 Tuesday May 19th and we're normally home by this time having been adjourned. I think in the 18 years I've been in the Senate I've only been here twice past this date and one was to June 7th or 8th but here we are anyway. Well we are home though. Yes but when I was thinking of being home I was thinking of this is not the way you imagine it. Stressful being home. Yeah really. So who do we have with us today? I saw Drew. Was the Secretary of State gonna join us? Madam Chair he brought you a note Oh just before our meeting so if you want to look at your email. Okay. If you like I can read that to you. Oh no he does not have anything to report on budget with the possible exception of keeping the business portal project alive to the extent we can. Well um all right so I guess we don't need to do any budget stuff for them. And Commissioner Shirling cannot make it today so we put him in on Friday. Yeah so was Chris Herrick gonna join us today or not? I didn't get a confirmation. Okay and then um how about Erica Bourne? I did not get a confirmation from her either. Oh okay well maybe nobody needs any money. Well the administration people would say they don't. I well no I'm not so sure because this is budget adjustment. That's true. So there I would have thought that emergency management might need to have some budget but they might be taking care of it in other ways so what I said in the invitation was that we would look at places where they might need budget adjustment money where it wasn't being addressed someplace else. So the administration itself might be addressing emergency management and I know Mike Shirling wants to come on Friday so I don't know if he has needs or what but all right so um well we had scheduled this for an hour so Drew do you have anything you want to say to us? You'd like more money? As we say just to clarify EMS would like more money. So we're continuing to you know work through with services on you know what their problems and the current situation is. We've scheduled our advisory meeting for 10 o'clock on Thursday morning. It's a Zoom call but if anybody would like to attend you're welcome to attend and ask questions and then we'll be doing a VA meeting early next week to reach out to all the in-built services and kind of get a feel for how they made it through the last two months. I know that for us we got our second revenue check from the federal government HETS money which was a total of $1,700 for our organization which is appreciated but doesn't put a huge dent in the losses and that seems to be from what we're told the last round of funding that's now coming from the federal government so $1,700? Yes so that was our total hold on this is the hospital Anthony would you take over for a second? $1,700? Yep that was the um that was the second round of uh I'm not gonna spend it all at once. We're hoping to stretch that out for the next you know month or so. Please I'm incredible. That's shocking so now more than ever our request in front of appropriations is ever more critical. Yeah how much did we say we were gonna ask for? I forget what was the number we were asking for remember? $3,900,000. Right 3.9. 3.9 compared to $1,700. So really we've actually had since our last discussion I reached out to first response squads and services and they're very excited to hear that the other parts of the bill that we were working on earlier this year with the education and the service the new service level they're they're very excited to hear that that's not completely off the table and that we're moving forward with it. I did have a nice conversation with the health department earlier this week. We think we have a good proposal for our service meeting and we'll be able to have all those kind of compromises worked out before your meeting on on Thursday so great. Actually I brought this up at the I'm on this transition task force. It's supposed to be preparing ourselves to better be able to respond to future emergencies and I brought up the EMS as part of this. Some of the things we should consider solidifying and supporting better for the future and we are going to meet me supposedly we're going to this committee is going to meet with the someone from the administration on Thursday afternoon so maybe we'll be able to bring it up there as well just to keep the front and center of people's minds. So the one that one of the things that we talked about was how if we could have Medicaid I think this would be a really important step is to have Medicaid actually pay for non-transport calls but just treatment calls because if Medicaid reimbursed for that then other insurers might do it also and it wouldn't help Medicare calls but I think Drew said you said there's a national group working on that at a national level for Medicare. We are and I guess before I go too far I should mention that this is National EMS Week so it's a very timely discussion. So if you do get a chance to talk to your EMS groups around it is National EMS Week so it's not they don't get a lot of credit so it's a good week to kind of honor what they do. Actually they got they got lots of credit today on the Senate floor. That's great. Ann did a really nice job of reporting that Bill did you hear it Drew? I did not no. She did a really nice job of laying the the framework for it. And then Dick did a nice job reinforcing it with his conversation describing his conversation with Jim Baker and and sort of the inspiration for the bill and that was that was good too. I'll have to go back and listen. There's a lot of endless conversation on the Senate floor this morning but that was pretty good. So Anthony when you meet with your administration people on your transition