together. Say you want. We are exemplary.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Well, another together. But which was the one senate committee that did it?
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yes. We. Oh. Economic development, though.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, no. We did not do what I am.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Shame. So That's right.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yes. Shame. Three hours a day. We don't have time to do that. I know this was a piece
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: of our work, but it wasn't in this. Okay.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Okay. Thank you. That answered my question.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Does Senator Vyhovsky have any other
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. What happened with the report of the state ethics commission? We cannot let that go. And the way the bill's laid out, it doesn't match with
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: this at so it's very difficult. It has been delayed.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So the determination based on feedback from the committees of jurisdiction was that the majority of committees that received this report determined that it was a value, but potentially not a permanent value, and that it would be revisited in four years. So it is up for review pre BSA section twelve twenty six subsection B, State Ethics Commission Reports, Concerning, Complaints, Guidance, Training, and Recommendations will be
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: reviewed in two thousand and thirty minutes. Okay. Senator
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Morley. I think I heard you state a while ago that this is required by the statute that you look at these reports every so
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: many years. Five years. Every five years.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Which is obviously this is
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: the fifth year because we're looking at all the Right.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: All these reports. I'll let Tucker answer, but I think I
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: have the answer. It's it's more insidious than that. Alright. So This gets reviewed every two years. So once a biennium, the general assembly reviews all of the reports. It will be subject to a five year review period within the end of a biennium and the beginning of the next.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So where are we in this process, just You're dealing
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: with this biennium's review of reports that were set to expire, quite shockingly
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: between 2018 to 2028.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It's a big range and some of
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: them are. Well, also thought I remember saying that if the committees don't take action on the report that they are no longer required by statute.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: No. No. The process that has been adopted by the government operations committees is that the surveys go out and there is a deadline for the committees to respond to the surveys. Think of it similar to budget requests. There's a deadline that those committees,
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: operations committees need to do their work. Same thing for GovOps. So the surveys go out, and if the committees do not respond by the deadline, then GovOps assumes the answer is we don't need any of these.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: As opposed to we need them all.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: As opposed to we need them all, and that's explained in the memo.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Half empty as opposed to The half
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: back in the day, there was an individual named Otto Krausz Oh, yeah.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: It wasn't back in the day.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: That was just recent.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, it is.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: One of the great,
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: great people. I started. Exactly. Fifteen years. 2017 feels like that. Oh my god. And
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I mean, was, it was a decade ago.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: General, there's a line in the memo that is borrowed from some of the testimony that bubbled up pretty frequently, which was that unless there is a specific need for this written report, the assumption should be that it's not necessary for the legislative work. Okay. Again, this branch of government has investigatory authority.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And we can take on
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: it at point. Pulling information, you could always demand written reports in the future. You have subpoena ballot, right? We do. You could always grant a committee the ability to subpoena individuals from the executive branch, bring them in there to answer questions about their reports. Yes, but
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: How interesting that sounds.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: No one ever does it.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Well,
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: 1993 was the last time I did
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I was going to say a long time ago.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I've been doing some research. Performance accountability requirements in contracts and grants?
