Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

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

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This is Senate Transportation. It is Friday the third. We are going through H 944, The T Ville, and we are with Michelle Boomhauer from the agency. Where did we leave off, Michelle?

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Thank you, senator Westman. For the record, Michelle Boomhauer, policy director, Vermont Agency of Transportation. Before we go back to where we left off, I just wanted to revisit the request by the agency for clarifications in section 10, which is at the bottom of page 11. And this relates to the appeals of section eleven eleven permits. There were questions yesterday regarding the frequency of this occurring and also the process. And what I was able to find out is we have had only one which is currently pending. The neighbor appealed their neighbor's section eleven eleven permit. The appeal went initially to the administrative hearings unit within the agency where the agency had filed a motion to dismiss arguing that the neighbor did not have standing. And the hearing examiner dismissed it saying that the neighbor did not have standing under statute and that the administrative hearings did not also did not have jurisdiction. The neighbor then appealed to the transportation board. It's currently before the T board where the parties have both filed motions that are pending on whether or not the neighbor has standing. And so we're currently awaiting the decision. We have in the room Jeremy Reed, who also has been involved in this particular case. In case there were other questions besides the information I've just provided.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You have a question from Senator White?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Well, you so much for getting some example and context for that section.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Section

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: 10. So if I'm understanding correctly, we're still waiting for a decision on this specific appeal.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yep. And

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: this language is an attempt maybe to like preempt that decision in some regards or would this change the outcome of that decision in any way?

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

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Jeremy is looks like she's been answering as well.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Go go ahead, Michelle. Sorry.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No. That's fine. Since you've been directly involved in the case, Jeremy, I I'll defer to you on a response if that's okay with the chair.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah, that's fine. Sure.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Jeremy, Chief Engineer. So it's not in an effort to preempt this decision and certainly our proposal would not be retroactive, so it wouldn't really apply to this case. What it really is, is trying to clarify long standing practice that you can appeal your neighbor's eleven eleven permit to the mandatory board. I think given the emphasis on housing, Act 50 reform, this could be the sort of default NIMBY path if we allowed it to be. And so again, this is somewhat proactive in saying, look, there is not a path forward to an appeal on an eleven eleven permit that you are not an applicant of. Right now the language is a little bit vague on that, but this just narrows it so that the applicant can appeal and only the applicant.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I guess I would still say I have, like, a little bit of trepidation with it just because if you've had so far one appeal of this variety, I I don't see that as, like, a giant situation that needs our change to it, but I'm also willing to I'm not gonna die on this hill. So if this is something that the agency feels is really important to like expediting the process, sure.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I I don't think it's really important. I think we're just trying to get ahead of something and clarify long standing practice. Because, again, we don't want to litigate pending matters in the legislature. So we don't wanna wait for there to be 25 of these. Right? We wanna just get ahead of it and and say, no. This is not the appropriate use of the keyboard. You probably don't have standing as just a neighbor trying to appeal your you know, neighbor's driveway permit, which is what we're talking about. It's it's it's a driveway permit.

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

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Or or utilities. Right? Great great example. Right? So Yeah. I don't want power lines in front of my house, so we're gonna appeal GMP putting power lines in front of my house. Yeah. That's creates a very untenable situation where everybody could appeal everybody's eleven eleven permit, which, you know, would just clog up the entire process.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: But also like your that's your property rights, like in some regard. Like we talked a lot about property rights this last week and it feels like if something is going to affect how I live on my property, I should have the opportunity to appeal. But sorry, I've spent a lot of

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you can both carry this on and then I'm gonna cut this down. We've got this section on hold. Let's get through the rest of the bill, but I want you guys to have your say.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. I would like to peruse substitute language or delete this because there's also something in the constitution about having to have appeals when we were doing 01/1981. We looked at various ways that folks could appeal other permits and if the T Board is the only entity that is able to hear appeals, I mean appeals, then there needs to be a substitute. And eleven eleven permits can be very consequential and this limits any appeal to an appeal. An appeal by the applicant is likely to be an appeal to the agency saying no. And so we've reduced all, I don't see any way unless you can tell me differently, of having appeals to the agency saying yes, which yes impacts the community in ways. It could be very consequential. So I don't want to delete this without knowing all of the impacts. I think there can be

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: more impacts. This is on hold. Okay, got it. We'll welcome alternative language if you have it. When we get back to this, if we have don't have an alternative, I'm just going to have an up or down low. Okay,

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: that's fair.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: I just want to say that when somebody applies for a eleven eleven permit, it's pretty stringent and it's not, they don't hand those permits out willy nilly, there's a lot of hoops to jump through before you get one. And it's on, just a reminder, it's on your land or your house and it affects you. Now to get to that point you have you had to follow a lot of guidelines to even get that permit so

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: that's all I had to say. It

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: may be helpful to see the 111 burn it

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: or the ten eleven and eleven. I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: can pull it up for you. Build out to in the last year.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Okay. Because that would be helpful. Well, I think what we would want to avoid is somebody using this permit to really deal with something that would be an Act two fifty criteria or something else is like, if this permit is really just about the impacts of the roadway and the highway and traveling public what I would be concerned is somebody doesn't like the development and they got an Act two fifty permit and they appealed that and now they're going to appeal the 111 permit because that's just their only avenue to kind of kill the project. I don't want that to happen like but if there's criteria I think it would be helpful before we decide just to see the criteria that the agency is evaluating these permits.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right, Michelle, next section where did we leave off? Okay. I'm settled on this that section eight and ten are on hold.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yes. That's what I have too. Also, section seven was on hold, the Public Transit Advisory Council, and I sent you all additional detailed information about section seven.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: K. But we did I thought we I thought we said okay to that section, but we would welcome any amendments if someone had an amendment.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I think that was kind of we approved it, but if some I think senator Harrison was going to make some calls to see about that and if she got any any further information when and if she didn't, it was approved. Okay. Did you so just to

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: be clear, I have, we approved section eight, section nine, we're holding section 10, And I have a hold on eight. Oh, you do? Oh, okay. Now I'm gonna get rid of my shoulder.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay. So the next section that we have before us is the section on the excuse me, section 13, which is at the top of page 14. And I'm going to invite Jeremy to talk about this section as he's been closely involved with studies that have been undertaken to date that are referenced in this section and some of the purpose behind the additional inclusion of information or request in this section.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, thank you, Michelle. So this is largely a continuation of the work we undertook last year in both payback provisions and efficiencies within municipal aid, where we didn't have specific recommendations. And I think I've spoken before about our effort to work with that done RPCs to come up with specific actionable recommendations. And so this is what that language is is trying to accomplish. It also has a a third piece, which is speed limit setting within municipal and state highways within various designated centers, village centers, neighborhoods. Again, up in upstairs in the health care education committee, it's a fairly convoluted process right now as far as who has authority to do well. And so again, this requires us to work with FAFDA to propose legislative language that addresses those three issues.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: This is section 13.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yes.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's and you but you'd also deleted fourteen and fifteen out of the other. What does that actually do? It's deleted as a Oh, okay. So that's

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I think. Yep.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: That was the Ways and Means amendment.

