Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: That would be good, ma'am. Your left. This is Senate Transportation, and we are resuming our testimony. We are talking about the miscellaneous DMV bill, and I think it's section 13, and we're talking about tolling. And we're hoping that we have some sort of an agreement between all the players on this.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: You wanna go first?

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: Is it

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: your language? Sure.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: I'm Matt Russo, deputy commissioner for DMV. Mhmm. So we have agreed on language, updated language, which ups the total for reimbursement and outlines that a vehicle being removed from a state right away by the agency of transportation solely, will be reimbursed with proof of, receipt.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: And, you had a change in language, and what does that indicate?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: The updated language? Yeah. It just it so we we're making it so that the agency of transportation is the only one that can be reimbursed by DMV for removal of the vehicle from a public right of way.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh, okay. Maybe

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: just provide proof Yeah.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: To us.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: So Lucy Garrett, from MMR on behalf of Vermont Towing Association. We agree with the language. The one piece that, the deputy commissioner didn't say was the $2.50 Yeah. Was also raised for free. K. So and we just wanna thank DMV for all the work with us and working with us and continuing to with us.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Are there any questions? Go ahead.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So, to make sure I understand, we're raising the full cap to $2.50 for the amount of money. Mhmm. We're no longer having municipalities be getting access to be reimbursed through this. I thought that was in part the last language was supposed to do was to allow in some way municipalities to be able to get some kind

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: Yeah, there was some confusion last week when we took this up and after meeting with the commissioner, it's it's ALT and oh, yes. So there was confusion on our part. Believe that we would municipalities or fire stations would have to reimburse us. That was not the intent of the language

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: of DMP. Are good. Okay. Thank you.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: That's one of the few things we had

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: to clear out. Okay. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that. And I based on this language, I mean, this worked on with Damian Leonard with our was it worked on with Damian or is this it's been reviewed and it okay. Yeah. A very good compromise.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, at least another section when we get going through this bill that we can go by and go yeah. I

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: like the check marks. Yeah.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: I beg him. Did you have

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: a question? I didn't really understand the third sentence. Commissioner of motor vehicle shall notify the commission of finance management who shall issue the payment to the towing service for vehicles removed from public property. That's removed by anybody? I'm fine for anything, and, like, it's not clear that what that sentence is, you know, in my mind. Is that supposed to be the it's not the same as the first sentence later. Like, motor vehicle gets abandoned vehicle, they'll pay the 200 up to $250. What's happening in that person? What would be an example? Is that is that for vehicle service vehicle for public property and by a and t by,

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: Right. Just a a regular public tow.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: This is for a public tow. So, like, if first so local police call and and get out of tow or it's getting troopers at or DMV. Doesn't matter who tows it. Finance and management will pay.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: Whereas, who did it? They're who is issuing the check.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And it doesn't matter when they're gonna send it to the towing. They're gonna they're gonna send it they're gonna pay the towing service for a new vehicle removal of the property. Does that mean the towing service needs to send it to they would send it to DMV or if they were asked to remove it by municipal police?

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: They would. Yeah. If the towing company would would fill out

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: the form and be reimbursed. I

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: think this is specific to a family of cluster. This doesn't Right. So

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: Yeah.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I shouldn't be saying.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So this is

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: This is for abandoned vehicles. So

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: so what what about a crash? Like, if there's a crash, there's a vehicle on the on the shoulder, but, you know, it would be better just to get it out of there. It's kinda close, and they have it removed. I see. With this

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: If it was a crash, I believe the SP would handle that. Would they get paid to do this way? We are working with them on on how that's gonna work out. This is separate

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: from the concept. Okay. So so this is this is to pay kind of what your original plan was to like. You pay the other department that pays the door. It just covers those tows so that the tow will show up because they know they're gonna get paid.

