 Okay, we're going to start. This is the out-of-pocket expenses on insulin. I said, Jen, I don't know that we've made any. I don't know. I think we've talked about various things. Why is that a problem for my insulin body? You just want to. Okay, we've got slippage here again. All right, so we are here. All right, Jen, let's walk us through this one. All right, Jennifer Harvey, legislative counsel. So we've definitely taken a lot of testing on that. We haven't done any marketing. So this is the bill that would limit the amount of a beneficiary's out-of-pocket expenditures for prescription insulin drugs to not more than $100 per 30 days to fly, regardless of the amount or type of insulin needed to fill the prescription. And there is a similar bill in the house that has slightly different language that specifies that it would limit a beneficiary's total out-of-pocket responsibility for prescription insulin drugs to not more than $100 per 30 days to fly, regardless of the type or amount of insulin needed to fill the prescription or the number of prescriptions. So there's a little bit more. And the house version is a little bit more, I think, focused on what I understand the intent was, which is to keep a person from spending more than $100 on all of their insulin levels. Okay, so if I wanted to do something with that, I would recommend going to our house. And I think we also want to understand given the structure of insurance and the actuarial value that if we do this, we are not reducing the cost to any, the insurance company or anybody else and that this added cost will pop up somewhere else. Right, I think it would end up spread among the other ratepayers. Right, so we're going into this with our eyes open. This just seems to be particularly egregious behavior. So the other bill just makes it clear that it's all kinds of insulin and it's once a market. The total and that total out-of-pocket responsibility, regardless of how many prescriptions. So there is another bill out there. There is, there's a house version, H882, one in it has a whole page of sponsors. It has not only the out-of-pocket piece, but it also then directs the Attorney General's office to investigate the pricing of prescription insulin drugs to see if there are adequate consumer protections or whether additional consumer protections are needed. That's part of the house point also. That's part of the house point. We have, that's been suggested to us that would make us different from the house bill is it has been suggested by the healthcare advocate that we require that hospitals and FQHCs only hospitals. The only hospitals. My suggestion was focused on hospitals. The only hospitals. FQHCs are separate entities under 340B. I think the proposal was limited to hospitals. Hospitals that we hear, we could do the $100 out-of-pocket expense. And at the same time, we require that hospitals sell, make available, sell through there that have pharmacies, sell to public. Well, sell to patients of the hospital. Limitations under 340B. Okay. And patients of the hospital mean you are actually be receiving treatment from the hospital. From the hospital or from a doctor affiliated with the hospital or anything like that. It can be a doctor, Devin Green, Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. It can be a doctor affiliated with the hospital. Okay. How much is this going to shift the costs? What's the total value of this, do we know? Which one are we talking about? As far as what is, how much money is being spent by the insurers on insurers and patients together? Who would be spent by virtue of this cost shift? Okay. Sarah, do you know? Sarah, teach out for Blue Cross and Blue Shield for Vermont. We don't believe all of it would be shifted, but we spent about $11 million on insulin for our members, probably our members who have an annual shift in Vermont. How much of that can you even give us? Blue Cross, Blue Cross, just Blue Cross. Estimate for Blue Cross as to what amount do you expect to be shifted to other, right there? So there's going to be a lot of different kinds of shifting. So it's just under the $100 co-pay, that amount is going to be shifted amongst everybody else on the plant. There's currently already a $1,400 cap on prescription drugs. It's not a whole lot of additional shifting on the co-pay side, and likely any member that has a co-pay cap would not need to seek out insulin from a hospital. So it would be, I believe, the uninsured who we don't have any information about or people with high deductible plans that may seek out insulin through the hospitals. The hospitals. So Susan Gorkowski, our folks said that sort of their back of the napkin calculation was about 11 cents per member per month. This might cost, if we win the premium, out of profit too. And if you just switched it to the premium. Yeah. So 11 cents per member per month. But basically this will go into your rate design, planning group, and it'll get distributed. Is this just for exchange plans? Is this bill just for exchange plans? Yeah. No. It's for all health insurance. There isn't a lot of health insurance out there that isn't exchanged. It's just a large group that is non-exchange. It doesn't get a risk. So it does, right. So you're not catching the self-insurance. It doesn't apply to medications, anything that's differently and doesn't apply to Medicare. So it costs you $500 plus large groups? Right, which is your whole insurance. How many, I know we always talk about 76,000 or something in exchange. How many are there? A fully funded large group is about 20,000. And then on both areas of it. So we're getting 100,000 in that fall. Plus or minus. $1,400 cap on prescription drugs right now. Does that apply to both exchange and large groups? Yes. Yes. On insurance. But we were always talking about actuarial value. We were only talking about the exchange plans. Right, actuarial value only applies in the exchange. I mean, there is actuarial value in the other plans. It's just not required to meet certain benchmarks. It's how it gets applied. Right. I just wanted to, we're not catching the self-insurance and one other group. Well, Medicaid, Medicare, VA, TriCare, Federal Employees Plan. I mean, anything that the state doesn't have. The state doesn't regulate for the high, in the case of Medicaid, there's much more limited out-of-pocket. The folks with health savings accounts is. So people with health savings accounts. The health savings account goes along with a fully assured plan, just a high-deductible plan. So yes, this would apply to someone with a high-deductible plan with or without health savings. It would make it less expensive to get their insulin on a monthly basis. But those payments are how they're getting their deductible, it would make them. Right, I mean, they'd still be covered by the maximum out-of-pocket on prescription drugs. Okay. I thank all the men for all their prescription drugs because there's always so much we can cover at first dollar. But insulin, we can cover, we can cover at first dollar. Okay, so they're all covered by the 1400. So to make sure that I understand this, if I were looking at what fiscal impact would be with this, if it would be, in effect, 11 cents a member of a plan across the board, we took roughly 100,000 people who were covered by these various plans, multiplied by 11 cents and multiplied by 12 months, that would be the fiscal impact would cost roughly. Or MPP. Yeah, for us. Well, 100,000 is putting both together. Yeah, correct. But presuming the 11 cents. Yeah, it would apply for the costs as well. And the total cost of all of this is about $142,000. We're not making a difference between people who have it and who have it for each person. They're insulin. No, for each person, for you, yeah. Yeah, it's 11 cents per person per month. Times 12 months, I doubt it. Okay. Is that this, let's see, when we get up there 100 cents, that, let's see what the bill has introduced. Is that it? Where the benefit to these folks is essentially a couple hundred dollars perhaps, right? Yes. Well, if, we'll say $100 a month, is that our bill for 30 days supply, now, it says that the out-of-pocket expenditure of prescription is not more than $100 for 30 days supply. But I'm hearing you talk about the health, the house bill. Some people may be on two different kinds of insulin. Right, so that's why the language in the house bill is a little bit clearer about it being total out-of-pocket responsibility, regardless of not only the amount, amount, I thought amount was enough, but amount, or type, or the number of prescriptions. So it's clearer in there that it's saying. It's making it very clear. It's trying to make it very, very clear. So the one that you have is based on what Colorado passed, and I understand from some people in Colorado that there has been some disagreement about how to interpret that language. And so they suggested being more explicit. And so that was after the Senate deadline, right? But so that's what went in the house. OK, so that's where that came from. Our, so committee, straw poll, who is happy? Is that a question? Yeah, is that a surrogate? That's a question I'd love to do. I would, if all we're doing here is effectively reducing the price to diabetics by $200 a year from the protection they've already had under the $1,400, then maybe not even that much. So I think it's a little hard to tell with the way the, I'm just trying to think of the interplay, maybe other people had to take, between the prescription drug out of pocket max and people with high deductible plans and not everything that they pay for prescription drugs toward that $1,400 gets them to first dollar coverage for their other health care. So I don't know if this makes sense to insurance people. But I was thinking of somebody who's taking, I don't know, something that we can't. Something, so say an oncology drug, I don't know, something that we wouldn't be allowed to cover first dollar under our law, under our $1,400 cap, because it's not in the federal definition of what you can cover first dollar under high deductible plan. So it may be that they continue paying out of pocket for some things. I'm just not sure what the, do you guys see where I'm going with this? So I don't know how to judge for all people whether hitting the $1,400, if they have other drugs that they're taking, they may still be paying for prescription drugs. They just wouldn't be paying for insulin. It's all here. And I think we've heard many of them are on many other drugs. So straw hole, how many people are ready to do this bill, as it's perhaps with the more inclusiveness of the house? We have all the insulin. I would all insulin monthly out of pocket, limited to $100. Are we ready to do that? I think the next question is, it's been suggested that we ask the hospitals to make insulin available to patients affiliated with the hospital at the $340B price plus a reasonable dispensing fee. And what do they, I mean, dispensing fees are, as I remember, pharmacy dispensing fees are usually less than $10. I think there's a range depending on what the plan allows. And I know there's been negotiations among the work group on the $340B Medicaid dispensing fee, which is, I think, higher than a lot of the private insurance dispensing fees and higher than Medicaid's traditional fees. OK, but there is something there as to what a dispensing fee is. We don't have to. You may want to, if you say reasonable, that's a interpretation of the title. The reasonable is in the eye of the beholder. And we are, I'm concerned about it, a couple of these small hospitals that float. You just don't have as much space to go to to cover other lost leaders. So do you want to define dispensing fees? Or is that getting us a problem with insurance? One of the health care bushes, I mean, not health care, by dispensing fees, would you? Usually, the insurance company, whoever's selling the drug to the pharmacy, the insurance company, says, this is what you're going to pay for it. This is what you're going to charge for it. And we'll pay you a $3, $5 dispensing fee. It's literally the payment to the pharmacist for going there. Yeah, to cover your costs. And that's negotiated between the pharmacy. I think you will have a, if it's the only game in town, you'll get arguments on whether it's frequently not negotiable. It is set by a contract, if you want to. And I'm not even going to try and figure out pharmacy, but I think I've got that right. But who hospitals, who sets your dispensing fees? Is it the insurance company? If I have a Medicare, does it tell me what you can do? Or if I have some costs? I would do that. Delivery from my association. That was my impression. I think it's administered by DEVA. And I think they use the Medicaid dispensing fee. They have been paying more for three, four of these drugs. And that was changed a few years ago to pay the same dispensing fee as Medicaid pays. I think that's specific to DEVA Medicaid, DEVA 340B, Medicaid 340B. Not necessarily the other plans. That would be necessarily be the hospitals. Or what the other payers pay. Patients, non-Medicaid patients. Right, right. I think you'll find that in most states there is cost shift. Sandra Pearson. I really struggle with 340B as a program where it ends up being a profit center for hospitals. Sverakin and I, others have tried to wrestle with that over the years. But, and I appreciate the health care advocate, as I always do, but bringing forward this creative idea. I did get personally kind of convinced that it was pretty complicated. Maybe not something we should try on the fly in terms of how to pay for the insulin solution. Okay. So you would get the hospital that piece out of this. I mean, I would need to be convinced that it was smart to put it in, even though it was very appealing on the first run through. It is. And you know, I don't know if it's something folks down the hall could look at. You could do the health care thing and put a stab in it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there is... It is. 340B is a bigger issue, I think, and I would like us to figure that out. Do you have a bill here on that or something? No, it's in health care. I mean, that was just a study act. Yeah. It's hard to figure out. It really is. And, you know, it really gulls me that UVMMC is making millions of dollars, not passing the savings along. It is very different scenario in Springfield. Yeah. All over the state. So... Well, we're always taught it. