Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Hey. You're live. Anymore. You're live. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Alright. This is senate transportation. We're back live, and you're on.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Thank you. For the record, my name is Joel Perrigo. I am the B TRANS municipal assistance program manager. I'm picking up from where I left off last Thursday on budget testimony. I'm sure I'm staying. And we left on Town Of Iowa aid slides. So just to reiterate, the town highway aid appropriation in the budget this year is 31,240,000.00 general aid for town class town highway is class one, two, and three. And I did do a breakdown that's the statute requires 60% of the appropriation goes to class one town highways, which equates to $13,485 per mile, a total of a 139 miles. Plus in the state, 44% of the appropriation to class two town highways, which equates to $4,915 per miles, just about point 800 miles in the state. And then the remainder, 50% of the appropriation goes to class three town highways, which equates to $1,831 per mile, and there's approximately 8,500 miles in the state.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would just break in for and say to the committee, the other thing that I think we're going to have to talk about is would we put in the t bill something to do with pilot and the local option taxes to try to move it in this area? Yeah. Yeah. K. Those were all decisions that I see us having to make over this twelve day period. The

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: only other part of this is the supplemental, which is just when there's class going out, I always have an additional lane, like supplemental pens. So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the increase we see in this is what percentage? It because it's based on formula.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: It's based on a formula. It's written in the stack. And it's the minimum of the test the CPI index versus the change in the overall transportation budget, I believe. And that increase you see represents that minimum increase.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We're talking about, like, 800,000? Oh, correct.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: And I did provide that spreadsheet for your use. It does break every single town down by their mileage. If you put in the 31,000,000 at the top in the brownish color, It'll show you what each town will get total, and they receive those in quarterly payments. And then there's another cell that you can actually enter a number to say if we were gonna add some money, what that might look like as a result. And this is the one they can use for basically Yes. Improvements, maintenance. Yes. Vehicles. Yeah. The only the only requirement is the three of that. Their local budget must equate to a minimum of $300 per mile of those certified mileages in order to be eligible for this program.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: They could even buy electric chips?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: I believe so as long as it's considered a maintenance a highway improvement maintenance.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: But you can't purchase any infrastructure like a building or

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: If there's a highway I

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: think they could. I mean, we're paying for those as part of our other grant programs under highway maintenance.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: We can do a skating rink. Right.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So Can I Oh, okay? You're on the slide board. Yes. Can you can you use your aid for your town garage? Yes.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: So so the way, again, the way we deal with this is this is just a revenue source that goes into the highway budget. So anything that's within the highway budget, right, it's it's tangible money at that point. Yeah. And so, you know, whether the dollar came from taxes or town highway aid kind of gets all convoluted and there's no specific tracking.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So something that might test this is when we have more stormwater utilities of towns those would likely be in the highway budget, but storm water is part of maintaining highways. So that just could get interesting, But I just wanted to ask a different question. There was a, we heard from folks from your area about the total cost and the state aid and my recollection is it was 6% of the cost and that that's this program. I just want to double check.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yep. That's this real quick. Alright.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Oh, what a coincidence. It's 6% of it. I mean, only it's 6%.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Alright.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Next program is under TAF 24. In the book it's a single line item. 6,140,000.00, but it houses three separate grant programs. Two of them are on this slide and there's a there's a following slide. So, most of these programs or all of them are for municipalities compliance with the MRGP or Lineup and Clean Water Acts. We do projects for MS4 communities through the federal funded portion,