[Matt Russo (Deputy Commissioner, DMV)]: Right. Yep. Perfect. Yeah. Captain Nesto is working with a VSPF right now on their situation.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Do you see a need to say that this issue of payment to towing service for vehicles were removed from public property by public entity? I mean, I I probably goes without saying that you wouldn't pay it. It wasn't requested to be ruined by state entity.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: It's just that the I'm not sure

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: if it's broad just for for vehicles removed from public property could be a lot of things. And I'm also not sure why, I guess, the finance and management would just transfer the mind between the.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: I I the eyes in the back of my head. There's For

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the record, I'm Damon Leonard from the office of legislative council. The towing from public property is covered in the cross referenced sections there. So the the sections twenty one fifty one to twenty one fifty seven lay out a whole process for when a vehicle is abandoned on public property, how it goes through the process of being towed, notice, etcetera. And so this is just laying out for after the municipality. So if it's on private property, the private property owner would pay towing costs. Yeah. If it's on public property, the public pays the towing cost and this just provides a reimbursement program or a way to pay that through the state rather than leaving it on, say, municipality or something like that. Since those sections are Since those are referenced? Well, in

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: two sentences prior that kind of carries

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: through the third sentence. That's how I would read this. I

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And it doesn't say offend the vehicles. Could be in we could be removing any vehicle for any reason from public property. Do we have Yeah. When

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so to to be clear, when I put this language into your next draft of the DMV bill, I can make that more clear.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: Okay.

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, yeah, this isn't the final version of the language that will go on the DMV bill. This is just the the rough version that we have for this morning. Okay. So but I will I will make that more clear. As I read it, it it refers back to those sections, and it it is intended to sort of just deal with the what happens as far as paying the towing service when it's a public property tow, under those, those sections of the equipment on the vehicle.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Okay. Yeah. My support for the whole effort. I just wanna make sure to get

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I'm I'm making it clear.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: We'll get that done.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I'm going to and we've got a long ways to go with all of this. But I have taken the liberty of and I've had numerous conversations around the legislature, one who had found the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. And I have briefly talked about this in both appropriations in here. We're gonna put a proposal on the table, and we're definitely gonna have the league in, if they didn't want the league in before we put something on the table to bounce off them. The league, know, has always had concerns that there's no revenue sharing. I would take issue with that. I think we have had some sort of revenue sharing in the towns through the municipal programs that we offer and through the mileage that we send out. I will agree with them we've done not the best job of funding that through the years, some of that I believe is because it's never had, it's been a budgeted item, and within the agency of transportation between maintenance and acre pounds, it's a 100% state and doesn't have a federal match. So in an agency where we are stuck chasing match, lot of times, those two areas I think get left out. And so given the fact that in my mind and given the fact that we've been in towns that are now trying to expand beyond the 1%, This is an attempt to try to have something consistent that would help all towns, that would invest in an organized way and not have 3,500,000.0 going here and 500 there and yeah. It does not do anything about the existing 1%. It's all about expansions that are happening in the local option taxes. Damien has drafted something. Is all for all of us to talk about change. And if it's something we're interested in, I know that there is interest in the House Committee, and I'm going to ask the permission of the members of this committee should, if it's something we wanna explore more, do we wanna do it with House the Transportation Committee? I know that as we started this year, we said that we wanted to reach out to other committees around the legislature. So this is an idea that I think there's some interest around the building about, and trying to get something that is consistent off the ground and would better fund existing formulas back to alternatives. If you would, Damian, start through, this is all subject to this committee weighing in in charge. So

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: for the record again, I'm Damian Leonard from the office of legislative council. I think you've all got the draft in front of you. Yep. That's the one. So the top section in here reads local option municipal services tax. So importantly, what this does is it doesn't create something separate from the current local option tax program. What it provides is that if you're a municipality that already assesses one or more of the local option taxes, then you can impose an additional 1% local option municipal services tax on those taxes, on one or more of those taxes. So for example, if you have sales and the meals and rooms tax, you could choose just to put the additional percentage on sales or you could

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: put it on all of them.

