Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: You're up.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We are the Senate Transportation Committee, and we are going live again. And we are talking with motor vehicles about S-three 26. And I think, Jacob, if you could introduce yourself and tell us about stickers on boats. Definitely.

[Sgt. Jacob Matera (Vermont State Police, Marine Division)]: Morning. I'm sergeant Jacob Matera with the Vermont State Police. I'm a sergeant assigned to the special operations unit, and part of my responsibilities is overseeing the marine division in the summer and snowmobile patrol in the winter. And I'm here to speak about, the motorboat related section of s three twenty six. The, amendment, the change to the statute for the validation sticker is just a cleanup on placement of the sticker. Federal regulations would require that the validation sticker be placed within six inches of the registration number on a motorboat. So we have already in place the requirement for the validation sticker and for it to be displayed every year. We were just lacking that detail of placing the sticker, within six inches of the registration number on the vessels.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So that this brings us into federal requirements?

[Sgt. Jacob Matera (Vermont State Police, Marine Division)]: It brings us into compliance with the federal law. Correct.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Any other questions? That's a good goal. Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Can I say thank you very much for being here, and thank you to Mandy Westman who brought this language forward to us? So thank you for your work and for her for highlighting this technical correction.

[Sgt. Jacob Matera (Vermont State Police, Marine Division)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's all I think we needed for the record to get you on the record to highlight why we were doing this change and both. I've got one more question.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So you don't do enforcement of EDS. I know this language, it's technically changed, but I don't know if you're somebody that would ever stop or go to talk to them about their flotation devices.

[Sgt. Jacob Matera (Vermont State Police, Marine Division)]: I do some enforcement, not as much as I would like, but I am out on the water and involved in enforcement with training our officers that do the enforcement, supervising their patrols, and occasionally I'm able to break free and do some enforcement of my own.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Because we haven't heard testimony from public safety on the underlying bill, but I don't know if you didn't come prepared to talk about that part about requiring the flotation devices in the cold weather where right now you just have to have it on board. Section would require it if it's during that winter time of year. I didn't know if you have any opinion you'd like to share with us on an underlying requirement proposal.

[Sgt. Jacob Matera (Vermont State Police, Marine Division)]: I'm happy to speak to that. The required life jacket wear during cold water months is a push that's been made at the national level with an organization that almost all of the states and territories in The US are a part of the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators. And the many of the New England states are already requiring some form of cold water, cold weather required life jacket wear on vessels. In New England, Vermont, and New Hampshire are the only states that are not requiring it at this point. And as you go down the the Northeastern side of the country, New York requires it, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia. And the the rationale behind this requirement is when the water temperatures drop, they say below 70 degrees, but in particular, what we focused on is water below 50 degrees. You are susceptible and this cold water shock happens from immersion in cold water where, there's a saying, there's a one ten one rule to illustrate the effects of this cold water shock. So for the first one, in one minute, you have to control your breathing. When you become submersed in the cold in water that is that cold, your body, there's just a shock that happens and you start gasping for air. You need to control your breathing and calm down the panic that sets in in that first minute. You then have ten minutes of useful use of your muscles. After ten minutes, the shock, the blood pool that leaves your extremities and goes to the core to try to keep the core of your body starts to diminish your capacity to, practically use your muscles. So your ability to swim to help yourself diminishes over that first ten minutes. And after ten minutes, the practical ability of you to help yourself is gone. And then the last one is one hour. And if you make it that one hour, your chances of dying greatly increase. That one hour is about where death starts to come in if you're still submersed in that cold water. So the this legislation was aimed at the time periods of the year where the water temperature in Lake Champlain averages 50 degrees or less. So that would be the November, November 1 to about May 1. And obviously that varies with years and, some years are warmer than others. Some years are colder than others, but that's kind of the average water temperature in Lake Champlain. So that ten minutes of functional use of your muscles is impacted in that date range. So the goal here is by requiring life jacket wear, even you're already required to have the life jacket on you. Mhmm. But if that's in your your boat or your kayak and you're in the water, you're instantly hit by this cold water shock, and your ability to save yourself is drastically decreasing by the minute. And practically speaking, as far as enforcement goes, the state police doesn't really have any enforcement that's going to be on the waters during these time frames. The boats have been put away for the year. The marinas are closed, so we're not functionally out there to enforce this. Fish and wildlife wardens are out on the waterways during this time period for hunting and fishing season. They would be able to have some enforcement ability on this. But the idea is just to have more people wearing life jackets to prevent more drowning deaths during this time period. And I could elaborate on cases I've been involved in if you'd like to illustrate the point of the cold water shock and what it does to you. I don't know if you're looking for that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: We did take good testimony on that so that that part is clear on the goal and why it's needed. We've had some people testify that it's they're against it and I just wondered to know the either Department of Public Safety or the state police have taken a position whether they support passing it or not.