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

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: That was that related to revenues from the local option tax and directed to General State Aid for Town Highways.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. We will have an amendment in here. So we're going to bring that whole discussion back up in here about what we think about local option taxes and going out through the programs that we have in transportation.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So we should assume perhaps that section 14 and section 15 will become that again.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah, we're gonna come back so maybe

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: we Well

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: should put this on I'm fine with what Jeremy just shared in section 13. It seems pretty rote. Okay. I just wasn't sure if those were deleted. Didn't know if they were associated with the

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, fourteen and fifteen. Know it's

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: fourteen and fifteen are so are we okay with 13?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I wanna know a little bit more about it, but I think I can do that offline so we can do that, yes, And then I'll Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And it popped up really good for you. Sounds good. Well okay. Then that's okay.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And 14 and 15, that was the pilot fund, and and we're gonna retake up. So 16, Drive Electric.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So section 16 was added by the House Transportation Committee, and this reflects their interest and desire in having a continuation of funding for Drive Electric Vermont to carry out stakeholder coordination, education and outreach. Any assistance that may come probably through separate contracting is what is going on at the agency for infrastructure development with our NEVI program. We may need some assistance from them, which would probably be at this point is planned to be under the NEVI program, not this 01/2000. And then they've also been providing technical assistance to municipalities, businesses, fleets, and auto dealers related to vehicle electrification. So the agency had not proposed any funding in the budget for this activity because we were planning to work with Drive Electric Vermont under other channels. However, the house felt it would be important to provide this extra money.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So what's the other channels that we're talking about? What what was envisioned by the agency to work with them to get?

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yep. So what the agency envisioned is that the NEVI program, which has a dozen or so additional projects that have to be implemented, there's reduced staffing to implement that program. And so we were either going to be looking to external consultant to assist with that or potentially Drive Electric Vermont to assist with that. And so it would be through a special contract under the NEVI program. That contract would not cover their quarterly stakeholder meetings and some of those other functions. We were going to be looking through our planning budget to determine if there were resources that could be allowed to be used for those efforts so that those efforts would continue.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Whoever. Ahead.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Just to you may be aware that A and

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: R has some money in a in their budget for Drive Electric Vermont,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: but we found out about yesterday.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: It's only $5,000, but it would be silly for them to have a

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: go through a state contracting process for $5,000.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I don't know if they

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: have an existing contract that they're ending in. I'll I'll ask you if you could reach we could just transfer that money over

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: to AOT and add it to this contract

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: instead of having them have a separate contract.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay. I'll look into that.

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

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So I appreciate your explanation, Michelle, of kind of the different appropriations to Drive Electric Vermont. I guess my bottom line, and I agree with the house, is that I'd like to see Drive Electric funded and called out in this way. I think $192,000 is not enough for them to operate functionally. My understanding is they're and we one of the witnesses on the list that I sent you was just Drive Electric. We're going to invite Dave Roberts to share this himself. But I'd like to see $325,000 allocated to Drive Electric. I think if we're going to go into this conversation as quickly as we are. Our best partner is Drive Electric and to have them have a skinnier budget this year than they did last year doesn't make sense to me if that's our goal. So I would like to see a total funding package for them from the state being $325,000 What I think I understood from your point was that you imagine that there would be a greater allocation than just what we see on this page of 192 ks. So if you have a number of Oh, okay. I thought I Then what were you saying around like the NEVI money? And maybe I misunderstood. What

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: we are saying is we have money in our budget for the NEVI program implementation. And there would be a portion of that money that would be directed to Drive Electric Vermont to aid us in implementing the NEVI program. The other thing is that Is

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: part of the federal money that Yes. In the grant?

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yep. Yep. So that's already in our budget in the grant. And then we would look to some of our federal planning funds to assist with the implementation of the ongoing efforts that we have with stakeholder coordination meetings on a quarterly basis and some of the other technical assistance.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so then let me try to ask this in a way that it makes sense. What is the total amount that the agency of transportation, whether through federal or state dollars, is putting towards drive electric a lot?

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That's yet to be determined. It would be based on the scope of work that we develop with them for the services that would be needed.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. What Okay, well then I think it's safer then to just put a real amount in here so that they can plan and if I mean, I guess I'm open to Yeah, I just don't see how they're going be able to do it for $192,000 when they're asked was $325,000 So that's just my point. I don't think that number is enough to support the programming that they are being asked to do.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Preliminarily, has the agency looked at the money in the federal agreement and thought about what portion of it might go to this.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So we're still in that process at this time, so I don't have a specific figure that I can offer you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay. Could you go back and have some conversations and come back to us? Yes. That would be helpful before we make a decision on this. If we've got federal grant money, we've really got three pots of money that I've heard talked about, but we don't have any I think we just need more before we make a decision on where we're going with this.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And I don't know if it's possible to change this language to say like an amount appropriated up to a certain amount and then if that's through federal funds or what have you, like, I don't know if that creates an unexpected, you know, an advantage in your, like, RFP process for these pieces, but I do just feel like we need to support the future. Yeah,

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I'll see what I can find out. I think traditionally in working on contracting through FHWA, they wouldn't allow us to give a specific carve out to a specific organization. Jeremy perhaps can speak a little more to sort of the contracting practice issues related to the federal funds.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So generally speaking, any sort of design and engineering, potentially project management would have to be a quality based selection. I take the value of electric is probably gonna rain the day on that front, but sort of establishing an amount in advance would be probably a violation of federal contracting rules. So it'd be a little bit tough for us to say you're gonna get, pick a number, 225,000 for project management and technical assistance in the NEVI build out. That's sort of putting the value before the fall into natural work product.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: But do you have a number of how much you would be giving out in the RFP process at all? Like if anyone applied to the grant, what is the amount of money that they would be likely to be

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: open for

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: this type of work?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, so with the Brooks Act, basically what it requires us to do is make a quality based selection and then that second step of that says, I don't remember the exact fair reach, but I think it says something like fair and reasonable price. So to some extent, we don't have a dollar value that we could say, look, we think of project management's worth, whatever, dollars 80 an hour. We have to make a selection blind as to the price based on their qualifications. And then we look at their price proposal, there can be some level of negotiation, but ultimately the standard is I think it's very reasonable. And so we can't really start with a number.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, okay. It's different. Okay. I'm understanding that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So if you guys come back with some conversation about where this all is and where you are in this process and if you can come back with more information for us.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yes, we'll plan.

