Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Your lives. This is Senate Transportation. We are on Wednesday, April 15. We are working on our way through age nine forty four, and our first piece this morning is with Senator White, who has some projects she'd like us to consider.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Well, you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for hearing me out on these. I have never, you know, I've been on transportation for six out of the eight years that I've been in public office, and I've never introduced an amendment around a specific project. I've never asked for a specific project. And I followed our project prioritization project asset management plan process since the beginning. So I know that it's not normal to make this kind of request. And I want to just frame up two points and then tell you about the projects. So the first point is, I think our project prioritization process is broken. I think it is unusual for a state to have a bridge closure or a municipal project be put on, put off, delayed, given different consistent amounts of money, and also not have local feedback as a loop for those projects. So I think unfortunately we're in a situation where the process we have developed is allowing valid projects to fall through the cracks while prioritizing less important projects. And I say that because I'm going to show you the impacts of the delayed work on the Fox Dan Bridge and the missed opportunity with the Reading Garage. So that's my first point. So I think we're in unusual circumstances. This is a unique moment and that's why we can do beyond the norm. The second point I want to

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: make before I talk about

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: projects is I know the argument is, well, could introduce any project they want at any time. True, actually totally true. We've had bills on our wall. Like I remember representative Anthony coming forward with a bridge project that was not funded. We approved it at one point in the House bill. That is actually something that happens and something that legislators have the ability to do. And while it's not common practice, I think that the idea of it being a slippery slope if we take these projects on where we're going to open the flood gates is very unlikely. In the same way that when Peter Anthony introduced his bill around his rail bridge, we didn't then see 180 rail bridge amendments to the T Bill the next year. I just don't see that slippery slope happening. It took a lot to work with Damien. It took a lot to work with the towns. And it's something that I don't think the average legislator will do. So I wanna make that those two points. So let me tell you about the Boxtun Bridge, which you heard about at the beginning of the year. So you've got a report that was made by a citizen of my district. I'm getting to it. It actually outlines, I think perfectly the key points around the Botsdam Bridge closure. So the points that I want to highlight for you and why I think this project deserves funding in this year and full funding, no town allocation, starts with the fact that it was not inspected during COVID. So there was a missed opportunity with the bridge being maintained. So I think that there's some obligation on our part due to a lack of inspection. I think that the road itself has such a specific impact, the crossing has such an outsized impact on the community that it needs to be reprioritized. The reason I say that is because with the bridge closure, as you can see in the report, it adds EMT travel time, meaning the people who live back there, over 80 people, have a slower have slower access to emergency services and there are older providers who live back there and it keeps me up at night to think that there would be twenty minutes of difference at extremes for them having access to an ambulatory service. They have had the closing of multiple small businesses due to this road being down. A farm stand that had been in the community for, actually farm stand owned by Gidget Lyman, who's the person who wrote the report, had to close because they had relied heavily on the traffic coming from that bridge to access their farm stand. You basically have to go down a class three road now, so their business is closed. There was also a hairdresser who relied on visual traffic for her sign and she is most likely going to close due to lack of access for her customers. So it has a really big impact and I think that the town itself has been given little opportunity to make proper decisions about what to do with their budget and for them to be asked to bond for it would raise the individual property taxes of that community significantly. And I don't think that they justified in a positive situation.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: finally, what do you see in the amendment? In the amendment, you see the first section changes our highway maintenance program and it authorizes spending to include the Royalton Bridge Trust Project. This says Bridge Trust 10, but I also think it's been called Bridge 30,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: so I don't know if that's just because it's

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: the trust bridge. I'm not sure. But it changes the funding. So that's why I stopped us earlier. That's the first project. And

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: since

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I was working on this, I also wanted to present to you some information about the Redding Town Garage because there's a once in a generation opportunity to support our forest products industry by supporting the other part of a grant for them to have a fully built out timber frame DPW garage. It would be the first in New England to be used for this. It would give them a salt shed. It would move them out of an almost defunct DPW setup now. And it would be an investment in our forest products industry that is being backed by the Northern Borders grant. So this is the other half of that grant. So that is, as I said, once in a generation opportunity to have a hallmark project in Reading who has also struggled significantly with DPW costs due to flooding. And I appreciate our chief engineer who spent time in Reading meeting with the folks around projects. I think that this would be a really great use of our state funding to draw down the Northern Waters grant, which they have been a part of

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: and approved for. Which is the rate?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's the other half of this. I believe it's a thousand $200. So it's

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: like a 50. But I can get

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: a confirmation from the select board members who were not able to attend this morning on short notice.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So there you go, that's my pitch. It

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: is in total, I think it's 1.4.