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The additional tax would have to be recommended and approved to the municipality by the same process. So the legislative body recommends the tax, and the municipality votes on it at a regular special meeting that's worn for that purpose. So this could be town meeting or it could be a special vote or it could be regular election day, that sort of thing.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: The

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: tax would be administered in the same manner as the local option tax. And importantly, taxes collected on the sale of aviation jet fuel would have to be treated the same as they are under the local option tax for provisions. And as a reminder, I think everyone in this committee is familiar with the federal laws and regulations that require that sales tax on aviation fuel have to be redirected to aviation purposes. And so that gets siphoned off separately. Of the non aviation portion of these taxes, 50% would go back to the municipality in which they were collected without any reduction for the costs of administration or collection. And so and then 40% would be deposited in a new special funds known as the local option municipal transportation special fund, and any remaining revenue would be deposited in the pilot special fund. Revenues received by the municipality, just like regular local option taxes, would be expended for municipal services only and not for education expenditures. So what that prevents is a situation of funding inequality where a municipality that chooses to have a local option to x because they have a lot of tourism or something like that can have more money directed to education.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: And that all just tracks what is the end of the language for the 1% now.

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. We've we've mirrored that language for the existing local option taxes. This isn't a new proposal. The next section sets up the special funds. It would be established in the agency of transportation and managed as a standard special funds. The purpose would be to provide additional state aid for town highways pursuant to the provisions of section three zero six, which includes most of our state aid for town highways grant programs, not all of them. And then as you'll see below, we break this out into three specific programs in the initial proposal here. So the fund would consist of primarily the receipts from the local option municipal services tax. It could also include gifts, grants, or contributions that are made to the funds and any amounts that are transferred to the fund by the general assembly. And as you'll see later in the proposed language, there is one such transfer in the initial year to get the funds going. The interest earned on the balances fund balances would be credited to the funds. The secretary would seek and accept gifts donation or could seek and accept gifts donations and grants from any source, public or private, to be dedicated for deposit into the fund. The commissioner of finance and management would be directed to anticipate receipts to the fund and issue warrants based on the anticipated amounts. The reason we have that language is because these taxes are collected on a quarterly basis, and so you can anticipate incoming receipts, but they may not all land in the fund at the same time. So in order to allow the money to get out to municipalities, you can anticipate those receipts. And then monies in the fund would be used solely to provide state aid to municipalities pursuant to subsections three zero six a e and h of this chapter, and that could be changed depending on the interests of the committee and for any administrative costs incurred in administering the funds. It's also worth noting that with these restrictions, this is the default as happens with many of these funds. We not withstand to direct the money to something that we find to be more pressing in the current year, or we might change. For example, in the next paragraph, we provide that the aggregate amount of money is appropriated for those state town highway projects would not exceed 95% for a given fiscal year, you could, of course, change that and empty the fund out or spend a higher percentage depending on experience with the fund. The next section amends the various state aid for town highways programs. So the first is in three zero six a. If you go down to page five with me, I left a little more than a page of three zero six a in there for your information, but it we're not making substantive changes there. And what we're providing in the new subdivision four is that in addition to the amounts appropriated, a portion of the anticipated annual revenue of the local option municipal transportation special fund would be appropriated for class one, two, and three town highways in an amount that's consistent with the provisions of subdivision c four, which breaks out how that money is split up for class one, two, and three town highways. Essentially, we've set a percentage for each of those highway types, and then municipalities receive an apportioned amount based on their portion of, say, class three roads in the state. So this would be a portion in the same manner, but it would be in addition to the amounts that are currently appropriated in statute, which are subject to an annual inflator that you added a couple of years ago, and this would not decrease the amount appropriated pursuant to subdivision one or be subject to the annual inflationary adjustments. In other words, this amount will fluctuate with the revenues to the fund, and it will not affect that base amount that you get every year from the annual appropriation. For the state aid aid for town highway structures, there's a minor technical change at the bottom of page five, but the main changes again start a little further down on page six, and it's the same structure as we used before. So in addition to the amounts appropriated for town highway structures, and then this would be in addition to and appropriated in the same manner and would not affect the inflator or be subject to that inflationary adjustment. And then in subsection h beginning on page seven, we do the same thing for the class two town highway roadway programs. And, again, the funds here would not impact the amounts that are appropriated, and they would not affect the inflator or be subject to the inflationary adjustment.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would just say it would be mindful that going forward, we haven't really revisited class two roadway or structures, and the grants are, what, around a half 1,000,000. And for a lot of towns, when they get to a big project, half 1,000,000 is a drop in the bucket to be able to help them do a significant change. So it would be my hope that this committee in the future, if we've got some money to work with, would begin to look at that and say, can we increase it now? It's a catastrophe, I think, in a lot of communities when they have a major culvert and a major stretch of road that needs redoing, and they So it would be the hope in the future to go get somebody if we could pay attention here and be helpful. And

