Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: You're allowed.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This is Senate Transportation. It's Thursday, March 26, and we are here with the administration budget. And if you could give us your position and name, please, and then jump in.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: Good morning, and thank you, chair. My name is Jane Morris. I'm the division director for the Agency of Transportation Division of Administration. I'm going to share my presentation. While I do, I have with me in the right spot the Vermont Local Roads Manager, and on the screen, Brad McEvoy, our Facilities Manager.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Great.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: Let's start by talking about who we are. We are a division of administration of about 136 positions that supports the entire agency as well as the Department of Motor Vehicles. We interact with contractors as well as the public regularly, and our scope is very broad while the team is critical to all of our agency operations. The org chart behind me can show just a little bit about the different team members that report into Director of Administration's office. Our Deputy Director, Maureen Parker, oversees a portion of the team as well. Our functional areas that we're responsible for are occupational safety, emergency services, facilities and hazmat, financial operations, budget and business support, communications and public outreach, continuous improvement, artificial intelligence, business intelligence and performance, civil rights and labor compliance, contract administration, audit and records management, learning and development, Vermont Local Roads, which Todd is here for, and administrative hearings. We also liaise regularly with the Agency of Digital Services, Human Resources, and the Attorney General's Office on Administrative Related Matters.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Is the question okay? Is there a distinction between the folks that have double lines versus single lines?

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: Managers versus non designated managers versus non designated. Oh, I think we

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: heard that Amy was leaving. No, Amy Tatko's But they did,

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: they did make, oh yes, actually we made a difference.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Amy Tatko's waving. Oh, It might be a different, don't want her to. No. Trying to be very clear. No. So

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: finance and administration, this is in white book section four. So it's just one page in the white book. It's like that. Very exciting. What you'll see for us is a $25,400,000 budget. This is comprised of $24,000,000 in T fund and 1.3 in federal dollars. Overall, we're looking at a four percent decrease of $1,100,000 which is primarily attributed to a reduction in personnel from the fiscal twenty six Precision and from holding vacancies. We've adjusted our operations to accommodate these holds at no impact to the service our team delivers, such as the few vacancy holds that we have right now. Our budget does also include the AGO services and benefits, salaries and benefits for five staff attorneys and support the entire agency. The 1.1 is the net reduction basically in salaries and benefits. We eliminated nine limited service and one permanent position in the fiscal 'twenty six rescission. Nine limited being one. One permanent in the fiscal 'twenty six rescission. So I heard you might have some questions on position management.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm happy to address that. Could give us an outline of who and where and what they were doing.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: So in this particular division, they were across all of we had contract administration, which was a vacant position. We only had, I believe, two limited service positions that were still filled at the time of termination. Both of those employees, I believe, have found positions elsewhere in government, either in a permanent position within the agency of transportation or in another state organization.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Does so you said one position in contract administration?

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: There's one position in contract administration. There is one position I'll go back to the org chart. We had a couple positions in the finance team, of which some were able to move into full permanent positions, and then another one was vacant. We had one position in civil rights and labor compliance. We had a position in audit, which was vacant. We had a position two positions in learning and development or Bureau of Innovation Learning and Development, and I believe one or two positions in emergency management. We've done a little bit of a reorg facilities team moved into emergency management, so they're now safety. They're called SAFR. We have a new acronym. Yes. One more to add to this. And our permanent position in the twenty sixth decision plan was a field position. That employee was not able to find another role with AOT but is working in state government also.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And the one permanent position was where? Finance. No questions. Okay. Go ahead.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: So moving to the spending profile, I just talked about how this was broken down between federal and state dollars. So you'll see on the left side of the screen, the transportation fund is the 24,000,000 federal funds is 1.3. And the 1.3 is how we recoup that from work that we've done either on projects or there's a portion of dollars that's allocated to the training, about $500,000 across the organization, and that's all considered a 100% federal dollars. It's called 504E, and it's a provision within federal highway that allows us to use federal funds to support learning and development opportunities, leadership development, and technical training for our employees to allow them to keep the qualifications that they're required to have to perform their positions. On the spending profile side, operating is about $6,000,000. We have a $5.50 excuse me, a $50,000 grant that is entirely dedicated to the NSTI program, National Summer Transportation Institute program, and pays for the the lodging and the contract that we have with Vermont State University. And then personal services, about 19,000,000, primarily salaries and benefits. Operating includes some of our standard contracts, our overhead that we're required to maintain for our facilities, leases, any sort of upgrades we have, and then the cost of our shared services type things.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So that's what paid for the study, for example, like the MBUF study through UVM?