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

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: to follow in the actual thing, but the.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: So, the For the record, Damian Leonard, Legislative Council, the, additional state is 1,440,000.00. There's a $565,000 local match and a $9,000,000 federal match and I base that on formula amounts. And it's 1.2 per per record number option, I believe. It was 1.2 was the number that senator White had sent me.

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

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: I was drafting the northern Northern forests. Borders. Northern borders.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Is there forests? Oh, I can send you links to it. It's actually an incredible Yeah.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: The total for the bridge is a little over 11. When you take them into account. That's three different pots and wine.

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

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Good morning, Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Agency of Education. So, yeah, we would oppose that for many of the reasons Senator White identified, it would probably open up the floodgates, and certainly every person in this room has town priorities, open center here, St. Nelson, Dallas Falls, bridges, and there's a reason we haven't operated that way for a long time, because quite frankly, had poor results. Additionally, Federal Highway has since implemented mandatory transportation asset management principles, and those are funded principles, and so we have a camp transportation asset management plan that has to be renewed every four or five years, but annually we have to issue a consistency certification that basically said we're following the principles within the T bill. And if we started essentially creating earmarks within the T Bill, it would be impossible for us to certify that we are being consistent with that transportation asset management plan. So on a broad general sense, that's our position. As it relates to the FOG stand grid, I'll just say we did not miss an inspection that is at May Falls. What we did do is we wanted to take a closer look at it because we knew it was deteriorating near the end of its life, but because of both COVID and the flooding in 'twenty three, we weren't able to get that additional inspection in place, but we met every sort of standard bridge infection criteria. We inspected in 2020, 2022, and 2024. I'll also say that each of those findings found that the bridge was not being maintained, and that was deteriorating, or accelerating the deterioration of the bridge. And so, I don't think that additional inspection was going to fundamentally change the outcome, because we're not providing any more information, and the town clearly wasn't really responsive to the findings that we did present. What I would say also is we do recognize the impacts that this bridge closure has had on the community. We've gone back and we've moved some money around, and we have accelerated the bridge project to ideally an opening, so new construction complete by the 2028. If there was construction money in FY twenty seventh, we wouldn't really be ready to go to construction anyway. We still have to go through NEPA, which is a nine month process, and then we have to go through right away. Now we think both of those exercises will be fairly expedient, but nonetheless, they are hurdles, and and there's no scenario in which we would be ready for work construction in FY twenty seven.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Why did the town not put a temporary bridge?

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: So if they put a temporary bridge in, it would have done a couple of things. One, it would have increased their town share by 5%, so it would have gone from 5% to 10%, which is basically a $600,000 hit to the town. Additionally, it would have probably prolonged the NEPA process because we were to put the temporary off alignment, and that would have then brought in the question of whether or not we could have kept the existing historic trusts in place with taking the temporary bridge off the table, out of that NEPA process easier because we don't have to justify getting rid of the historic trust. As you will get that you're not gonna get rid of the historic trust? We are under the current scheme, but if you've got a temporary in place, it prolongs that because they're just saying, there are alternative options. Whereas if the bridge is closed, it removes the axe hurdle. And quite possibly it could have affected the total outcome because we could have been forced into a place where we had to rehab the existing truss at probably an equal amount, meaning the same $11,500,000 price tag, and then left with a bare, inferior bridge.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: What was the maintenance?

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Weren't washing the bridge.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And that was the town's responsibility?

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah, the town's responsibility. It is a town highway bridge, so we always have a town highway bridge program, but ultimately the hundreds of town highway bridges out there are the towns responsibility, not only to maintain, but to some degree, replace and rehabilitate in a timely fashion. Certainly the town highway bridge program at its current $25,000,000 budgeted amount isn't enough to put a state to take responsibility of every town highway bridge.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Are the maintenance requirements clear to the towns?

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah, so anything relatively new, there's a finance and maintenance agreement that lays that out. My sense is this bridge is old enough that there isn't, the document finance and maintenance agreement. That being said, we frequently go to the tax and talk about best management practices and preservation treatments for rigors. Additionally, a lot of the bridge inspections will give recommendations on what to do to prolong the life of it, and all that's available to the towns. Mean, is very widely recognized best practices. Now that being said, I don't want to single out the world then because most towns don't wash their bridges and the frequency that we would like. On the chairman of the select board, we don't wash bridges. That's just the nature of

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: it. Yeah, this game is unusual.