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Is the Chief Performance Officer.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: This is the Chief Performance Officer. Again, though, we haven't did we have to admit Brian at the beginning of
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the year? No. Did. Oh, we did. Not this year. I don't think so.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: You know? Well, last year I thought we did but maybe it was the biennium.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But I don't think why we had him before. I don't know
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: why he isn't with us all the time talking about how things are going.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, so we did last biennium because we had a bill to strengthen our review of contracts that have been privatized. Right. And so I'm kind of concerned about the idea that we would not focus on performance and accountability of our contracts and grants.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Know, I
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: think They could just throw the money out and hope for the best.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah, well, sometimes that's the way we should.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, but I don't push children. No, we should knock on children. I don't. It's section one. It is the very first section.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh. Sorry, I was looking through the reports because I seem to remember from your joint discussion with House government operations and staffs was said this was one of those
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: reports that had not been filed.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, think that's a problem. I think I I feel like if we say you should do a report and you just don't do it, that is not a good reason. That's what we have many departments. I understand that, and this brings me back to, like, the government accountability and It should not be an that we reward with buying, okay. You're not gonna do it. You don't have to.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I seem to remember sitting with the other body's counter party saying, we didn't need this, but I don't remember why.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, I can tell you. I took notes on every moment. Okay. Where, what, not,
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: which Section one.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It's No. It's in this here. Oh. Yeah. It's the bottom
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: of the first page in that thing there.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It's the report of the state. Temporary employees.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: It's from the agency of the administration. It's the performance and accountability requirements in contracts and grants. And I do know Oh, yes. There it is. Body seems to think we don't need it. And I plead straw by
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: the visit. I know. But we did the agreement wasn't the repeal.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: That's what
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: I thought.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: The parole. And I don't know why because the note I have here is that it was possibly duplicative. And what's it duplicative? Yeah.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I was just saying, what is it duplicative of?
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Because you're absolutely right. I would think we would want that. Mhmm.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I don't know. No, it doesn't. And
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: your drive actually notes on all of these. I do too.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But some of them, my note is that I agree with them. On this one, my note is that I do not agree with them.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Like the drone use, we had extend, which we seem to have done.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I don't know. I think we've repealed drone use. Well, Or they have repealed drone know.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: As drone use was to extend it.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yes. What I have in my note on drone use, it written down, is the House position was to extend it. I thought we should keep it permanently, But now what's actually happened is it's been repealed. So it was great that we
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: had that meeting bought. So, but this is good. So let's, let's, I'm gonna mark it that we're interested in reviewing that. Yes?
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: No. No? No. I'd say Melissa, we've not got.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: In her wildest dreams.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. So hopefully,
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: yeah, because I see people keeping notes.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yep. I've got notes. And then we also have don't repeal. I had don't repeal also on the temporary employees with corrections. I said don't repeal DOC not responsive. And and then also
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: somebody else said it was duplicative. And we just learned Yeah. I
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: to go with this.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Also has don't repeal on the temp stuff, but now I'm realizing that much more quickly than waiting a year for a reporter, we can just get it out dashboard. So now I'm confused why they chose to keep any of the temp reports. And on
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: the ethics commission, which we just discussed, I had
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: to maintain. Permanently. Permanently. Yes.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And then now I caught up with us because now I finally found where we are. Yeah. I wasn't working from the village. I was working from. And and speaking, I'm trying to stay and touch up to where we are in this, trying to do the bill and the chart. Tucker, is this is this chart this committee's chart? I can't
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: read it. It's too dinky. It's sorry.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It is. You have young eyes.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I have old eyes. I still cannot see this. I had to zoom in on my computer. This actually was put together by the members of House Governing Operations. So it does have their notes on, in each one of the columns about why they recommended a particular decision based Okay, on their
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: so that goes with the people So that just thought remember
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: as an example, I'll share a Chief Performance Officer report. If you take it away, they said this report is not a good fit for the office. They act as consultants around designing evaluation criteria, but do not have insight into the programs being evaluated. It is unclear if it seems like this information is not being used and appears to be interpretive.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, if they're not the right one to do the report, perhaps we need to find out who is the right one to do the report, because I actually think the report is incredibly important. If it's duplicative, where is that information? Fuck Grange. Well, I think each agency
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: is responsible for, well, I don't know. Agency of Transportation, for instance, if they're gonna hire someone to pave a road, they put it out to bid, they take whoever answers it, take a look at the specs, and then make a decision as to who's gonna do it. That's kinda like how it works. I I don't
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: know. Yeah.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: They sign a contract, whether it's FW Webb or whoever paves roads. And I don't know that the Chief Performance Officer would ever get involved at that level. They would. I don't know.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So then do we need to ask each agency to produce this report and have it sent to their respective committee? And I actually have really significant concerns with this, particularly around the contract with Will Bath. And they're very specific to judiciary, but that is an agency that is being congressionally investigated, that has 1,500 pending lawsuits against it. Like Oh. So I think that actually this is really important information. This is not the best way to get it. I want
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: to know what it They
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: were also subject to the instrumentality decision of the Supreme Court of Vermont, so part of that answer might be the Public Records Act, but I unfortunately have to part time. Okay. My time was limited as to ten minutes ago.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: How was the floor? You have questions.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, obviously we're not ready to
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, come on.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Go through my house.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Talk to the house of bubbles.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: There's another T from Ledge Council under review.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, The T squared T. Yes.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you, Tucker. Thank you very much.