[Sgt. Jacob Matera (Vermont State Police, Marine Division)]: We support passing it. It will save lives. A study in Pennsylvania has shown they've had this law on their books for, I think, over ten years now, and they've seen a fifty percent reduction in fatalities in that time frame from drowning, and they attribute that to this law requiring mandatory wear.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Sgt. Jacob Matera (Vermont State Police, Marine Division)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That was very helpful. Thank you.

[Sgt. Jacob Matera (Vermont State Police, Marine Division)]: Thank you. I appreciate your time.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Thanks. Likewise. Josh. Sure.

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: For the record, Josh Hanford from Valley of Cities and Towns. Thanks for having me to talk a little bit about the ideas you've been discussing on local option tasks and, you know, a proposal, a draft proposal that's out there to allow municipalities to vote to approve an additional 1% option packs with funds being dedicated to go towards transportation. We support any effort that's trying to address the budget shortfall and the transportation budget this year. We've been saying that since the beginning of the session. We know that it's probably gonna take a lot of different efforts. There isn't money just dropping out of the sky for us, So we're appreciative of the sort of outside of the box thinking that this presents. We haven't been able to verify with all of our members how they feel, but a few that we've talked to, we've sort of kicked around maybe some different percentages that would be much more that more municipalities, we feel, would be able to support. If that's the goal, to raise money, they need to feel like it's worth it to go to the voters and and take a new local option tax because that's not always successful. That's not always a comfortable conversation. So what we what we've kicked around and had a much better response and actually talked a little bit with with tax about it might ease some of their administration if this passes, is moving to, if they pass this additional 1%, that 75% would stay at the town, and 25% would go to the new local options municipal transportation special fund. So it would keep the existing 70 five-twenty five split that the tax department is already doing on all these returns. The proposed language already sort of exempts a new fee because it's the same transaction. So they're already receiving a $5.56 per term fee, so that wouldn't be needed. And if we kept the same split, it'd be easier to administer, easier to explain to voters. And I think some of the larger communities are they're happy to to share and help the problem, but but I think they feel if half of the funds aren't going back, that might be hard to sell. So this would be, you know, maybe not as much to build up that initial fund, but more likely to see new pound adopted, which the aggregate would have a a better effect over time. We also feel that the 10% going to the pilot is unnecessary since there's already a surplus. You know, right now, there's a $15,000,000 surplus. You've seen that from JFO. We've been asking for that to be returned to the members that generated it for a couple years now. That hasn't happened, obviously, and it's going to get harder and harder to fairly return those funds because new municipalities are adopting local auction taxes each year, whereas the surplus the majority of the surplus that built built up over the original 30 or so communities. We're seeing five, seven each year add, and now to sort of redistribute that back as a sort of a return over collected taxes, if you will, is getting harder and harder. You know, we don't have unanimous sort of a a position on what it should be used for, but we do know that if it's going to be used, we prefer it to be used for something that municipalities benefit from, and certainly transportation benefit, the way that the $3,000,000 of the current pilot surplus is appropriated to the fund to be used for term May, certainly feels like a much better that the surplus, much better than the other ways the surplus is currently proposed and budgets to be

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: used right

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: now. The OCT strongly objects to what happened in the House BAA and in the Governor's FY twenty seven budget recommend, where we're taking high surplus funds in the tune of those two added up close to $8,000,000 so more than half of it, to fund the state's property appraisal and equalization studies. That's always been something the state has paid for through the general fund or the ed fund. It is the largest source of revenue that the state collects, and it's largely done on the backs of municipal volunteers or people that receive very little pay to evaluate property valuations and do that work at the local level, the listers and assessors, and the trend to take that from the local option tax that 30 some odd municipalities collected and use it to do the state's property appraisal equalization study for the whole state out of a $9,000,000,000 budget just doesn't make sense to us that relying on this source of local auction tax and raised by the supported by the voters in town acts to be used to evaluate everyone's property for the education fund It's just something we don't understand and strongly oppose. The use of those surplus funds for something more like town highway a matched or some other direct benefit to a municipality would be much more palatable for our members.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Can I just break in? Yeah. Is there, I'm not aware of, is there a formula that's like Town Highway A, which is formula based directly back to Towns based upon the function. Are there other areas that would be I'm trying to think of anything that hands money back to municipalities. This is existing, it's what Mitch I