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: which I'll talk about in a minute.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: The Better Roads program is $1,400,000 $1,440,000 of that 6,100,000.0 annual grant program. Majority of that funding, 1,000,000, comes from the Clean Water Fund. The remaining $4.40 is in transportation funds. The the million dollars is is granted for projects related to the MRGP and supports that have the compliance with that. What are REIs? REIs are road erosion inventories and so there was an initial cycle as part of the permit requirements to do a road erosion inventory And then when that permit was reauthorized or, what was it maybe two years ago now, I can't remember exactly, there was a new methodology and many of the segments had to be re inventoried. And so we funded a lot of those inventories through this program. Remaining $440,000 is reserved for, in stream culvert replacements of 36 inches and above. And clean water this is the clean water fund that's funded through the transfer tax? It's it's the transfer tax. It's like So the Unrecurrently model deposit. Yes. And and capital funds.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: From the capital bill.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: You put money into the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: There's a lot of money in that. Yes.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Today, it won't does it does it

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: But it it should pretty

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: or anything like that or go up over time.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Seems relatively stable.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: But is

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: it for specific projects or just specifically?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: At the capital bill level we just do the revenue and then there's a process for them to there's a clean water board that decides how to spend it.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: But you guys get a note. For

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: that particular program? So the board decides that we'll

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: get transportation Correct. Those. And are we gonna get to the point where you don't need it? Like, the all the towns have their MRGPs and Yeah.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: But we talked about that a little bit last time. It's, like, you know, most of this works are occurring on gravel roads. And so you're starting in one point. By the time you finish one road, you're the other road that you fixed that's already It'll

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: be an ongoing. It's an ongoing one.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: But it should be at a lower level. Maybe.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: The the the permit calls for full compliance by 2030, or maybe it was 2036 maybe, but there is a there is a daily permit that requires for a full compliance.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Right. But then we're full compliance just meeting all the towns that their roads are. Right. Do you think we're going get there now?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: That's not a question for me. That's more for DEC. Yeah. Okay. We're funding all in a portion of what's happening here. Do

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: we still provide assistance to the town's technical assistance?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: A part of these projects? Correct. Yeah. We have staff that meet with town. Yeah. I mean, these are very like low dollars, you know, fixes. Generally they're maintenance type projects. Ditching, cross culvert or disconnection practices, those sorts of things.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Can I add something here? So when more towns have storm water utilities, they can use the revenue from the storm water utilities to pay for these things.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: And then the funding by formula, not just for that, but that is for all towns or just?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Yep, so the next program is the grants and aid program and that's been level funded at $3,000,000 that comes through the clean water budget as well. But with that being said, we've had because of the two years of flooding, we had a lot of forfeited and canceled projects, projects that resulted in us actually making much more, much greater awards than 3,000,000 in the last couple of years just to roll over. But it is a, it's a formula driven program. So each town has a documented, mileage of hydrologically connected road segments and we take the total amount and make initial offers to every single town under the permit of x amount of dollars. They reply with their letter of intent whether they want to enroll the program for that particular year or not. Based on their enrollment, we then recalculate that formula and send out the final awards and grants. I mean, range anywhere from $6,000 in the very, very small towns to know, 50 to 60,000 on any given year. And I do have some data that shows what that what that's buying, like how much you know, how many segments are being brought into compliance with that sort of figure. The the participation in the program, I put in 237 last year. It's pretty much stayed right right about there. Moves up one or two or up or down one or two every year. That's about it. And the picture is sort of what what you see is what you're buying with either one of these Better Roads grants or the grants and aids program is, you know, bringing your road, crowning into place, adding gravel, stone line ditching, stone check dams. Which supports both clean water but also supports maintenance. Correct. The next part of the program is the Municipal Highway and Stormwater Mitigation Program, which is a federally funded portion. And so these projects are advertised alongside the Transportation Alternatives Program, uses the same eligibility, intended to be for larger scale, you know, engineered projects. The project in the left is a is in Fair Haven, was a rain garden

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: you know, downtown.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: And then the the other part of it is that Vetrans pays the water utility fees to the various municipalities. So Is that That's where