this is more of a permanent solution than transitions the one about you having Medicare Medicaid. Yeah that's true. That's more of a permanent going forward solution. Yeah. Yeah okay so are you are there other I am not sure that we can put in more requests for EMS in the budget adjustment we just put in 3.9 million. Yeah we did pretty well on this piece. It certainly beats the 1700 dollars. It does. No I think as far as what you know the EMS immediate needs are the money that you've put in and we've discussed previous we'll address those immediate needs as we look at kind of the transition component of it and what does EMS moving forward I think there's a fair amount of discussion as to how to make sure that we have a healthy and strong resilient EMS system in Vermont but you know in the short term the funding that you've already put forward comes through that will make a huge difference in kind of stabilizing and assisting us to recover some of the personnel that have been lost as a result of the COVID and that we lost so. So Anthony I can't remember if it was Anthony or Brian when you were talking about your committee your groups before you Andy Perch like you said that he suggested that maybe we should have one big bill about things that were in the that we did in this emergency that we should make that we should address for to be better prepared for the next emergency. Yeah not necessarily make them permanent but make them so that they click into place in terms of another emergency as opposed to having to pass 10 other 10 new bills each time. Right Brian. So I had mentioned to our task to the transition task force that GovOps might be doing that for the issues that we deal with in terms of municipalities and the kinds of things that we did this time that maybe we would come up with a I don't know what to call it but I mean obviously be let be legislation that would allow certain things to be kicked in and automatically whenever an emergency is declared. Right. We did have a meeting of the lessons learned group this morning and Chris Pearson who's our subgroup leader brought that up and I credited Andy with coming up with I mean he was the first one that I heard say it the weather there'll be a packet that was used as a description of the structure. So a packet of bills that deal with different things kind of up on a shelf imagine imagining a shelf and then if there's a further emergency whether it's you know a flood or a natural disaster of some sort or a virus you would be able to reach up on that shelf and whatever you needed from that packet it would already be tailored drafted and you in essence could redraft it with different dates and it would just save a lot of time and testimony I think. Couldn't you just couldn't we just actually figure out what the issues are that need to from our committee anyway I don't know about others. The issues that we made emergency legislation around and draft them in such a way that we could actually pass it so that upon the declaration of an emergency they would just kick in you wouldn't have to you wouldn't have to get them down and redo them it would there would be some things that would kick in if it was a statewide emergency some things would kick in if it was an emergency that precluded you from meeting in person. That's what I had imagined that we would actually pass something like that now that would automatically kick in so that we wouldn't can that be done Betsy? Yes for example OPR's license or licensing statutes allow for the temporary licensure of people from out of state and when there is an emergency situation so that's an example of a current law provision that I think OPR brought to life and used during the state of emergency and you could similarly draft a permanent statute that only would come to life when there was whatever emergency however you wanted to define the emergency in that statute. That's the way I was imagining it too was what you would connect explained. Yeah Ryan. I know oftentimes Betsy we talk about putting a burden on a future legislature is there any risk of running afoul of that sort of understanding that you don't pass something now that puts the future legislature in in sort of a different position. I don't think so in the way that we're talking about potentially or you're talking about potentially structuring this language you would be in this bill proposing to amend or add law that would be permanent law going forward and that would only spring to life when the conditions that you impose in the law occur so and the future legislature if they don't agree with that provision they could always just repeal that law just like you could repeal a future legislature could repeal our current laws if whatever ones they don't agree with. So what makes sense to me is Anthony you're looking at transit so you're looking at transitions into a more normal state right. Basically yes. And then Brian you're looking at lessons learned that could potentially be permanent lessons. Yeah and me too I just sadly missed this morning. Oh you're on okay. I am on a different subgroup than Brian is. I yeah I'm on the one Becca's leading. So that's the only ones that aren't on a group. Well that's because you're chairs. What? That's because you're chairs and you were happily liberated from this exercise. But I do think this exactly the legislation you're talking about is a piece of lessons learned. We have learned that we need to have statutes that can kick into action the minute the conditions require them to. I think that is a big lesson learned that we could have that ready to go and those you know hopefully in the future when something awful happens that these laws could be immediately