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then the final section here, I mentioned this earlier, is the sort of initial seed money for this program, and this would appropriate $3,000,000 from the pilot special funds to the agency of transportation to provide additional grants on the general state aid to town highways program, which is the class one, two, and three roadway program. Again, that could be adjusted to include all of the above or to include more targeted aid for a different amount. One thing I would note is that and I'll would defer to the folks who understand the financial operations a little better than I do, is we may also if you go forward with this language, we may need an adjustment to the T bill Yeah. To reflect this in the transportation program, and presumably, we'll need some adjustments in the budget.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm thinking good. I I will tell the town aid program is about 30,000,000. The 3,000,000 is to kick this off because it'll be time before other towns join in and we have money moving in it, that it would be good to, if you're kicking this off, increase the top line rate by 10% in a in a scenario here to start this. But that's all up for discussion, and we can, you know, you know, the committee may have other ideas, but that was the thinking in kicking this out. And I think what we've heard is the pilot fund has a surplus, and this is general aid to everybody.

[Representative Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I don't know if you can answer this at this point, but how long, 10%, how long was that 3,000,000? How far down the line does that probably I

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: think we're gonna have to talk about I just threw an idea out for us a committee to have a discussion and try to move in a direction. I think there's a sincere, I think all of us around the table have expressed concern about our towns and that we wanna help them. And this is meant to try to create a discussion in here about what's a thoughtful way to do that. And not leave people behind.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: Mean, generally I like to think about things before saying things, but this sounds like a really good idea.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, we're gonna spend So, I thank you for

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: bringing this to us and the municipality has been sent up to 50%, but then everyone else gets a share. We're using an existing formula, right? It's not a new formula, which is really helpful because we already know how to do it. I think that's good. It's not overly complicated, so I think we can explain it. I'd say a lot of benefits. Well, I think But we'll talk. I think there's gonna

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: be a lot to talk about. So the main thing is 50% of the pound, 75%. Yeah. And then And and the state share would go from 25 to 10 in in the second piece, knowing that that the in the existing one from 1%, we already have a surplus. So this

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And when it says a portion shall go to that I would structure, a portion shall go to the I I think how do we decide which portion I

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: think that would go through the budget process. Okay.

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So it's not set in stone. And

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: is did you explain why there's two c a two do you do you have it twice today? Like on page what am I missing here? Page six, there's a five and six a similar to

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: Yep.

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. The language tracks from subsection to subsection. The way that section works, each subsection has a different grant program in it. So I think we go down through there's like 10 programs or something in three zero six. And so the language this happened last year with the inflationary adjustment language that we added. It largely tracks what was in the preexisting inflationary adjustment for state aid for town highways. We added language like that to these two sections actually or two subsections. And so, again, we're we're adding language that is a bit repetitive at some point in the future if if the programs were consolidated a little bit into sort of larger grants, but, you know, fewer streams of funding, you could potentially consolidate this language down. But right now, we're essentially we've taken what might be 10 sections of law and packed them into one section, so you get a lot of