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: That's not coming out of our budget.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, wait. So what is the UVM contract again?

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: The UBM contract is for the NSTI program. It's the National Summer Transportation Institute. Okay. And it's run through our civil rights. It's part of our recruitment and kind of learning and growing our middle school and high schoolers so they become aware of the things that they could work in in the transportation space.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Great. Okay. I'm glad I asked because that had when you had said it, I assumed it was the research piece, but that must have been in

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: That's that's actually part of Jeremy's program now. Yep. Just a little bit different look at our spending profile details and the federal funds and how they're broken out across the operating personal services and grants. Sometimes I get ahead of what I want to say with the slide before, and I was going to talk about the program here. Nothing really more to say here. And that's all I have to share about the administration budget, and then I have both Todd here to talk about local roads and Brad to talk about our transportation buildings portfolio. So I'll take any questions on this one.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Question in contract administration, does that have anything to do with construction contracts? No. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I had a question on that area. So what are those contracts and how do you evaluate them

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: and what's the impact of having one less person? So we historically have built up our teams as we were going through some reorganizations and consolidations. When we requested the limited service positions, which is where that position was eliminated from, we had anticipated that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would grow a large amount of projects, and what that would result in an increase in contracting and increasing in audit, increase in financial processing, that type of thing, the whole work stream would grow. Right? Mhmm. We didn't experience that because there was a big significant impact in inflation. So we didn't release as many projects. Therefore, we didn't need as many positions. So really was no impact. We had that position filled maybe once during the entire time that we had it, and then it was being held vacant for a period of time.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay, so it was for project, contracts for projects, like letting out projects or letting out?

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: I don't remember exactly which team it worked on, but we had reorganized our team a little bit to allow the skill sets that we had to be able to meet the need. We So might have moved somebody over from a services team into the construction team, for example, and grown that team to be ready and then backfilled an area where we had less volume. Okay. So we do that regularly with our team. They're cross trained so that they can fit across multiple function areas. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Anything else? Any more questions? We can move to local residents.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And thank you for your quick response after the, joint hearing we had last time.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: Alright. You're welcome. That was it's fast.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Good morning. Morning. Todd Eaton, manager of the Vermont Local Road program. Thank you for the opportunity to share about our budget, a little bit about our program and our program priorities. So the main things that we are working to focus on, well, or or maybe improve on as far as how the program operates is to enhance leadership capabilities, promote work zone safety, and promote roadway rigidity, as I call it. Leadership capabilities this year were just getting started. It's we have a one a week and a half before the application period for our Leadership Academy closes. This will be the third year that we've run it and we've consecutively improved upon it based on feedback from the previous cohort that graduated. So this program is a nine week program that emphasizes what you might call soft skills as far as leadership and management for upcoming or existing highway supervisors. And this is based on a demand. I mean, I've I've spent I mentored three road foreman last year in that particular process as as communities hire a, you know, a 20 to fill that fill that position because they couldn't find somebody else. So capable to be able to do the work. Yeah. That was great. Capable to do the work that the selectors or the town manager was concerned about their leadership skills. So this program is is is is in response to that demand. The road foreman have a capstone project at the end that they happen to complete, which is a presentation based on, you know, something along the lines as if they were presenting to their select board. And that's that's a that's a tough ask for them, but we walk them through that. And and we've had everybody complete that even if they had to wait till the next year to see it.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I will say, as someone who has interacted with a lot of heads of DPW, it seems that the skill set of being very good at being a head of DPW or a road farm and giving a PowerPoint presentation, very different sets of skills. So I think it is a really big ask to kind of act to have folks be in a position where they're defending their budget.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. They're much