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway. Okay. It is... I mean, the 340B last time, many years ago, we did a lot of working. We had tried to get federally qualified health care into the state, because they do get 340B pricing. They do tend to have a significant amount of that on. And that was one way that we tried to get lower prices available. That issue's still there. And I don't want to do any harm to small hospitals. I think, well, we look at the $100 cap a month, and we look at the overall $1,400 a year cap. You know, if you don't have $1,400, you don't have $1,400. These tend to be poor people. Uninsured can go to the health centers, or to the... And I don't know, where did the health and wellness clinics, the free clinics, they don't dispense pharmacy do that? Can I just ask about the young man that was here, the testified, he wouldn't have benefited from this from the 340B part of the bill. It was he had a high deductible... He was, yes, he had a high deductible. And I think we heard like five years ago, he was paying $200 a month, and now he's paying $600 a month. Once, depending on what his deductible is, if you've got a $2,000 deductible, at $600 a month, you can hit that. I mean, there are some prescriptions. You pay one walking bill in January, and then you're met your deductible. But I think at this point, because these bills are gonna start coming out, that if we put the more excessive wording right there, and we're ready to... A ball insulin. A ball insulin, all right? And then make it just as clear as we can. I mean, it's just insulin, it's not other drugs. Let's do it, boom. Okay, so, Jen, can you get that drafted up? And as soon as you do, we'll vote it. Okay, okay. Are you talking like today or next week? If you can get it done, Seth, you want it done? Going back after half an hour. Okay, well, we were in a roll, but we're going back to chips. Mm-hmm. And again, these bills, I'm gonna get out of here. And if they don't, we're just left with a lot of vagaries. So anyway, I have another vagary part. Apparently, wood chips, if they're going to residential, they are not taxable. If they're going to commercial, they are taxable. And we have at least one person who's... Because he doesn't deliver. They come and pick them up at his factory so he doesn't know where they're going. So we might have a miscellaneous tax to do a little cleanup on that. We just... Is it perfectly certified as for residential use and do a piece of paper to the guy who's selling them and basically taxes based on the certificate? They come in on their monestah. They put 10 bales in the back and they take off. And he just assumes... The law says if it's delivered, it's not taxable because it's assumed that home are delivered. Maybe it's vice versa. I guess it's... If it's not delivered, it's... So I don't know, but that's another one of those taxed according to use that gets people who think they're doing the right thing in trouble. So we're going back to TIFFS. Mr. Chairman. Yes. I may get called out to talk to somebody in the hall about... I've been on this TIFF stuff trying to figure out the debt for debt concept to me. That's the concerning one. And I didn't know if... It might make sense. I know you're here to move along, but... No, I just... You're from the Tracker. I mean, she's sort of... She has strong feelings about debt generally, but she maybe would... Help us. Come over. Actually, even this afternoon, if she happens, there's somebody in her office and starts the issue of being able to use bonded debt pay off bond debt. You were prophetic. No. You weren't you when I said everyone was immediate. Okay. Committee. Take that home. Chair, we talked about the Hartford situation. We... There will seem to be some feeling on committee that we should get into TIFFS in a broader definition in terms of standardized time frames and help us come to an agency rather than to a legislative nature. I think you said that we have TIFF bill. We can build that out. Is this the one? Yes. This is the general TIFF bill. Okay. And I don't seem to have enough paper to justify this bill. Yes, this is... Not that Senator Bronx. I'm looking for my copy. My bill is identical. Do you know how to accept it has the addendum to be able to change the TIFF boundaries? Yeah. And that's what I've got, but I am not finding my copy. No, I found it. Okay. And it's upside down. And we got as far as resolution of using... being able to use borrowed money to pay debt. And Senator Pearson has asked if the treasurer will come talk to us about that. We've just put in an emergency call and we'll see if we can get the trade. Becky. I just wanted to add that perhaps the bond bank, if you're going to hear from the treasurer, the bond bank might also be appropriate to talk about municipal bonds. Because it's really the authority on municipalities to use their debt proceeds. And I think the bond bank is... I can't speak to the treasurer's knowledge, but I think the bond bank is pretty... Okay. I'm not just a bond bank having... Michael... Michael's gone. Gone. And he's actually spoken... I've spoken to him on this bill, so he might have some ideas. Can we fund him in the directory? All right. We'll see if we can get... Sorry, we will wait for further testimony on that one, which gets us on to Section 2, which... Becky, maybe you should come up and... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think under that first improvement we're getting back to... I think we're on Page 2, Section 4, awaiting the treasurer on the other one. Section 3? Section 2, Number 4. Improvements. On Page 2. Oh, okay. She bespoke the person. No. So, the definition of improvement... I'm healthy, but... No, I'm sick. So, I'm... So, the definition of improvements is being amended here with respect to that issue of debt proceeds being used to pay down debt service. Okay, so this is the same issue. Right. You would set out of your bond an improvement would be a debt service reserve. It is expanding the definition of improvement, which you can use debt proceeds... Section 4, okay. ...to allow for the funding of the debt service. Okay, so that one just passed. Right, and this language has a long term period of up to six years from the date a district is created. And then also in Section 2, there's an amendment to the definition of financing. And this allows the direct payment by the municipality using the district increment for both district improvements and related costs. Does this deal with the debt issue that we had? Was it more... I actually don't know if it's the dirt issue. Oh, okay. It's not the dirt issue. I thought it was a consultant or... So, this is... I'm a consultant executive director of the Vermont Economic Progress Council. This is that related costs can be financed. The related costs don't just have to be paid with direct payments. I see, okay. So, if you don't have... out of bond proceeds you could pay for it. But related costs as well. That's not clear. All right. Now, related costs are... They're defined on their snatchers. I can... The audits, the independent audits that are required annually, the state audits... I believe Gravis' presentation had... Okay, great. You said it. Yeah. All right. Well, we can come back to it. Does it have the attorney general's opinion that here's that you can finance related costs but a suggestion that it should be more clearly defined by... Okay. So, is the issue with... it says and related costs in our bill, but is the issue really that we need a better definition of related costs? For this... No. The issue is whether or not you can finance related costs. Whatever those related... Whatever the definition of related costs is that those can be financed. Okay. So, I have some examples from... All right. The presentation. So, related costs are expenses incurred and paid by the municipality exclusive of the actual cost of construction and constructing and financing improvements that are directly related to the creation and implementation of the TIF district. And it includes any reimbursements advanced by the municipality for these purposes. It also includes municipal expenses such as departmental and personnel costs of administering the district. And under the TIF rule, it includes costs of planned studies reports related to the district, costs of notifying the public of district plans, soft costs such as consulting, design, architects, engineering. Well, I'll take a list. Voice over is on. Finder. Desktop. It's not... It does that anymore. Is there a robo call? I don't know what that was. You've gone on to the next stage of... Two dollars? That's cheap. Okay. And finally, the cost of audits would also be a related cost. Audits. Audits. Audit state auditor. I gather the state auditor's view is pretty hefty. At least in all of this case. So, that's related cost. Basically, studies... I mean, you've got to do engineering studies. You've got... Frequently, you might have... Before you can do anything, you have to... If there's any suspicion, it might be a toxic wayside and mostly downtown given what we used to do with things like car oil. Are suspicious. And in order to get financing, you have to make sure there's nothing hidden down there. So, all of those kinds of costs. All right. Do we have a problem with that one? Okay. Does that recall the issue with St. Albans? Was... For the dirt, was that the dirt had to be removed because it was... The question was, they spent the money... They spent money also to put new dirt into replacing. Right. And I think the auditor said that really should be something that the new buyer, the developer should, in fact, have paid. And that... St. Albans argued to the contrary that you can't sell a piece of land with no dirt on it. And that really is an integral part of the... If you take dirt out, you've got to replace it. And that's a... It's an interpretation issue. Yeah. That really is granular. And putting dirt back is part of remediation. It's part of a cap. It's part of the DEC cap is putting dirt back. So, you don't just leave an empty hole. It was the quality of the dirt, which is not a sentence I say often. It was the quality of the dirt. It's dirt. It's dirt. But that, though, is perhaps illustrative of some of the kinds of clarification in this law that could be helpful. So, you don't have to have audit reports that come up with conclusions like that. So, if they put dirt with more stones in it back... Load their dirt versus the same type of dirt that had been there before. Is whether or not there should be something that is general enough, but clarifying enough that in any... I don't really call it pre-mediation or remediation that it has to be done to an acceptable standard such that development can occur in kind of a normal course of building things. Whatever that means. Right. I think the argument is was that even if the hotel had passed out, any building would be load-bearing dirt. Correct. And the development would be a building so that wasn't done to... I'm just speaking. Never testified on dirt. They don't teach dirt in law school? Well, you're going to the rest of us. Sorry, I shouldn't have brought up today. She's sick. She's running her fever. She's like, we're going to the hospital. That's not true. We are going to solve that with somebody, but to me, on top of it, load-bearing... I mean, what did you take out? Sand? You know, I think you need to solve it, at least in general terms. Otherwise, the next tip is going to come back with another art report with something equally sewing. That's true. Yeah. And I think we need to resolve in terms of application. And to the extent that we can do it in general terms as opposed to a great deal of specificity, it's either that or you say in the case of something questionable, that, you know, the decision goes back to, let's say, the VFC board to decide. Well, that's where we are ourselves in trouble. So, I think this is a good general policy question. If you're looking at these statutes of how much do you want the legislature to be an arbiter on all of the individual TIF districts. Because, as Graham and I talked about when we did the presentation, you've had, I think, 14 pieces of legislation on TIFs. And so, you know, in the past over many years. So I think this is a question of is this sort of at the legislative level or in this building one language that somehow allows VFC to take on these questions. That would be my inclination because I don't think we want to be mediating each and every one of these things. No, we don't. We don't want any wasting time, you know, trying to dissent to me it's pretty clear that this is not clear. No. Or it's clear as we would like it to be. Right. And my objective when I sponsored the original bill was every TIF came in, every TIF got a different set of standards and directions and it was to have a standard set and we've done a lot with not allowing TIFs and then allowing TIFs but the background legislation should be very clear as to what a TIF is as we go through it we're going to find things that come up we didn't anticipate. I will admit I never thought of the quality of the dirt as something that needed to be put in legislation but perhaps so this was they put better quality dirt in I think Brownfields especially are a situation where you really are running a specific site for project development and that in Brownfields specifically that type of public improvement is where finding the line is more difficult. So when we got the out of our court we had meetings with TEC to understand what is involved in the cap what is allowed in the statute of calls for Brownfield redevelopment remediation and redevelopment and I took to Vepsi that and redevelopment is an important part it's not just remediation yeah I mean why would you fill the hole with sand? everybody but that was what we saw parents would use paying for the emptying of the hole and the fill in the sand and it goes back to the tips okay lean more and more on the end fund that's why I'm already there okay but that's what's going on we've ceded that that issue I've ceded that you win that issue that we're not arguing that clarification seems special well it's only winning intellectually because you're going to take some money from that that's true that's true that's very good it's very good but you win and the big town is ripping off the small town so let's go on and let's do it well what did you say yesterday? it's time to shoot the dead horse oh you never made it here before but she was comparing this to the people who Roosevelt had to deal with no I said I couldn't be Senator McDonald was doing we are on day 75 of mobilizing the world on climate change she's going by World War II and I just said you give me that big black pen the FDR had and I could change the world but I got to convince all you idiots to go along with me well I'm going to become a okay let's get back on top I can't see that it does to everybody any good you got a brown feel you dig it out it's probably not a hole it'll be when you're done you take out the contaminated dirt which the developer is not responsible you can't get any kind of bank financing or bonding if there's this big mess to clean up so now you've got a big hole the question is you can't develop it so in order to make it developable you've got to fill it and if you filled it with the same quality dirt you took out of it and that's not load bearing dirt then it would be the responsibility