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: We
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: can keep going or we can have Mr. Weiss come up have him delay the rest of his day.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Was gonna say, know it's your first page. Oh, the chart here
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: is being nice. The chart is now that I've found.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Please join us. So everybody should have received a copy of this testimony. You.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Thank you for sending it in advance.
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: You're welcome. Hi, Brian. Welcome. Thank you very much. Good afternoon.
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: I am Thomas Weiss, president of Montpelier, and thank you for taking the time to hear me today. Sure. Page 907 proposes change the requirement for the report on the weatherization assistance program from session law to statute. Unfortunately, the existing report misses a few highly significant data points and concerns which, once identified and updated, would lend itself to wider distribution than only the two appropriations committees. The Office of Economic Opportunity is required to submit annually a report that provides performance data that is available on households weatherized in the past year. This report does go out to the Appropriations Committees, it's available on their Reports and Resources tab on their page under weatherization, yeah, under weatherization for both 2025 and 2026.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Sir, on whose website? OEL? Appropriations
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Committee.
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: Different committees in addition. But it was other reports being generated. That's what I was checking on, and they are. The report is required by Act 192 of 2008, like a long ways ago, under session law. And H nine zero seven proposes to repeal the report and to place the content of the report into OEO's budget request to the appropriations committee. It would be the same information, but not on a report form, but in a document directly. This is part of our appropriation. And the reports go to the appropriations committees, but it's the energy committees that actually hold hearings on whether the weatherization program. As I said, the report is required to go to appropriations committees because they fund the program, and to be most effective, that is money being well spent, I believe the report needs additional information to accurately assess the effects of the nicotine by insulation on the program. An approved report with more detailed assessments would also then be sent to both energy committees for review of potential program improvements. And what I found out is that there is an inequity in how the Weatherization Assistance Program handles remediation of vermiculite between owner occupied housing and child housing. Vermiculitis is a form of insulation, some of which might contain asbestos. And testing of vermiculitis with asbestos is unviolent, so one can't test what's in the attic and see whether it's got asbestos in it or not. So the program says, if you've got vermiculite, we have to believe that it has asbestos in it, and we have to treat it under the asbestos capacity.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I'll answer that. Thank you.
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: So anyway, weatherization assistance program is authorized to fund vermiculite remediation in owner occupied housing units. The program will not fund vermiculite remediation in rental properties where the vermiculite, where the owner does not live in the same building. So the program requires the owner of a rental property to remediate vermiculite before the weatherization and procedure. I think sometimes that vermiculite is not discovered until after the program's partly underway. The issue is most acute when an apartment rented by an eligible tenant paying for heat is owned by an income eligible owner who can't afford the remediation of the vermilion.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Can say, Thank you, chair Collamore. So this issue is very directly something I've worked with. When I was at Efficiency Vermont, I ran Button Up Vermont, which is statewide campaign for weatherization, and this was a consistent concern, especially in Barrie City. I guess there may have been some use of vermiculite consistently some home building there. But what we learned was there was a specific lawsuit that had created a funding source for vermiculite remediation. That was typically what folks were able to draw from in advance. So is this fund is the point you're trying to make that the there is money for it through the lawsuit that was done against, like, the the mine that had provided the chemical or Maybe this has changed, but
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: it's Yes. The I'm aware of what you're talking about. The weatherization program has three or four or five different sources of funding. Some won't handle vermiculite at all, some won't handle upgrading the electrical system, and others will. And so the weatherization program has to pick and choose among the funding sources to fund the project. But one of the choices they have made, and I do cite their document in the seventh page, is that if it's rental property, the owner is required to remediate vermiculite. They will not put the funding into that.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: But I would just say that you can access funding for it to get remediation.