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: That being said, trusses are very susceptible to that. Are possibly, they're not as resistant as a lot of other structure types, so there's a bit of a higher emphasis on that for personal trusses.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So just a suggestion is we should let folks know, let towns know directly instead of just saying that the information's available.

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Well, think we try to do that through the tax, but then also we have notified all towns that our inspection reports are available. This goes back fifteen or twenty years, because we used to mail each inspection report to the towns, That was deemed a fairly ornish process, with the transparency, they're all online now. So it is a passive process to your point, but we've tried to disseminate that information as widely as possible. Like I said, it's been in the standard practice for fifteen or so years anyway at this point.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. Well, you could email.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: We could. We went down to the select board. We looked at the bridge reports. I mean, we definitely looked at them. Mean, maybe we didn't feel like we had the money to do what they suggested, but it was always part of the process. Yeah. Here we got a big bridge report.

[Joe Flynn, Secretary of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yep. Here's what it said.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: How many bridges are there in the city?

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: So it so it changes, but roughly about 4,000 are inspected. So that would be town longs, so anything over 20 feet, and then both state longs and shorts, and that's six feet as a town short or a state short, six to 20 is the short, and the long is anything over 20 feet. And so the collective of those three categories is roughly 4,000. And how many bridges do we have that in the that have been closed, that are in this category? How then we're in the middle of

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: replacing a bridge in Wauka, to whom that has a Emperor's Bridge on top of it for fifteen years. Yeah. They what we determined, that

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: was 2002 or something, 2000 Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I can't remember about that. And we're we're finally getting around to and the the town kept that because it was the access to the town clerk's. So it But how many bridges are you in this position?

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Off it off my head, I don't know, I'll have to get back

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: to you with that. I

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: would say we probably have 15 or 20 temporaries out there. I don't know how many town highways are actually closed at this point because of a bridge inspection finding that we introduced. I I can see if I can find that information for you.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Are you pretty sure it's more than this one? A lot. Yes. But if you have a guess,

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: is it three or 13 or 47? I would guess there's 10 to 20 out there. You know, like I said, I'm Well Yeah. I think there's 10 to 20.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: How many how many temporary breaches have have you must have that number. Yes.

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah. I I don't have it out off hand, but, yes, I can absolutely find how many temporary bridges we have out there, and then how many closed we could probably

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: I think we're interested in the closed. I mean, the temporary ones, at least, are functional.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yes. But if I walk back to and say, you've paid for a temporary bridge every year since 2002 and have been put off because they would they paid for this bridge every year, and it was to the town clerk's office, and they really had no choice but to take it on for the bridge.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: So Yeah. I mean, or they would have closed it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You know? So I would say that towns like that are in the wine industry. It would be helpful to know.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: I can get that in. Because they're town days every year because they're basically something to bring.

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Yeah. At a significant discount, but, you know, I think it's hundreds of dollars, not tens of thousands of dollars. But, yeah, there is a phenomenal fee around the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would think that they might have had that same element of 5% to go to 10%. At the time, probably not. And all was at play for them in the

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: Correct, I think that 10%, 5% came about twenty ten, twenty thirteen timeframe when we started the Accelerated Bridge Program as a means to, I'll say incentivize towns to go with a bridge closure, because we've just talked about the benefits in right way, environmental permitting, and then just general cost of get in, get out type mentality. So the entire Accelerated Bridge Program is predicated on the notion of not remaining a temporary and having much smaller impacts.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I'll just say, and I apologize for stepping out. Thank you, Ascilla. She's from Woodstock High School and she's shadowing me today. So I I'm happy to withdraw my abandonment, especially around I don't know if you talked about the Redding Garage in the moments I was gone, but No. I did just wanna say that I I think the most compelling thing you said for me was that you can't go into construction in 2027, if I'm being completely honest. But I hope that we, as we continue to see fewer and fewer funds coming to these projects, that there's a clear understanding of what priorities there are in those communities. Because I don't think this just bubbled up. I think it is a priority.