of the developer to come in and clean out the dirt you just put in in order to put in better quality dirt it doesn't sound like an efficient way to do things the other issue if I may just sorry to trouble you one of the issues I remember we dealt with in natural several years ago is what do you do with the contaminated dirt at that expense well I think that's on the that's on the town getting rid of it where would you put that and who deals with it if it's going to come to you because it's Wellington that had a big this state of Vermont had a big pile next to the Windsor Elementary School left over from the clean operation the prison we put a fence around it okay so that this question is actually not addressed in the bell of the dirt well I actually goes to the definition of improvements about what you can use the proceeds for because right now it includes like property demolition and environmental remediation so if it is something the committee wants to address I think that definition of improvements could be so it's environmental remediation is remediation just taking out the contaminated soil or is remediation replacing that soil it's it also says site preparation well site preparation could mean filling in I think that is what the city of St. Albans and I think what what the state auditor's office has said though is that that site preparation is for public but that is site preparation for the developers goes beyond public improvement I don't want to speak there we have I'm trying to just we were in this for a long time I mean yeah that's if it just says site preparation um then I would interpret that on plain words that it's site preparation Doug Madam Chair is it okay if I offer something Oh yes Doug Farnham the policy director for the tax department from my experience with assessment for probably about the basis upon which all of the education property tax rests site preparation or environmental remediation both would fit under bringing a lot back up to the standard for the community so if that dirt is insufficient for the lot to be developed upon it'd be a substandard law for assessment purposes and it would be valued for the grantless purposes at below a regular law in that town so you know one of the functions of the department is to educate the listeners on how to assess property is how the department would see it anyway with lots that had substandard dirt they would be worth less in the fair market and remedying them and bringing them up to that standard for the community would be normal from an assessment perspective we weren't asked in this particular conversation but I think that's very helpful because we're struggling and I think saying the other lots in this area are built on and so if you create a lot that is not buildable it is worth less than all the other lots in the area that's may not get us out of trouble you're in the middle of a field but maybe we can work on a definition of improvement you know site preparation means removing contaminated soil and moving you know creating a lot to reflect similar lots in the same area be it the same value make it work for ground just because there's other site preparations that are done and I can I can put that in the statutory language but I do think a lot of this is actually from the typical I we yes some of the things that aren't here are things we're trying to address in the rule not that okay if they if they are contentious that it wouldn't be better for them to be addressed here because the rule will have to go before L-Car and I-Car are they alright is this addressed in the rule we had something in the rule we addressed it sufficiently and so which we agreed to try and create had more clarity I think there there still may be a difference of what do they have a suggestion as to what would make it clear because I don't want the next time that puts better or lesser dirt in the hole to go through this well that I think is if there of the they would have to speak to their being if putting load bearing dirt in is not allowable and near of the side that it is allowable then that's just a difference and assuming the other lots have load bearing dirt since they're bearing loads seems a little fair something we hope so so I think this does get to the question though of is one of the things you want to do in this bill sort of allow vexie a little more authority to make these decisions so that the legislature doesn't have to decide these questions these weighted questions they decided it and the auditor didn't agree with it we didn't want to work it wasn't like off the cuff I mean conversations would see we're had to understand because I did not know anything about dirt before this he didn't preach that in grad school so much we need a farmer authority to do yes so you want but that's what you're hoping for you're hoping that we put more of this in with vexie so that they can make the decisions for that decision that's not a request we've made but I think if that our request is that there is a clarity and an understanding by all parties of what the rules and expectations are I think to senator brock's point there may continue to be areas that don't have that and how do we come to a resolution everyone of these is unique everyone and again pardon what we're going to need to look at is the auditor says no and then it's you know you get an audit it's very unclear it's this one the town appealed to vexie which the law says vexie agreed with the town there is an appeal process if vexie doesn't agree with the town but now you've got the auditor is still disagreeing and I think we may not be able to fix that but everything seemed to just hit the fence at that point it seemed to be a clear this is where it ends this is the final arbiter or after vexie you can appeal it to the supreme court and there isn't a clear what happens to me because they the limit to what can happen well there's not vexie said yes Madam chair earlier we were talking about going to bank and bank and bank is responsible to its depositors and as a fiduciary responsibility and and the you know if the bank goes belly up the directors of the bank the whatever so what controls vexie from saying looks good what's the consequence on vexie if there are the directors if they're authorizing this thing whose money are they dealing with well in the end the town the town is on the hook the voters and the taxpayers of the town and everything that we do with tiff is on the record all of the meetings that we had discussing these items all of the documents relating to the decisions that were made with the reasoning behind them are posted on our website or in the minutes are open for public discussion so if someone disagrees what if someone disagrees with one of your decisions alright now it's clear if the town disagreed if you said no town you can't do this the the commissioner made a development the secretary that's right we changed so they have an appeal to the secretary and then I would assume to the supreme court maybe not no just to the secretary I think there's there's processes after the secretary okay we might want to check that in this case because some of us don't trust the secretary because he's got a vested interest in some things not the end fund so we've got the auditor who's supposed to be protecting the end fund in this case the auditor said no you can't do that Vepsi said yes we think it's a good idea because Vepsi disagreed with the agreed with the town there was no appeals process for anybody to go through and that maybe the step we're making and there's nothing that says if the auditor says no this isn't allowable what happens next it's just the language allows for the auditor to do the audits but there's no enforceability with the auditor's report whatever the auditor finds there's no step after that requiring implementation or anything so the secretary there's ways to appeal the secretary's decision to the board or to refer a matter to the attorney general but that's on the secretary to do or the state treasurer to do so that's if they there's a disagreement with the town and in this case there wasn't a disagreement so you have these auditor's findings that are just kind of hanging there and there's like no next step because there was an agreement that there was an issue right and that's the auditor's findings are advisory on agencies disagree with the auditor regularly and there's no requirement that anybody does anything with an auditor the auditor opines okay so that it goes back to who who is authorized to in debt who's ever been indebted well theoretically in what requirements do they have to operate within a definable box or well there is there is a box in the event that there is something that is illegal or improper for example such as an improper charge the attorney general obviously has the ability to have my question because once you say the agency from an agency or administrative standpoint is required to act so the auditor can appeal to the attorney general can appeal can't really appeal can't really appeal the auditor can is not empowered to act in any way okay now the attorney general obviously participated I gathered to some extent in theoretically validating some of the auditor's findings would be so the auditor to claim the agency underlies that but it certainly doesn't appear that the attorney general is going to take any action no and again you know this still I think believe certainly in my opinion a lot of the auditor's opinion is opinion whether or not it follows generally accepted government audit standards is open to debate yeah and I don't think any of us are going to get into that debate the purpose is to see if we can clean up the language so there is less room for ambiguity and also perhaps in the event that during the course of a project if there's a question such as do we take the dirt out or not under this and pay for it this way that there's an arbiter to decide that and I think the arbiter arbiter ought to be the VEPC board and what skin do they have in this game probably more skin than anybody else because you know they're involved in approving the projects to some extent they're pretty highly qualified a bunch of a bunch of folks I mean I'm they were all here to meet everyone a few weeks ago I've sent out their bio so you can all see who who comprises more to know what qualifications they bring to these discussions but Senator what skin would you like them to have if the town decides to do something and it's their money it is their money well then how is how is the Ed fund adversely may it be adversely affected or or positively benefited those in the two extremes based on what the VEPC decides to do to approve is that what there's a no there's a no there's a bond St. Albans went out for a bond it is limited within that bond amount that is the risk to the Ed fund if nothing gets built then the Ed fund gets nothing and the town is left holding the twenty million dollar bond that it has to pay off alright if I'm not sure where the Ed fund is impacted at all the town has a budget the town decides to put the dirt back I'm not you know this gets back to we bonded for sixteen million dollars worth of improvements and we're going to clean up the site as long as we make the improvements I'm not sure where the Ed fund is impacted by the quality of the dirt unless the developer who comes in and has to take out the lower quality dirt and put in a better one then has to take that off the value of his property and his property is going to be valued more if he puts in nice fixtures then if he puts in nice dirt so no bank is going to no bank is being asked alone the money to do this it would be writing heard over this because it would be the bank's money so I think in this situation the issue is more whether a municipality is properly using the money that they bought for for the right things and the law says what those things are and I think it's been interpreted differently whether or not it was used properly so this is a question of to the voters in this case and I'll then vote on to authorize a bond and did the municipality use that bond properly for what it could use it for I think so the city came to Pepsi with the issues that were raised in the audit through the substantial change process because there was nothing that they couldn't use that process I think part of what we're going to try to achieve in the rule is say that the substantial change process is for asking for permission before you make a change not asking to validate or for forgiveness after you make a change so even if the findings of an audit were to automatically need to go through the issue resolution process that would still give Pepsi the opportunity to weigh in on the nation and the secretary to hear from the town and then if parties disagree they could go through the rest of the process so that could that would still allow Pepsi to review things so that if there were disagreements on whether it's dirt or if there's I think there was it was said that the town paid from hookups into the building and the town provided evidence that they did not pay for hookups into the building so we said that we're not going to charge them for something they didn't actually do that we we would still be able to do our work in looking at what the findings are making a recommendation but but if you feel that you're getting this fixed in rule and is part of the problem that the town replaced the dirt and then came to you and said is this okay? Well I think it was that we didn't go through the issue resolution process for two reasons one because the way that it's written now there's the town could go through the substantial change process instead it doesn't say that substantial change is just for asking for things before did they go through the substantial change they did it and anything part of that is that the auditor's report from VEPSI and that is the process in which you seek a determination from VEPSI if the recommendation had said seek a determination from the secretary the town would have done that they were very the city the town came to you got permission then put in for some things for some things we in this case we did dirt okay so they came to you after the fact after the audit report after the audit report right should they have come even before the audit report to find out the great standard of dirt I don't think they ever consider that it would be an issue I'm having a hard time figuring out why it would be an issue so maybe we could put in at least in the Brownfield area that site preparation could mean bringing the lot up to the average valuation or standard I looked at Doug to help us find words so it's valued the same as the other lots and the same lot I think we just want our districts pouring the concrete building the foundation putting the it's finding that line of what is work that you're really not doing on behalf of the developer as opposed to site preparation that would ready the site