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: more likely to be folks who are doing the work in the field, making sure it's happening rather than being the person on the computer creating a

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: good slideshow.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So that's really I appreciate that because it's a lost if you go to your select board and you're unable to properly communicate the value of your roads, it's gonna continue to be underfunded.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Or even the value of whatever you're proposing as far as a different measure or a different method. And so that was largely, I guess, my motivation in assisting them with that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Teaches how good for me to feel the complaints.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: To feel complaints. So I mean, as part of this leadership academy and also some of our supervisory training, we have topics like, you know, dealing with difficult people, you know, all of these kinds of things. Because that is the perception of a community member that is complaining and doesn't like the answer.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: No. They are they are a difficulty, and they are

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: a difficulty.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: The most common reason I've seen for people leaving those positions is they can't handle the complaints. And some people are not always reasonable.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Sometimes, and that is a personal one to one conversation that I have with a lot of pro form, and it is, I mean, you have to be able to compartmentalize these things. Yes. And that's often a warning that I have for new ones coming in, because that you're you're exactly right. It's and it's not just the community members, but it's also the conflicts with their town leadership. Oh, totally. And so that once once that water in between them gets muddy, it's really hard to hear.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Finding a road foreman when your select board chair's road has a lot

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: of potholes.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Exactly.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right, Thanks. And then just being a supervisor a really challenging thing too. Mean there's a lot of rules and ways that you need to do things now that weren't the ways that we did them previously. You know, be a huge liability to a town if they I do it mean that's what something that I've seen. So it looks like you deal with that, which is huge.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: That's wonderful.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So how many towns do this and can all of them want to do it?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: So I don't know that I have our exact numbers in front of me in this presentation but I mean there's two fifty six towns and we generally run about 70% of them.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's wonderful. And it

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: and it runs in and out, you know, based on the leadership changes and the connection or the relationship I've been able to establish with the either existing or or or upcoming or new leadership. That's great. Their engagement kind of waxes and wanes outside.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: Todd, you usually run about four a year at 20 sessions. 20 people per

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: session. Four a year of

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: from the leadership academy?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Well, we run one cohort of 20 people per year.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: But Several times during the year.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Generally, our training, we run somewhere in the vicinity of the mid eighties as far as topics. I believe our numbers as far as individual participants last year was about 1,700. So, though, we we we we run good numbers considering the size of our state. And even in comparison, I just so earlier this week well, yesterday, I just got back from our regional conference for the for the national local technical assistance program. So all of the states in our region, New York, New Jersey included, we all gathered, we kind of talked about our numbers. So even in comparison to to to, like, Rhode Island or Connecticut, we're we're we're right on par, which Holly and I are very impressed with ourselves.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, that's good. So VLCT probably helps you promote it, you know, so that people know that it's happening or not?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Oh, absolutely. As much as possible. So, I mean, given that that they have to be very specific as far as where their funding is allocated given their membership. So there's two towns, I believe, still in Vermont that are not passive members. And so they have to be very careful of as far as how they promote if they can't promote widely because they can't have I'm sorry.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Because of two towns?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: The perception of yeah. The perception of the funding going somewhere else. But no, we cross pollinate, I'll say.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That's great. Sounds like a really good one.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: In our work zone safety, obviously speaking about safety, but we this will be the third year that we've done two grants specific to work zone safety, one being a time package grant and the other being a temporary traffic lighting grant, like the temporary light signals that you might see or or anything that would enhance safety. Hartford last year was the recipient of that grant, and they bought a lot of temporary lighting for nighttime work because that was a huge issue for them to put on. Roadway rigidity, we're starting a grant this year that is going to provide assistance in purchasing different types of equipment to that are shown as to as, you know, best management practice to help a roadway be more resistant to the effects of different weather patterns.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Maybe a little less heaving.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of things that go into it. Don't want you to peek down on me. But the basic rung as far as how our budget is applied, We see that we have just under half $1,000,000 per year, and most of that goes to salary and benefits, personal services, and then the minor overhead costs that we have to run the program. As far as the federal funds and the state match, as you see, it's blocked by the window on here.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, we can see it.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: That's for my local rose in a nutshell.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Do you offer like continuing education for certain?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Like CEUs?