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: we budget for it. Right now, Saint Garage. So those towns or not?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: It's for our our our roadways, our parking lots, our buildings, everything.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: And it goes for those things. State highway. If you have a state highway in those towns, you gotta take Right. You build it. Right. Because it's impervious. It's based on the impervious.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah I thought that was mostly the interstate fees but but it's for all of VTrans?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: I believe that's for all of VTrans within those towns but I can confirm that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Okay, that's interesting. But if you could give us the interstate fees by town that would be good. Sure. And it won't be necessarily the same amount like they might have the same amount of road, but the way that the towns do the stormwater utilities, it's a different amount per unit by the that the town gets to decide that and they might change it year to year. So would it be the same cost to be trans like if you have 10 miles in one town and 10 miles in another town they're not going to be the same?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: So the same right?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: They're different? Yeah. I would

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: yeah. Yeah.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: I know we have we have Yeah. Yeah. So I paid $58 a year for my driveway.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right. My roof, I guess. And your roof. Yeah. So your house in the store. My house.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Yeah. It's a it's on every

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And that's a good deal. And sometimes around it's like 100, some 120.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Does your store have to pay? Do you still have to pay? I don't have it anymore. But, yeah, I did have to pay. They bought commercial a

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: little more.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah, because usually the commercial ones are, there's not a standard. Usually single family home, you have

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: a standard for single homes. So you don't

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: have to measure everyone.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: And then we are into 10 g reports. Some of these programs I covered in testimony the last time, but so these are projects that are coming into the the the book for the first time. New projects in the state this year twenty seventh. So these are projects that were selected through through grants since the last time you saw the post.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What's the total dollar amount that if Cat Williams have been removed? Yeah.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: I I don't have a dollar amount.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I wanna see how how how much paving we could get done, which wouldn't be much, I'll bet.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Really?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Yeah. Those are awesome.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: So our I mean, our program awards in the well, actually, I mean, I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: can go back up. Total is how much?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: These are all state.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: I mean, in bikeped in '25, it was 5,700,000.0 of federal awards and 307,000 of state awards.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: 307,000 in state awards? I wouldn't go very far. He's messed up.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Yeah. But that's just one category.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: This is this is a tall bike head.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: You might get it to four or so. Going back, that 10

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: g report is just for bike and ped? Well, the next part is Oh. So that's the bike and ped program and then a continuation of that. And then probably to add in some of the transportation alternatives program. Park and Red Lobbs. Just don't have a description. Like, the Red Lobster you just had. I'm guessing it's probably a scoping study. I don't even know about it. There was a blank on

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: another. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And in the report, does it have the dollar amount?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: In the book it would have dollar amounts in the book yeah. Yeah so you could follow like the GloVR TAPTA twenty fiveseven, Salt Shed and you could go to that book and you could see

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: the one that's correct. So you showed the Fairhaven thing on storm water mitigation. That's a state crime, that state? That was federal federal is that a 100% local? No, it's eightytwenty. Eightytwenty to town. 20 to the town. Correct. So anytime I see crossings and projects in Burlington, that's eightytwenty.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: If it's something that we're funding through Bikehead or transportation alternatives is and federal and 20% local.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: So you're not funding it at all? I mean, state money.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: State money. No. There's no state money. There is I will say there's some legacy projects in the program where there's some small amount of state dollars still. You spend From back in, like, the 2014, 2015 era, there was a time when we were we were providing 10% of the the match. Yeah. There's still some of those in there, but not many.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: And you the money runs through Beatrans so there's some staff time?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Correct. So there there is some staff time where we our personnels that charges to the to the project and there's some state match for that piece, but it's very minor in comparison. Park And Rad lots, the Colchester is the one on Exit 17 and then the other two that you see there are actually municipally owned logs. And then the rest area is a scoping at in the Highgate area.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What are you doing in in the Cambridge? Is that the one on 15?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: That's a it'd be it wouldn't likely be on 15 because it's a municipal law. Oh, they're doing a municipal law. Yeah. Oh, that in the village, Jeff. I'd have to look into exactly what that is.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. That would be good. Yeah. Here here's my question. State highway going through a village. What gen is the width of the highway? I

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: think it varied widely from village to village, but standard with 11