reasonably for any development and I can see we're digging out the contaminated soil and we've got a nice hole the developer might say just leave the hole because if you put dirt in it I'm going to well that's that was the they were putting in the dirt that as part of the development agreement the developer was putting in the dirt as part of the development the contractor was working for the city yeah the contractor had a contract with the city and also had a separate contract with the developer so it was doing work on behalf of both they're in one on one small site all right but he had his equipment there so I assume it was cheaper yes than to have somebody else so his contract with the city said he would replace the dirt or his contract with the developer that makes a difference was the developer okay we're getting we're getting so all right but that's that's the question of what is being what's done that's redevelopment as opposed to where you really are building is getting development and maybe it's bringing a lot back to the lot standard in the area and I'll leave and see if that can help you figure out some technically better you know if they're all nice flat with load bearing dirt in that area you know so that the lot is of equal or similar value to similar lots in that area that won't get us all kinds of trouble and if there is I assume that if the contract said that the developer would dig the hole and for the foundation which I would normally assume they would but the city is obliged to clean out the contaminated soil that if we didn't know going in that that contaminated soil was going to be you know as large an area as it was or as deep that if they just said okay the city's got its contractor its shovels and its trucks here rather than it's cheaper for the whole process to let them finish the last 10 feet of this hole for the foundation they would have to come to you for a change because I can see those that kind of thing happening I think their project included costs for remediation and redevelopment and it was clear what is allowable and improvements for those things I think we also have to be careful that we're not micromanaging these municipalities Well that's starting to see my concern I can see with any building project you don't know until you get there what's going to happen and something always happens we are most concerned with that this is a public improvement that the costs are in line with what you've said it's going to be as long as you stay within the cost threshold you're not doing I mean this is really where it comes in is where is the line of work that is enhancing a public improvement that's being done for the private development that's the line we have to better define Alright can you help us better define it I think Okay because I think Doug's definition of restoring it to similar assessed value or similar of other Yes I mean would that work I think Madam Chair the I think it could work but the the oddity there is that that level of detail is you know several levels of minutiae below what we set currently for like for instance market assessing that for the grandest purposes which is the you know the entire 1.8 billion dollars 1.2 billion for the state and 600,000 for the town and we just tell the listing of the assessors you know determine the fair market value of that parcel and part of it is the dirt that's on that parcel Yes so it's it's one of the micro factors but we don't break it out anywhere along so it would be it would be definitely a new step of detail to do that and if that's what the point of desire is now we're trying to make this less micro-managed do the best play you can and the best laid plans of my son etc you bring in a little more care things that come up that you haven't anticipated and when things go awry and the money isn't matching up and you have to make an adjustment is it the municipality that's making the adjustment or the end fund that's making the adjustment they aren't separate you're building a building you speak to guards or you're rousing raising something whatever you're doing is what it doesn't work out that's an end game the end fund is not actively involved in putting in a building or bulldozing anything the end fund is being paid by development the development the town does the end fund the end fund the end fund isn't getting paid because the town digs a hole two feet deeper than it should have or puts in a better quality of dirt than the auditor thinks it might those are public improvements they're like water and sewer lines they don't pay property taxes the end fund would get hurt if because building the thing and you put in lesser quality than perhaps you originally told the end fund you're going to put in and the building came out with a lesser value or you put in a really shawty building and it fell down it's the value of the building that determines what the end fund gets paid if nothing gets paid you're built and the end fund doesn't get paid and the town is on the for the bond so perhaps the auditor is misguided and we use the end fund to be sort of a backup reserve that makes people confident that the whole thing is going to work out because there's an end fund there and I'm going to stop commenting on it and I figure where the votes are going to be on this is that the the town is allowed the district is allowed to use the increment during portion based on the percentage that they have based on when they were approved for a period of 20 years so for that period of 20 years they are getting a portion of what would have gone to the end fund to use to pay back their their bond so that's where the I guess the end fund is being used as the push in but it's not that doesn't change by I guess the dirt because the town only has the district only has that same period of 20 years no matter what unless the legislature decides to spend it to allow them to use that increment I do think we're putting in place we have put much more oversight in monitoring practices on Betsy's staff side so that we are finding things as they are happening and making corrections and working with municipalities to make sure that what we know about is in place and if so what will come out in audits in the next few years of things that have happened previously I can't say but substantial change process in place for that asking permission to make changes and the issue resolution in place for resolving issues that could be a good compromise to make sure if the state audit office or any other body still has issues with what decisions Betsy has made they have the opportunity to raise those and I would add at least from my perspective this tax from taxes and finance if it was made clear that I would recommend micromanaging the definition of what's necessary to get it back up to standard for the area but if it were clear that Betsy had the authority to determine what was reasonable to me so it redeveloped a lot I think that is an incredibly small exposure for the Audit Fund however you look at it you could not make decisions that would move the needle when you're talking about just getting a lot back up to the level there's really not much in there can we draft that one up that might get very confined yeah that might do it because it sounds like in the rules and other things that we're dealing with that we do have Michael gone from the bond bank he is in his office we can call him and talk about the use of bond proceeds for debt with that work at this point we've got this scheduled for next week too but the big hurdle seems to be the bond and debt proceeds so I think this committee discussion we can do whatever we want right we'll give him a call sure yeah that's fine the one thing we might want to do as part of this process just to make sure we've dotted all the I's here is go and take a quick look at the audit report of those things the St. Albans audit report of those issues that we're finding to see are there any other issues that those that we have dealt with here that we need to similarly deal with in order to you know put this thing to bed into the future to the district I thought when we did we had gone through most of it yeah I thought we had but I'm not sure we've done it all we were going to look at the audit requirements you guys talked about that when I was in the hall so that so that it could maybe be more overlapping oh no we haven't gotten there yet that's and that had to do with just the cost and duplicate audits but right different kinds of audits and I'm going to leave it to handle well I think maybe we'll explain their question I can put you on a speaker okay but look at the rest of this bill and see I'm just trying to be able to mark off things that we are agreed on the next one is the boundaries here do you want to yes I do okay we will go back Michael Michael hello hello Michael this is the ad coming so you're with the senate finance committee hey there well great to speak with all of you on a Friday afternoon yeah great to speak with you I think we are working our way through trying to resolve some of the issues that arose between the auditor and the St. Albans Tiff District mostly in trying to make sure that our law is clear because it turned out perhaps in sections it wasn't totally clear one of the big issues we've been dealing with is it seems by not including debt paying for debt in the Tiff area that we have excluded using bonded revenue for the first few years pick a number to pay the debt service and thought the bond bank might we've been told this is acceptable practice in other municipal bonds just trying to get the bond banks understanding of using borrowed money to pay at least the interest or whatever is needed to pay back the debt for the first few years so the floor is yours sure so speaking of the if I have a long pause I'm just collecting my thoughts okay we can give you a few minutes I don't care so I think the way conventions and in our well that's the way we generally look at it so I think when we think about sort of debt-funded reserves we can think about it in two ways the capitalized interest reserve that would be there you know in the case of a tip to there is the interest on the bond while I suppose that project sort of is in the construction period and it gets to a point of stabilization where it can be fully assessed the other reserve that we think about is like a debt service reserve fund which is something that stays with the loan for its life and that's the situation there being a shortfall on the payment we can only we can only under current statute provide loans for tips they did as accompanied by the general obligation pledge so what we call that basically double barreled in the industry parlance so that that's a reserve fund I don't know that's necessary but that is kind of conventionally in the wider market but those are two things that might be part of a a revenue bond or a tip specifically okay so this is a is not unusual practice no no it's very common in project finance or something that's based on projects they have a capital interest fund okay so but a separate fund not back funded with bond present okay so in Vermont statute we have treated municipal bonds and tip bonds differently in this regard about whether or not is permissive to use the bond revenue to pay back debt in the early years can you think of a reason why that is smart policy or is that a mistake of distinction there between a conventional general a tip bond if I understand that correctly yes yeah I think what we want to make sure is just given the fact that if we do a bond that's for the purposes of a tip we have to have the general obligation but it might be very well agreed that that project needs the capital interest account because of the construction time period in the stable vision but you know I think that's a period in the real estate project so we just want to make sure that I could see there being I could see some idea there because if you don't want certain folks to defer payment of a bond for too long they do have some flexibility with up to five years interest only so I think that's sort of you know that's sort of a leading maybe those concerns okay so to you the important thing is you're getting it is not unusual practices in fact fairly common practice to use for the first few years till the project is at a state where it's paying taxes to use bond money to pay back the cost of the bond until the important thing to you is that the general obligation for the town is on the hook for the whole bond so if the whole thing goes belly up the taxpayers are obligated to pay that that bond back yeah that's currently a statutory requirement yes yeah and it's a requirement for the tiff bonds no for the bond bank under our statutory reference we have to have the only thing that we can finance are electric and water and sewer yeah so this is a so I'm still just trying to get clarity there is in law a distinction between how we let municipal bonds use debt to pay back the bond and how we have barred that in tiff language and the question before us is should we treat them more similarly and and I've heard you say it's common practice to pay back bonds with debt but I'm looking for somehow in the analysis of whether or not we should be protective in the tiff scenario like current law is or do you think that I may have misinterpreted your question actually sort of the inverse from you in that I think it would be appropriate to have a capital of interest bond with tiff but if you were going to restrict it I would think you'd restrict it on the governmental side because there is a mechanism to illusion can I ask a question can I ask a question in a different way you've dealt with tiffs in the past where towns have bonded with tiff districts, correct? this predates me but the bond I think traditionally have okay and were you aware that in those cases that some of the bond proceeds were going to pay for debt service before there was any construction on projects? yeah it predates me by about three and a half years so in retrospect yes because I've seen the you know I've sort of looked at the I can't say one way or the other what folks here do or did not know okay is it appropriate? yeah I think you know I have unfortunately I've been lucky enough to work in economic development nationally with the National Development Council which is a non-profit that has TA work for community economic development issues it's very common practice you know to say it's most common to have it exclusively for interest to repay interest not principal so that you know the sort of structure would be such that you have an interest only period during that construction lease up period and during that period alone you would have the capitalized interest fund there to pay okay this language is saying that improvements can be the funding of a debt service reserve fund which I think is different than what Michael is talking about so I just wanted to point that out to the committee