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

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Yes.

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

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Have you have you done anything related to like, I think there are some tried and true bits of wisdom that I've heard from road foreman who have been in the job for decades. We have at least one or two who I feel like have been the road foreman in my area longer than I've been alive. So they have some real wisdom, but there's also some misconceptions that are built into some of that wisdom, especially around, like, ditching.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I'm wondering, do you do any kind of continuing ed related to maybe how you shouldn't be dredging next to roads or kind of updated information about climate change and some of the impacts of increased natural disasters on our roads. Like, you get into that topic and try to break through maybe some of the

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: more updated

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: scientific understandings of that?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Yes. So they're so we have what we call a Road Scholar program. So there's three levels and then

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: a Yeah. Master's was on your budget. You had that was broken out yet.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: So

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: You mind going back to that

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: slide just so I can see the amount.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I think it was one. Yeah.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: So that's primarily just for purchasing of certificates and things like that. Road Scholar program is built into our program. Everybody who goes to one of our training is automatically enrolled in one in in in the Road Scholar program. They automatically are, provided a login information for our learning management system so they can track their progress in the Road Scholar program. Many of the road foremen that have been around, like, for decades, many of them are level three, if not master already. Some of the entry level trainings that that or what we would call entry level trainings talk about ditching as the, like, the cheapest form of roadway maintenance. And so the and I'm constantly pressing as far as, like, you did I'm sure you're familiar with the term asset management, but including ditching ditch maintenance in a in a five year cycle. So, you know, all of that all of those kinds of things. We work very closely with Chad McGann, excuse me, of the Municipal General Permit Program. And so even we just completed he and I just completed scheduling. I believe we have nine workshops all around the state of talking about his program, talking about different ditch thing you know, ditch maintenance ideas, drainage things as far as, you know, keeping in line with everything that that program is concerned with as far as water quality. And so to answer that, diverse it's as far as the the breadth of of how we of how we try to reach to that particular topic.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Well, thank you. That's really helpful. I appreciate that. And, yeah, I also hope in the same vein, you're including some of the wisdom of those folks because it is always shocking to me. Well, maybe it should be shocking at this point. But when they will say something that I'm like, that doesn't sound quite right. And then in about a year to two years, whatever prediction they've made comes true about something. So there is some real wisdom to and I hope we can capture that as well because there's Vermont is very unique and people know their communities and they know their town. And I think one of the losses we're going to experience is particularly this generation of like men in their sixties starts to retire. We're going to lose a lot of institutional knowledge that those communities had. So I'm excited to see that you've got that program because I don't wanna lose that, like, literal, like, is the the where is the infrastructure in the town? Like, they don't have a map every time that's clear, but they have a map. So being able to communicate that information to the next generation is gonna probably be a big part of your job.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm gonna say this. Sorry. I'm like, what's going on? Funny in it. You mean are we old guys in our sixties or worse?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I know. I know. I say it to Jackie.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: We can can to