go into emergency declaration mode. So what what I would like to do for our committee and that we should I'll write a note to all the chairs and when we have a chairs meeting talk about doing that so that the lessons learned groups can can look at those and then following Andy's thought is then then we should put together our our list of what we would like to see immediately pop into place if there's an emergency and we can tailor it to I mean like one of the things that Lauren talked about the other day was a lot they did the the emergency legislation around medical people for this one but they need to have a more comprehensive from what I understood she said they need to have a more comprehensive act that would allow them to do temporary licenses for the people who are affected that they need to deal with the particular type of emergency. For example in Irene they didn't necessarily need health people they needed engineers and in if we had a nuclear accident which we won't anymore but then you'd need a particular kind of temporary license probably so we could we could make a list of all of those things and then see what kinds of when they would kick in so if if we can all start making that list maybe that as we remember it and we can take a lot of it from the bills that we passed they're there absolutely we have a yeah if there are other things and then we can then we can just have Betsy draft it up and then it'll be there so if we do a big massive bill that has different sections for different committees I mean different areas of jurisdiction that's fine if not we'll have our own bill does that sound reasonable yes sounds good Brian I did hear back from Tucker I don't want to necessarily change the subject but okay no let's do though yeah yeah in case anybody else gets a question let me I just got to flip over to my email I had a question from the folks at Rutland City Hall above S-344 and the question was under normal circumstances Rutland City would be obligated to set the tax rate at a level that would generate the appropriate revenue for the budget that was approved by the voters in March S-344 gives the Board of Aldermen the ability to adjust the municipal property tax rates for calendar year 2020 which gives them the ability to set it at a rate lower than would normally be required the issue is our fiscal year runs from July to June so the question is can the Board of Aldermen only adjust the rate for the six-month period in 2020 or as long as they act to set the tax rate to the whole fiscal year before that date they could adjust it down for the entire fiscal year yes or no and I thought that I knew the answer to that but I wanted a double check to make sure so I did ask Tucker for his reading of the legislation and here's what he wrote the intent parentheses and result was to allow extensions penalty waiver and tax rate reductions for calendar year 2020 when this was discussed in committee I highlighted that most municipalities use a July 1 start date for the fiscal year however the default is a January 1 start date because of the variance in fiscal years the bill ultimately was aimed at calendar year 2020 to ensure consistency between municipalities so that's what I remember so in essence yeah they could only do it for the six months I guess unless we change it I mean it well it with all due respect it took two weeks to get it signed into law I don't really I understand that but I also understand that if enough municipalities come back to us and say we actually would like to adjust our tax rate down you know if enough towns come to us and and ask for that I think it's something we could do something about I think that we could we could do that actually as a regular bill also it doesn't happen because they wouldn't be doing that until I mean they wouldn't make it effective until January anyway I do remember now and Brian I was wrong because I but I remember the league weighing in on that and it getting pretty complicated and they said go with 2020 and then towns would deal with it afterwards yeah so I'm going to send that back to them now okay thank you so we could ask the league to find out if enough towns would like to do that that we could just change it I would ask Karen Horn that now actually because if towns are considering that they're going to they're going to be you know July 1st is coming up fast but they'll but they can do it for the calendar year now anyway then they wouldn't have to make the decision about the second half of their fiscal year until the problem is we don't meet we're not going to be meeting in the fall well we may be but no we're not going to be meeting it in a in a way to be to affect in real time the January through June right we can do it now but it's not an emergency right we don't have to have it done before July 1st right I mean we have to have it done before we go away if we ever do go away okay Betsy Ann don't you laugh when I said that sometimes I feel like we'll be here forever okay all right so we have eight minutes left with Betsy Ann before she has to run I think is there anything else we want to talk to her about right now thank thank you Betsy Ann for your email and your harmonization your harmonization email are we talking about that when you come back yes okay you mean the 233 blending 233 and 438 233 and 438 no we're talking about that on Wednesday oh okay I think aren't we I think we're doing when when we come back I mean next we're talking about what's 448 948 948 it's a bill that just came to us from the house let me check and see what 948 is I'm looking for my list of bills it's an act relating to temporary municipal proceedings provisions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak I think yeah but I don't remember which one this was uh oh we'll have it's joining us there's too many bills what is it h490 948 h940 948 oh it should be bills in committee well I don't know if it got to our committee yet uh it's right here in our committee never done our page yeah okay yeah and it is it is oh how do you read the text of it well that's why I went to 948 says not with sending any provision to the contrary during an emergency um and municipalities authorized to conduct any municipal quasi-judicial proceeding through electronic means quasi-judicial proceedings through electronic means yeah why do they comply with all the requirements in the conduct of the proceeding not required to designate a physical location okay right and inspection requirements our favorite yeah board of civil authorities will not be required to physically inspect any property that is a subject of appeal all right so that's what we're going to talk about when you come back Betsy Ann but if you want to talk about it now before you go we can just dispose of it 948 would be a Tucker bill oh right right and Tucker isn't with us yet Karen you like this bill right yeah yes Karen Horn with the lake of cities and towns and we think that the language in the bill would just make it clear because there's some um you know debate out in the field whether these things are um allowed or not so in both instances this would just make it very clear and I think that we took we took testimony on this bill and and then we were ready to do it and then the house did it and used the exact same language so this is the bill we would have passed if they hadn't passed it first correct correct it did look kind of familiar yeah we are well prepared for this so actually do we want to just do something with this bill right now yes okay although it would be polite to wait for Tucker I suppose that is true that is true we'll wait for Tucker bye Betsy Ann bye Betsy what are you going to do in finance oh they're taking up the OPR bill and s233 all right I'll check back in with you when I get out of there if you're still on and give you an update if you're still here last night if they have any questions okay thanks okay see you later thank you yeah block it's a tough group I don't know that I've ever gone to had to go to finance oh yes I have I have I have I have some funds yes um under so leadership are there other budgetary issues that we need to talk about I guess nobody else needs money municipalities do you need oh we're we are going to be in a world of hurt we're trying to collect that information now but um you know if you've got a local option tax that that revenue source is down 40 50 percent I just got from a town over in Chittenden County that town clerk fees in the last month were down 40 percent and and now we've got um you know final payments of property tax so we're we're that's my next job is to figure out like what we're down in the current year on property tax are you will you be able Karen will you be able to give us a notion fairly soon about uh how many how much below expectation those revenues came in at the the property tax um we're hoping so we sent out a survey last week and the the responses are due back this Friday and then um we're I'm also going to send out a specific question to the towns that had April and May property tax due dates and see what their shortfalls have been did you say local option taxes were down only 40 percent I would have thought given their mostly mail rooms and alcohol it would have been down even more um the few I I'm not saying that across the board but the few towns that I've heard from it's been like 40 40 50 percent yeah so can we could is there any way of getting a um an estimate of the the shortfall that came to towns because of I mean I know like um very town yeah rents out the opera house for things and bellows rents out the opera house and the theater is closed and yeah those those kinds of things that are very very very clearly related to COVID-19 because they were canceled right yeah and we have started getting um information from towns about that also they've been volunteering it actually haven't asked them specifically I don't believe that was in the survey but I'll go actually I'll send you the survey questions that's what I'll do that would be great because of course revenue parking also would be included yeah revenue what parking revenue is a big income producer in Woodstock and several other towns and and Montpelier and Montpelier and that most towns have either waived it or not collected it and um and it's a parking revenue also is down considerably in terms of municipal down revenues right right so in Montpelier I know that they just have not collected parking meter right parking fees for probably two months um and they're I mean those are not essential employees either the people who collect the parking meter you know coinage so yeah those are right down to close to zero I would suspect in most towns yes I I'd actively say during the pandemic you know during the COVID crisis not they're not being collected yeah yeah I think Montpelier it's just that nobody's been driving into town for a long time there's no nobody's parking hardly at all nobody's parking but also the um they I believe they had furloughed a couple of the people who did the collections yeah yeah so the other thing I was thinking of that and I know that this is a longer term project but I wondered if there's any way of getting some kind of an estimate of what it would cost to start the digitizing um process and I was I was just doing some back of the envelope stuff the other day and I was thinking if you had I don't remember how many