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: So I

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: guess that's my only point, but I'm happy to withdraw it because I'm not seeing a huge shift in maybe the perspectives, but I appreciate that I was given the opportunity to present these.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would say before we go to the floor with the T Bill, I am compiling a list of where we're behind. It would be helpful to have roads closed, a ballpark estimate of what the replacement of all of those bridges would be. It would all be helpful to have temporary bridges that communities are paying for. Sounds to me ballpark, might be 30 bridges in the state that are in this. This is any example, that could be a fairly significant piece. And given the fact that we're falling behind across the state in paving, we're falling behind in numerous categories. We've got public transit routes being eliminated, and that it would be helpful to have that as a number to be able to report to our colleagues just where we are. We can absolutely get that for you, and I will say this is probably the

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: most dramatic bridge closure we have in the state at this point on a couple of fronts. One, the detour, meaning the way around, is very significant, and just the size of a structure. It's a really big structure over the White River. I think the new bridge is gonna be hundreds of feet long. It's somewhat unusual for a town wide bridge project to be almost $12,000,000. Now, for Windusky to 60, that's a little bit different, point taken, we will also get you that information. The other thing I would offer, I think I've testified to it a little bit, but certainly happier to get in deeper detail on how we prioritize and build the capital program on an annual basis. I think a lot of work with Senator Harrison the other day, because I absolutely appreciate wanting town's input and regional input on priorities. The problem with town wide bridges is this isn't a discretionary piece between one Townhide Bridge in Windsor and another Townhide Bridge in Windsor.

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: It's a

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: townhide Bridge in Windsor versus the Townhide Bridge in Lamar, for instance. Getting input at this stage on what the RPC in Windsor is, isn't helpful because we know this is the number one, it's competing against other parts of the state. I'm absolutely happy to sort of walk through how we prioritize building the budget and the criteria that- Just raised another issue.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Well, it's intensifying what I want to say. So thank you for bringing this up. And in the past and in other states there is a process where the committee looks at every project, which I'm not advocating for that but not doing that requires trust in the And I don't have a good sense of trust in the system, especially because the tax are not engaged and my understanding is that we've stopped doing prioritization about six years ago, five or six years ago because we didn't have funding for new projects. So we just looked at the TAC as a way to get priorities for new projects. But when we're deleting projects, especially in the Smellus Falls project, it's very impactful and it has not transportation impacts, and I would say probably most transportation projects have economic developments and safety and all sorts of other impacts. And the process it's broken when VTrans decides what's going to happen and then it doesn't let the towns know because you know years in advance sometimes and I'm sorry I shouldn't say that for you, but y'all, the agency knows. These projects aren't a win. They take years to happen. Towns need to be told about this and that's a fundamental part of the process and we're not doing a good job on that. So, I'd like to talk about the process as we go forward. It's not a money thing technically in the budget, but it certainly has financial impacts to the state.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would, if we could get the numbers from that, it would go on this sheet, and I plan on being a sheet devil, to highlight. I hate to do this to you, but we are going to be facing the issue after we get natural resources to weigh in. Do take language in this in the grant program to increase from 200,000 to 600,000 for Vipettes.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, oh, this isn't you're gonna talk about this. I was like, maybe we put it back in? Like, I don't know.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: No, but I am going to put a piece of the reason that towns like Reading can't get money for salt sheds that make sense is the grand program has been at 200,000. Raising it to 6, I think, is appropriate to do. And that discussion that we're gonna have on that, around I'm not opposed to my pet at all, moving up in the grant, but not having a combined point of

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: view on equal footing

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: with the salt and sand sheds puts me in a position where I have a lot of sympathy for towns like Reading that are struggling to be able to handle their infrastructure. I am we are gonna wait and see how natural resources feeds in, but it smacked me right in the face, so I have to

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, no. I agree on that. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is even 600, you know, it's true. Those projects are very expensive.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: They're very The rate

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: that says 600 you should do no matter what. I agree with you on that part. Yep. That's why. They heard from now Theresa's herd, they took a little testimony yesterday morning, so I don't know what

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: they're Well, they told us that they would be back to us by the Nationals' Listens.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Oh, oh, oh.

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: And I'm absolutely happy to come in and talk about that. There's some things that need to be clarified on on what we're proposing and what passed at the house. For those sections. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And thank you for which one Yes. We I'm sure.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I tried all the moves. Thank you for bringing it up.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: The secretary would like to.