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: think you're exactly right. I'm not aware of another state's formula that returns aid based on need. We believe it's underfunded right now and not returning enough aid for sure, but you're right. I mean, there's other programs. There's grant. There's competitive ones, so that doesn't fit. I know there's been talk in the past about, you know, whether it's emergency, you know, flood recovery funding or or some use. We, as the league, have not voted on, like, what is the least Yep. What is the least best option for this? But, certainly, I'm expressing that Pound Highway Aid does feel like a much more direct use of this surplus than the other ideas we've we've heard.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, mister chair. And on that point, so I'm now I'm getting very confused about where the pilot fund conversation is at because I've heard it here and I've heard it in senate gov ops. And what's confusing me is you had a proposal last session for how to allocate pilot funds. Thought it was to, like, flood communities or there was some specific group of municipalities that were going to get some of the pilot fund. There was a a proposal you had made as the league, and that didn't happen.

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Correct. It wasn't necessarily a proposal we were presenting. Others were presenting that as a possible use of these funds to us.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: And we said we'd be happy to sit down and see how that would work. Okay. And try to design something that the members could get behind. I think the concern was, you know, if you had let's take Williston that generates 30% of all the pilot funds, and they're never in a formula to receive any of that surplus, they might not they they might really feel like that's sharing without a chance to to benefit. And so we never got that far. Okay. It was last year, a lot of the testimony from JFO and others was that surplus maybe wasn't as stable as we thought it was.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, which is kind of interesting this year now to hear some of the change in tune on that one.

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Yeah, and it feels like it's bringing in more money than even expected, and it's only expected to rise. That's why we feel like any local option tax authority granted municipalities does not need to continue to go to the pilot fund because it's fully funded, kicking in surplus, and we only expect new communities to add on a local option tax. Because, you know, unfortunately, that's just where folks are gonna need to raise more revenue to address these problems. I think that there are plenty municipalities that are gonna choose not to, and they fundamentally don't agree with adding a new tax, but that's their choice. They don't have to participate, and VLCT is always in the position of supporting more local authorization to raise revenue. Whether a municipality chooses to take that opportunity or not, based on their situation, that's a choice they're making, and I think this falls in line with that core principle of the league and our members.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Well, appreciate that, and I'm a little surprised to hear kind of that level of support from the league on this proposal, because my assumption would have been that you'd want to see the 2%, that secondary 2%, either have a 70 five-twenty five split than it does now, or a larger percent like you were advocating with eighty-twenty last session.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: You did

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: so. Oh, you do. That is your

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Alternative is 70 five-twenty five split. That's what we're

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: That's what you're

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: asking.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Yeah. That, okay, that makes more sense to me. I thought you were feeling more comfortable with the proposal we need her. So that's helpful, and I do lean more towards that breakdown where possible, even though it's a smaller amount for transportation funding.

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: We think it'd be more likely to be taken up by more municipal Okay, hiring at the end of the

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: thank you for reiterating that. And then I just have one kind of broader question, and I've just been kind of repeating it every time we have this conversation, but Town Highway 8 is not meeting the needs of communities now. We have a 33 plus million dollar hole in the transportation fund, We have no other revenue sources besides moving purchase and use maybe on the table this year except potentially most if STOE passes in March and then if we get the total amount 2,000,000 from this. So I'm just wondering, is the league comfortable with other revenue generating conversations? Do you have perspectives on the indexing of the gas tax conversation in association with NBUF? Like, where does the league stand on if we can direct more funding to town highway aid, should we be generating larger revenue in general?