towns I was thinking in um if it caught I came up with a figure of $750,000 to get started and are you talking about digitizing all records or just the land records I'm talking about land records because that's what that was our concern and that's what I think the digitizing all records might be nice but I think we need to start with land records anyway I agree what do you mean by getting started you say 750 to get started what do you mean by get started well I think that they're going to have to they're going to have to start um hiring the if the committee is working on um setting up some kind of standards and on trying to figure that out and I think they're probably going to go pretty quickly on those on those issues because they've been dealing with it for such a long time and Tanya Marshall has some really great ideas so I think that they're going to have to start um having towns um do it hire somebody or get the software or whatever it means to to start doing it well and and we have real data in terms of what towns have spent so far um on doing this so I think actually we could extrapolate from that and and actually if you wanted to get it started in budget adjustment once I try why not I don't know I was just thinking that it was so clearly COVID related it is the need to do it that we might be able to justify um requesting some money for it and I guess I don't know the best way to go about doing it and what specific pieces Anthony as you pointed out what we mean by getting started I don't know so the um committee the task force is having a meeting on June 1st oh right in in the afternoon that's the first meeting and and part of what they wanted to do or we I suppose I should say wanted to do was um put up some models of how it's worked in other states you know and what the standards are and what the protocols are just to get everybody sort of on the same page but yeah uh so I don't know about the numbers like dollar piece I think we could construct it we heard good testimony about the dollars okay uh didn't we I'm recall I'm just working for it now actually that was yeah it was about um what it costs to maintain the the records with the with the vendors yep and what it cost to do it and yeah um and we could get additional testimony from that really terrific who gave us those Carol Dawes maybe well Carol and another one and um and um Lucretia maybe from Kelly yeah Lucretia and Donna also Donna yeah it was Donna who gave us the numbers and I think that what I have here is that it costs them $13,000 a year to maintain yeah hold on I'm just getting that but they but they didn't keep track of what it costs to um actually do the digitizing because that was done by um mainly by town employees and so they would have to just come up with a if they want it done quickly they're going to have to get the equipment they could might be able to get some numbers on just getting equipment so that everybody has standard equipment and buying into some kind of event the vendor how much it would cost to buy the software from a vendor yes and very important to have them all have the same platform well at least the talk to each other like ATM machines they don't have to they don't have to all have used the same this is the way I understand it they don't have to all use the same exact software as long as the software interacts and the only way I can think of that is like an ATM machine Brian and I bank at different places but we could go to the same ATM machine and stick our cards in right somehow the spine is in the ATM machine the single standard whatever the single standard is it needs to be it was Bobby Brimblecomb Bobby Brimblecomb got terrific data on on it and the and terrific finances on it it cost to the licensing fee was $225 a month and um they started yeah they started doing this work in 2010 and it's cost her so far $27,000 right okay and but we could get more data on that um and but she she had the most specific finance financial uh test yeah okay I bet Carol could get her uh her budget on it as well yeah and and Lucretia down in Killington had done the report on town clerk fees last year you know she's the keeper of that data so she may have some more generalized data so if they could get us something their meeting on June 1st what day of the week is that uh it is a month it's a Monday is it next Monday no but next Monday is the 28 oh no sorry next Monday is the 25th next Monday is the 20 it can only be so many things it could be 30 30 things it's Monday is the 25th and it's Memorial Day and it's not Memorial Day yeah that is never the one day they wouldn't pick this Monday is the 25th and it's Memorial Day it's the federal government telling us it's Memorial Day it is not really Memorial Day we all know that I'll take as many Memorial Days as we can get I have a big garden to get in the veggies desperate to get in the ground um so Jane what would have liked to have us get all the stuff to her by the 25th but if we can just say that we're going to try to come up with something and send her a note telling her that and that we'll try to get it to her by the first because they want it they are hoping to have budget adjustment ready to be voted on by the 12th I think that's what she said isn't it so if we could even just ask for some kind of a placeholder to get this going yes that would be great okay but Karen if you could get us any of that other information beforehand that would be yeah like revenues right I'll see what I can do okay anything else committee no you know actually I think that's a big thing is if we can get a handle on some of the basic lost revenues from municipalities as a result of COVID that would be huge I mean and the