[Joe Flynn, Secretary of Transportation (VTrans)]: Thank you very much, Carol Westman. For the record, Joe Flynn, Secretary of Transportation, and I just felt that I needed to say this because I'm in the room. For the record, I respectfully take great exception with the comment that be trans is untrustworthy, or that our system is broken. And I appreciate communication is key, and I think that's the root message, and I don't disagree with you. But being that this is a public meeting and it's a meeting which is also recorded for the world, my obligation as secretary to speak up. With respect to us changing the delivery time of projects, we produce the white book every year. The white book at the time it's received by legislators, in particular people in this room, whomever they are, it does show if something's been delayed. Whether or not the TAC, in particular RPC area, is more involved than another, there is a process at the very least. Clearly, you're right, that the TACs aren't involved in the decision making that we do, but the difficulty here, and you know this because you followed our budget process, is that is not a public input process. Once we get to, like in the case of fiscal twenty eight, we'll start discussing that in July, We don't, at that point, go out and take further public process because the creation of every governor's budget going back decades and decades is an in house reality based on the compilation of everything, including what the funding is that's available and the needs that are determined through the prioritization process. Nothing is perfect. We agree. I think there was a comment on that on another topic a moment ago, and we all agree. Everything can improve. I just wanted to say that Vermonter should trust V TRANS, the integrity of the decisions that it makes. Are there decisions that we need to explain better? Outreach to communities can always improve, absolutely. But to go back even to whether or not a community knows whether or not to watch a bridge, it's fair to say that if every community polled their road commissioner, if the town has a road commissioner who doesn't know what the maintenance is on any bridge, the town might wanna talk to the representative. That's just a fact. So but, again, I don't wanna conflate my my interest in speaking. I just really feel that the agency works very hard to manage the vast array of infrastructure that it has around Vermont, including the impacts to local infrastructure as we can best afford to send those dollars to the towns. No disagreement that that's a challenge in this environment in particular. But, you know, I thank you for hearing me out.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay. That's wonderful. Love you.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Well, first of thank you so much. I appreciate your point. And I wanna say that AOT has been exceptionally helpful to every community in my district. And obviously the district garage down our way is the best district garage. But I'm wondering if you could speak just to as we start to see a decline in revenue, what do you think the agency can do to prevent situations like the Fox Dan Bridge? As we see less money, how do we prevent the reaction of a community being so negative to an experience. You know what I'm saying? Like how do we not have this happen again? How I, how do we work through as we see less and less money going towards these projects and more of these scenarios popping up? How do we prevent them in the future or work together to not have it be this type of I

[Joe Flynn, Secretary of Transportation (VTrans)]: think we're at the crossroads of a lot of realities here, and I don't know the particulars on this bridge. I did look it up earlier when this testimony began. But many of these type of bridges in Vermont are nearing 100 years old. Many of these type of bridges were built post the flood of twenty twenty seven, or about 1927. God, I hope you don't have a flood in 2027. And so there's that. I think it's fair to say that they probably exceeded their expected life cycle. So when you look at the number of these type of structures that were built in Vermont after the flood of 'twenty seven, there is a crest of need right now. And while that's a reality, we are also facing the reality that it costs them to do everything today. I do think there's that convergence, and I do not think we're going to avoid instances like this, but I think, well, I just think you can because you heard there's 4,000 bridges at the stake, and you know our program has a finite number every year, and there's no magic way that that's going to change immensely. I have to say this because I think you've opened up a tremendous fastball for me to at least take a swing at, and the as recommended budget and the money that's coming out of purchase and use, which I understand you're talking about and do appreciate how the House looked at that, however that comes together, and I think that's an important statement, however that comes together is really critical. I acknowledge how the House looked at that, and I appreciate how this committee's looking at that because I do think that that's very important. That's all. No, all set. Thank If you were to look that then, regardless of how something like that is structured, and I understand it's still a work in process, that does change the game pretty significantly respect to what's available to meet federal opportunity. And the federal opportunity part, we don't control. We're in the same situation as every state with respect to what the federal government formula is for every state. But having more ability to meet the federal opportunity is I think one of the key answers I would provide for the general question that you told me.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Well done.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: That was a great response.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Unlike our counterparts and whether it will survive or not through the process, this community is working on that purchase and use tax piece. No one seems to have a better plan than purchase and use. And we need consistent money over time that the construction industry can't can't just gear up and gear down, but and we're gonna put it in front of people, and we don't have control of anything outside of this room. But this committee is gonna at least try to put it in front of people and say, here's consistently how we would try to get to a better place. I appreciate that, chair Westman.