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: repetitive language. I I would just say to you that some flexibility to move that. I have a real concern about I've got a bunch of the towns that have roads that are really feeder roads off from the state highway system, and they get pounded. And 350,000 or 500,000 with cheese rancid them, and only being able to get them once every three years, pounds are under the gauntlet. Sure. And how can we do something that's meaningful in it? I look at Montpelier and say Town Hill Road going from Oh my goodness. Route 2 down into the center of town is is really it has significant importance that is well beyond the local community. And should we be relooking at structures in class two and figuring out how to redo this formula to help me. But you can't redo it if you got no money.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead. Well, you, Damian, so much. I think this language is really well drafted and I also I think it's extremely wonderful, which is one of the things that is hardest, I think, for your job. So thank you for doing that.

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, you're

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: welcome. I think I find

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a team effort.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, good.

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Chris, Logan, and Kirby all contributed. So this is all four of us were working on this language together. That might be why it's so weird.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Well, yeah. Because I feel like we've heard kind of bits of this idea, so it's really nice to have it spelled out. And I think I fully understand the argument you're making for this change. So I guess I have a couple of thoughts and then questions. My first thought is this isn't gonna fix the problem that we had before us. This is a small, small drop in a very large bucket that is having a sieve run out of it. So I'm a little concerned about spending an inordinate amount of time for such a small amount of money and not reviewing the larger funding studies that we've gotten from AOT. I feel like we've spent a lot of time on this specific topic, which is a very small amount of money that may or may not happen if a town passes an additional 1%. This is also hypothetical money because we're still betting that the towns themselves will say, oh, it's still worth it, even though I'm only getting 5040% is going somewhere else to everybody. And then so I think it changes the calculus for towns. So we may not even get any of this money. So I wanna understand what happens with this language if no town pursues this secondary second percent. What happens with the money that would come from the pilot fund towards Town Highway 8 that's listed in the bill? Because there is a fixed amount transfer, so I wanna know what happens there. And then I also wanna understand from the leak's perspective, if this is the right way to frame it up within town highway aid, because I know why I appreciate the idea of us using an existing fund. There are a lot of structural inequalities pickled into the town highway formula fund. Like, that's just your experience with your town having the feeder roads getting less money than maybe there were. Well, are they class one roads? Are they class two roads? Like, all of those they're probably class one. But there's lots of questions about the allocation within that that I don't know if we wanna perpetuate some of those problems. So, that's a thought. And then my last thought is where does this go? Like, is this the T bill? Is this this isn't DMV miscellaneous. So are you thinking you wanna pass this as a separate bill? Or are you thinking we're gonna wait for the T bill? Or or was your conversation about the house coming over to potentially entice them to put it in? Like, I guess what's the heel play? Well,

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: let me back up to the broader discussion. We're going to take their and I said this, I think, before, I think there are really three areas for me as we look at transportation. Have a short term problem. I think we were really clear. We're going to be faced with the proposal that came from the administration for purchasing use. And I don't know whether that will be successful in getting through or not, but there's a short term problem. It's the and I think what we heard from Logan particularly yesterday was if we if the purchase and use was successful.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: We'd still

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: have We we we run out of money in six years.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Exactly.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: And but so but that's the short would be a short term fix. Mhmm. And I think, you know, even in the house, what I've heard is that they might be more interested in jump dumping in general fund surplus for that, but that's a short term fix. The longer term fix that we have been, I think, part of listening to other states, we've been talking about MBUF and vehicle miles traveled, I think we're going to, in this committee, hopefully, and I haven't heard objections to this around the table, look at how do we set the stage to move towards vehicle mileage travel with a long term.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: Oh, no, I totally hear you on that.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: The issue is even with all of the projections we've seen from AOT on that, it's not gonna actually, it's it's not gonna actually affect our long term problem either. It it's not going to you're only m Buffett's it's designed even over the next, like, ten years is only for electric vehicles. We don't have enough electric vehicles to actually meet

