Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You're live. So we tried to stay with the same cards. That would be.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: And then I'll.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So the schedule says that you guys are on. Who's gonna take the chair? Patrick Pat Okay. We this is Senate Transportation. We are Thursday, February 19, and we're here to talk about sections fifteen and sixteen, which I think is the purchasing pieces. And I think what the committee asked of DMV and you as the auto dealers, I think, did this and and trailer people, I think, Nicholson Trailer came up. We asked you to come up with some compromise in the language, and you're on the schedule, so I suspect you've come to some compromise. Yeah.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: I I appreciate the opportunity. For the record, that coda with Meadow Hill, that the Vermont Dealerships Association, well as the Vermont Dealerships Association, the Vermont Dealerships Association. The first point, there's two points in this bill which we want to draw attention to. The first is dealing with trailers. And yes, there has been a consensus agreement that if we're narrowly defining trailers as trailer coaches, then we're essentially putting them in the same classification as we do motorhomes, you know, in other or RVs as we might refer to them. Think of an Airstream trailer or a fifth wheel that you might attach to a truck that you could live in or cook in. As of now, they have been paying the max tax. So if they're over $41,400, their tax has only been $2,486. If this passes as it is, it would just say those trailer coaches, which you can live in Cook In, if they're over that amount, they would pay the full 6%, not that cap tax. And this is relegated, as I understand in the new draft, as just being for trailer coaches, not counting working trailers that haul goods around the state. And DMV has got that language too, Damian and our draft people?

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: So I had a chat with the union. The union said it has

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: to be the committee's we have to be in front of the committee to present that for him to make changes to that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: But but you've sent it over we aren't we aren't gonna add it to the draft until until the committee has said yes. But have you provided him with language so he has So the he he has what the and Matt was

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: on the CBL train on what were defined, making changes to him, and he said it was, yeah, speak what he wanted. Okay. The more complicated piece, if I may. Because that's just defining what is a trailer coach versus a trailer versus is dealing with the max tax on vehicles, excuse me, on trucks. So, there is a legitimate concern that I've heard in a loophole that certainly should be closed when it comes to individuals who purchase a pickup truck and claim that they're over 10,099 pounds, thus qualifying for a max tax cap of $2,486 but then when they register their vehicle later on or re register it, claim that they're light. Meaning, the loophole that we should probably close, admittedly, is allowing people to claim they're heavy when they buy their vehicle, pay a lesser tax, but then claim they're light when they re register the vehicle in order to pay a lower fee when that happens. It's just the difference between the gross way and the what the DMV did, and I can speak to this, but what we communicated on what happened to our members, which is as of January 1, they'll take a very firm determination that it is known as shipping weight of that vehicle, of which to determine what the weight is in order to determine whether it qualifies for the max tax of 2,004 and 86, or whether it should pay the full 6%. The concern is, yes, that's a loophole that's being exploited, it should be closed. But the concern is that, especially now, it's very difficult to find businesses that will upfit the rest of that vehicle. So think of a farmer who buys, goes to any local dealership here, and buys a cab and chassis, like a Freightliner M2. That is not a working vehicle until you put something on the back of it, whether it's a crane, whether it's a dump body, whether it's a stake bed or a tank. When you buy that vehicle, cab and chassis, it may, especially that version, it may be under £10,000. So when you go to Milton or to Colchester or to Randolph and you buy that vehicle, now you're paying full 6% on that vehicle, which could be over $150,000 That vehicle is useless for you as a business until you fit it up. So for instance, you could buy a cabin chassis, brake liner and two. Under 10,000 pounds is the tear away, or the shipping weight, delivery weight, and you pay a full 6% on it, but that vehicle will never roll under 33,000 pounds. You're putting a fuel tank on it, then you're putting 2,800 gallons of fuel on it. So this is a And you're paying registration based on that weight, much higher amount, but yet you're paying the full 6% when you buy it because you're buying an incomplete vehicle. What we want to do, what we think is important from the perspective of people that buy and sell trucks, is that you eliminate the loophole that allows someone to claim their heavy and then register light, but you absolutely support the businesses that are buying a vehicle light, but will always roll heavy. I had a great discussion with the DMV team this morning, and I think we're trying to find language, but we don't know quite what that would be as a path, to how to ensure that those two things happen. Could it be that you just always just appear one or the other, both ways? Would that not work? One solution is just to raise that number. So you can say- The weight. Yeah, if you put the number as not the delivered weight, but the gross vehicle weight on the manufacturer's statement of origin, so that's the piece of paper that comes and says this vehicle delivered weight is 10,000 pounds, but it's built to put an oil tanker on it or a crane on it, so then it's up to 33,000 pounds. So then you would pay the max tax and not the 6%, however. That carries through to the registry. But you may wanna raise that way. That's a policy decision. I'm just trying to understand the loophole,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: but while also protecting I the get that in the loophole right now, they're not paying.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: What are they paying now? Individuals could claim, I don't know of specific examples, but individuals certainly could claim that when they purchase a vehicle, that it is over 10,000, that they will plan to upfit it. They'll put on some a plow and dump body later, so they'll say, Wink, wink. I am going to I'm gonna This is gonna be over £10,099, thus only charge me 2,486 for my purchasing stats, max. That should stop. Full stop. Should not stop though, which has stopped, is an individual that is buying a cab and chassis should that be with $100,000