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: Perhaps the homeowner could do that, but it's not clear how much that homeowner is referred to other forces.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, okay.
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: Okay. The money may be available, but is it actually available to the people in the polarization program? Or what are
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: We know that What
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: are the steps that are needed for them to access the money, or does all that money go through the weatherization program and then can't be used by them.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, interesting. I guess I haven't
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: understood that. So anyway, having a work, and so, as I said, sometimes the vermiculite is not discovered until it works such a way. At that point, the weatherization crew is pulled off, and even the non insulation and non static areas, all that work is put on hold So as if there's light bulbs or a heat pump or water conservation fixtures, that work doesn't proceed until the vermiculite is remediated, at least with frontal properties. And currently, the weatherization program requires removal, although EPA recommends enclosure as an option as well. So it's my understanding the homeowner can, you know, cover the insulation in the attic as part of the program, but the rental property owner cannot do that. Okay. And I don't understand that.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah, that's
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: And I tried too late while the localization program has gotten a response to try and clarify some of
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Clarkson.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So that makes some sense given that the owner then can take on the the risk of that risk because they're only exposing their own themselves and their family,
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: but if they're renting the property, they can't afford the risk of of exposing the tenants. Oh, my response is that homes change ownership over time. Ah, so sub so
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: the sub owner doesn't necessarily know that. Right. And there can be some very long term renters as opposed to short term renters. So I don't see that as a convincing argument to being
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: able Right. To make a large But I'm just trying to figure out why it would be that way. Yeah.
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: Anyway, the jargon in the weatherization assistance program is deferral, and that comes in place later. Vermiculite in a building with rental units where the landlord does not live in is automatically deferred, which means the program will not weatherize until the landlord mediates the vermiculite. So my recommendation is to continue the report, to send it to both energy committees because they're the ones who deal with Continue the sending it to appropriations if you so choose. I did not see this report on the spreadsheet we were looking at earlier. So it's not clear to me whether it actually got referred to any of the committees as to whether to keep it or not. Anyway, I suggest one, two, three, four, five different additions to the report dealing with vermiculite. Mhmm. And then the long term goal would be to say, okay, energy committees. You've got this report next year. Let's see about whether it's whether we need to do something, whether we can do something about it. So the enhanced reporting, despite all this, will identify inefficiencies and obstacles to finding weatherization for our low income residents. And the intent is really to clearly document systemic problems in the weatherization assistant programs that affects eligible renters and rental units, and provide additional information to the committees that can amend the program if it's found to be significant enough of a problem to Thank you for your time and attention today.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I don't certainly have any problem including natural resources and energy and house energy. I don't know whether we would be able to add those requirements of the report. I guess we can. Mean, it won't take a bill. I mean, your section 14. Is that where it is? The
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: section 12, and I do put the citation in my letter. And section 14 converts it from a report to the budget information to the appropriations committees. So I would think you could add those five units to other things to be included in the budget information, or if you decided to keep it as a report, to say, we think before it needs to be expanded, but I'm not.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: You'd have to ask your counsel to Yes. Be able to do it right in this bill. Sure.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. So I'm looking at section 14 as part of the office's annual budget testimony, and we could change it or add to instead of just the two appropes, the office shall report to the energy committees. Appropriations utilizing existing resources within state government available for the weatherization data management system, and then add including information. You have number of households, or they have number of households weatherized, the average program expenditure, the average percent energy and non energy benefits, etcetera, etcetera. And then add the total number of all units which had weatherization deferred and the reasons why, the number of rental units which had weatherization deferred and the reasons why. Oh, I see. We broke it all and then The number of rental units deferred specifically because of vermiculite, the backlog of preferred rental units, boy, this is gonna get
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, and it should also go to the Economic and Housing Committee if we're looking at rental units and housing and impact on housing.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I guess.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Like it should, I hear you on energy, but like if it's also, I mean some of the numbers in there are how many housing units have come offline or gone online or As
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: a result of For making it, yeah. Yeah. And the ability to do it or not do it. Right?