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

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We'll plan to bring additional information related to the scope of the services we're looking to procure.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay. So that section is.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Section 17.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: Airport.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. Caledonia Airport. So we have not closed the deal yet on the Caledonia Airport. We've been working back and forth with the Federal Aviation Administration over the past year. And one of the issues where we've had a sticking point relates to the inclusion of the airport in the national plan of integrated airport systems and the FAA's reluctance to allow us to proceed with a sale specific to the airport being included in the, we'll call it the NIPS system. And what NIPS, the National Plan for Integrated Airport Systems is, is a list of publicly accessible airports that are classified according to criteria such as service and size. And the main role of the NIPSEA system is to determine eligibility for federal funding and federal fund development. And in this particular case, while the Caledonia Airport will be stipulated through deed and purchase agreement language to be open to the public into the future indefinitely, there will not be the award of federal funds for development to a private entity. And so I think that's what the FAA is getting hung up on. And currently the authorizing language for the sailor lease of the Caledonia Airport indicates that it will remain in the Nipia system. And so we're asking to have that element of the language struck.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: also we are now pressing up against the deadline that was originally established in statute for concluding the sale, was 05/01/2026. And we want to move that out to 11/01/2027. We don't believe it's gonna take a whole additional eighteen months, but we just want it to be on the safe side since the unpredictability of the federal engagement could further delay things. But the parties, the Craft Vermont, who is was the entity who was selected through the process And for the agency had been working on a regular basis with the FAA to work this through. The region is still very engaged with Kraft Vermont relative to the offerings at the airport and the educational engagement and economic development engagement. So we find it critically important that we continue to move this along through these changes we've requested, which are articulated on page 17, line 13, which would be the removal of the NIPS requirement, and then on page 18 in section nine, which would change the final date for the sale.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Do we have any problem with this? I'm good with it. Okay. I think we're good with seventeen and eighteen.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Thank you. That concludes everything that we were gonna cover with me today.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You have other questions. I

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: just wanted to ask quickly on the Caledonia Airport piece. Should we have someone come in just to confirm? Is there like a memo or anything from legal community? Because we're just not we're notwithstanding, basically. We're allowing what are we we're allowing it to we're extending something that we previously have done multiple times with this airport. Yes. And So there's no, like, organization or group that we

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: need to just extending the deadline, particularly in '18, of a decision that that you can speak about how much testimony this committee has taken on Caledonia Airport. Yeah. We have

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: the select

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I mean, the wind and the select floor come in. We have regional planning Oh. People come in. So at that time, had and they and

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: they had AOT had one or more community

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

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: That that people could and then

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I think one of the main responses for those meetings was they wanted to

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: remain as a public airport.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Okay. Somebody is gonna buy and close it off. Just a private jet. Right.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: That makes me feel comfortable. I was not totally aware of that all those years ago.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So can I just confirm what I think? Go ahead. Hi, Michelle.

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

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So what I heard is that the federal government is concerned because it would the airport would be owned by a private entity, not a government, and that would no?

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No. The the federal government is concerned that the requirement to retain the airport in the NIPS system would potentially imply that they would be eligible to apply for federal grants as a private entity, which they are not.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. And so I'm sorry. That's what I was getting to. I'm sorry. Yeah. But Yeah. That that the federal government wouldn't that that private airports aren't in that system.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That's correct.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That's what I okay. And and I think that's fine. And the it's still open to the public. That's the most important thing.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: By the contract with the city.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right. And just that first I mean, you'll have a contract

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: to your audience. And I and my belief in this that up to this point that the transportation community has given this a lot of credit. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And is it still the case, Michelle, that the lease or contract is still private, like still confidential? Or is that a public

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No. I think that those documents related to the sales agreement may now be public since the entity has been selected, but I'd have to check with our legal team since they haven't been executed yet.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: It's in this section that clarifies that it is will remain open to the public.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay. Also is stated in the law, which is restated on page 17, line 10, but I'll also get you the agreement language for the sale that states that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, if you're able to give us the whole agreement, that would be great.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay, I'll find out.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah, and this does say ensure that the airport continues to be a public use airport and the public continues to have access to the airport for general aviation uses in perpetuity.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I also heard from the state rat who I can't remember who that is.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Do you know who

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: the state rat is? Is it Lindenville? Oh

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: yeah, is it Margaret Belton State House?

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, also Senator Ingalls has been closely engaged with this effort.

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

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So that's what I have for you today. If there's no further questions, I'll plan to sign off live and listen separately if that's pleasure of the committee.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And if we have questions for me, so we don't find you.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yes. I'll be right behind the screen.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Alright.

[Michelle Boomhauer (Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you. We are a little earlier than we had thought.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Can I ask you a question?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Sure. I just printed it and I tried to print it up. It wouldn't let me print it, but you It

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: would be good this is the application, but it

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: doesn't say in here what the the agency is looking at

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: to decide whether they get the permit or not.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So yeah, we can do that for sure. Mean basically It's just statute or just in your own rules, here are six things we just have

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: to look at before we decide yes or no.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I I can see if if we have the second guidance. Generally, what I'll say is for a residential driveway permit. Obviously, we have driveway standards, and that includes with appropriate all that, but also has site distance along the receiving road, I'll call it. And it doesn't matter as far as what we're talking

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: about in the building, whether it's residential or not.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Correct. So what are the criteria that you look at when Yep. Yeah. It's it's two different criteria. We do definitely look at residential different than commercial for obvious reasons.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Trying to get to the part of the bill.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: No. The guidelines are here. Access management program guidelines in but it's 34 pages. Yeah. Well,

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: sorry. Can you send me the link? Yeah. And at the end of the day, you know, commercial is much more rigid. Residential, we try not to have a landlocked piece of property. And so we'll Oh,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: well, that's not true. You guys have you guys have landlocked for a pieces of progress.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Is that yeah. Try not to. Right? So if there's if there's a way to make it work, we do. But it's it's

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We have to buy it right away. You we if so.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I I thought property had to have an access. There's some law about that. It might not be that V Trans had

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: to

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: deal with it, but there's

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Well, I mean, you can have hoe from it, which would be access, but that doesn't necessarily allow you to create a driveway.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right. Or to have it wherever you want it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Correct. Correct. Right. And we had a piece of property. We bought a piece of property that didn't, but contingent upon that, we bought had to buy it right away that went across the neighboring property. Yeah. It was interesting because we bought we thought we were buying onto somebody that had an 11/11 permit. The house was built in the eighteen twenties. They had never applied for 11/11 permit because it predated any of that. So in the process of us applying, the people that owned the house for the first time ever got an eleven eleven permit, and then we got an eleven eleven permit on the same driveway after that, but we couldn't get the eleven eleven until they got And, otherwise, if we hadn't been able to get the right of way across, we would have been the agent. We would have locked it in, blocked out.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So it's Yeah. No. Our the state is very complicated. Yeah. But it's Totally. Of our our development.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: We made it that way.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. So