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: people right now that just buy the cab and chassis, what's happening now?

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: They're paying full under the directive of January 1, they're paying a full 6% purchase and use tax on that vehicle, even though it by any other definition, if they had it outfitted completely at the place where they bought it, they would only pay the max stack for $2.48 cents. K. And this isn't just new companies. Is farmers. This is anyone that hasn't worked I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: know you pretty much get a jiffy now. And go.

[Unidentified committee member (referred to as 'Jeff')]: So are you saying that they could buy that cabin chassis and say, I'm gonna outfit it with this, which then brings it over $10.99? Is that the number? 10,010

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: thousand and 99, Jeff.

[Unidentified committee member (referred to as 'Jeff')]: So therefore I don't have to pay the full 6%, I'm capped at the 24.86?

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: It's been the honor system They're for a not going to

[Unidentified committee member (referred to as 'Jeff')]: look at your truck when it's done.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: the letter that was written two weeks to all the dealers two weeks before January 1 was to say, no, no, need some documentation. DMV drew a line and said, we wanna make sure that these pickup truck drivers aren't complaining heavy and then claiming light, and we're catching that. But caught in that mix are actual working businesses that buy light and then register heavy. You could get over 10,000 pounds with a truck that you're also trying to work everything. It's a working truck. You've got a plow or you've got other equipment on there, but it's a

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. I I I was having dinner last night and getting an earful.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: So Oh, I but I knew that was.

[Unidentified committee member (referred to as 'Jeff')]: Yeah. I'm pretty sure a one ton dually was capped.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: Well, one ton do it probably be over 10,000 pounds.

[Unidentified committee member (referred to as 'Jeff')]: Because I I had a number of them through the years, I was capped at the 2486 when

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: I bought a building. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member (referred to as 'Jeff')]: Right? So That's the benefits.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: But you could purchase a Ford two fifty and say, oh, but after I buy it from you and you put plates on it and I pay the max tax, I'm then going to get a dump body put on it, and thus I'll be able to wait, so just cat me at the max tax. The DMV rightly said, no more, we're going start that, but, but, we are absolutely there's a group of sales that have gone through that there's been a shock to businesses that said, Oh, as of January 1, now I'm paying 6%, unless I do all of the work at your shop? And it would be nice to say, Yeah, just do all the work at one shop, but that's not the reality. Reality is you need to find a welder, you need to find the dump body, you need to find the stake beds, you need to find the tanks, and oftentimes you gotta go two states over to get that done, get that truck in working order. Having a cabin chassis sitting on your lot is absolutely worthless until you actually put the equipment on it that can make it work. Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so I'm just trying to get the numbers straight here, because the cost of the average vehicle that you're talking about can be extremely high. So we're talking thousands of dollars if they're paying the full 6%. So this is basically someone who's Your loophole piece has completely confused me, to be honest with you. So maybe we can just take a step back and I can understand what issue you're trying to resolve. Don't talk about the loophole. So it's folks who have bought a vehicle over like 60 k. Right? Like, I don't know how much.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: 41. 41,400.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. So then you would be paying more if you had to pay the full 6% and we cap it for those vehicles if they're over £11,000. It's 10,999.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: Correct.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: So that