I think it would be a capitalized interest reserve fund that's what you're interested in I think that sounds like a more time period and the language of six years I don't know if Michael can tell us what is typical but I think he said the debt service reserve fund stays with the loan so that's a question of is that what the committee wants to do or is it more of a capitalized interest fund I'm not sure I would leave it to Megan and maybe you if you could talk to Michael because that is per debt issuance though as opposed to for the 10 year period so if a town if a municipality went for for debt issuances they would have a capitalized interest reserve fund for each debt issuance is that okay maybe I think maybe other than that we're all over I just wonder is this a complication that's really necessary given the purpose that we're talking about with TIF and to be the similar question at least the one that we're looking at right now is can should we allow we can do it I know we can do anything we want in the legislature but should we allow a TIF district to use some of the funds collected to pay interest during the first few years we'll define what those are of the life of the TIF because it's not produce any revenue during that time now we know that's a common practice question is do we need to set up another fund to do it or can we simply allow it to be done from the bond proceeds and Michael do you have an opinion on that I think the problem is I think you know the problem you're running into as I think that was Becky who was talking there that there was reserve fund is a term of art in our business so you know that kind of a pretty problem of act that way calling something that the market might call another name yeah I since these are regularly done Michael correct me if I'm wrong but the bottom line is the town's bonding and the town's taxpayers if the development doesn't happen the taxpayers are on the hook to pay back the full interest and principle on the loan and TIF districts are kind of a hybrid of the tax and the tax and the tax and the tax and the tax kind of a hybrid of this system they're different but the basic financing of the loan is the same I mean the town is where they get the money from the town is obliged to pay it and they've worked in municipal bonds and some of us are not sure we meant to exclude debt service since it was there in this list here not in this list there we may because I don't know why we wouldn't have allowed it when we did the original since it is common practice for if you're putting in a road project or system or any other you're cleaning up a brown field in town so I would leave it personally to the drafters to maybe just put us on the list Michael just to ask a question do you see any downside do you see for example making the the bond folks whether the bond council or otherwise uncomfortable or can we simply allow it to be paid from the corpus of the bond rather than setting up a separate farm up to five years up to five under the appropriate limitations yet not for my first second so I mean to me I try to stay out of the legal stuff as much as I can is this something that would make anybody uncomfortable I guess that's the question I'm asking based on your experience I don't know that I can answer that it's certainly all I can say that it makes sense in terms of market dimension from a legal perspective I like that well could we then perhaps take it to ledge council and perhaps ledge council might be able consult with bond council sure and just see if if we're agreeing that this is something that we as a committee want to do then we can ask council to draft it I think we need to do it because apparently our statute is contradicts that as at least interpreted by the attorney general right now so I think we need to fix that I'm wondering the general is pretty clear you can't do it Attorney general is very clear you can't do it so if you want to do it you need to and the reason I think we need and the reason but I don't understand it's in this draft yeah so it's in this draft and the other section of law that's being referred to for municipalities allows for funding and reserve funds so that service okay fine so I think that's another sort of decision making point do you want it to be the same as what is allowed in other contexts or is it the capitalized interest reserve it sounds like whatever the safest thing would be to do what the municipalities are used to doing if that works but I will leave it to either Karen or May somebody if that's not going to work for the towns Megan Karen let us know I think we're trying what we're trying to say is yes you can use up to maybe five years you know the bond proceeds pay the debt service or principal only whatever you normally do interest it's interest only interest only interest only for the first five years whatever so should it be five years from the date that is incurred because right now this language is tied to the date of the district no it has to be the date incurred because it could be various tranches yeah funding yeah yeah you could do that with every separate tranche separate work tranche it was a tranche no I mean I always thought that was such a fascinating word but then I mean I'm not entirely comfortable with the term of five years I don't know where we get that number from is there's any kind of research we can do with other what happens in other municipalities or yeah I mean I think Michael just mentioned that the capitalized interest reserves by years if I for that please yeah there's I don't have any direct guidance on that under the you know we follow the IRS rules with regards to tax exempt bonds in that case the IRS is just one of these are kind of subsidies that they're providing it's generally three years but you know if it's not on a taxable basis you can kind of do whatever you want I'm not sure that the rules from the IRS were created at some point in time but I think it was five years of interest only on the full bond the principal started out that for a bond through the Vermont bond making could be five years of interest open until the principal could be that's the maximum so that you could only have five years of interest five years structure of the bond I believe that's what Michael said I think that's what he was saying so they could tie to that and hear the words interest only so part of what they've drawn out is they pay the interest on the bond plus the contractor to dig the dirt hopefully within five years they have some construction there if they don't probably in big trouble can we ask to have that I mean the basic agreement is are we going to let the towns work in TIF districts do the same thing they do with other bonds keep it as similar as possible so we don't get in to trouble and if we can agree on that we're probably a lot closer we're 15 minutes late at this point we have another easy subject to get to the only other thing I would want to see some sort of transparency one of the things that when people go out for a bond on a TIF bond they say okay I want to take out a bond for $15 million and the implication is this going to be $15 million worth of infrastructure I don't know if this is a big difference it's being diverted so I want to be so the current the current rule that came into place in 2015 so after St. Almond's has lengthy requirements of public disclosures in the hearing and in the morning the valid item that break down how the money that is being asked for will be you usually see that on the ballot warrant it says you know $18,000 million to build a new sewer line out here and $15 you know $100 to cover costs so that's there now it wasn't there okay in 2013 did you see something during the process of doing war rules now we're working on a redraft for the rule I don't think we can until this bill is finalized we're going to they were all set and then this all hit the fan this summer and so they've been kind of sitting on the rules waiting for us to decide the rules haven't been reached before all stages have been submitted they have not been submitted so just before we finish up here I don't know if you want I'm happy to take this offline but I would like in this bill to deal with the issues that we've been talking about that God is here like in the Hartford situation where they're going to extend those time periods I'd like those to be in the rules too why don't you draft that up or see if it can be better in rules I want to go through the rest how does that change that could be that's a it's not right we draft a statute directing rule making on these areas I don't want these things to keep coming back here but they you're going to have to have deadlines yeah the rules are said that run for the deadlines I mean the rules that have deadlines that have standards to when you might have an exception to those deadlines but that's it don't come if you want to come back to the legislature you can but there's a presumption by these rules that you're not coming back I think that's sort of fourth time I think that's where we are they it says you can get an extension they wanted an extra one they came back here I don't know that we can tell them they can't come back here you can you can't tell them they can't come back but you could say that there's a standard for an exception from the norm and it can be that exception that standard why don't you why don't you see if you can get that that's sort of what it says yeah the bills you get are you can go get another five years so after that you're done I'm trying to get a sense here I just have a quick question for somebody and that is is there a distinction on this debt for debt question around paying back interest because I remember the auditor saying you could get an interest only you know window for the first few years that's it and I'm just wondering if if that if anybody understands what the auditor's distinction there and if there's a distinction in some of the options around permitting that debt for payment of interest versus paying for principal interest I think we're saying interest only aren't we on these I mean I think the question that I don't know the answer to is are there bonds that don't have the first five years interest free yeah uh tip bond yes I have to do a little research I just I apologize I haven't been around for any the one example that I have during my tenure did not did not have that structure okay are there bonds available municipal type bonds that would allow you essentially no payment for five years that's not my question but you would seem to be the distinction between using debt to pay back interest versus pay back principal and interest and I don't understand if that is a distinction they're making or why I think we're talking interest aren't we yeah we're talking about interest because you know there's no increment they're not making any money the project hasn't been built so that doesn't change your bond payment the whole issue is they want to be able or out of out of the they want to be able to make their payment actually yeah whatever the payment is but that's not interest interest only more whether it's interest and principal yes that's correct and people have drawn a line they're not like to understand why so I don't I don't know for sure but I I can't say that you know that's only paid interest I think you know that's sort of source maybe the trigger maybe maybe but we this is our bill this has yeah we get to get out of here um I'm not sure if it makes difference if it's principal or interest but as long as it's revealed I mean it's a question of if you want to limit it to interest that it's one way to limit the bond but I don't think that's how it was done in the case of that auditor correct and we can do that and limit it again if you think about the reasoning behind why we we might want to be expansive here if we want these municipalities to do these TIP projects otherwise we wouldn't pass the law but the issue is to what extent do you discourage municipalities from and to any extent that they've got a front money in addition to signing their life away for a bond if they've got a front money for a period of time uh through their local tax revenue in order to do this it's going to be much less likely that they'll be willing to do it I think that that should be a they're going to pay the full amount back I mean whatever they still have to pay it back and if they use the bond proceeds to pay it back for the first two years they've got to pay back what they used in the first few years whereas if you do if you do interest only up front they're going to have to uh pay an additional amount out of local tax revenue to deal with the principal during those years where it's deferred and that is I'm not suggesting that solution I'm trying to understand why people have drawn that line I don't know I think they could get an interest only they could pay the interest out of municipal money which is what tech districts are designed not to do to take the rest of the taxpayers I'm talking okay I'm trying to let the rest of this and see where we've got big issues boundary There's also the issue of bond participation notes. Is that the, oh. So page three, line five. So this allows for. We need to hang up on Michael, he's still there. Oh, yes. Michael, thank you very much. Oh wait, you're so welcome. Thank you very much, you're welcome. Thank you. Okay. Marla, and maybe if we're gonna do that, all right. Well, the rest of the folks are waiting to come in, but let's take another 10 minutes. All right. So bond anticipation notes. Right, so this is limiting the time period that they can be used to the first five-year period that a district makes for debt. Okay, so this is where I'm not gonna let the bond until year five, but I need, I've got some upfront costs. So I go to the bank and I say, my voters have voted. I've got authorization to do this bond. I'm gonna do it in year five. Will you loan me X amount to fill it in? And there's an issue, I know towns do it in tax anticipation all the time. Yeah, so it's a shorter term debt instrument that I think is used to get a project jumpstarted. I think maybe where it's been an issue is if it's used towards the end of the period to incur debt, does it prolong the time? That's right, it does it prolong. Yeah, I think this language doesn't necessarily get to the questions, and that's, Graham and I were agreement on that, I think, but it doesn't quite get to the question at hand of can you use a bond anticipation note that qualifies as the first occurrence of debt, that says you've met that five year deadline, and can you use a bond anticipation note in your 10th year to qualify as your last debt? To say you take in that was your last debt even though you haven't. So the issue is it's bond anticipation notes. It does it count as debt as seen as a statute as you qualify as your first occurrence of debt or your last occurrence of debt. Certainly in terms of the last occurrence