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's like New Hampshire. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: City? New Jersey.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: That's actually a cup. You're you're right. Go straight to

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: the source. It's charming.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Would we be able I know we've got a little bit of time. I'm wondering if you would be able to talk about what we're adding to the T bill that's not already in there in conversations about like Senator Perchlik's language if we've okayed including that in there or I'm not sure why we're having those discussions.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We started with that the discussions around that and move into that. I think what I'm gonna do is have Chris get up. Okay. And we have to, I think, understand what the house did for the movement of money and what and we were fairly close with senator Perchlik's language. We might need a couple of people to come and talk about it, but we were reasonably close.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. All right. Well, good morning, everyone. Chris Root from the Joint Fiscal Office. I'm going to share a very brief slide deck, which is posted on the committee page under today's date. Senator Westman asked me to go over the tax proposals that were included in the governor's recommend as well as what the House did, which is not in the T Bill, but it supports the T Bill. So this AI generated graphic on the disclaimer slide pretty much sums up the theme of the presentation, which is moving money from one fund to another fund. I really want to just explain because the mechanics are a little bit different of the gov rec proposal on this slide and that is in the House miscellaneous tax bill H-nine 33. So you all have heard a lot of the conversation around the purchase and use tax, and this really gets into the specifics of what was being proposed and what the numbers involved were. So just to refresh everybody's memory under current law, the motor vehicle purchase and use tax revenues are allocated two thirds to the transportation fund and one third to the education fund. In the governor's budget proposal, that included language that would phase down the amount of purchase and use tax revenue to the education fund by $10,000,000 a year beginning in f y twenty seven. So this figure, the the bar chart shows you what that phase down looks like if you compared, current law to the ones the columns with the dash show the proposal. So you see the amount that would go to the education fund stepping down from 51.9 to 41.9 in FY twenty seven. That reflects that $10,000,000 difference. The language lowers the you know, if they use f y twenty seven as the base and then steps down 10,000,000 from that level in '27, then another 10,000,000, then another 10,000,000, and then there'd be a full phase out by f y thirty one, in which point all of the purchase and use tax would be going to the t fund, none of

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: it would be going to

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: the ed fund. Why these numbers don't perfectly match up to, like, $10.20, $30.40, $50,000,000 is because under this construct, the organic growth projected in the purchase and use tax over time would be flowing into the T fund. So another element of the governor's recommend was to essentially offset the impact to the Ed Fund of losing $10,000,000 of purchase and use tax by making a one time transfer of $10,000,000 from the general fund into the education fund. And this was not separately broken out in the gov rec budget. It was reflected in the giant total of, I think they proposed $114,900,000 transfer from the general fund for the ed fund, hundred one and four point nine of that was for buying down tax rates, but that extra 10,000,000 was just rolled into that. Something I want to point out though, and this is

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That used to be in the page.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. We're used to dealing with the T fund in this room, so I'd be remiss to not spend a minute talking about how different the ed fund is. The ed fund is So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: can we just go back? So the the administration added 10,000,000 to the transfer from the general fund to the ed fund. Correct.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And how In did that

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: 2027. Correct.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. And it's a one time transfer. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So the 10,000,000 obviously is not even close to what was being taken away. Okay. So how did they, why, why 10,000,000?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: This year it is at the end.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Is the end. Future years it's not.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: So if you look at the So start

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: it's just this year's.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: But the different I think I think what you're getting at is the hole that we have seen for steady state agency is a $33,000,000 goal. They only move 10,000,000 in. And, you know, I would argue with or I would the assertion I would make is what we're seeing is a pay paving budget that reflects the fact that it's not 33 in all of the different divisions where we aren't meeting our goals reflects the fact that we aren't getting the 33. That's what we're getting.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. Yeah. That's that's my question.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's what I, in my simple brain, would admit.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Dan, to be clear, my slides don't speak to the need. They speak to just the mechanics of what's being proposed.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What's proposed. Correct.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Back to the end fund, I'd be remiss if I didn't spend a minute just to explain how it's a little different and that it's expenditure driven. So with our other major funds, they're revenue driven. Mean, how much revenue is gonna come in and you make priorities within that spending decisions within that box. With the Ed Fund, we have to start with the amount of spending from locally approved school budgets as well as acts of the general assembly. What are the spending demands on the Ed Fund? Then how do we raise the revenue to pay for those spending demands? So there are non property tax revenues that go into the ed fund. That is the one third of the purchase and use, 25% of the meals and rooms tax, lottery proceeds, and all of the sales tax. That money that goes in offsets what needs to be raised by property taxes. So that delta between what's coming in from all the other revenue sources and the amount of expenditures going out of the fund has to be made up for through property taxes when all else is equal. So in the absence of, you know, expenditure reductions or some other sort of offsetting revenue that comes in that isn't from property taxes, there's a hole that needs to be filled in the Ed Fund. And that hole by default under this construct, unless other decisions are made, would be falling on property taxes to fill. So that little chart at the bottom there shows the net impact of all of these changes to the major funds. So you see that in FY '27, since the governor had proposed making that $10,000,000 transfer from the general fund into the ed fund, that there's no net impact on the ed fund in FY '27. But moving forward, there is a hole in the ed fund because there isn't offsetting revenue coming into the ed fund to pay for the fact that the transportation fund is coming out ahead. That's all clear?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yes. Yeah, just wanted to, this is just, this is limited to these types because I'm sure when you're talking about the Ed Fund in future years you project those other revenues that you talked about, but this slide is just about

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: of these mechanics. Yeah, everything else

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: is irrelevant.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That proposal of the purchase and use fee.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Right, because everything else involved is irrelevant to this. It's happening behind the scenes, but this is really just

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Right, one so that's the impact that this is having on it.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That's right.

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

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Because all else to be assumed to be healthy, because there's no other policy changes proposed. Right, but they do change. Well, and these these numbers also are from the January consensus revenue forecast. I will just my standard disclaimer with the revenue forecast is, you know, we build our budgets really around the two years coming up. The forecast does have a five year projection in it, but it reminds me of, you know, in hurricane season, you see those maps on, you know, the weather forecast where that total uncertainty gets a little wider the further out you go. So the further into the future you go, the the risk of variation from the forecast grows. But this is what we work off of to show where things are going. So that's the governor's proposal. Are there any questions?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. Well, just one other question. I mean, this is so complicated, just in the big picture, but what proportion of the Ed fund is the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: purchase and use revenue that they're getting now?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It is I don't have the exact percentage in terms of how much of the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: income It comes from

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: is low single digits. It's around $50,000,000 a year from purchase and use tax in a fund that is about 2 and half billion dollars a year.