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: So the peak so what you're trying to do is you don't want

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: those people to pay the

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: full 6%. That's what you're asking for.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: So two things I'm asking for, by the way, which is one is understanding that if someone buys a cabin chassis with the intent to then put something on it so that it is a working truck, that that weight that's added to that working truck should be what qualifies, determines whether or not it's a max tax vehicle. Meaning, does it get charged that maximum weight?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Yes, I understand that.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: So right now

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: So you want them to pay thousands of dollars less than what they're paying right now?

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: Has only started on January 1. That was an administrative change in order to close the loophole that we referred to.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: Mhmm. Okay. But yet,

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: it also created this other cost.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: So why, I guess, I'm necessarily disagreeing with your perspective on the first one, although I guess I'm not. If you're registering the vehicle at that time, you should pay the 6% tax. I think that that's fair. That makes sense to me. I understand it's an increase for folks that pay you the lobby. I get that. And I understand why they might not like that. But could you instead have a system where they're just waiting to register the vehicle or they're waiting until it's a fully usable vehicle? Because your argument is that they're not using the vehicle at all before they add this stuff. And I have seen people drive around their truck without their plow on it, without their salt thing on the back. So I I guess I'm confused about what group of people we're talking about that are registering or using the vehicle, but are then waiting an extended period of time to add this other equipment, why they're not waiting if the point of the vehicle is to have it fully outfitted. You know, I'm not seeing how the large I just don't see that as a large people and why they wouldn't wait, and why couldn't DMV have some kind of grace to if you're gonna be doing this within a certain period of time.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: Good question, Ty, everybody. The issue is that you can't drive it off the lot, it can be illegal. If you drive it off the lot without a plate, without registration.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, so your point around them going to other states to get it.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: I might buy I could buy a chassis in Milton today, and then bring it to East Hartford to Liberty Oil and Tank tomorrow. But if I don't have a plate on it, I'm gonna get pulled over. So if Oh

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: my god. But

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: It's on our enforcement service.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: Seen Have the enforcement number? Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You're buying the truck and you can already have appointments set up and everything to do get the work done, but you can't drive it off the lot to get the work done.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you're buying it to have it that larger way, but you can't get there to get the work done legally. Right.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: Just Even if I were doing the work in my barn, you know, adding the dump body in my barn, I couldn't drive it from Milton to Myersburg