[Joe Flynn, Secretary of Transportation (VTrans)]: And I do appreciate the committee's view on that because I think it's a it's an important conversation and to allow it to survive, to have a larger body to discuss it, I think is very critical because it really does speak, I think, to the point of your question. And as Chief Reed said a moment ago, this isn't just an inter county question. I mean, it's it's every if you got a representative from every county in Vermont, you would hear of a unique circumstance in every county. And one of the last things I'll say before I go is is as Jeremy works to get the numbers for you on the bridges, many of the temporary bridges that we have out right now are a result of flooding. So whatever towns those are in, we should probably asterisk those because whether it's the '23 or the '24 flooding, either 80% or 75% of those will be covered by federal government through FEMA once that gets reopened. But Congress, I'll stop there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you. Mister Janet. Yes. Hi. We are gonna put you up again. Alright. You get as we schedule to. Like, Oh. I

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: need a little electric fuel to get in the day.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Okay.

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office. I was it was requested that I update the pilot special fund kind of outlook that I went through with you all last week to take a look at fiscal year twenty eight and take a look for at the revenues that might be available depending on if the revenue available to the local option municipal transportation special fund, which I've shortened to l o m t, whether the revenue is calculated with kind of the base pilot statutory payments or whether the reappraisal and listing payments were included in that construct in fiscal year twenty eight. So to start with our column in FY twenty seven, so this starts with the next fiscal year. If you'll remember, our estimate so this is kind of pulling forward the estimate from f y twenty six that was on the sheet last time. The fund balance we're estimating will will be about $13,200,000. The JFO tax consensus projection for pilot revenues, including all the the new municipalities that voted a local action tax, but not including STOW's 2%. So the revenue that would be going to the pilot special fund is almost $16,200,000. And then I lumped together all the various statutory pilot payments. So this is including the general pilot payments and municipalities, the correctional pilot payments, and then the $200,000 of approximate grand list stabilization payments. Those are within the statutory construct. So I've just kinda lumped those all together for the pilot special fund. And then in f y twenty seven, right, this is this is the being proposed in the budget, right, that these payments would come out of the pilot special fund for listing and reappraisal payments. And then the bill, the language Damian shared with you included a $3,000,000 appropriation from a pilot special fund as kind of startup money for town highway aid from the pilot special fund. And so you would have 19.1 approximately million dollars in pilot fund usage in FY twenty seven. And so that would leave about $10,000,000 on the bottom line. That 19,000,000 in expenses, net of the 16.2 almost in revenue, means that the pilot special fund would be deficit by $3,000,000, so it bring that fund balance down to about $10,200,000 So moving forward to FY '28, these two columns, I'm going to breeze through them. We pulled forward the estimate from FY twenty seven, and this number, a, is not a consensus revenue with tax anymore. This is JFO freelancing. But we basically took the face of the sales and meals and rooms tax growth, right, which is about 3% for both of those taxes, within the current municipalities that have voted a local option tax. You know, this does not include any estimate of new local option tax municipalities.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: We have no way of knowing who's gonna put it

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: on their ballot next year. The other change is this in, f y twenty seven. The new revenue from the new local option tax municipalities is reflective of eleven months of revenue. Whenever you start a new tax, you receive eleven months of revenue from those folks. And so in FY '28, it's a full year of local option tax revenue generated in a full amount of full annual year that's available for the pilot special fund. So it's a little bit higher. It's not hugely higher, but it reflects kind of a growing base and a full year of revenue from our new lot municipalities. And so in this middle column, this construct doesn't include the listing and reappraisal payments. It's assuming that those are going away. They're not included or they're, yeah, they're not included within the pilot construct. And so the total uses would be about $12,700,000. A little tweak here because the language has the difference between pilot revenue and statutory pilot payments. I calculated the difference in this next line is essentially 16.6 and a half minus the 12, almost six here. And so it gives you about $4,000,000, that is the difference between pilot revenue and the statutory pilot payments reflective of how it is in the language, And 75% of that, which would go to the local option municipal transportation special fund, means that you have slightly more than $3,000,000 available to that special fund. And so the total pilot appropriations, so this is the 12.7 now, plus the $3,000,000 means that you have about $15,800,000 in use of that of the pilot special fund. And so that means that the fund balance increases by about $900,000 So it increases to $11,100,000 you include the main difference between these two columns is just including listing and reappraisal payments. Since that means that the difference between pilot revenue and the amount of expenses out of the pilot special fund is much higher, it means that there's less money available that would go to the local option, municipal transportation special fund. And so that would mean about $500,000 would go to that use. And because you have the listing and reappraisal payments, that means that the uses of the pilot special fund would be more, but it would end up that the in FY '28, the fund balance would be roughly what it was at the beginning of the fiscal year.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Go ahead. So would it alternate? Does does the, reappraisal? Is that every other year?