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: That would seem to be the best vehicle for getting this recommendation in, and then we would have to go back to
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Section 12. And unrepeal it?
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Where which subdivision of that? 123. Reporting the use of appropriations. Yep. There it is. So are you still keeping notes, somebody?
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I'm sorry. 123? Where's 123?
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Is that this? Page 13 at the top.
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: 12. Oh, okay. It's in section it's in H 907. Yeah. But I'm looking at the section 14.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well Sorry. And What's it in section 12? This is report.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, the repeals. Yeah.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: There it is.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So at the top of page 13
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: Yeah.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Is subdivision three. That's what we want to unrepeal.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: And then have the report go to econ.
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: Right. Section 14 and the recommendations. The house energy, SNRE,
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: plus
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And the two economic developments. Okay.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Hopefully, know what that means later.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I think you've managed to get what you needed to do and accomplish.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. I appreciate that. That's Well, thank
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: you, Thomas, for your vigilance.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Vermiculite's a serious problem. It is. We had to deal with it at our house.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: But we sued the mine, and we get money for it. It would be a real shame if there were people on us. Yeah.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: But I have no idea how much we get a year for that. Yeah.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: It should cover all remediation. It's like an ongoing it's like they
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, so every time there is a need for remediation,
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: they have a They should be paid for, basically. No.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: The debt
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: is either on a slide show by Jeff Wilcox, who's the person who heads that program, or it's in the report. I know I've seen it the last few days doing my research on this, but I don't remember which it is.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. We should invite OEO in.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: OEO and whoever oversees that remediation program. Yeah. OEO. Yep.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: They do
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Why would OEO
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: be Because then they do it through the WAPs. The weather is a it's through the cap agencies. Okay. The WAPs It
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: does seem like an ANR issue.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I It's not through them, though.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yes. I think we've agreed with these recommendations, and we've agreed to keep the reports. I don't know that we need to hear from the LUOs. That would be for
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the Nordstrom.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Well, I wanna know if they need us to add the particulate language.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, it's
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I I gotta could they even give you that information? Could they give us that information?
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: How long they take it?
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Every year from the from my celiac Or remediation
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I guess it maybe we could just email them.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: We don't need
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: to email them. I was just wondering, it was helpful for me to understand why, because I was like, We're doing it. Why do we need to hear more testimony to do it? True. That was helpful.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Thank you. Beggar, it raises an interesting question, which is of all I mean, didn't even know we got vermiculite remediation money. What other remediation runnies do we get from a producer responsibility point of view?
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, there's the tobacco settlement money.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: We have a bunch of reasons that we know about. Are we
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: gonna come up with a new report?