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

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: But, again, every dollar that goes into the ed fund from a non property tax revenue source offsets dollar for dollar a cost that has to be raised in property Right. There's just a direct link.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Can you just remind us what was sent on the property tax basis?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: My colleague Julia is better positioned to answer that, but I think the last number she gave me was in the ballpark of, like, $1,516,000,000, somewhere around there. So don't quote me on that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Looking at around 3¢.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That's the range now, but don't quote me on that. That's the number that I've heard from Julia. You should have cared for her for a more precise number, but that sounds contextually in the ballpark.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Could you?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So in the governor's proposal, effectively, in the first year, the general fund makes the ed fund hold Mhmm. So they can allow for the draw to happen in the

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Correct. It's to be neutral on the Ed Fund in

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: the first place. So we make really

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: first move to the Ed Fund, move to then so we make two or three moves to accomplish the 10,000,000 getting to the T Fund.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, this involves all three major funds of state government. To do that? Correct.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: One would ask, how many years now in a row have we had general fund dollars come to the T Fund to make this whole to put together our budgets?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: At least two that I can think of. It might have been three recently, but I think at least two. And there have been have might be three now. Three? Yeah. So in the past budgets, there's been some language in the contingent appropriation list there where if there was additional revenue left in the general fund, some of that would be reserved in one of the accounts in the cash fund and then transferred in to the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: t fund. We set we aside general fund money at least two years ago, and used that money to construct the budget year we're in now. That was '19 PM? No.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Logan might be able to pull up the exact number, but it was in the tens of millions.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And then last year, the governor transferred another end?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It might have been 12 and a half.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It might have been 12 and a It have been half. We've transferred money.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. Absolutely. And I have a sheet that Logan might be able to pull up that I walked through house appropriations last year on some of these moves when they were looking at dealing with the JTOC appropriations. That's another example of how the general fund has essentially helped prop up the T fund is that when you all eliminated the JTOC appropriation, you shifted $20,250,000 of public safety costs for state police off of the T fund and over to the general fund. So the general fund has been picking that $20,000,000 cost up since the current year.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Or we are. And in the capital bill, there's been funding for transportation.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, the San Luis Garage project had been split across several different funding sources.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, and I think there was another one too,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: so that should be included. So to paper over the problem, we've been doing it now for at least three, maybe four years to be able to make that. But I would just in my think my own thinking about this, and this is in your position as chair of why do we go through all of these steps? Why wouldn't we just continue to transfer money from the general fund over here in the first year? And if you were gonna start a down step in purchasing, use do it the year after or sometime further, I think for me it's just a lot simpler to say to people, we're gonna continue the practice of band aiding this because that you started up and then you band aid the Ed Fund with money over to I the just throw that out there because I think we're going to need to talk about that because there's no way you can talk about any of this without talking about all three funds eventually. Does that make sense or?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, I mean I think the only reason you would want to

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: do it the other way is

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: to show that you're gonna start making that transfer this year instead of next year, but I think the impact on the general fund is the same and it's simpler. That's just the transfer number.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: But if you're one, I'd say we're definitely gonna start moving towards transferring it from the purchasing use, doing it sooner as best some advantages, maybe as far as that goes, but it's definitely more complicated than you help us find. They just transfer $10,000,000.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, you know, I and I mean this to be a conversation in here, and because if we're gonna take a position on this, I my worry is that that well, let's get into what the house did and and that because it becomes even more complicated.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Can I just say something? Yep. So, to me a reason to not do it is that we have funds for a purpose, you know general fund has a purpose and transportation fund has a purpose, but if we are going to regularly transfer funds I would much rather us do it intentionally and have some sort of policy because just for me it was very frustrating having transportation stuff in the capital bill because it's just not what you're supposed to do, right? But we know that there's a huge need in the transportation area and general funds is general funds. It's just everyone in the state pays for it. So if you were going to take it from somewhere,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you would take it from a local state. I'm going to give you

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: But I just think having

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: a good policy statement is essential if we

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: do I'm just gonna say to you in mind, the general fund ends up when people are in trouble. That's where we give fuel aid, that's where we buy food, that's where we do public assistance. General fund takes care of poor people when they're in trouble. Yeah. And so as we think about that and as you if we're going to use the general front to prop everybody else up, I

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: don't want

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: to get us in a position where we don't have flexibility going in. If we hit a recession, the general fund is the punching bag that is gonna is the place where we take care

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: of the board. So that would be in the policy.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So can you go ahead now? Sure. I would