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: No. So this is essentially there there are questions. Right now, it is just for an f y twenty seven construct. The house was considering in this their miss in their version of the miscellaneous tax bill. They went to the floor, but these reappraisal payments was permanently a part of the pilot fund construct. There's an amendment to take it out. Given that this was a a gov rec proposal in f y twenty seven, it's kind of planning for the possibility that it would be a proposal in the budget in f y twenty eight. So thinking through what the two realities are.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. So these are all I'm sorry. Yes. I I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's okay. So I think to to close out sections eight and nine in the bill, we need to make a decision about whether we would leave the third accommodate the 3.4 going forward or not, and what we would do around that. You know, we what this is calculated on what towns have done now. There has been, you know, this year, 13 towns that did local option taxes, seven that failed. This is gonna be a growing number. So what we're doing, regardless of whether we put the 3.4 ring or we go back and say half 1,000,000, it's all based on where we are now knowing that it's gonna grow. You know? I I and this meets every obligation that says that a port and for me, the important thing is we create a fine liquid, create a structure whereby we can say in the future, we've got excess money, we want it to go toward the tenants. And we haven't had a vehicle to do that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, no, think it's a great idea. Would hope that it would not go up and down. That's what we really don't want.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well I think there's two things in this. They can't supplant, so they get their regular increase, they go along. But part of the reason that we chose Town Highway eight or we do Class two Roadway or structures is those are grant programs. So if we're a little unsure of money, we could put it into that and they go out to grants for town, and it doesn't doesn't create that expectation that it'll be in the budget every year. And, you know, and as we know, I think a lot of towns need help with culverts and Oh, yeah? Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Well, I'm fully supportive of the construction of this. Only concern is that since I just don't want to relook what happened on the house side where then their revenue committee completely switched it around. And if it's like an open door, then the Vermont League of States and Town said, dang, why did we open this door? So I just

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think the that's

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: my answer and I'm very proud.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Josh is was here yesterday and he's very much in support of doing something. Great. Okay. The question for you, like more appropriately is, in your afternoon, which column would you rather us choose?

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Well, I don't understand. I can't remember what we did was the formula for the local option municipal transportation transfer. Is that so the first year it's just a flat?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: First year we took 3,000,000 out. Then the line of this at more than 10,000,000 in terms Yeah, don't know that, but what's the formula to calculate going forward? We take three you go ahead. If we take three quarters of of the surplus in the quarter.

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Exactly. And the surplus in the bill is currently defined as the amount of pilot revenue minus the, statutory payments. And, currently, the statutory payments are your general payment to municipalities, the correctional facilities, and Right. The grand list stabilization program. And so that's reflective of the the the first line on the the expenses heading. The other piece I will add as a bit of consideration here is if you choose the construct the current construct where the the revenue is net of only the statutory payments

[Joe Flynn, Secretary of Transportation (VTrans)]: Mhmm.

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: And there will be a budgetary decision to include the listing and the appraisal payments. If you choose this and the $3,400,000 as a part of this construct, it would be more reflective of right. So you're taking the reappraisal payments out. You're also allocating $3,000,000 about to this local option tax local option municipal transportation special fund, it would be more reflective of the f y 27 column and f y 28 if you choose this middle column, if that makes

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: I didn't understand what you mean by more reflective.

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: It would be so it's not shown here. So in this middle column let's see. I'm trying to think of the best way to explain it. This middle column is showing where the only the statutory payments and the telecom valuation project is in

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: How long does that go

[Jeremy Reed, Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)]: on? It's

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: gonna end so taxes, they're spending $150,000 in FY '26. They're imagining it to be a three year spend, it'll end after FY '28. Thinking about this middle column where if the language continues as it is, where the amount of revenue available to the special fund, newly created special fund, is the difference between revenue and statutory payments. Yeah. They're still gonna the special fund is gonna get $3,000,000 in revenue. And then if you add another 3,400,000 to uses Yeah. Then in this middle column, you would essentially be saying or you could even look at it at this this other call. You're you're the amount of expenses out of the fund would be a special fund would be more, like, $19,000,000 as opposed to what it is. So the you would be working out of the fund. You would the fund would be in deficit if

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: you're spending with the reappraisal, unless the payments be considered statutory payments? Not unless If they're in a statute. I mean, like, you're counting them. Like, you add that that weight, meaning I see. In which it would be a statutory payment.