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: without potentially moving very well. Appreciate it.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Sure. I also, people also don't always do that. People also buy vehicles and then it may take a year or two years to do this. So I guess it's kind of like, what is the time? Like, what is the time period that we're talking about? I understand that very short situation where you might be immediately flipping a vehicle and it's a larger But what does your language do to resolve it? Because I still wanna capture the 6% amount if someone say, hey, you know, I think that's a good clarification that the DMV did, because I certainly see people who claim they're driving a work truck, and then they're taking all their stuff off, and they're putting their snowmobile on it.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: So my solution, which I won't speak for the damn thing because I just brought it up to them ten minutes ago, which is a putting the max tax not on the delivered weight, which is current practice as of January 1, but on the gross vehicle weight on the manufactured statement of origin. For a cab and chassis that can accommodate a tanker, or a safe bed, or a crane, that is a much higher level than someone who buys a pickup truck that says that they're going to put wild body on.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, but that still doesn't mean that's what that vehicle will be used for. You saying that that is what it's capable of doesn't necessarily mean that that's what that was buying it for. So couldn't we could I feel like a better strategy would be some kind of affidavit that, like, I we expect the gross vehicle weight of this or weight what's the exact wording? By this date, Within the year of registration, it will be I mean, is that So a crazy issue.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I it here's what it sounds like to me. That the first piece on the trailers, there's a compromise. Damian has the language. Damian will bring the language to the committee. The committee will vote on whether or not we wanna add that to the draft. I think at this point, it sounds like the trailer piece will fit in. You guys have got till tomorrow to come up with some sort of best solution to this, or it's not gonna be in the miscellaneous DMV, though. We have to struggle with that, but this committee, it will take more time to get through. There is other vehicles that will come later in the session that we could deal with this thing. But on this particular one, you guys need to struggle. And if you can't come up with an answer by tomorrow, because we have deadlines, that crossover's coming for us. We're down to less than ten days to get stuff through. If you can't come to some resolution here, we'll take this up later in the session, but this won't be in this bill because we need to all understand it and get the place. So I would encourage both sides on this to get down and figure this out. I'll be completely honest. The kid that's my little partner Okay. Who is more like family to me than anything bought a truck. He's created a trucking company. He's shipping hay and mulch and shavings to Southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and he did exactly what you bought the truck, was worthless until he started adding all the pieces on. Have to listen to piece he adds every single day. So I'm sitting there talking about what he's paying to get licensed last night. Well, it was half of dinner. So I get where you are, and I get the friction and the fluctuation and all of that. You guys gotta give us your best shot at some language. I wanna close loopholes. I don't wanna change the policy. So and and I get what you were trying to do, but this is a struggle. Get something to us by preference would be get it to us by tomorrow, but if not, it's not in here. You can go to the house or you can come to us later in the session. But we need to understand and feel good about where we are. Thanks.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: You had mentioned the possibility of raising the weight. Do you know why we ended up with pain in men? I don't really remember. But raising the weight, meaning applying the max tax on the gross vehicle weight on the manufacturer statement origin or the MSO rather than the delivered weight, is the current interpretation. Right. I just wonder if we're going to be making changes, should we reconsider what that weight is? We can do that, but I didn't know if you knew oh you wanted that because of acts of other states or because the feds have the same designation. No, I'm sensitive to the idea that someone is claiming that they're heavy and then registering light, but I'm also very sensitive to someone who is actually light but are actually always heavy and wanna make sure that there's fairness in in our air tax policy with regard What to if I may. I think what senator White suggested makes a lot of sense. I don't know how to put that into into a statue.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: I think that's the first time you've ever said that on the back issue.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think at at this point, because we've got limited time, we wanna understand another issue in a bill that's down the hall because we are up against crossover in figuring out what we would do. I'm gonna expect you guys to come back and tell us tomorrow either we're agreed or we're not. And then you've got the opportunity to go to the House Committee. We've got a T Bill that's gonna be going through here. But if we need more time, we'll get more time. This idea booed for you.

[Justin McLean, Driver Education Coordinator, DMV]: License. Care of the sheriff.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: As

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: far as they got

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: a CDL license, again, if Todd gets it on a ticket in that, he's in He's in trouble. Yeah. Because he's now gone over a 150 miles to deliver to deliver his hay and his when he was only going to Rochester, New Hampshire, there was

[Unidentified committee member (referred to as 'Jeff')]: That I could probably fix all that.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: What's that? The issue we're in is talking. Oh, so