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: speak to that, if I if I may. All of our like, the any training that I put together, I'm constantly updating it, based on what I'm learning or what I continue to learn as far as, adult learning theory. And I also have expectations for all of our contractors to follow those best way to compare as far as information exchange. And so built into all of our workshops is the opportunity for everybody to share experiences so that the the the collaborative learning, if you will, that happens within those, and it is encouraged as as far as we can. That's great.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So how far back in time do you have, like, the classes and the trainings that you've done in there?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: So Vermont Local Road was actually the forerunner for the learning that local technical assistance program. Hank Lamford

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: was Okay. The Go ahead. We dealt with we dealt Pat and I dealt with it for years.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Great. So we have records all the way back to '83. Did I answer

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: your question? Yeah. I get that. What I'm trying to figure out is if somebody short asks me how many of these towns have we reached, because this is the training to teach you to be a better Mormon, better with the roads, so we don't get the idea of how effective this has been, because we briefly covered, you know, you do four classes, there's 20 people, and yeah. But how many of our towns in the overall, if I was gonna paint a picture, have used this service?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Last year, I believe, we were about one seven. And I apologize. I don't have our yearly annual report that shows up on that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Like, some numbers from the last five years so we could you know, I suspect there's been hardly a town. How many phone calls do you have to be townsy? Yeah.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: Yeah. No. We we have those records, and I I can provide that for you.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. You could send your annual report from

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: that neighborhood.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. It it probably is all I hear you know.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Anything else? Just, so I went to something, it was 2020 and it was about, it was down in my area. It was in Rockingham and Rockingham hosted the event so they got it for free, but it was felling trees and doing it the right way so that they don't do. It was pretty cool. Would that have been you?

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: So we run two programs and then we also partner with boards and parks and they're our booths and promoting their training and working with them. So there's two trainings that we do, as far as chainsaw maintenance and chainsaw safety and then also a program that we run with

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: health Yeah, exactly. So you're still doing that? Okay, because would recommend that to everybody.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It's just To everybody.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Well, on every pound, I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: learned a lot. Did you change the chains,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: how quick? Yeah, yeah. I mean I didn't do the whole thing but I I was there the whole time and did, you know, did some of it. No. It's really good.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I need somebody to come and help me cut.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I know it's

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: not. It's a

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: lot of space between. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: They're pretty heavy.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: No offense, but if I see you with a chain side and hand arm running

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: for cover. But

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I'll be on the right side.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, thank you. Excellent.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: I believe Brad is yes. You can see him on my side. So Brad's gonna take over for transportation buildings, and I'm just going to sit in the chair and push the button. So if you have questions, we're gonna field them to mister McEvoy. For those who might be following along in your white book, this is transportation buildings. Believe it's section 15.

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: Thank you, Jana, and good morning. Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager for AOT. I'm going to give you a brief overview of our transportation buildings budget for this year. Some of our program priorities, to maintain agency owned facilities in a good state of repair, to support sustainable design construction and well maintained infrastructure, and use life cycle cost analysis to produce informed budget decisions. We have a portfolio of about four thirty buildings. We're constantly updating condition assessments in our new famous facility asset database to try to be proactive on buildings and other items, roofs, those other heating systems that may need to be replaced or repaired. For this year's budget, we're looking to replace the Barton Salt Shed. You can see it's one of our last, I believe we have two left including this one of the old metal Kwanzaa Hut style roofs. The concrete on this one is in very bad shape as well as a lot of the steel connections for the Kwanzaa Hut have rusted through. So we'll be looking to replace this with a new 40 by 84 shed. Next slide, Gina. Rest of our overview, as you can see, the Springfield garage, which was postponed, we're still waiting for the town of Springfield to complete their new waterline. Once that's complete, we'll probably get this back on in the next couple of fiscal years. It's in design still, but it will be ready once we're able to put that project out. Barton, we've got 650,000 allotted for that project, and there's a statewide maintenance line item for 1,000,050. Probably half of that money is going to go to aviation projects statewide. We visited all of the airports over the last couple of weeks, cutting a project list, kind of prioritize the need there out in the field for building upgrades and repairs for aviation. The remainder would be for some of the larger type projects, roof replacements, full heating system replacements, those types of projects. Just a roof replacement right now for a, say a five day garage is running in the 60 to $65,000 range. So those are some fairly big ticket items that we're having to go through and do repairs and replacements on. Happy to take any questions. That's a pretty limited budget this year for transportation buildings, but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So from a high level, we asked at the beginning of this, everyone in the book to give us the previous years of spending going into this. Can you tell us what the FY 2016 budget was?