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: just add to your comment, Senator, that the general fund's also the backstop for a lot of the other funds at State Government. Oh yes, So, you know, when special fund revenues don't keep up with demands on the special funds, the general fund has to step in to deal with the data sets. So the House went with a different path that is in h nine thirty three, that's the miscellaneous tax bill. Instead of stepping down the purchase and use tax by $10,000,000 a year every year for five years, what the house did was they shifted the percentages of purchase and use and meals and rooms tax across the three different funds. And rather than enacting a sort of five year schedule into the bill, what the House put in was step one of that. And I want to be really, really clear about how I talk about this because I have seen this described inaccurately in other places, not in this room, but I have seen people elsewhere say this is just like a one time thing, and this is not a one time thing. This would recur in future years until the legislature makes a decision to change it again. But it is step one of the five step ladder. It is not all five steps. Just keeping us on step one. The decision was made to climb up the first step. The legislature could then make future decisions to climb up another step, should you so choose. But what this construct did was they decreased the shift, the amount of purchase and use that goes to the Ed fund and increased it going to the T fund. So instead of the current two to one the two thirds, one third split, it would go to 73% to the T fund, 27% to the Ed fund. That shift works out to a net impact of $9,900,000 which is as close as you can get to $10,000,000 without getting really wacky with these percentages. So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: if you were going to characterize the governor's proposal at 10,000,000 a year versus the proposal that came out of the house and the ways and means, What's the pluses and minuses of either?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure. So I would say and, you know, these aren't necessarily my personal pluses and minuses. I would just say these would be what people would say are advantages or disadvantages. You know, I think both both systems get you to $10,000,000 in f y twenty seven for the t fund. Both system both scenarios also cost the general fund roughly $10,000,000. You know, the end fund sort of is in the middle in FY twenty seven as the middleman for this transfer. I would say the biggest difference is in the out years. The governor's construct lays out a schedule of, you know, five year shifts that provide some clear guidance on what to build future budgets around. The but it does create that hole in the end fund. I mean, that's the elephant in the room is that it it creates a hole in the end fund and in years after f y twenty seven. The house's construct still gets you the 10,000,000. It makes that 10,000,000 sort of a known permanent addition above the base into the T fund. It also commits the general fund to losing that equivalent amount of money. It does not create a hole in the Ed fund, but it also does not commit to, you know, what do we do for step two, three, four, and five? So it doesn't make decisions on that. The legislature would have to make those decisions. So I would say for FY '27, they both get a very, very similar result. It's about what happens in the future years. And I think, you know, I would never speak for a committee, but I was present for the ways and means discussion for this, and I think they had some concern about creating an additional pressure on the end fund at this time, which is why they went with a different path forward. The other piece of this, if I can just go back to this real quick, was this still involves all three major funds. I talked about the purchase and use shift. That's essentially paid for by shifting meals and rooms tax revenue. So to remind everybody, meals and rooms currently goes 25% to the Ed Fund, 69% to the general fund, and 6% to the clean water fund. If you're thinking, what does the meals and rooms tax have to do with any of this? It's because it's the only revenue source that is split between the Ed fund and the general fund. So it is like the one lever you have to pretty elegantly be able to turn the knob about how much money is going to those two funds without creating an administrative nightmare. So the instructions I was given to model this was come up with whole round number percentages that get you as close to $10,000,000 as you can. So that's how everything shakes out here. And you essentially pay for the cost of shifting that purchase and use out of the Ed Fund by giving the Ed Fund a little bit more of the meals and rooms tax, 4% more. That avoids creating that hole in the future years in the Ed Fund. The general fund would lose that meals and rooms revenue on an ongoing basis in the years beyond FY '27 though, but the T Fund would also retain a slightly larger share of the purchase and use on an ongoing basis until the legislature decides to play with the rates again. And this chart at the bottom here, if you compare that to what was on the prior slide where you saw in future years the Ed Fund net impact growing to pretty sizable numbers by FY '31, these numbers are essentially cost neutral. You know, the Ed Fund makes up like $900,000 ahead, which is a rounding error in the scope of the Ed Fund, but you can see that by shifting these percentages, the T Fund consistently stays in the neighborhood of about $10,000,000 ahead. It grows a little bit with organic projected growth and purchase and use tax revenues. The Ed Fund and the General Fund, the impacts of shifting that meals and rooms persist and they grow with the organic growth in that revenue base. They're both economically sensitive. They're sensitive in different ways, but they're both projected to be growing in the revenue forecast year over year by a little over 3%. Meals in a Rooms is projected to grow a little bit stronger than purchase and use, but it's within decimal points. So that is my presentation. I don't know if you have any other questions on So it

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: springs up a whole bunch of questions. I I you know, in the basic structure. Basically, at risk in this, the risk is all comes back to the general fund. Yeah. It's the general fund that is making everyone whole. Sure. And for transportation, it's a $10,000,000 fix on a $33,000,000 goal with nothing going forward in the future.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. And I I think you hit on it, The essential trade off here, I think, between the two constructs is who pays. And under the House's construct, the general fund bears the cost. Under the governor's proposal, that cost, by default, unless something else changes, gets borne by property taxpayers to the end chunk.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: After this year. After this year.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: Right. I was just going to say the general fund for the last three years, like you mentioned, has been bearing that cost already. Yep. And by all the way things are going, it might continue to do so in the out years, I'm not sure. Interesting though. Lamo, go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Well, I'll just say, first of all, thank you, Chris. This is the first time I think I've had the whole thing kind of explained to me in one go, and I've been like following the storyline for a bit. So thank you for that. With all of this, I still am supportive of a different revenue source. We are debating moving over here or over here or over here, and we are not addressing the root cause of the issue, which is declining gas tax revenue. So while all of this, I appreciate, I still think we need to discuss revenue sources, and I I think that's where we're at. I think we'd rather you keep that. Oh, I'm nervous. I could Oh, I didn't. So that's my one piece, but if I had to have like a if it was like choose path a or choose path b, the path that I would choose would be more aligned with what the Ways and Means Committee did on the House side than the original AOT proposal, because I do want us to have more of an ability to step down from step one since we're just standing on it in the future. And if we're not gonna discuss revenue sources this year, we need to discuss revenue sources next year. It's just this is not going away. So I hope that if I it feels to me that if I'm unlikely to see us addressing that topic here in this room this year or with our colleagues on house transportation, that I would prefer a scenario that gives us a better way to pull back in the future. It sounds like if I'm understanding correctly, Chris, of the two, it would be potentially maybe it's not even easier to do to to shift backwards with the Ways and Means Plan, but it seems like it would be.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It's all up to the legislature. It can all be shifted at any given you know, you can't tie the hands of a future legislature. So, you

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: know I I I Mhmm. This is in risky, you know, putting this out. This is really $110,000,000 and then no fix to the underlying problem and the fund going forward, It also so it's one year and that's it. It puts the general fund at risk. And in my view, if you were looking at I'm afraid that we're at we're we're in the longest economic expansion in the history of the country. We've seen gas prices go up. I'm afraid we're in a place where within the next few years, we could see a recession. Who gets hit the hardest in a recession is The history of my opinion is the general fund. And the general fund takes care of poor people. And if we make a permanent shift to move a revenue source away from the general fund and put it in statute like this, it will never change back.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, and I guess I think

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And I certainly think that in your scenario, that if anyone was going to raise money in the legislature around here, they're quicker to raise money to help the Ed Fund than they are to help poor Interesting. But I that's just my and throwing stuff out here. I think this legislature has and I'm worried in this scenario about the general fund.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: In the ways and needs scenario? Yes. Oh, okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Because you take that meals and rooms tax and you move it permanently away from and create a a whole life for us.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Is that okay. So maybe I was misunderstanding that because I the way I had understood it was that that that none of that was perfect. That that was just saying the case for the 01/2027 year.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No. The the the ways and means is a change to statute that would be moving forward until the legislature makes another change. And to senator Westman's point, been here a lot longer than I have, but I don't remember a situation where people give more revenue to the general fund as opposed to some of the other funds, you know, like typically when revenues go to the Ed Fund or the T Fund, they rarely go back to the general fund.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so then I'm confused. So the purchase and use one is not that. It's not making a statutory change?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Those are all statutory changes.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so what then now I'm confused.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: The meals and rooms tax is a statutory change that covers cover step one.