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Yeah. In our priorities this year for transportation, we call for a full restoration of the purchase and use task diversion from the EDGE fund back to the transportation fund. I I think we think the arguments that, well, that's just a shift back on the property taxpayers doesn't resonate with us because that's where Town Highway 8 has already shifted to property taxpayers. Where we raise it is on our side of the property tax equation, and it's only getting, we're only being forced to ship more and more expenses to property taxes. So this shift, it it doesn't it's not it's not a concern because it's already happening. And so we call for a full restoration of the purchase and use tax back to the transportation fund, knowing that that would close this whole this year if we We did have called the sort of inability to meet the full federal match the last five years, irresponsible. Those are the words members have used in a enterprise like the state of Vermont budget, you know, over $9,000,000,000. I can't understand how we couldn't find a shift to then make more money with that sort of match. I understand everyone has their budgets and their priorities, but if you turn away that match, you're actually hurting everyone's line item and everyone's budget, and so that just doesn't feel responsible to us, knowing that all the budget pressures in the state are there, every fund, everywhere, this is a way to leverage those funds. I know in the housing world, we did that all the time, that was practice, you turn $1 into as many as you can, so we would be open to number of ideas to fully fund the transportation fund. The reality is that in most of our municipalities in the state, the town highway budget is the largest thing they fund, and the most important thing they do, the thing that residents complain the most about when it's not working properly, because a majority of our municipalities are below 2,500, you know, it's clearly front and center for municipalities and their elected select boards, and they are sort of, you know, running out of responses of why they can't raise the funds or fix the roads or bridges, so that we would be open to any discussions. I think the reality we've heard and understand on the gas tax or a local option tax just on gas, you know, this provides more revenue if you say if you allow a 1% option taxes on gas, the reality is this would earn much more. If you take a typical you know, say it's someone from out of state visiting, going to one of our lovely ski areas, going staying at a short term rental, going out for an expensive meal with, you know, wine and a nice, you know, Vermont steak, and and they're driving a electric Cadillac Escalade. Under the gas tax, none of that is recuperated. Under this, all of those are potential 1% option taxes that could go into the transportation fund, and I think any efforts we make to try to fill in holes here, sort of been doing a disservice to Vermonters if we didn't try to capture the impressive visitor spending we have and the impressive GDP numbers Vermont gets as a destination for outdoor recreation. What? The latest is number one winter destination, number two GDP for outdoor recreation in the country. Those folks are bringing wealth to Vermont and increasingly are, buying less gas to pay for our roads. And so long term, I I think we need to find a way to capture revenue from them that's directed to our transportation fund. Because if the transportation fund fails to meet their expectations as well, we'll lose them. And so it it it's a big picture that it it's more complicated and more more folks that analyze this on a constant scale, or better to ask for the specifics of how to implement that, but we're open to sort of any revenue generating.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Well, you.

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

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I do have a question, but

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: it was more about the data that you have, and it sounds like you do have information on town spending on highways.

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: We do, I mean, it's not comprehensive like some of the reports you've seen. We couldn't compel talents to provide that if they don't have it. I think what we also hear is sometimes a hesitation from them to say, We know it's really bad. Don't wanna spend our limited money to to document how bad it is and then not have a way to fix it. I think, you know, what what I know it's bad is when I get constant questions about, is there data out there that shows you how much less it would be to maintain our road if we just went back to gravel and stopped paving it? That is a sign to me that municipalities that have, you know, the class three roads that are paved now and aren't getting enough aid are saying, you might just not pave it. We might just not fix that. You know, sure, there's some cost savings, but if it's an important road, you know, what do you do during one season? That just isn't a reality if it's a if it's a if it's a transportation that's critical for all these services and other warning signs or bridges that are being waitlisted or not continued, and that's an issue for people getting fuel delivery and snowflows and school busses and ambulances, and so those are all things we certainly hear often. Do you

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: keep track of towns that are throwing up roads?

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Not comprehensively, but we usually do an annual survey after a town meeting. The their municipality are in their busiest period right now, as many of you know. Budgets, per town meeting, and sort of we do some of that work during the summer to try to capture.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: We've heard anecdotally that there's more of that happening, and I've kind of heard that too, but I don't know if you had data on how much more it is happening.

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I don't have a comprehensive data that I can tell you, oh, it's happening this percent more, but there certainly are towns that are doing it and talking about it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. And you just anecdotally, you think it is more in just a response?

[Josh Hanford (Executive Director, Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I think it is more than we've seen. You know, I know just in my region, there are a few, you know, bridges that are staying closed a lot longer than they would in the past and small road closures because you can get to it another way, and the few houses that live on that road, they have a longer commute, but the town is saying, We have to prioritize. Yeah. So happy to engage on this conversation, really glad you're having it. Believe I'm speaking with House Transportation this afternoon, the same issue. Happy to continue working through the sort of details and specifics. Like I said, we haven't had the chance to take it to a vote, but the conversations I've had, what I laid out there, seems much more appealing to municipalities than the current fiftyfortyten split. Thank you. It's

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: just really helpful, and hopefully this will be a conversation that will continue on throughout the rest of the session. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. We have the chair of House Institutions. Is she coming?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, I'm sorry. So,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we have Representative Emmons coming at 11:45 to talk about the piece, DOC, the last piece, and that will be the end of this morning.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, thank

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you. So, if you

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: could go back Forty five, thirty five.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Forty five. Forty five. So you've got twenty minutes.