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: I don't know if we have a copy of that in there, Gina, but the majority of the money in the previous year went to the Swanton Garage project.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, what I'm looking for is historical trends. You're at 1.7. You're talking about the out years going to 2.5. What were the last two or three years?

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: Last year in the FY '26, we did have the Springfield garage project in there, and that was listed in the book at 2,500,000.0. The prior year to that was the Swan.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And was that Springfield garage or was that the total spending in buildings?

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: That was the only project in there for last year.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: That was the total spend for transportation buildings was 2 and a half.

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: We're averaging around 2 and a half million per year.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And this is down this year by 800,000 wide.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: Do you want me to take that, Brad?

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: Sure.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: So we prioritize our investments in our facilities on an annual basis. We look at what we have ready to go. We look at what the needs are from our customers, primarily being district maintenance and fleet for our district garages and then the sub just adjacent facilities. So it be an office building, there might be sheds, that type of thing. This year, the request was for the salt shed and for the Springfield garage, and then we learned that the Springfield garage project shouldn't move forward until the adjacent construction project was completed. So the the budgeting for this is really up and down depending on what our asset management needs are. We do have a life cycle cost replacement prog program that's in place, and we look at what we might need to replace both now and in the future, and then make priority decisions on our facilities against all of the other available state transportation dollars to make sure that we're maximizing our opportunities.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Sean, what's your goal, and can you articulate it to us? I hear you've got these planning processes, but coming in asking this committee for money, what's your goal? We are proposing that. I have to say it's a little concerning when everything is flat at 2.5 and we know everything is more expensive. So how do we measure where we are in the maintenance of all of our garages?

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: So we look at the condition of our assets, much like we do with other assets across the agency of transportation, and looking at the assets that we have right now. So we're primarily looking at roofs, we're looking at structures, We're looking at the shed quality. We're looking at what we might be able to do to maintain those facilities in a state of good repair. And right now, I believe our state of facilities I'll follow-up with an exact number, but I believe it's in the ballpark of about 70% are in a state of good repair or better. And then there's a portion of facilities. They might be items that we've chosen to divest of, or they might be areas where it's okay if we let something go because we have another plan. Like, it might be a shed, and we've already built a lien to. So that might be an asset we're divesting and an asset that we're investing in. Some of the projects are completed through the district maintenance and fleet budget in a section called major maintenance. And those projects are flexible in nature, and that it allows us to make sure that district maintenance maintains what they need in order to do their winter maintenance. Some major project might come up that becomes an emergency. And then it also allows them to look at what their safety related projects are, their high priority projects, medium priority, and low priority when it comes to facility assets, and then make those investments on an annual basis. So we're looking at two different buckets of money that we leverage to maintain our assets in the facility space.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So is the goal to have 70% in good condition or what's our goal? The goal

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: is to have at least 85% in a state of good repair. As we're building out our asset management system, we're getting better asset conditions on an annual basis. So this this spring is our third year of doing statewide annual condition assessments of all of our assets. And we're looking at primarily right now, I'm asking folks to take a look at what we can do to maintain and to improve the maintenance versus automatically assuming that we're looking at a replacement.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This I'll I'll stop there for now. Okay. So the the goal is 85. We're at 70. That's helpful.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Couple of questions. So, with the Springfield Garage, so you have, you had funding for that. Is the funding now in a, like, I