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

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: They don't cover all five steps. They're all statutory changes that cover step one. Okay. And that would recur in future years until the legislature decides to do something different.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, then I guess

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Then what you do is you take 10,000,000, under the construct of the meals and rooms tax now, you take 10,000,000 away from the general fund and on a permanent basis going forward.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Now I'm completely in the now I'm confused because it and and perhaps it's just because it's confusing. I don't know how I feel about either proposal then, I guess, is where I'm at. Like, now I'm talking about to like, because I I guess what I'm looking for in an ideal scenario would be something that we could easily change in the future to not have the scenario play out that you're describing. And I don't see that potentially in either if that's now what I'm hearing.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: This proposal doesn't do anything for us in the future. Yeah. It doesn't fix our problem.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. It kicks in.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It just

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: puts a little Band Aid on it, like, you know, 10,000,000 a year. And meanwhile, our gap grows.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Yep. From what I'm

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: seeing here.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. Yeah. To me, that's a kick of the can.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, and and it permanently moves that meals and rooms tax away from the general fund. And if we went to recession in the next three years, I my view around here is we're a lot less likely to raise money for poor people than we are to make adjustments to protect the property tax. That's just my

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And just there are some who think that the fund structure isn't helpful also where you could just have all of the funding in one pot so that you could address issues as they come along but But I'm not suggesting that that would be a huge conversation, the fund structure is part of the problem.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think there's no way that if we were going to have a proposal that says, here's our position to deal with transportation, and we are going to put something in the T bill to send over to finance to do that, that we have to understand where that is and what that place is. The other piece we're gonna have to talk about with Logan, I asked him to do a chart where all these pieces are because they're not all in one place. They're in miscellaneous tax bill, they're in a number of places across the board, and I think if this is me talking, I think the T Fund is too much at risk for us not to weigh in on this subject.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I think that might be our whole job actually. This might be our big.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Alright.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We don't

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: know what the next answer is, but we agree on that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: No. I get you know, I I there is we don't have any answers to any of this yet. So but I think and okay. Thank you. No problem. Thank you.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Howard, we have head upstairs.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: Just to stop on that whole proposal. It's put together thoughtfully but with no clear understanding of what each day is sitting here every day. They don't have that understanding.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's why I'm hopeful that this committee will feel comfortable weighing it on the board that presents these ills needs to consider.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Should we expect a proposal coming from someone?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, I think we're gonna have a proposal in here. Okay. And I want you know? But we have to understand all the pieces. Okay.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So I'm not gonna state me to draft any language.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I I may ask after we've had some malaggression.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I like that. It's appropriate for some reason.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Hey, good morning. Jeremy Reed, chief engineer. Just got a handful of slides, I guess talking a little bit more about the paving program and what could be potential inflation factors moving forward. Logan has previously testified about the diverging path of construction costs and this general overhead versus revenue, so I won't get too deep into that, but I did want to just highlight some of that. So this is a slide you've seen before, this is the National Highway Construction Cost Index. Obviously there is a significant spike coming out of COVID and we're still seeing some growth in that. This hasn't been updated recently, so it ends, I think 2025, but again, still positive and certainly significantly above where we were pre COVID.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Can I ask, since this doesn't and we're about to, we should how far are you into the contract bid process for the summer construction season and what are you seeing in that anecdotal?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So we are mostly through that process for construction year '26. Our engineers estimates have been very good. I'll just say generally well within 10%, which is acceptable within an industry. Year over year, I would say we're three ish percent roughly. Mean, there's a lot of variables that go into that, so it's tough to make a true apples to apples comparison. One thing that helps that year over year growth is, specifically with paving, is fuel price and asphalt price adjustments, which are mechanisms we use to reduce risk and they are more impactful on the paving side of the house than they are on some of the other projects and that's what I'll get to in the coming slides.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Can you say that one more time? The lessons?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That fuel price and asphalt price adjustments

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That's the most impactful. Is that

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: what you're They are more impactful on paving than they are another importance of construction just because paving is so dependent

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: on organics. When you set the contract, do you leave variation for fuel prices?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So the way it works is there's a monthly index, and I'll get to it, that is established in the contract, and any variation of that monthly index yields either a payment to the contractor or a deduction to the contractor, depending on what the market price is at the time the work is completed or performed rather.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So there is an ability for adjustment based on yield?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Exactly, that's the whole premise of it is to remove the risk of those market factors and just sort

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: of pay the contractor. Remove the risk off for the people doing the construction.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Otherwise they would just bid extra

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: hard to cover the business. Yeah, there would be some level of risk management, because it's still a competitive bid in broader events, so you've got to compete with your competitors there. This again, the slide you've seen before, just showing the projected conditions, and I think this is central to the point of without adequate funding, we will see deterioration in the network. Why is

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: the good going? That's the one part of the shared idea.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So this is part of the premise that it's cheaper to keep good roads good, and so instead of letting those good roads deteriorate to a fair or poor condition, which then would be more expensive to fix, you're able to have a cheap treatment and keep that good roads good at the consequence of the poor, become very poor. And just all roads or just state roads? It's the entire network. Yes.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So, when we're doing 92 miles of interstate and 55 miles state highway system.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And this is a policy choice really, too. Yes. Yeah. So

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: this is what I was discussing as far as asphalt price adjustment. So this just gives you an example of what it looks like. So on the left is this past year's public prices and this is price per tonne of asphalt. And this comes out every month, the beginning of the month, just looked and they actually just added April 26, and you can see basically in 2025 we were somewhere between $590 to $6.46 $50 per ton of asphalt. On the right hand side, I went back to 2022 and many of you may remember I had constituents reach out that the price of gas and diesel was significantly impacting their ability to perform work in a competitive nature, and what we see is that the price went from $5.80 spiked to $8.30, then back down. Now, for construction, the price in December is much less meaningful than the price in August. Really what we see is in the bulk of the construction season from May to September, we saw a significant increase in the price of asphalt.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And is that index for the Northeast or something? Is it regional?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I believe it is and I figured off my head exactly what it is, but it's a standard published index that we just cite. We don't do the math.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: No, no, can't. They come in different, some of them are

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I'm sure this is relative So, to a what does this mean to the paving program as a whole? And round numbers, this is what it means. So when asphalt, the three bullets on the left, is $638 a ton, so what we took is the $100,000,000 paving program that was originally proposed for this year. This isn't including the 10,000,000 purchasing years. If asphalt price adjustment goes to $638 a ton, we on average, and there's been some assumptions to go into this, but we would roughly pay industry $95,000 in asphalt price adjustment. If the price goes to $700 a ton, we would pay industry roughly a million dollars in asphalt price adjustment. And if it goes to $800 a ton, we would pay $2,500,000 in asphalt price adjustment. Similarly with diesel, if diesel well, and let me go back to asphalt, so like I said, I just checked this morning, they have updated the asphalt price adjustment, asphalt price adjustment for April is $7.3 So that kind of gives you an idea of where we could be heading. They have not updated the field price adjustment, which are the three bullets on the right, but $4.31 was the March indexed price. With that index price, with the work we have, that's roughly a $75,000 payment to industry. If it jumps to $5 a gallon, would net $600,000 payment to industry. And if it gets to $6 a gallon, which is, mean, anecdotally, that's kind of where we're at, it is $1,365,000 to industry.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So diesel right now, what's the price of diesel right now?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Oh, dollars a gallon. I think I drove past this morning $5.99