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we've got about twenty minutes, but this is, we're not gonna go into this totally. This is to walk through what the issues are. We don't even have the bill. We're less than ten days away from crossover. I know there's interest in this. Senator Harrison is the sponsor of this bill, so we're gonna let her go first and we, from a high level, wanna understand what this is. And then we can make some decisions about whether or not we have time or the place to be able to deal with this.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'll be brief. So, I sponsored this bill with the intention to increase the availability of driver education and primarily to make our our kids safer. When my kids were little, a pediatrician told us that having children is having your letting your heart walk around outside of your body and I just as a parent experienced that most when when they were learning how to drive. Car crashes are one of the major reasons for deaths of teenagers. And last year in this committee, we heard that there were not enough teachers to provide drivers education to all Vermont high school students for multiple reasons. The AAA and their lobbyists came to me with this language. It's based on New Hampshire statute now, And you know or Damian will tell you, Vermont law currently requires that an approved driver education course be available to 15 year old Vermont students who are enrolled in a public or independent high school. And this bill would allow that classroom portion of the training course, not behind the wheel training, to be online as well as in person. Now, I want to emphasize, I'm acutely aware of the harm to our children by social media and time online. So, my support of this bill is based on an assumption that in person training is preferred and that online would only be used when in person is not available. Now, that's that would that'll be our challenge is is to define not available but online would be preferred to no instruction at all in in my opinion. That condition is not yet in the bill. And I mentioned this when I introduced the bill in Senate Education that I recommended that they if if they take it up which they are taking it up, they're they're taking testimony today, this afternoon, that they prioritize in person over online. And there are there's an organization, the Vermont Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association, who contacted me when they learned about this bill. And I believe they've submitted testimony to this committee. So thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You're on.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: Senators, thank you for having us over. I'm Patrick McMahon, and I am the supervisor of the education unit within DMV enforcement. We oversee the motorcycle training programs, our school bus training programs, driver training programs, our CDL schools and driver's education programs that are private. They're business. It's the for hire. They're not the high school ones. The Agency of Education oversees the high school programs. We do share some instructors. I do want to point out, I don't know if it's a misunderstanding, misinformation that's been provided, but there's some misunderstanding. Yes, we could always use more instructors. Any program can use more instructors. The problem that exists is just by doing an online program, you're not going to increase the number of seats available to that student because we limit our instructors to 30 students. So if that instructor has 20 students that are in person, the max they can take is 10 students that are online in that program. They're filling their classes now with in person. So it's not going to increase it. And I will tell you over the last four years, we've gone from 56 instructors, driver's ed instructors in 2022 to 79 in 2025. And we have more that are adding on now. We went from standard driver's ed schools from 46 in '22 to 48. So we are increasing our numbers in the private sector. I'm sorry, I should have had Justin introduce himself.

[Justin McLean, Driver Education Coordinator, DMV]: Thanks for having us. My name is Justin McLean. I am the driver's ed coordinator for the Education Unit with the Department of Motor Vehicles.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: So if I can't answer the question, he can. But we are increasing our numbers. The problem is the interest isn't out there. I don't know at this point how we can make it more interesting for people. There's also some information that White Mountain Community College is not adequate. That is far from the truth. White Mountain College provides the same eight core classes that we require from Keane, we require from Castlevan. There is a rumor out there that they do not do behind the wheel training. They in fact do. They do online training for the instructors for the classroom, but they do require their instructors or their candidates to come in and do behind the wheel at White Mountain. And if you want to talk about that later, we can have a person that recently went through the program talk about that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Is there not dealing with this at all and coming from a clear back over here in the corner? And what are the backlogs for people getting into driver's aid classes?

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: I'm not sure I actually know that. Do you have an idea?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I understand the instructor's going from 50 something to 79 and up, but the real question is what's the demand?

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: We'll have to get back to you on that one. We can reach out to our schools and see what they, at least the private schools. Okay. As far as the online curriculum, I will tell you that I've had conversations with the commissioner. We potentially are not against the online curriculum with some modifications to the way

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the law is written. One

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: of those modifications would be giving DMV and the agency of education the total ability to set policy and procedures and guidelines for the online curriculum. And what I mean by that is, I will actually have Justin talk about what he found out when he talked to the schools or the states that do have online curriculum. And then we can get in a

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: little bit about what our recommendations would be.