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: our I

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: would say to you, I think.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So I guess my point that I'm trying to make is that, I guess I I appreciate this, but I really hope that we can spend actually dealing with those monstrous problems as well. And I hope this isn't like the thing that's gonna you know, I don't wanna do this and then not actually fix those other two massive problems. Think that's where I'm going. But I love this idea. I think it's I'm very in favor of moving forward.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: Where we're headed in the T bill is I think we're going to have to look at can we move beyond just electric vehicles? What would it take to move to hybrid, what would it take? When we reach a certain point where fuel taxes with combustion engines, the lines start to drop.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Twice a

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: Do we have everything in place to be able to move into a place now where vehicle mile travel can really pick up the pace to do that? And I think to do unless we start talking about that now, It's at least a three year process to do that.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And I guess what I'm saying is we can be doing that, and it still won't solve the problem. Even if we move at lightning speed with EMBA, all of the states that we reviewed, they haven't even like they barely made out of the black after what? Like seven or eight years fall. I do I do think it's a little bit of a it's not actually gonna be the solution for the next decade to meet our needs.

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: So I think we do have

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: to also address that this time. So I'm supportive of I guess that's my point. I'm supportive of this idea, but I do hope we can not just do this, but also other stuff.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I think there's a short term problem. There's a longer term problem. And then internally within our budget, there are two areas they get shorted every time because there's no federal match. One is maintenance and the other is is municipal. And I think the shortest end of the stick within the transportation area is the municipalities. That's the of setting up a fund to be able to supplement stuff that is directly focused with a revenue source opens the door for us to, in a more consistent way, hopefully putting a bigger spotlight on municipal. So it's really as we go through the t bill in the second half of this session will be to focus in those areas. So and I agree with you, the long term solution, we're we're gonna have to take bites at us. But

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I guess this is as a as big of a fight as I think we need to take, so I'm hoping this is, like, step one. And I know that there's I I think you've referenced a few times the house's perspective on this. I've had conversations with about five different house transportation members. I don't know what the quorum is over there, but they're seemingly interested in a gas tax local option tax where they get to put it on rather than this proposal. So I'm wondering if we could maybe have that kind of conversation between I

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: would like our community to meet with that committee when we're comfortable with not in the little basics of this, but in the overall scheme, is this something that we would like to move ahead and work with them?

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Can I just ask my question? Because I did have specific questions that didn't get addressed, which is, so what happens with that last section with the appropriation with the 3,000,000 if this is not continued on if STO or another town actually moves forward with a secondary 1%.

[Damien Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a one time appropriation per the coming fiscal year.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So this so it's almost like that could be standalone from the So rest of I think that that's my one other piece is I would like to hear the league's perspective on the 3,000,000 transfer specifically because they made cases to us last year in Senate gov ops on ways to use that funding that would help municipalities. And I see the transportation angle, but they also have basic costs other than transportation that are just falling through the cracks right now. And so I do like the idea of giving them independence to use that money how they best see fit. And a lot of communities are deciding to proactively drop roads, for example. So it might not be that they need that money for transportation. It might be they need it for other investments. So I do want us to debate a little bit like,

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: if we are gonna take $3,000,000 out of

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: the pilot funds, what were the towns actually asking for last year from the pilot funds that we deny? That we didn't give them the full amount that they asked for. I'd love to kind of weigh those together if we can, because I think we should hear from the municipalities on what they actually want versus assuming that this might be the thing that they would put it towards. Because I don't know. Like, Hartford has a different perspective than Wethersfield on this issue, you know? Like to hear from the lead a lot, especially. But I am, I just wanna underscore, I really appreciate it that you brought this language forward, because I think it gets us on the right track to have a conversation. And I hope it's just like step one and a half towards

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think it is we have a long ways to go. Yes. And you I just almost you know, are there other comments?