land records but before we get to the digitizing the land records just that larger piece of what municipalities have lost as a result uh COVID is I think a key piece in this whole federal discussion about how much support we get important for us as a state to understand yeah so we are working part of the reason we did the survey well a dual purpose one is to get you good numbers and one is to actually get good numbers to the national league of cities where they are supporting the um legislation at the federal level whatever that turns out to be but hopefully with aid to municipalities and states aid for lost revenues to both municipalities and states okay and and I think that given what was proposed by the house and then by um the senate the smart act I don't know if you've seen that that that there would you know Vermont would fall below all the minimums so there would be a minimum up allocation to places like Vermont and Wyoming and I don't know who the other one is maybe Montana or North Dakota probably North Dakota yeah Montana has the same population we do in about seven times the land mass and the only reason I know that is because my daughter lives in Montana well they they don't have trouble social distancing them they don't have trouble at all and they have very very few cases but they're suffering yeah it is a space it's the natural human tendency to move closer to a person to speak it's fascinating to watch you know as you as you move into physical interactions with people they're just some people who just naturally have to get closer to South American countries don't they like that okay so anything else we want to talk about about money Brian do you need some money I'm all set madam chair thank you all right could I ask senator colmar how did it go this morning I wasn't able to listen to the senate floor oh it was a great session no no no your issue our issue oh yeah I know I was sort of stringing Karen along okay I don't understand exactly why but we did not take up third reading of that bill oh you didn't no so this afternoon in the all senate caucus we are going to allow people to ask any further questions they might have and therefore tomorrow I assume the ground will be laid to Greece or right through oh okay well I'm so glad I asked then I'll listen to the caucus yeah I don't know what other questions people can ask I have the stuff from Tucker about what happens if there isn't any budget by July 1st and then I have your list of the municipalities that would be affected if they can't do this right I don't know what else and I don't know if you've gotten a couple of the people down here wrote letters to people who had concerns and told them that they had no intention of increasing the budget they were passing a level funded budget that was what the best thing for them to do right now was so I do think you'd have to be out of your mind to propose an increased budget right now for someone who didn't want to run again the I don't know that it was opposition I think because we're used to having caucuses and casual conversations things come to the floor with more shared understanding and I think some people were confuselated by it and there were some I don't know and and then they then it becomes a little bit of a sharp feeding frenzy where three questions cause other people to want to ask more questions and and even if there's not really a problem and I think it's hard for me to see you're right this morning was a good example of that actually this morning I thought there were some real concerns about yeah one bill but you mean the liability stuff yeah anyway so I don't know Brian would you agree there's not it's like people weren't really opposed they just didn't quite get it and weren't comfortable yet right I think there was also an attempt to make a point about uh those communities that haven't passed school budgets not being sort of taken care of oh sure and this is has nothing to do with school budgets if if people feel strongly on that issue we could probably draft something else but this is strictly about the education committees we're working on the school budget stuff well they're not that's the problem right they're not getting any right they're working on but they're not agreeing on anything well yes we have uh yes we we have a real challenge there and I and the schools need us to solve these problems so our our our warfare I mean we have to solve these issues for our schools because our schools desperately need clarity on how to move forward on either reducing their budgets what are they going to do about it what are they going to do about all the contracts they haven't signed they desperately need clarity from us um but I would go back to one of uh we one of our school districts Rochester and Stockbridge actually have scheduled a vote for the end of June and our and our have created again to go to the creativity of our towns and school districts they've figured out how to do this effectively and and hold the vote in by mail and with safe physical distancing so they they they're working it out they're figuring it out so I'm going to jump away from schools because that really isn't our our jurisdiction but I think that a couple of the things that we need to make clear in the around this issue that we were talking about is that municipal school when school budgets are passed in towns it impacts other school it impacts the state education fund when municipal budgets are passed it only affects the people in that town and that municipality and I think that people who haven't been involved in municipal governments don't necessarily understand that and don't don't know that and the other um thing that I think we need to