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: So, again, there's so Mary is here, but, generally, 11 is the minimum.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: 11 feet from the center line?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: 11 feet to the white line, and then I think it's a two foot shoulder as a minimum, so it'd be 13 feet total.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: From the white line on the outside?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Correct. So yellow line, the white line is a minimum of 11 feet, and I think we have a two foot shoulder. So total pig would be roughly 15 feet as our desired minimum, but there could be some grandfathered stuff or there's certainly stuff longer as well. And then they have more land after that. That's not good as far as the vernacular, right? Yeah, we generally, again, lot of jags. Yeah. But let's just say on average, it's a three mile right of way, which

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: is roughly 50 feet. So see, the only reason I asked that in relation to this is through the village of Jeff, it's always a problem because people park in the in the apartment buildings in the village don't have any parking. So they park on the State Highway, which is the main street through the village. This parking ride will be the first time there's any parking in the village that allows somebody that has an apartment to have a place to park and not get ticketed in the winter because we get everybody gets ticketed in the winter, and the problem is they have no place to go. So this parking knife will be a big deal. They usually hand out 30 tickets and I get screamed at.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: This revenue? The town? That's the why I asked. Interesting. And is Heidi, is that a new welcome center?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: It would be a new welcome center, correct? Yep.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Alright. Think about charging stations when

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you're looking at a new one. So where's the welcome center?

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Is scoping, so this is trying to figure out the location of that facility.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: So we've identified a location actually in the median between northbound and southbound. Maybe three years ago, there was a study done to look at three or four different alternatives. Most of them fell through and this is the tentative chosen location where we're going to do a scoping study to understand exactly Would

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: that meet close George and Fairfax?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: That's one of those questions. If the DDS commissioner first asked me, I don't know how to answer that. Okay. Why?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Do

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: we is it a requirement that are the beds after us or public outcry or something? I think it's a long standing policy preference. Certainly, the the chair of the house could could weigh in on that. Think But to what that happened here. He's from. And I think the secretary could talk about, you know, how long has it been a preference of the administration as well. Because there is one telling you the wills. Actually, welcome center. I think that's fair meeting.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So sad. So it was like, we literally North Of Swan

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Street. Yeah. Yep. Did you get North Of Swan Street? So so we we originally We had originally looked at the port of entry because we did have something there at one point in time. Quite honestly, GSA was in fact cooperative. And then we looked at a couple locations impacted right off the Swan exit, but that was a little bit out of the way. And we've tentatively identified an area in the media. Obviously, that would be new for us. You already done them a bunch. So, yeah, it's just building. I mean, construction is

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm gonna get myself in trouble. I hope I can.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: But Yeah. I I will. But to senator Brennan's point, maybe money wise, we did apply for and have high degree of confidence we'll get a northern borders grant for the scoping study. I

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: could check on that, but I believe we did get a pretty

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: good Was it announced? I may have forgotten. So the next question is how much does one of those costs these days? If

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: we're talking about connections to the north, the railroad, I mean the Montrealer is very desirable to a lot of folks.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You can't even ask for work.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Yeah. And I think they're working on that. There's a whole

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, that's with how many miles is that from Georgia Fairfax that's already there? 10 miles?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: I would guess 10 to 15.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And if I was but I'm just gonna if I was thinking on the interstate, I'd want something south of you've got the interstate coming down, but you want it South of 78 because that's all the traffic coming over from Upstate New York. Yeah. And so What's our standard distance between rest areas?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I'm totally

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: I think it's when we started. Yeah. I don't think there is. I think we're moving. And, again, I don't I I I can't say. I don't know. I mean, I don't know that it will go again in your rest areas. It's it seems to be more the welcome center model. I don't think we're any worse than other states because you can travel in New York and where they've closed a few. Sometimes they're like boom boom boom, sometimes they're 75 miles apart.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So what's the difference between the welcome center you're doing and the rest area? Well,