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: But it would just be interesting to know all of them and what that money is that's available because approves must know because they're applying that money to certain
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, yeah. I wonder if JFO would have that information. Well, in my Yay. Let's ask. Upon your Ask JFO. So many of these things is that there is a settlement that never covers all of the damages. And when that settlement money runs out, it's out. So it's interesting that you're saying that the vermiculite because that's not my understanding of, like, how it works work of just saying there's this hanging settlement forever.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. I guess I'll have to look into it, but I just remember it being that it wasn't like there was a pot of money available that was going away. We could basically just sign on people who were eligible, and it seemed like everyone, if there was money, was able to
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I don't money.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. I don't know where I I would have to look back. I just I ran the campaign, and it was a very big part of it was identifying folks who need vermiculite because you have to stop weatherization as soon as you identify it, which
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: means Which is what happened to us.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah, it's very costly, so we did have some information about that. And then V Lite did some kind of
[Thomas Weiss (Montpelier resident; witness)]: I came across that in the reports that are submitted in their documents and in their manual, but they never defined what Lite is. Oh! You know, I did searches in the document for V Lite, it was never a definition, and I didn't find a definition on their site either. Okay. Okay. It's still a mystery too. Okay.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So we'll provide Tim or Tucker with the revised language. Okay. We have I just got informed of chairs meeting at 04:30, so I'm willing to keep going if you want to continue this, or we can pick it up.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I feel like we've got some next steps on the first page. I'm perfectly happy to take it up another day before it was long today.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: We've got a couple more bills referred today, too, right? At least one. Two. Okay. Two. There's two in there? Yeah. Two. So we'll have to begin to, once military affairs, in other words Pensions.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: We've seen Oh, yeah. Group G. I'm really curious to see what came
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: from them.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. It's Zona Light Attic Insulation Trust. It comes out of a trust. It goes like Oh.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And it's still active?
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. So at least it was It says when I Yeah. Yeah.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, I'm just emailing to Patrick and Ted. What's it called?
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Zolo Zonalife Trust.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. So they put a settlement in that trust.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. That's when it Zonalife? And is
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: it still it's still giving That's my understanding is you
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: can still submit claims to it. Yeah.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So, it doesn't have a set amount a year? Well, that's,
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: yeah, I don't know. That's where my knowledge kind of ends. I just remember we had to submit for it, people could apply to it, and it wasn't like only 10 people got it in a year. Right.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. My guess is they'll keep paying out as long as there's money in the fund once the fund is empty. Okay.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Tomorrow, let's just make sure we know where we're all gonna be. At 10:30, we have a judicial retention joint assembly.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: How long do you think you That is
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: gonna be thorny and long. Okay.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. And the
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, and you're counting because you're I'm the teller.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Doing one of the reports. And the order in which we will consider retainment of the six judges has changed. For as a result of the thorniness. We well, yeah, we initially had asked the committee, joint retention committee, had asked for the one recommendation not to be retained to be taken up last because we felt pretty sure that there'd be floor debate in the general assembly or in the Georgia assembly. John Bloomer has said that they would rather take them up in alphabetical order, which means one of the judges who well, I guess everybody knows who it is, whose name, again, with M, will be taken up in the middle of the reports. So whatever debate that engenders will be at some point finished, and then there'll be further reports of other judges. So it could be that we'll be on the floor in the house chamber for a couple hours. Okay. That's my guess. It mean just to get through Six reports. Would be if you each take ten minutes, there's an hour.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Then you have, are they being validated each separately? Because that's gonna take a That of time
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: good question. I don't know the answer to that.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So given that we have
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: this question with Malone. Yeah.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: They may be done separately.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. So that's gonna take a ton of time to just count each bell.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Before. Well, it doesn't matter. We can ask, John, but whatever it is, it is gonna be anyway. Just making the point that we'll be there for a couple hours. So that takes us to 12:30, even if we are the speediest with poets, which only leaves a half an hour between potentially dissolving the general the joint assembly and then the senate floor, which starts at one. So you're gonna have to be pretty quick to, find some nourishment, I think, tomorrow around the noon hour. And the other bad part about joint assembly is instead of just 30 people, it's a 180 people all of a sudden showing up in the cafeteria at the same time. So lunch may be a bit crowded as well.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Maybe a good day to take a walk, except this is when
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I think it's fine. Okay. We're supposed to take up h seven sixty two, which is the county and regional governance study committee, and Tim Devlin is involved with that at two. I think based on what I saw on the notice calendar today, there's gonna be a lot longer session than an hour. So without being inappropriate, if this is we're only inconveniencing you to be able to come back and do this with us. It may be that we're not gonna pick it up at all tomorrow, or it may be that it's more like 03:00 or even quarter past three or 03:30 before we can do that. This is just our initial look at this bill, correct? You took testimony from Chair Vyhovsky, and I think I went through Oh, that's that one right. Okay. And basically what it does is it pushes out the effective date of the report from requirement of the report a couple of years, I think. Right. And, yeah, reconstitutes who's chair and tweaks the scope and duties. Okay. So that's just as a prelude to Morley's activity. I mean, I could be completely wrong. We could be off the Joint Assembly in an hour,
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: but I very much doubt That is possible.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: We have someone we have on the notice calendar. We have at least
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I think there were eight or nine.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Well, skipped over, it depends on
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: our Oh,
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: we over the housing bills. The two housing bills are up.