of debt, our suggestion would be that because of the timing of when the district includes when the bond bank comes to say all that, using it as the last occurrence of debt as long as it's rolled into permanent financing within 12 months would allow districts to take full use of that 10th year. Okay. So they can use the last occurrence of debt. Actually give them a one year extension to get everything together. Kind of, yeah. Yeah, all right, before they went to the bond. What about on the first? For the first occurrence of debt, I guess that as, I think it would be a similar as long as that is rolled into permanent financing. I think what we don't want is someone to say, to get a bond anticipation note that they're gonna delay for three or four years just in order to avoid asking for a five year extension. Okay. And again, it's the timing of when. Normally we do it like almost in year one so you could get your work done. I think it's more common recently and the expectation is that you've got, when you come to VEPSI, you've got one project that's barely ready to go before, so that you're gonna have, within a year or two years, you might be one pillier about their boat, though that they haven't heard of that yet. Benningtonic is planning in the next year to incur still import. So that, to address the bond anticipation note, is it, does it qualify as the first incurrence of debt and does it qualify as the last incurrence of debt in order? So if we could say it qualifies only if bonded debt is incurred within 12 months of the debt anticipation in either case with that. But in the last incurrence that it's all of the debt so that they're all remaining debt is permanent. Okay, so you can't gain the system forever because you couldn't get that one. Is that all right? Boundary districts. Section three is, requires that all parcels within a district have to be wholly located within that district so they can't be bicected and prohibits any boundary adjustments after the district ban has been approved by Betsy. Right now the rule allows for adjustments through this substantial change request process but this would be changing that to not allow for that. And I think this is where Senator Brock and I differ and I will say, I think- Could you support it? I could support Senator Brock's. I think we were just going through and trying to go through all the issues that had come up and I said, put it in is no. I think what I did is I put it in that you were able to make boundary adjustments that had to be presented as a substantial change provision to Betsy and that they were the decider. What's the argument against that? I would like to speak to this as well but one question that I would have is when is the original taxable value on those new additional parcels? That's the other question. Is it set at the time that those are added and what does that mean for taxes? For PBR ability to do that calculation or is it set at the time the district was originally heard, originally created in that there's now- I could now. A blancheting from it that is being added. That's the argument. So does tax have a position on this one? Tax would prefer the boundary line to stay the same as for moving into newer brand list software that will be able to track the TIF parcel as it originally existed even if it's become part of a larger parcel. So we'd be able to keep those boundaries and keep the numbers separate going forward. One reason we had to do boundary line adjustments in the past is we didn't have the technical capability to manage that very well. But we think it would be cleaner in the long run not to move the boundary line. Okay, we've got a couple with what was Barry have. Somebody who owned a house lot or a lot, he bought it. The house next door. Yeah, the house next door. We're talking a quarter acre here but now half the lots in the district and half isn't. Are there de minimis kinds of things that can be adjusted or is there a problem with having half in and half out? With the software update, we'd be able to manage it so that it'd be, we'd keep that snapshot. Okay. And then that other half would be, you'd have one bigger parcel on the grand list but then for the TIF parcel, the portion of the value would be allocated and it'd be that original parcel so that the new part, the new lot with the new house, the value from that would be separated. Okay. And you can do that. Well, we'll be able to do it. You will be able to do it. I think we prefer it that way because then you get into a lot of sticky questions about the OTV and once fair and kind of the edge. I think it's not that big of an issue. We haven't had many of these come up. Okay. Yeah, I put that provision in at the request of, say, all the city manager and maybe what we can do again in time, be what it is, maybe get Dominic Clown over the phone or an answer, you'll have more detail point. All right. Okay. What was that? Karen? Karen, oh, did you have a question? Karen born with the Lincoln Cities in town was one of the cities that had expressed an interest in that was South Burlington and you called it a situation. Oh, they want, no. But one suggestion we had was that you might get a year or two years for existing tips to adjust their boundaries but make it clear that going forward there wouldn't be any basic just enough. So there's sort of a base into the application to that expectation. Senator Pearson. So I'm not sure where I stand on this but it strikes me that partly there was always going to be property right next door to the TIF district. And surely those property values are going to increase because of all this activity right around them. And so if we just keep allowing them to expand we really are now dipping into the F and I'm not sure how you permit a little bit of expanding that the next property hits that. And I guess that. I mean, we thought this was sort of a win, I'm saying. You don't have to, you know, if anything's coming in with like a 10th of an acre change next month as a substantial change across because of property boundary adjustment. So this seemed like a win. You don't have to do property boundary adjustments, tax can do it. And that's when we learned in the past, previous staff had said that you could do boundary adjustments that are larger for new projects and the district boundaries were drawn small with that understanding. So they were made specifically smaller to have less impact. Which is what's saying on the South Burlington set. They said, well, we're going to do this but our plan is, but they could in fact come in for second tiff district, couldn't they? I mean, if we don't, they don't come under the limit. They couldn't come in. I don't think you can have more than one. More than, well, no more than two of the six. Yeah, more of the new six, no more than two. But Virginia County doesn't have any new. Under new. So you thought this was a win, that's what you're saying. What is this? This being that you no longer have to do boundary adjustments. Because my understanding of boundary adjustments were really for that, tweaking that person next door by a border. This language says you may not do boundary adjustments. Yeah. You like that. Well, we did not understand that there was previous discussions. We being the current Betsy staff did not understand that previous discussions that happened that said that boundary adjustments could be for larger expansions. And that is why districts may have been from smaller than they otherwise would have been. So that's where the compromise that needs of city and towns offers that those districts would have a year to request those. So we could just say. That it'd be that they would request those changes. Not that they're automatically granted to. Right, right. That would make this effective. But the question still remains of what is, where does the OTB for those get set? Where the original taxable value on those properties that have been potentially gaining the witness budget. Yeah. The one other consideration was we were opening the committee there that would be in a tent that you could address boundaries with your properties. And that was a news key issue, in which we're going to send all the workers to the next one coming up. We're getting set. Within a district. So that, we've got that issue to deal with. Is there another one in here, Becky? The last issue? The tax increment. The. Tax to. The tax stabilization agreement at the same time. And I think, doesn't this say you can do it as long as it doesn't, it's only the municipal tax. So it's saying that the education tax increment in the TIC district is activated on the assessed value of the property and not the stabilized value in pursuant to the stabilization. Okay. Which would be lower. And then the last change deals with when there's a negative increment. Where are you? Sorry, I was just quickly addressing the last section. So we can think about it. Page starting on page four. The new language at the bottom of the page starting on line 17 has to deal with, deals with tax stabilization agreements. And then the last part of section four is on page five. And that section, that new subdivision deals with how you deal with negative increment in a TIC district. That's like, if you tear the building down and nothing gets built there for five years. Right. Is there, does the municipality essentially have to pay the deficit to the education fund? And this says they do. It's just the same. You've done it. The building would just sit there. It's not about just tearing it down. The project would just sit there. Right. It could not gain anything. If it's void, the TIF, nothing's going to happen. I think we need to give them. It's not a TIF district, but there's a couple of cities with big holes. Right, right, right. One may not ever get filled in. Just trying to understand. The last one, does this work to any advantage of the town or to the advantage of the ed fund? I think it would be to the advantage of the ed fund. And it's one that we actually want to support. Yeah, it would. If there are two, both would be to the advantage of the ed fund. Okay, I'm going to have to go on. I would just say on the last one, that aligns with the department's current interpretation. So I think that's really just a clarification. Yeah, I think that is a clarification. Came up, I forget where, but what happens if it burnt down? You had a fire and things burnt down in your district. I'm sure at some point we're going to be asked to put an appeal in there, because if the town tears the building down in like the pictures of my daughter's apartment, that's their choice. If an arsonist burnt the building across the street down, I could see that they might want a little repose. Then we might think of an appeals process that says that it wasn't, or there could be a flood that would come through and remove half the town and if we're adjusting everything else. But the jet is a general rule. Okay, we're ready? No, Irene, when the half of the town was wiped out, we accommodated that within six months and made it. Oh yeah, I remember a call from the treasurer when I was in Arizona at an NC ed-coil meeting, saying, I've decided to do this to help the two of us. Okay, committee. Becky, do you have enough to go draft and give us some language on the last two, but I think we're... Do you want to keep the language on the last two this week? I think, yeah, with no boundary changes, but date that up a year, have it become effective a year from now which would give the town time if they... It's a change all our memories. Yeah. No. What's the... No, I mean, Betsy's telling us we're too liberal. We have to address the OTB. I mean, that to me is the... Okay. I mean, I don't know how many towns are ready. I guess it's... It's just south-world and then I'm not sure that you can be adjusted to it. What did you say about south-world? Let's see how many of them are there. You're the only one. Seems like he's hearing it. He's like a wake robber. I'm trying the rest of it, Vermont. I'll take care of it if you think it'll be the day... You're a reasonable project. I mean, not that they're just adjusting the boundary just in case, but that you have to show a reasonable likelihood, just like in a TIF plan, I guess. Yeah, what is that? Yeah, what is that? It looks like they're putting the... The adjusting... The brown team all in there. I start getting a little nervous. That's all right. If they're right to this issue... No, not downtown. Not downtown. No, the Dorsey Street law is what they were saying. They might... South-world. South-world. Well, that's true. Like, that's not sort of just a little... That's not a little... ...district. No. That's huge. That's huge. And that's a lot of talent. And, Chair, your daughter's apartment was part of... Was that in the TIF? I can show you the picture that gave it to us. Right here from the city of St. Oliva's. It was within this... Here is where my daughter was living. There was a hairdresser on the first floor and two floors of apartments. And now, it is the walkway to the new parking garage. But she's happily a resident of Montpelier. Well, that's good, that's good. But it was a long commute to Albury. I'm sure. So anyway, yeah, when you tear that apartment down, normally, if it's down, you go in and you'd ask for property tax adjustment because there's no house, but it's part of this project, so we only know you pay. It keeps you from just going in and doing the old urban redevelopment thing where you just raz the whole block up. There is a tier three rule that has yet, it has been postponed yet again. Okay. And the definition of it, the definition is disputed in rules. It has to be before that. Okay. I just... I don't want to go... Is it going to impact anything in here? Well, if we... Are fitting what things it is. If we pass and statute the same definition that the rule, the proposed rule, we will be creating a tier three that does not distinguish between when something is a common business practice or actuarially, and when another district may bring that practice online and gets credit for tier three and the other one doesn't. And it's... I just want to be... Yeah. No. Now, so now, no. Okay. If we do... Don't put that there. Yeah. There's nothing in the bill about tier three. Right. This bill? Right. Right. This is the one that... This is the tier three bill. No. Tier one is tier two. Okay. So Madam Chair, I jumped off this thought board and it wouldn't be swinging the bill twice. All right. We'll try and keep you informed. It is sorry. I'm full. But I have more time. All right. I'm on... I think the meat of this thing starts on page two at the top. And this is the tier one requirements. In my notes, other than tier one, says that the first paragraph, which ups the standard, basically 100%, is okay with the committee, am I? Yes. Correct on that. Okay. So all those postcards I got today, I can tell them. All right. They don't seem to know about tier two. But they