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: I I guess if you look at a welcome center, whether it be on Route 4 or 91 or 89, at the Williston, the welcome center is, like, more elaborate than the Georgia Fairfax Festival.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Are there restrooms at the Georgia? Yes. Right there.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Yes. To showcase.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: What it was.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Are they going are you going I I what are they talking about doing with Albert?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Yeah. There's a rest area there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: There that's a welcome center. Oh, that is a big. Isn't there? In Alberg? Yeah. The rest area there? On 78. Oh, it's There is a

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: whole wind turbine there. Oh, okay. That's what I know. Oh, yeah. Just across the I guess I don't know where.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm trying to It's just if you're going out of the village to and it's right here on the right.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Oh, the yeah. Right? Are you talking to four quarters there?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a state. Yeah. It is. It's It is. Well, it's

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: a state building. I know there are I

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: don't I don't look

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: at my district, by the way. I really think that I do, but I don't. Alright.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You should. Yeah. I'm I'm just trying to I'm just trying to figure out. It's on North Main Street in the village. Keep going. I'll look this up and it began Alright. Talk about it.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: The next report on 10 g is any products that have increased by more than 5,000,000 or 75% of the estimate in fiscal year twenty six. In cases like these, it's just that these projects received more funding through us. So they probably got to the point where they had an estimate that came in much higher than the original funding that we provided. They reapplied through one of our programs and were provided some supplemental funding and therefore that jumped above that 75% certainly not the timeline.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It's that lock. Oh,

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: yeah. Little lock.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: Did immigrant folks.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: And then the next for

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: my stitching. Oh, okay.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: Here's the part is the projects that are coming out of the book. So the projects that were completed under my pen, Park and Rides, transportation alternatives. And then these are projects that have increased by more than 10,000,000 or again, a 100% from the preliminary plan estimate. Same thing as before, there was an estimate in our system at the time of preliminary plans and the towns would have received additional funding. With the exception of the rest area in between, the Guilford was a project that we completed last year that had some we had to remove the pavers and do sidewalks and specialized work. We had heated sidewalks with that project. And so it was a badass piece. That's it.

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

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: I'll just add as sort of a sneak peek. There is some language in the T bill to alter some of the requirements within the transportation alternatives program that helps figure some of the backlog on unappreciated funds for that and to increase some flexibility for towns to make those grants a little bit more advantageous. So we fully supported that change. You still have a lot of towns that get the grant and look at the process and give it back? Generally, I think Or apply for the grant, I mean I think they get the money and then they get their way through the process and realize it's more and more expensive than they thought, and they give the money back. Okay. Do they have to give you back with the you started with, or if you're good for as far as they went then they're Well, there's there's thresholds and this is part of you've got to work with RPC, so somewhere to clean that up. The Feds have various thresholds right of way. They don't have to give back money, so there's engineering money, but if they expect any money on the right way to do, they're spending money on the right way do. But we're kind of speeding that up because they changed the rules in the IIJA, so there's a disconnect between what the federal law says, what our agreement said, and so part of the work this summer will be to make all of that consistent.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Are the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: new design standards in effect? Are they there?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: No. So the review ended weeks ago, I'll just say two, three weeks ago. There were thousands of comments from what I understand. And I think we actually have a meeting with a consultant in the nonfiction future just to talk about how to address those and move forward. I don't have a time frame for when those comments will be addressed and will probably be another draft will be published.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So is the goal to have it in a year?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: I think the goal is to have it by the end of the summer, but given the volume of

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Last summer?

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: No, this summer. So the original time frame, I think, was to have it by the end of this summer. Given the volume of the moment, we've gotta look at if that's feasible or not. I I don't know. It might still be. I I don't know.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Sure we can't have you till late. Yeah. In the next middle of the next week. We'll look at the calendar. That would be good.

[Joel Perrigo (VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager)]: We have to have the conference committee on the budget.

[Kevin Marshia (Deputy Secretary, VTrans)]: I think the senator Deen is gonna like the president. Do

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: you want to?