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: It would be dependent on how it's constructed.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. Because I'm 99.9% sure that next year the government budget will include the 3,400,000 we've got out of the pilot fund, and I would assume the budget appropriations committees will wanna find that money from there. Just otherwise, it's it's more money at the general fund with the not predicting we're gonna have. So and that's gonna be probably there. Yes.

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: The way it's I think, yes, there would have to be language changes to reflect those reappraisal listing payments because it's it refers to certain sections of statute that are more the general payments in the grand list stabilization program. So depending on

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: how, yeah, how, again, it works out. In in my mind, the last column gets this started. And going forward in the future, if it's going to grow, it reflects that that three point four has already got two years and it doesn't put pressure on anyone. It just goes forward. And we get the funding created. I think for me, that opens the door for us that if there is revenue, we have some place to deposit money that would go.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. Zach? I would assume we've we don't know what a lot of them, so I don't know the maps and how we write this bill, but I would assume in FY '28, it's gonna be, the far copy. Yep.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I'm going to I don't see Danny here. I don't know where he went.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: He had to go to the

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: sun and natural. Oh, good.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I'm going to tell him to draft a nine section to reflect the final column.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: K? Yep. I mean, what difference does it make in FY '27? Are you what happens in FY '28? We're we're writing a bill for FY '27. We could the final column is what what may happen in '28. Yep. So he was distracted really by first off.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, we in we in '27 moved to $3,000,000 into the fund. Right. Just a flat 3,000,000. It's not Flat 3,000,000. And we we we take part of that surplus and move that flat 3,000,000. We will have to talk about in that fund would we take and disperse part of this out to the tenants.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: The 3,000,000?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Part of the 3,000,000, would we what would we do with that this year?

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Doesn't it right now, it says we would all that

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we go to town highway aid. No. It says that we go into the fund, and it says that that the fund can be used for town highway aid, or it could be class two roadway or structures. Up to your discretion. Well, we may wanna say we would want one of those three programs, but those three programs are all money to no towns. Yeah. And two of them are grant program, and we may wanna say we want we'd rather it go toward the grant programs than creating expectation in town Highway 8, but we're directing it, and we've created the structure in the amount of the.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: But there would be nothing in here

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: that would affect in our bill that would affect, like, by the

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: time we're taking 3,000,000 out of the funds of the Well,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we do we do in '20 we've created the the fund. We've created the structure, and I would envision that whatever gets deposited in there, this committee would want to make a recommendation in next year's D Bill.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: It deposited it where? In the local office and municipal transportation fund? Yes.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And how we eat again, right? Yeah.

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

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So are we gonna talk about, maybe not at this meeting, but about Highway 8 versus Grants? Because I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I just think Highway 8 is a really practical thing. I I we're gonna we're gonna have to if we get the structure in and we get this all approved, that's one of the things that we're gonna have to we gotta get this bill out.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yes. Got it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Got it. And what we might do is get an amendment for the floor because we're probably gonna have most of next week because the bill's gonna be in finance for a while.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So is what we're proposing right now, town highway 8?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I don't know. Well, it goes into the fund and we've got those three programs and we can, but it's all money directed to the towns. Okay. And but I'm we're gonna incorporate column three into the process of the. I look forward to the language.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: No. I'm just gonna say column three, but I do I we're we're already in the devil, so we know it doesn't matter.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It's this Well, yes. Yeah. Well, we have this you know, well, are we gonna take the combination if it's three point four in a month?

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Say that for or for FY '28?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: For FY twenty eight. If I may

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: do today for FY '28.

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: I think there's a question of whether how you'd structure it in the language, the difference between pilot revenues and what's the essentially, the the part that you're taking out. So right now, it's structured as the base statutory payment from the pilot special fund versus Right. Everything that's appropriated or expended out of the fund. And I think that's the essential. Yep. Right.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: So we're we're assuming that the pilot fund will be statutory requirements or the the reappraisal fund will be statutory requirements and therefore will come out ahead. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Just a quick question. Is there a fund balance referred?

[Jeff Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Would want to make sure, given that the general pilot payments are relatively right, they're appropriated at $12,200,000 I don't think you would want some sort of substantial cushion there to make sure that you have the ability, if there was a recession, local option tax revenues. So why why we chose 75% of the total instead of a 100? Okay. Yeah. But there's no reserve guideline or anything like that?

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: They're just in statute. They never we only change them when there's pressure to change them. There's not a not indexed or something like that. No.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. That's what I was wondering too. So there's some of them are 10 years old, 20 years old? Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. K. This Alright. Blood resistance. That closed section is basically done.

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

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I don't wanna find it.