yeah I just had a senior moment here um there was something really really important that I that we needed to make sure we addressed but I can't think of what it was so there you have I did um I did call senators Baruth and Hardy last Friday I hadn't heard back from them but I left inquiring what might what's concerning them so I don't know did they think it revolved around the idea that they would pass bigger budgets it it's kind of hard to say right I don't know I was unclear about there what was the question I'm sorry what senator Hardy and senator Baruth were opposed to in terms of the bill that Brian was talking about I have no idea why they were they if you remember they also voted against the pilot project so I I don't know but I think we need to uh go ahead no go ahead Karen now this is completely different subject okay well if I think of that other thing that when Brian talks about the bill that um I think we need to be very clear about is the municipal budgets only affect that municipality if they don't have a budget they can't collect taxes and they can't pay any bills they can't do anything and oh the other thing was so um there is no default like there is with schools if you don't pass it it defaults back to 87 percent you could borrow up to 87 percent of last year's budget that isn't true with towns and a couple people had suggested to me maybe we should have a default and I don't know about the rest of the committee but I don't believe that that's any of our business to tell towns how they should do their budgets because their budgets only affect them and their taxpayers and I if any if people start suggesting that we um have some kind of a default if towns don't have their budgets I I would hope the committee would not support that but I'd like to hear just so that we're clear about it before we go into the caucus well I would agree I mean this is the kind of thing we we tried to give them some more latitude in our 10 pilot towns bill you know but so in person with where we've been to let towns have more autonomy not less the idea of building a default for them it all doesn't make any sense Allison well you could make the same argument Jeanette that you just made about voters but the same is true for school district but we provide a school district we provide a default I thought was a safety net not you know that that if they failed for whatever reason to pass a new budget that the old budget they could go forward with the old budget I don't that's but that's because that's because the school budgets and and the school taxes actually affect other towns and other school districts and the statewide state the municipal budgets don't affect anybody except that municipality right so my tendency is to let the our pilots go forward and really push to get that bill out of the house and if that come if that if this comes up you know I would be interested to see if towns had interest in in a default or not that they would say why would they why would why would a town say oh yes state please set a default for us because we're too stupid to do it for ourselves sorry about that but I'm Chris and then Brian um so school budgets fail somewhat regularly right so I can see why we have a default built in so people aren't perpetually sort of crashing but I am not aware maybe Karen can fill us in I don't remember hearing ever of a municipal budget failing maybe well they do fail they do fail occasionally Colchester a few years ago had both the town budget and the school budget fail right I remember yeah Lunenburg had their budget fail this year I don't really know why but they that's the one I've heard of this year it's um you know it's not that frequent but it does happen and and Barry city's budgets have gone down in the past Brian and no Brian thank you um I I agree with you I think there is an intersection between the school budgets and other communities what they're in they're linked you can't have one without another so those are completely separate from what I'm envisioning here I don't think we need to tie the hands of any municipality any more than we do what if a what if a town for instance wanted to make the budget lower than it was by default the year before in essence in a very strange way we'd be forcing a tax increase on people that might have voted to go the other way so I let them do what they want to do with their own toys and budgets fail if if if someone comes up with an idea that we're going to buy 18 new fire engines that budget will probably fail and probably should or it may not or it may not and that but that's up to the people that poad on town is because it doesn't affect the neighboring town or anybody else correct I I think we're all in agreement okay Anthony I want to make sure I agree okay I just wanted to make sure before we if this comes up because it it might because it's been proposed by a couple people that we're all kind of in agreement on this and we can all support the position that Brian is going to forcefully put forth well the rest of them won't remember that we're all in gov ops and so we'll just sort of randomly insert comments like that's a great idea center to column or and it will just a little positive momentum and okay what do you think they would when you say they would support like they would try to change the bill in what way that not to allow defaults but to make sure that schools are in the same boat no no no what has been proposed is that we put in statute that if a town doesn't have a budget by july 1st that the default is a certain percentage of the budget that sure I got it yeah okay um anything else we need to do here we have just a couple minutes left before Tucker is going to join us