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: mean you have the ability to- So we never had funding for that. We never had funding? No, that was intended to be, budgeted and we were going to be requesting that we've since decided to postpone, that item and it will be presented at the future budget when the project is ready to move forward.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay, and is that the one that's on

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the property of the Corrections Department? No.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay, so maybe that's a town that's is a garage that's planned for the Directly

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: off the exit there on the left, across from the hotel before you go up the road to the prism.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. Okay, so there's gonna be two garages. Okay, and then so with the salt sheds, there something like a kit for buildings like that? Know sometimes it's a standard size and I'm just wondering if there is something like I'm going

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: to refer to Mr. McEvoy on our designs for salt sheds.

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: So we've done different size sheds over the years. We have looked at other, some other states are using some that have like fabric roofs and different structures. So we've pretty much stuck with a standard for the last thirty plus years that I've been here. They last, we just go every five years or so, go back and stain them. A lot of it's wood construction. We're not doing a lot of steel. We're able to store a lot of capacity in those. So that's pretty much been our standard design. We have like five different size sheds. This site would allow us for a 40 by 84, which is pretty much our standards shed size.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Cool. And one reason I'm asking is just a lot of towns need salt sheds and it's really difficult for them.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It's expensive.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So if the state has a good contract, hopefully towns could use that contract.

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: Yeah, I do typically get reached out to a few times a year from different towns looking for assistance with shed designs or cost estimates. We do provide sample plans for them, So that is occurring now.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. So can they piggyback on your contract? Do you do that?

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: These sheds are typically we will do a design drawing and they'll be put out to bid. So it's not necessarily a stance. It's project by project based, so it would have to go out for a full bid, but we can share engineering, you know, save the town's engineering costs

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay.

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: And work with them. We've even referred consultants who have done some of our site designs and things, but we typically do the shed drawings themselves in house.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay, thank you.

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: And the last couple we've done were in Westfield and North Hero, and they ran both right around 600,000.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So have you done any assessment that if we are at, as you project out the next three years, 2,500,000.0, what happens with that percentage of 70%?

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: So I wouldn't look at our future as being a flat 2,500,000. I'd look at it as we're going to evaluate on an annual basis. We do it every year in June and July. The team comes together and says, here's what our priorities are. We We have some safety related issues that need to be addressed. We have some high priority items like heating systems. We might have roofs that need to be done. This shed is collapsing. And then we build our budget based off of the need. So what might have happened in history is not a a fair projection, I don't think, going forward. And I think we're gonna be looking at a variable number in the future to help us meet the specific needs of a given year, and that will depend on both the transportation buildings number and the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I understand the evaluation you go through in where you have to fit within the umbrella of the agency itself. Yes. And as we're looking at putting together an agency budget and the numbers that you give us going out are 2.5 for the next three years. Some assessment where that would put you're gonna be hard pressed to squeeze paving and construction. And with employee contracts, I suspect the next employee contract will not be lower than this one. So we have to make a judgment of where these numbers are headed in conjunction with the whole. And all we have is it shows 2.5 going out the next three years. If we are at that, have you done any assessment of what the overall condition might be?

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: Out three years based on that? We're in the progress of that right now.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I don't have a full percentage.

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: Yeah, we've actually been recently working with asset management group to run some different scenarios within the system. Have to assign, like roofs, we're updating, trying to update all the roof condition assessments. We have to apply like a multiplier factor in there, like a per square foot cost for the kind of design in the system, these formulas to be predictive on how much it would cost to get us from 70% to 85%. So we are in the process of getting those numbers adjusted. We should have a pretty good feel for it come this summer.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Jane Morris, Division Director, VTrans Division of Administration]: Questions? Thank you, Brad.

[Brad McEvoy, Facilities Manager, VTrans]: Thank you.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yes. We're taking a break for five minutes.

[Todd Eaton, Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program (VTrans)]: We are?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. I thought it was even two minutes.