will by the law or by the law, I hope you will. All right. So then we're into little i. That's the hydroquibit. So, if I may, ma'am, Chair, I would just say this has been, I think, a really important discussion for us to talk about the impacts of large hydro in one that I hope we can continue. But it's my goal over the weekend to try to figure out some way to take it out of here and push it into asking for ANR to work with the Department on some kind of life cycle analysis of HQ. I mean, I think we need to understand this going forward, but it's a bit of a blunt instrument in this draft. So, does that seem reasonable? That seems very reasonable. And that may get us out of there before we move on. Okay, so. Is that going to come back within this bill? Yes. Yeah, I think it would. At least some general wording is to, yeah. Thank you. So is the committee deciding to delete the hydroquibit? I think we're waiting for replacement, but there'll be a replacement paragraph. I think you can take this one instrument out with the note that it will be replaced by some form of study or monitoring or analysis. Analysis. Analysis of, I will admit when we start talking about building new dams and flooding new fields that I get more concerned than getting hydro from old days. I'll give it a hundred percent. Yeah, okay. Okay, so that gets us to a little odd. Two. Two odd. Two. Yeah. That's the same. Same thing. Part of both. Okay. It's a section two, right? No, that's not a section two. It's page two, the middle two paragraphs. All right. Now. Then we get, that was the easy part. Now we get to number two, which is distributed renewable generation. This is tier two. All right. And this is where we've had them. Now I need to go through again and find. So the testimony is saying with several cost estimates. Yeah. We're silent to whether or not those cost estimates depended on where stuff was located and the bill is currently written. It's silent to direction on where they should be located, which would have a substantial effect on reducing those cost estimates. So. So I. Okay, you have a proposal? I don't have a concrete proposal yet, but I've talked to people in the gallery here. And, you know, one of the things, so we've, and I've not done a good job focusing on some of the other elements, other than sort of energy jobs. And we've heard from a lot of people that suggest we've been trailing our job creation around solar jobs in particular. But there's also, you know, this is also has to do with having a resilient grid for the future and distributed around the state. The location of our energy development has not been something that's been particularly well done in from a policy point of view. I think, you know, we have, and we heard this over and over and over. So it's my hope that, and I don't know what it is, but that we could come forward over the weekend with something that, you know, allows us to have a more straightforward process for the targeting of where to build energy in Vermont. So right now, as I understand it, if somebody needs to put a solar array up at the kingdom, that's the Shiite region. The PUC will say, sure, you can do that, but you gotta pay or enter, but you gotta pay to transmit the power down Chittin County and that's gonna cost you a lot and no one is gonna take that offer. And so we have a way of dealing with the location, but it is clunky to say the least. I think, and you know, from the testimony we've heard, I think it's pretty clear, the cost variables have a ton to do with the geography. And so I don't know what it's gonna be, but there are brighter minds of mine working on helping me come forward with something around dislocation sighting, not sighting. We think of sighting as like, put it on this part of the yard or that part, the geographical location of this. And- The goal of it being next to or close to what exactly? Well, off-takers, that is important. We've done that. You see that show up in net metering, but it's more like we're on the grid. Does it make sense? So putting a bunch of solar next to burning, people have said is a cost effective way to go. For instance, putting a bunch of solar next to low wind makes no sense, right? And so something that allows us, I still value the democratization of this so that developers can come forward and spread the jobs around, but recognize that the grid is something that needs some of that. So it's my hope to do that because I think it makes sense of policy. And I also think it makes sense to soften some of the cost concerns we've heard around, pushing more in-state development. Okay, I'm still- And I mean exactly what that is, I don't know. Okay, because we had GMP and Velco come in and they had some suggestions about- Okay, I've seen their suggestions. Well, that was just that they were looking for some flexibility and up in 10%. Yeah, that's a little different. That is them saying, we'll go to another 10%, but let us get it not necessary from in-state and not necessarily in the small development. That's different, we can talk about that. This would be on the way to that, except that it's still vision development in-state, but recognizes that the change between 15 and $50 million cost impact has a lot to do with where you're located. That's one big moving part. It is a big moving part and it's a policy that if we couldn't go back in time, decade, we would have been really smart to have done that better, I think. The cost issue is obviously the one that concerns me the most as to what gets pushed to rate payers. The jobs impact is also obviously a factor regionally around Vermont, because I look at those of us who are in Northern Vermont, we're gonna see any jobs because you can't build any solar there because there's no way to transmit it. So I don't think you're gonna see solar jobs, but I think we just heard about a huge storage project going into the kingdom. I'm aware of some of the digester stuff is- But the digesters are minor in nature and you're gonna see some of the things. You know, I'm not sure how you satisfy the jobs. That's just a big question to express it as a concern and as something as I look at my region that I have to be concerned about. And obviously, but the biggest concern is the impact of doing this to rate payers. And I still don't have enough of a handle on to be comfortable with it. Well, so, you know, broadly speaking, I think we have to come forward with an idea that softens some of the concerns, cost concerns, you know, clearly, that's been a theme in this discussion. That's the impact on rate payers. It's the next moving part. The testimony from municipals the other day, I related that, that we should put into this that we're not asking the utilities that are already, that have many, many miles per house, reverse that, that have very few houses per mile, shouldn't be asked to take the same bite and absorb the same amount of electricity than another utility that might have four times that number of houses per mile. And I think that was what I was talking about when it was about being equity from the many different distribution reports. So that when, if this were to be done, it wouldn't impact some areas disproportionately to others. I guess I would, I want to understand, Senator, you don't have to, the way tier two is written today and the way it's proposed here, doesn't say you have to build generation in your territory necessarily. It is talking about again, for a resilient Vermont grid. So BPD built something on the mountain up there. Fairfax, it's not in there, but a satisfied plot, I don't know, they're different. It would be something they went into willingly as opposed to someone proposing in their district and then being told, well, the house is proposed, you have to accept. Okay. Yes. I still feel I'm way above my pay grade when we are dealing in very complex issues and we're moving pieces and we're not sure what's happening on further down. I think we might be better off in this section rather than try and figure it all out. Maybe you can over the weekend, but say our goal is to reach 20% by and we want the PUC to do siting to, because we already did siting for net metering on landfills. We want you to, you know. Do you mean like zoning siting or do you mean like locating it in? Locating it in the air. Yes, siting in the air. Locating, they haven't done that siting. It's important because these two terms that can play, they're not the same. Locating. Locating it closest to the area where it will be or the one that has the least impact on transmission costs. That makes sense for the grid. Which is way of milling. And this is very grid cost. Cost. And that's, well, it's another issue and as we look at cost, when we have what may be a major upgrade to the grid in some way, shape, or form, who bears that cost? Do all the great payers who are using the grid ultimately bear that cost? Yes, it depends. Because when I look at a situation such as my electric company is 100% renewable right now. Are we gonna pay additional cost to provide grid expansion for others who haven't done that? How about? How would you? Mark not. So there's two types of costs you can incur. One is the cost of distributing the electricity. And that's part of the deep pool of share. Within your district. And the other cost is getting the electricity from your district out to be sold elsewhere. That's the 100% share. When you're taking electricity in to serve people. That's right. It's a share. It's shared when you produce more than your district needs and you have to get it out to sell then you don't get the cost share. So we're all gonna help pay for getting your electricity out of your hand. And we don't want it to be. No, you would not put it where it has to be. Where it has to be. Push it out. Yeah, well we have a problem now in the Shia district where we have put it where we can't get it out. So we want to no longer continue to do that. Right. But we want to increase the amount of renewables in tier two, which is new not with the old 100%. So we've got one issue is we want to avoid all the potential for as money as possible. Transmission, 100% costs. That means we need to do everything possible to put it closest to where it will get to where it's used, all right? To use existing locations. Existing highways that are not clogged. Right, okay. We want to avoid that cost. There's also the issue. No. No. We're not getting this bill out this afternoon. There's also the issue for some of the other projects. Every project about, okay, go to 20% but give us some flexibility on whether or not that's all in state. You know, do we want, cause in state's going to be solar. Do we want to require in state or could they buy some of the New England wind when it comes on line? You know, could they use a percentage? And then we, I'm not even going to try and get through RECs. You last thing ties into this. I know. That's the question. Is that really true that all the in state is going to be solar? I'm just asking the question. We've got Rygate we haven't decided on but our renewable energy, we have some hydro which tends to be I think mostly municipal. And we've got Rygate and BED and we've got a little bit we've got a chart in here somewhere but the bulk of it and the bulk of it we haven't got another landfill that we can hook up to. The bulk of it under present technology will be solar. Well, it's not the technology I would offer. I mean, it's an interesting question you're asking Sarah about because right now the development that's happening is solar. No argument there. There is nothing in statute that doesn't have to be solar. There is 12 years ago which is sort of the timeline we're considering here. We were building wind. There is, you know, so there is generally anxiety around the prospect of it all being solar though I think people would acknowledge that if you had handled the location piece of it better that anxiety is different. I'm not saying it goes to zero but it definitely is different. Significantly different. That's where the low, medium, high estimates come in. So, but it is a good question. I mean, we would be wise to not only be building solar in the next 10 years of the month. That is not straightforward. But I think a mistake to sort of limit our thinking that way because it's not automatic and it could well be something that is part of the analysis that similarly with storage, you know, understanding storage. There is an argument to be made that if we don't use storage we are gonna shoot ourselves in the foot not from a technology point of view but from a cost technology point of view because ISO is gonna be rewarding people that have figured that out. And you know, so that's why 3Map Power is spending, I don't know, $30 million on storage in the next 10 years. It is, anyway, so there are a lot of others. So maybe that should be more of our emphasis. You know, they have a whole lot about it. What was interesting about 3Map Power testing on the yesterday was in our subsequent discussion for today that we shouldn't be doing more in areas that are congested. Guess where the areas are that are now are going to be open and accessible or there's new renewable stuff in the green-bound area. So it's sort of like we might be throwing them in the briar patch, you know, because that's where it's more likely to be built. Not in the co-op areas, but in the ones that mark it up. So there's a person here. There are, there are, there are the types of entities that may process this at different roles. But that also brings out the, you know, we've got the munis and the electric co-op that do all these very small towns that aren't using very much electricity. And they're probably not going to buy a whole lot of new heating systems or cars because they're the poorer towns in the state. Maybe. Or they're the place where more subsidized cars will reduce the burdens. But they are not the big users, right? So they are not where we're going to want to put it. But if we, you know, we're not going to want to put new solar fields up in their areas. I don't think Swanton wants a solar field. So which leaves are there out of this? Swanton is out of tier two already. Just somewhere crystal clear. But if, if you keep them to the same 20% and then you say, but you want to locate it close to the areas using it, you've created a problem for. There may not be, all utilities may not be obliged to accept the renewable energy build out that fills the 20% threshold there. We're going to be shifting and targeting, if you put these guardrails in there, to areas where it could be absorbed and used in a way. And that tends to be the green enough power area. Well, yeah, it's the big, more southern, more eastern, east to west coast. It's consistent with what, what, what Vermont Electric says, for evidence, they just don't make us put in any more because we can't sell what we have now. And Washington Electric, my utility, we could say, right now the heat pumps are a loss. We're