[Lucy Garrett (MMR, on behalf of the Vermont Towing Association)]: Just one comment. I understand what you're saying, and this isn't, I don't think, intended to fix all the problems. But I prefer multi sources. I don't want to just hang our hat on one source of revenue. I think the better we can identify logical sources of revenue and they can work together and at some point I'm sure we'll get an analysis of what are the potentials of those hopefully. Mean, we have to get potential in those revenues, I think it's just better in the long run to have multiple sources of revenues because we don't know what's gonna happen in the future.

[Representative Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Yeah. I'll chime in. I I agree with that. And I also I I mean, looking I think we're thinking outside the box of this proposal. We haven't done that. In In my experience here at Transportation Forever, we we rely on the three common sources of revenue that we've been looking at for years, and almost every one of them one of them is definitely declining. The other two are kinda, like, stagnant. So I'm supportive of this. Even even going forward, it's not gonna raise a lot of money, you know, in in the next couple of years. But if this idea of people tacking on a 1% local option tax of 1% on top of the 1% catches on. It still passes in. We're out of world chimes in, and all of sudden people are saying, hey. This is a bad idea. We could be in for a pretty good windfall if it takes off. If it doesn't, we're nowhere soft than we are today.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I Yeah. Takes off in that I don't want it nickel and dime, the pilot money and all of this is switched directly directly to the dentist. Exactly. Yeah. So but, you know, we're gonna have all of this, and we're gonna have testimony for Tucker tomorrow, and we're gonna and I think we need to have the tax department in after you've had a chance to talk to some people other. We'd like to have the lead in. I may get one of my towns, and if you have any other, Morristown is specifically looking at a local option tax to fund they went out and spent 30 or $40,000 to have an assessment of all of their roads. They have a specific plan over five years to spend 800,000 a year. They're gonna raise 1.2 from a local option tax, and they're gonna dedicate 800,000 of it for the next five years. I am thinking about getting them in the chair in yeah. Because it is it's all of the pieces that we're talking about here. So I see the towns as one piece in an overall picture that we have to tackle, and it's not gonna be easy. I don't expect the conversation in here around whether or not we may match this year, whether it comes from purchasing use or it comes from surplus, I don't expect that to be an easy discussion. And I I personally would think vehicles, miles traveled, I would put something in place to put us on a track, we closed all deals. Yeah. And, but if we don't start talking about that now, systems and state government don't move.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Go ahead.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And I would just add on, and I don't know kind of what our time is, I know we have Damian still here, but the only other concern I have with this language is I think it would make it less likely for a town to be interested in moving forward with a secondary percent. So I do wanna understand, like, are we are we also I I just I would love to have Snow come in. I'd love to have someone from their community weigh in because it is a big effort. And I had some slight disagreement with comments that were made before about who's actually paying a local option tax. And it is the taxpayers. It is us as individuals. But municipalities who put forward a 1% tax usually spend years building political will on their board in the community among small business owners. It took Hartford multiple attempts to get it on the ballot, and it took us a ton of will. And then to see that money not necessarily fully being supported being used to fully support the towns, I have that irks me just inadvertently already. So to then not see them get the same amount of money, I still I I have some qualms with that. So I do wanna understand the perspective of communities who are moving forward with the local option tax. And then the last thing I will say is we are in control of the budget for the t bill. We are in control, not the agency of transportation. We can say, in addition to this, that we want more money to go to town Highway 8. We want more money to go towards these projects. We don't have to give in to this paradigm that they've created where the towns just get less and less. I understand the federal match to it, but we're so far beyond that because we're a $32,000,000 deficit to get the match. So I do think we need to have a conversation about within the T bill, not just this strategy, but how do we divert money towards town highway aid as much as we can. Because our municipalities are going to be experiencing extreme difficulty and are already making difficult choices. So, I think we can empower ourselves to look at the T bill when it comes our way to divert money in a better way as well. It's not just new revenue, it's what is the slice of the pie that they're getting.

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: We

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I think we have a half an hour

[Senator Richard Westman (Chair)]: going got something to sleep on. Alright. I think at this point, I'm going to ask you to take us offline, but I can