[Justin McLean, Driver Education Coordinator, DMV]: So I spoke to about a dozen other states that use an online curriculum provider. All of them have some sort of security verification to make sure it's the student that's taking the actual course. Some of them use cameras. Some of them use security questions that populated throughout the time using it. There was some states we used in per like a blended version where they required not just the online, but in person parent night, certain parts of the online course had to be done in person, final exam had to be done in person. Every one of these states that I spoke to, they all control the guidelines, the rules, policy with Department of Motor Vehicles or their agency of education equivalent. That way it can be customized to what they need. Every online curriculum provider had to be submitted to the states so it was all reviewed. You couldn't just create an online program and have it be published and available. It had to be approved and accepted in the state. So there's no state out there using online without regulations, guidelines with the state.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: So some of the guidelines that we were looking at, again, as mentioned, was giving DMV and AOE cooperation, the ability to make those guidelines, make those procedures, make those policies. One of the policies we would look at is leaving if a instructor decides they wanted, or leaving it up to the instructor to decide or the school to decide whether they want to accept online or not. And this is the reason why. Because if they're taking up five seats in that 30 seat class that are doing online, there might be a thought that the instructor is going to reduce the cost of the training for those five students. Those five students are taking up a seat. So chances are they are not going to reduce the cost of that seat. I will tell you, after COVID, Commissioner Lamoille called me in and we implemented an online program, a virtual program, not specifically online, a virtual program, we require the instructor to be present. So the instructor has to be on camera, the students have to be

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: on camera. And there's a lot

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: of other guidelines. They can't be laid down. The students have to be sitting upright. They have to be participating. They can't

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: be on their phone.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: They can't be on their phone. So there's some guidelines that they have to follow. So we allow that. And what we found is some of our instructors, they might be located in Burlington, but they will take students in Brattleboro, and then they will work with the parent to come to a meeting place to do the behind the wheel so that the parent doesn't have to bring the student all the way to Burlington. They'll come to a mutual agreement where they can do the meet up and be behind the wheel. It has been, from what we understand, successful. I'm not sure exactly how many instructors we have doing that now, but we do have some that are doing that, And that which is allowed if an area is missing or doesn't have enough seats, it allows that parent to make arrangements for the student to take the class that may have some available seats. Other, there's questions about security as far as how do we know it's the student. One of the questions that was asked of the states that have this program was, do you require cameras or don't you require cameras? One state required cameras. One

[Justin McLean, Driver Education Coordinator, DMV]: state did.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: But they got rid of that requirement because it was too expensive. And what they found was kids were not beating the system. And that they actually taking part. And the reason is at the end of the online course, and one of the things that we would probably require is that they come into the classroom and take a in person written exam. Kind of hard to cheat the system if you have to come in and take that written exam. Okay, so you may crash the night before studying, but you are going to eventually get that information because you are going to need them. So we originally thought about cameras, but we went away from that. The system, and I am going speak specifically to AAA because that is right now the one that will meet the requirements and the one that we'll be most familiar with. They have security questions and they have keystrokes that arbitrarily comes up and the student has to take care of those. I already talked about the online exam. I already talked about giving control to the instructor to make the decision on that. But that's where we're at. I also wanna clarify one thing. New Hampshire is not one of the states. We actually had conversations with the New Hampshire program director. And I had conversations with my counterpart who works with the program director. They do not have this system at this point. One other thing I want to talk about with White Mountain is White Mountain actually invites Justin, myself, Tammy Preachin, who is the AOE, Justin's counterpart in AOE, as well as the New Hampshire program director for Driver's Ed in every year to take a look at the program and make advisory advice to them, which we do every year. Key never did that. Castleton never did that. We have some input in that. So as far as White Mountain being inadequate, we don't see it. We actually have never received a complaint about an instructor from White Mountain, from any parent or student. We have about others. But at this point, we have never received a complaint right now. And what are

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: the requirements for behind the wheel training? Far as student

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: or the instructor? The has to do six hours behind the wheel, Then they have to also do six hours of observation. The school can up that. They can say, You are not ready. You need some more hours. They may have a charge for that, but they can say that before they pass the student. And then they have the forty hours they have to