not. We're using, we're eight, eight houses per mile and green amount of power would say, hey, I think we'd be ready to do a lot of this and we can sell it and we don't have to do any more fill in that much more infrastructure. We could have the different entities proposing to bid against each other for the lowest prices. And, and they, they also can mark up what they, what they do and make a small profit on it. You totally lost me. Well, it means I'm, I'm consistent, but. I go eight and you see me, you go around. This is council. It's a break. I, I, I risked this one last night. I was lost on the last one. We're trying to test to you. I'm, I'm still working on it. We tell every utility they have to increase their, new in-state. We wouldn't say. Renewable. I think that's what the. Well, there are three that are, is that am I right? Three that are totally exempt from pure. Right. Yeah. And so that they are the ones that. Your work. Makes no sense to, well. Some of the, the many towns that you, this is some of them maybe find places to do it and some of them may not be quite places to do it. But it doesn't have to be in there. Well, it doesn't have to be though, in their town or their territory. This is an important fact. So, so, but. Washington Electric, BED, and this one are completely removed from here too. Today, and if we pass this bill. Okay, but the electric co-op isn't. The electric co-op is not. Vepso's isn't. Vepso's put that, you know, they have a concrete proposal around their dams that we should try to figure out. Well. I mean, yeah. But, so we write all this and the good folks in the towns that are using it go to court, hold it up, don't want to look at it. And there's plenty that don't. You're trying to not cite, you're talking about the location. Siting the location. Location. Well, they're not. They're not in the middle of nowhere. They don't go to court hours. And they're not poor corn farmers that they're happy to sell. They're not siding. Yeah, location. Okay. Well. I just, I, I want to get there, but I don't want to set up something that is so definite now that it either restricts something good that comes up three years from now or it ends up blowing costs for some of the perhaps poorer people up in the kingdom. So. I, I want to, I just don't know that we are in a position. So you want, what kind of, you're looking for some kind of flexibility. I think utility said they were some flexibility. If they get to 18% could they import Massachusetts wind to make up for the other issue? In that case, 82% of their power, they have complete flexibility over it. They've already reached 100% in their tier one. So what, what tier two is inside here? But they, if they have gotten 18% new, out of that 20%, they have reached 18% or 15% new. Yeah. What happens if they don't reach that goal? That's a good question. I think. Did we put them out of business? No. No, obviously not. No, but this is not, by the way, this is for 2032. We're not, we're not saying you gotta do it all tomorrow. In fact, we said in the next year, you can just keep doing exactly what you've been doing. Then we ramp it up so we can play with that too. But there's nothing, you know, drastic or immediate here. And we are attempting, I think in the locating, in the location question, that proposal, I would guess the legislature will have to be involved, come back to us, you know, probably for next year. So that's another time to say, okay, people will say, well, if we have this kind of control over where, then we think getting to 20% would mean this, right? They're, You've lost me. Why are they coming back next year? Well, so, so even if we do nothing to change tier two, we ought to have a better policy on locating generation on the grid. So then we have a stronger, resilient grid. So that is, we can ask for recommendations and analysis. I don't, I would be surprised to learn that the PUC has that authority today to do it in a straightforward way. They have a worker we have, which is cumbersome, probably too much work. It's just dumb and it goes like this. No, yeah, sure, you can build it there, but the distribution costs are gonna be X and the developer goes to be able to see a layer. I'm out of here. I'm never gonna be that. And so it's a de facto, do it. We need a smarter policy. That policy is gonna require a change in statute. You're right, right? So that's coming back to us if you just put that on top of this proposal, that is after a year of no change. We're, the first year in this bill makes no change from the SAS quote. In terms of our, remember, we're on the way to 10%. Then the bill changes to get to 20%, but in the first year there's no change. So we have your way. So next year, then they come back and say, here's what we think we can do for locating. And then the utilities say, okay, under that scenario, now you're gonna force us to go a little bit faster as we're trying to go to 20%. We will then have a more concrete analysis about what the cost will be because we will have taken away this variable of what everybody said. If it depends where you build it, we're gonna give them, you know, is it gonna be 100%, I don't know, but it's gonna be more clear than it is. It's gonna be streamlined from the regulator's plan. So you're anticipating that as we work through this, because it gives, by next year you want them to come back and tell us what the siting standards. Location standards would be and how they would do it. That came really clear to me from all of the players. So next year they're gonna come back. So you're anticipating, we're gonna say you're gonna get to 2020 today, fully realizing that as we work through this, they're gonna come back probably every year asking for adjustments. Because after you say hi, you're gonna cite it, then locate it. Sorry, just like, well, all right. All right, I'm not sure what the difference is, but we'll do that offline. Once you say, this is where we wanna put it, well, okay, but then nobody shows up to put it there. We're gonna have to come back and readjust. I mean, this is a work in progress. It is a work in progress. And all we're really talking about is the hoped for schedule of progress. Okay. And the endpoint, which, you know, I'm trying to get us to 20% in-state for in places that makes us have a rezoning strong rate. The chairs often mentioned the area, over on Yankee, which would be a prime general area because the infrastructure is all there. And there would be very few expenses, but much fewer expenses for hooking up. Yeah, but I'm not sure that that infrastructure takes it back to us or takes it out of the state. Used to, for what Yankee used to do. Distributed in all directions, and we're still capable of doing that. So to the extent that it's. We had to build some lines afterwards, I believe. Well, we found that about later for you, yeah. But we know them. And that we failed to, we got stuck with that and we won't make that mistake again. But. Didn't tell us the truth. Yeah, that would. I don't know if that's a, is that a big using area? Well, but it's not that this locally created resource couldn't go out of state. Okay. I think we heard that in the summer, it would have to get sold on to the grid because we would be producing way more than we need to. The PUC. They're not storage. The PUC was the. Well, and we also know where those places are. The PUC, the department, we know where those places are. Well, I think so. Just because I was out of the room, so I missed part of it. So do we talk about developing some language for next week to look at where we are in the process? I said I've been in and out. Senator Pearson's got a couple of things he's gonna develop language on. I think we do need to get some language on what this would look like. Which piece? Well, you've got two you volunteered to do. And then there's the, this is getting into what are requiring the 20%. How do we, we need wording for, you know, making sure that it goes in a location that has the least impact on transmission. The way I picture it, and I'm waiting for people with more knowledge to bring me a few ideas, but is some combination of our experts come forward with a way they could imagine it working. But the general idea is there are parts of the grid where it would be tremendous for us to build and there are parts where we really don't need anybody to get anything built. And having that set up so it's clear to people, we don't waste a lot of energy, no punitive energy. So we don't waste a lot of effort going through proposals that are not gonna get approved so that that can be streamlined. And it leads into this, particularly because we're all anxious about impact on grid barriers. Yeah, because that becomes self-defeating if we want to do more electricity and we plow the rates. So I'm happy to do that. And, you know, and I'll be frank and say, I'm hoping to come up with strategies that soften the cost concerns in addition to the location. If people have ideas, they should bring it forward. I'm not, yeah, so I don't know what that looks like precisely. I think there are ways, you know, I'm not gonna bring it down to zero anxiety, but I would guess that we can find a middle ground. Luke said to natural resources, we can have a government tell us what your goals are. And he would say, would be eager to do a special rate. Are you following us? Well, I'm following you. It seems you have a little more development. Okay, yeah, but you might hope to bring you something Monday, Luke. So maybe folks can feed it to you by Monday. That'd be great. They had even more technical expertise. You know, and I guess I would suggest, so we don't just keep doing this, is I can come forward with some ideas and then also some other decision points that, you know, people can. Yeah, I think that would, I think we've made great progress this afternoon on a couple of very difficult bills. So I think that, so that's tier two. Is there anything else? Those are just the schedule in four, two, three. Yep. So section two is just giving the numbers and percentages. Then you're section three, which is just the study of some really different issues. Colonel, do you discuss that or not? Not a lot. This was our attempt to talk about storage with the idea that maybe people would want to have, you know, there are states that have a mandate for storage, the way we have a mandate for small renewables. We've seen the market here. Mount Power said they're investing five to 10 million in storage in the next two, three years. They're all on their own, right? So the market started pushing that. And they have a strategy that suggests it's at least neutral to where it is. Is that fair characterization? Current way we're doing it, yes. So, you know, to me, it could fit with the location because if you would also want to understand how the grid would like to have storage, I think. So it could be maybe sort of combined into those questions, but I don't know. That may be a study of what we asked them to do because I think we heard storage for leveling the peak can be cost-effective or neutral, but storage just a store. And again, it's probably where you're storing. If you're storing it up in the kingdoms with the same transmission. They still can't get it out. They still can't get it out. You're just getting more of it up there. They can't get out. That's different. So we may... I do think it fits nicely with it, to your point, with the location question. There are, I think, some states that are now requiring storage to go along with certain solar development. Should we do that? I don't know. We'll get enough to come back and see what we're doing. Yeah, if you've got enough to do some... I think I'm gonna need your help. Yeah, you need to get some proposals to him for things we can go over and we're doing this. We're doing it next week. It's here somewhere. 2.67, 3 o'clock. We're doing it. 2.67, 3 o'clock. 3 o'clock on Tuesday. Oh, Tuesday, bring your sleeping bags. We're gonna be here a long time. Welcome to finance and cross over. And we haven't... I'm trying to get everything we can wrapped up by next Wednesday. Thursday, we've got a couple of... We've got witnesses on what is the price cost-sharing on primary care, and one is a large municipal employee. That's... I'm not even... That was an issue that came up in Montpelier with their help. How could they buy into exchange? Yeah, and that's just on for presentation. And then I put two new bills on, changes in laws related to vehicles. I'm usually... There's one little fee in there somewhere. It's the miscellaneous. Feel free to vote that out. And the other one is enforceable state code of ethics. And I believe there is a fee or a surcharge or something. There's a pay to be ethical. In there, I think it probably pays for the cost of being enforced. So feel free to vote any of those out in my absence. You're here, or you're not here, I am not here Thursday. We are catching the bus at noon to get to New York in time for a meeting on Friday. And we're not meeting Friday. We are not meeting Friday because some of us are going to be learning about pensions, I understand. I'm going to have fun, too. You do not have to have fun with pensions. So anyway, yes, I will come back and make no great deal about pensions. They're a problem. They're expensive. Okay, I think that's it for today. I think we've made it through. Probably our two heaviest bills. And I think we've got to pass. On the cost share free, whatever. I was referring to the thing I'm exploring and I need to catch up with Jen is, and I don't want to push committee if folks are uncomfortable, but I would love to find a slice where we could do this to see, it's a hypothesis that people have drilled into us for years now. When you remove the barrier, get them into primary care, you save money. And so I've been wondering about if it's legal for us to, I will check with Jen for like 18 and under some cross-segment that. I know, you were almost talking about an ex, like the Framingham Heart Study that went on for 40 years. The problem, and I'll channel Senator Kitchell, is we spend money today in hopes of saving money 20 years from now. Because it's not, it's like, if I get primary care, that's why we're living longer than our parents. Because we've got better care, better diet, so in theory, we should be seeing less heart disease. I think we are. Interesting. But it's, we've still got to pay for the heart disease that was caused by smoking 20 years ago. And. I hadn't understood it to be so long-term. There's got to be. Yeah, I think it is more long-term, it's the problem. But it also shows up in like, you go get looked at by your doc and you don't end up in the ER with pneumonia. Right. So that's much shorter-term in a row, but. If you could, I mean, some people don't go to their doctors. A lot of them. Notably men. But part of the reason is out of pocket. My husband had no out of pocket. I made him go when he had pneumonia. That cough is not good.