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: It was under a senator, that was

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, know, Matt. So I guess the underlying point I'm trying to make here is if we look at $100,000,000 paving project, dollars 100,000,000 paving programs, we're looking at basically a 4% inflation just based on diesel and asphalt price adjustments this year.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Can you give us, if you were to go back to that previous chart, and perhaps you said it and I didn't hear you, what would your guesstimate be for right now? If you could say

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Just the price per ton?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. So the the April price per ton is $730 per asphalt price adjustment. That's that's for April.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: But that's not on this chart.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No, no, I just picked black here so you could see how seasonally it changes.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And so that, as you described, is much closer to what we saw in 2022.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yes, we are certainly approaching what we saw in 2022 from a market conditions perspective. We just looked at April, it was $6.55 in 2022, and we're at $7.31 today.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And it also goes up, like when you look at just the yearly seasonal price, well, when are we doing work? Right. Oh, yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So it's different here

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: than We're not doing it in January when it's $5.80. Right.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So if, again, not going to pretend to be a global market analysis here, but again,

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: we're

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: already significantly higher than we were in 2022.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And then the next slide is projections based on the contracts you have.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, so there's some assumptions I went into, but based on the roughly $100,000,000 in contracts we already have, again, the March asphalt price adjustment was $6.38, which was basically where a lot of the contracts were bid, they were bid somewhere right around $5.90 to $6.40, and that only yields a $95,000 price adjustment. We're at $7.31 today, so or $700 per ton would yield a million dollars. Certainly, it feels like we might be going to $800 a ton, which is 2,500,000.0.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Where would that money come from?

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: Less than budget adjustment?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: No. Well, less contracts

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: with your paving budget. You have to take it from somewhere. Mean, I think it's all right. Yeah, we have to look at where we end the year, because there are other quantity changes and everything. There are a number of levers we could pull, district leveling could be one, if we had underruns on quantity, we could hold up projects a little bit and address it in FY '28 budget. Right? So the state fiscal year obviously ends in in July 1. It's a middle of construction season. So by pushing a project a couple months one way or the other, we can

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: make pretty significant do during those high years, we felt like in 2022.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So I wasn't chief engineer at the time, but I think they just found money through whatever carry forward and reversions that They they just

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: did the Route 15 project, which is a fairly fit, I would say that we got put up. We were out of the 10 top projects, we were eighth or ninth, and we got put off two meters.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Certainly, after you have a contract to your point, there's not a lot you can do, but yeah, as you build the next year's budget, you can put projects.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: No.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: But what the panelists do is they do a lower level. You know? Yeah. Towns Towns have this issue too, and they just do fewer miles or a thinner coat, obviously. Well, that's

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Which isn't he saying he's saying the level and seal, is what my terminology is. We can we can deplete that. Oh, okay. That's what that, and that's what they're doing. But if you have a construction contract and the budget that we're putting in, you're gonna be letting you already started doing letting the contracts for the ones this fall, but the the construction season that would start in May, June next year, those contracts haven't been let. Correct. And those would probably slip to the next year. Potentially. As we

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: build the '28 budget, that would would be a consideration. And and so, again, this this is this is just an additional 4% escalator that we have to address potentially. Can you remind me, I know we've heard this before, but where are the asphalt plants? I'd like to speak to it, but I think mostly asphalt comes from Albany, New York area and in Montreal.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: I'll just try to

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: get Tariffs?

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Not so far that we've seen, again, I'll let industry speak to that, but we haven't seen any direct correlation to tariffs. There's no other asphalt plant in New England or just, we just don't buy from them, we get it from Albany and Montreal. Think it's Albany and Montreal. Because that's

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: the only one, not because of it cheaper or something.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think that's the case. Again, the industry can speak to that. Nobody really wants to live next to an asphalt. They should be

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: The the owner.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. Hang on. They don't even Sometimes.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. And

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I and I don't think those are the plants. That's just the porch.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: So they'll be let's go. Yeah. Right.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So that's just the ports, but

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I get it. But I don't know.

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: I get the raw material right now. It's refined like New Hampshire as well. Well, they've got a hot mix plant where they

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: actually make the hot mix. Yeah. But the the the root asphalt comes to a port in Montreal, and they're all in a refinery probably where exits are moving in.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So they're just heating it

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: up and putting it in a mixer

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: and sending it out to the job.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: K. It's probably mixed. Well, they

[Unidentified committee member (Senate Transportation)]: make the actual make it. Put

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: it together. Do. Aggregate. Alright. Yeah. You do.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I thought where we are in seeing the escalating prices and fuel prices that we should think about this.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. You're making some very compelling points. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Know, the increases in fuel prices here are really just But, you know, and I think it gets into if people say, well, you should cut some areas of the budget in transportation. I think we're finding it harder.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And I think we are. I mean, I think that that's the truth is we already are making very serious cuts.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Woah. You have and it's Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It start it's people are gonna start feeling it with economic impacts. It's gonna be very serious when people continue to see bridges that aren't being opened or roads that are closed or they're on the interstate and they're hitting potholes, like that they're gonna notice it and it's gonna have an economic impact on us. Just like the quality of your roads, I think has such a it makes you feel like you're a developed nation or not a developed nation. That is the quality

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: of our roads. I just wanna say East State Street is not good.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. I mean

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think it's on the bong of the.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: We're gonna bump that one.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: It's really not my favorite. Yeah. It changes everything. It's.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Well, that's not to do for the sewer project.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I have. I've heard that. But

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: is there is the agency I mean, we have very we have four very poor. The feds just have four.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Is there another after very poor? Like, is that at what point do you say it's not a

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Offline, I've got a A road closure because

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: it misses Yeah. Not I'm not aware of a road closure. I mean, you know, within engineering world, it's always flat. You can drive over any paved road, but you can't drive over a closed bridge. Right? So Yeah. A truck.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I guess you can drive over.

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. I mean, make less of course.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. Or just how many lanes are open too? That's part of it. You know, where you have to what what it you can't take two cars at one time.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Right. You just have or you should have

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: mean, that happens like

[Jeremy Reed (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: You're going, but yeah, like these days do you're going 10 mile. Yeah. Take turns.

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

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So We've got one more after this, we wanna take five minutes. Be there. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And then 30 part will

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