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: do with the parent or

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: guardian or adult.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: So if they doing the online classroom, they just have, like you said, they have to find a time to meet up with an instructor to do that.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: Well, the other thing that we have is right now we require that behind the wheel and the classroom be concurrent. So if I'm learning how to do the Vermont turn, or I was taught in Maryland, so it was the K turn. Oh. But when you're learning that, that when you go out on the road for your behind the wheel next time, that's what you're doing. That's what you're practicing, as well as everything else you practiced before.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: You can't just do all the classroom and then do all of them.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: Correct. That's another issue that come up with the classroom, but there's a way to work around that is the instructor says you can't go beyond this point. You have to be at this point on this such and such state, but you can't go beyond that. Or if you do, you're still gonna have to redo it. Right. And so there are ways to work through that so it remains concurrent. And as I said, talking to the Commissioner, we're not against the bill. We just think that it needs to be tweaked a little bit.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Vice Chair)]: You, Mr. Chair. This is more of a question for you actually. Maybe I'm not sure kind of what our relationship to this bill is right now. We're not taking this bill and making changes. We're just hearing about it and it's going back to the senate education.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, the question has been would we ask for the bill? Would we want Okay. Where this it it clearly it has implications in both committees and in both places. The education committee has been busy and hasn't taken the bill up. So the request was would we ask for the bill and the chair of education came into that. I think it's a really, really important issue. I will say upfront, I think we should spend some time on this issue in the most important given the place we are and the line where crossover is, is would for me, knowing those numbers, are people being served now? Because if people aren't being served and they're stumbling blocks to people getting served, that creates an urgency for me with this bill that if they're not, well, maybe we should take a little more time, but we definitely ought to look at the issue. Okay. But the difficulty for us is that we don't have the bill. Last week, the chair of education did come to me and said, Do you want the bill? I'm not sure I've got the time to do the bill. And I know there's a component also about this whole driver's ed issue that the homeschool people are interested So in

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: that's, yes, that's a total loss. Yep.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Wendy Harrison?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yes. Thank you. And I'll be quick. I think the most important thing is to try to know, try to understand how many kids are not receiving the driver's ed and and are just waiting until their eighteenth birthday to to to get a license because that it's it's it's difficult to tell because they may not be trying to, you know, they may not be on a list. So that's a difficult parameter, but I think that's the most important thing to understand the urgency of this.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think the only thing we might have is classes that are being signed up for. Do we know if there's backlogs both in the schools and at DMV? And can somebody create a picture for us? Because I think we certainly would like to take this out and want to give it That will create a sense of urgency.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: So what I'll ask Justin to do is make contact with higher schools to find out what their backlog may be. And we'll be over at Education this afternoon. We can talk to Tammy and the other person that's coming from the Institute of Education and see if they can get those numbers for us.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And I will before tomorrow, at the end of tomorrow, I will have a conversation with the Chair of Education Valves. Thanks. Okay? And as I said, the lobbyists for the homeschool people just before we went in, came in here, they've got an issue, so there and are a number of different people want things added and that. Here. But Senator Harrison, thank you for bringing this up, I think we've got ten minutes before we're on the floor. You have to be there at ten five. What? 10:25 we have a little more than that. I think at this point, that's all we have on schedule. Yes. So I think we're done.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Thank you. Can I just there there is I I see I believe there's a teacher in the room who is part of that organization if you want him to speak to the need for more?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: If you wanted to introduce yourself and pitch it. Yes. Joe Perch,

[Joe Perch, Executive Director, Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association]: executive director for the Vermont Driver Traffic Safety Education Association. I've been a teacher of driver education for almost thirty years. Thank you. Quite honestly, I think what I can bring out is I've done both. You've got to take one name off of that list. I retired from the private side. I'm teaching part time at Mount Main Street in high school. I think I'll wait and if you take up the building, provide testimony, wanna respect your time, and the email was I was coming in to observe, to hear, and I just wanna respect the committee at this point. I think it would be important to hear from the agency of education that's their nonconservative. This is our first What? Yeah. I'm just looking at it. It's, we have some concerns. I'll just go with that.

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

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: If you do the homeschool, we have some information on that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, only bring that up because this may take more time than what we have for crossover to get to all of this. And, but, you know, it's very important that people in a timely way can get in to drivers ed and the quality of it's important to us. And and so we're we're learned.

[Patrick McMahon, Supervisor, DMV Education Unit (Enforcement)]: Will get those numbers to you, and we appreciate your time.

[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting), representing Vermont Auto Dealers]: Thank