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: They both are tomorrow? They kinda go hand in glove. Yeah. I I think so.
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: They're too, isn't it?
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. So we have at least three very large bills, and then we have s 64 is gonna come up, I believe. And I've seen an amendment possibly that I don't super love, but maybe I'll hear more about it. And then we've got tobacco might be another
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. One, but I have a feeling cannabis.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Be a big one. Yeah.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Cannabis too. Yeah. We're we're it's gonna be a long four day.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, let me ask you this. Should we just move seven sixty two off the calendar for tomorrow, on the agenda and pick it up Thursday instead. And that way when the floor is done, we're done.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I think that probably makes
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: sense. We're not keeping
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I think you're gonna be Okay. That way we're not running around trying to Yeah. So in essence, you wouldn't need to be with us tomorrow.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That would be helpful.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Then let's do that. We'll delete the taking up H6-seven 62 until sorry.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thought we've been on that side of the room, so I was gonna just start Okay.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Anything else for the committee today?
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I just wanted to say, grateful, S89. Good job. Thank Appreciate you working with Senator Norris to get us you got all of us I love that you sent an anonymous unanimous vote. It wasn't meant. No. No. It was. Right. It was you had to collect that from each of us.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I didn't know it was gonna be unanimous until the floor. No. But always I didn't say we've met. I said we took a look at.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: You were accurate in your description of events, but I just appreciate that you went out of your way to make sure
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: that we And, you know, I'll give Norris credits and Norris because it didn't occur to us. Say in a normal year, we adjourned in the May or after eighteen weeks is what we're budgeted for, and then there's an unfortunate incident and it comes up, and the board, which is there to make a determination, they could make a determination, and the clock starts from the point at which they say yes, even though there's no money available yet.
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Okay.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So the emergency board's meeting had to and it would have meant until January that we were back in order to authorize any funding of that. He kind of thought that through and said, jeez, we're gonna make the family wait more than a year. It's gonna be a year and four or five months. So it was important to do that. And I
[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I had not understood that.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, historically, we've made sure there was enough in the fund before going home. That was at least one of them. Like, we we haven't usually left that fund at zero.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: But It's How many people at the house can take a little bit deeper dive into the sickness provisions of the bill? I'm not saying that people shouldn't be able to get, you know but there are employees, especially thanks to state employees that already do get a benefit. They're already paying into a pay. Law enforcement already gets a benefit as well. And federal benefits. And yeah, so maybe they're gonna take a look at it and tweak it to a point where it's, I'm hoping it passes, don't get me wrong, but it may not pass with the exact provisions in it that we pushed along.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yes, well, it's, that's, the House needs to be very clear, it's not in the bill, it's existing law. Yes,
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: well I'll make sure that Matt, if I want to
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So the bill simply takes existing law and applies it to more people.
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yeah.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And why did we say there was gonna be at least 1,400, 1,500 more people than originally I think
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: 2,100. Oh, okay. There's 1,200 law enforcement alone.
[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Thank you.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Sorry. Are we still on law?
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah, that's fine.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Go ahead. Yeah, no, no. I'm just curious. I'm waiting to ask my question in a minute. Did
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you wanna do that
[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: offline? I do. Sorry.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Since there appears to be nothing else for the committee's consideration, I'll declare that we're done for the day and we'll see all of you Tomorrow. No, it won't be tomorrow. Thursday. Thursday.