 Economic Development Commissioner, Joan Goldstein, because I want to talk about the importance of making investments that will help strengthen and grow the economy and regions across the state. This year, I proposed to the legislature a $100 million package to help support our communities, spare growth, and make sure employers who are harmed by the pandemic can stay on their feet and support their employees. For years, I've talked about the need to grow the economy and make Vermont more affordable. The federal money, as well as the significant budget surpluses, truly give us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take transformative steps forward, which is why I keep talking about it. This was a comprehensive package with the initiatives working together to have the greatest impact. A couple weeks ago, we focused on housing, which we all know we need more of. But in order to accomplish that, I've also proposed tens of millions for sewer, water, and stormwater, which is necessary in order to build more housing in many of our downtowns and village centers. Along with that, we need good-paying jobs in strong, safe, and vibrant communities, as well, which is why we must also invest in economic development. Commissioner Goldstein will go through the specifics of each, but my plan would devote 30 million for a Grand List Enhancement Program, which will help grow and develop areas of the state which need it most. I've also asked for 50 million in capital investments. And this is a program to help small businesses and nonprofits survive, recover, and grow, and increase economic activity across the state. Among the many initiatives is a $20 million business assistance program to create loans for businesses. This is the Vermont version of the federal PPP loans. This will focus on sectors hit hard by the pandemic, like hospitality, agriculture, and the arts. I've also asked for expedited permitting for these investments, so we can put the money to work as fast as possible, which is important because the feds require us to spend it within a certain number of years. Unfortunately, the House didn't include this $100 million package in the budget they passed a week and a half ago, saying the Senate would cover economic development. The problem is, just like housing, they didn't budget for it and spent the money on other things, which makes the House pass budget out of balance. So if the Senate decides to include these important investments in their budget, they'll be forced to cut the House's proposals. To be clear, the Senate is working on an economic development bill, but like the housing bill they're also working on, they've included provisions I vetoed in the past. So again, just like I said with housing, let's put aside the areas of disagreement and pass clean bills that we can all support. That's what Vermonters expect from us, and not the games we see in Washington. So with that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Goldstein. Thank you, Governor. Good afternoon, and just want to reiterate, as the governor mentioned, Vermont is face-to-face with a great opportunity to infuse federal dollars into economic development throughout the state. In the proposal, we laid out where we think more than $100 million should be invested and will deliver great benefit to all Vermonters, our communities, and the small businesses that are the heartbeat of the economy. At this point in the legislative session, as the governor said, the budget that passed the House included zero dollars for these initiatives, zero dollars to help Vermont employers and employees recover from the pandemic and grow in the years ahead, zero dollars to invest in the improvements of our towns to aid in a strong recovery, as well as to recruit new workers to businesses to our cities and towns in the future. It is very disappointing that out of over $100 million in proposed economic development initiatives, zero were allocated by the House, leaving the Senate with the tough job of deciding where to find the funding for these important programs. As the governor referenced, the budget had a few areas utilizing both ARPA funds, the American Rescue Plan Act funds, as well as General Fund surplus funds. The Capital Investment Program would bring additional funding to a program that's already underway. Last session, we were approved at $10.5 million and we received over 100 applications with more than $90 million worth of requests. What this tells me is that there are plans in the future to grow Vermont and some of these will be worthy of the recovery funds and we are going through that now. The proposed investments, some examples are childcare facilities, performing arts venues, museums, food supply chain improvements and hospitality projects, as well as supporting small businesses like restaurants and breweries. Working in tandem with Capital Investment Program is something we call Grand List Enhancement Program and in order to enhance Grand List, typically it's a capital investment. So that program would support the municipalities who need help to stabilize or expand their tax base. We had the tax department look up that more than half the towns in Vermont have a stagnating or declining Grand List, which really means we're not adding to the pie, we're not adding to the base from which we could collect taxation. That money would help facilitate development or redevelopment of commercial properties or multi-unit residential, which we so sorely need in these communities and we could use these communities as a target area in which to enlist the funds. The importance of that is the Grand List value, as that increases, we share the burden, the tax burden gets shared by more properties, by more people and the quality of our life and vitality in each of these communities would be enhanced. Another $20 million was what we're calling the Forgivable Loan Program, the Vermont Economic Development Authority would administer that program. So there are still businesses suffering from cash constraints from the pandemic. It doesn't really take a lot of analysis to understand that a performing arts venue that's been closed off and on over the last two years is not going to have the revenue and the cash flow that they had prior to the pandemic. So in order to meet the needs of those types of businesses, Vita would issue a loan to help those entities cover short-term expenses and if they used it according to the ARPA rule, it would be forgiven. And then onto the general fund asks, we, this is an unprecedented labor shortage out there, you can't really speak to an employer without them talking about the inability to find labor and the governor had asked for $6 million for the new worker incentive so that we could help businesses recruit people who want to move to Vermont and so we need that desperately. We also wanted to create recruitment marketing and relocation networks so that when people do hear about this incentive program and call us, we have local people in the local communities around the state that could help them network for jobs or for housing or for just the social fabric of the town. The shortage of residents really, it impacts everything from tax rates to school funding to businesses not operating at full capacity. We had a food producer recently tell us they could only operate at about 75% capacity. That does not a good business make, nor does it speak well for the future of the prosperity of the economy. The other ask we had in general fund was $6 million in brown fields and to give you a sample of what that means, last year we were appropriated 10 million, we've already allocated about five to 14 different projects and what that does is it cleans up polluted land and buildings so that some future development could occur. So for example, these projects are cleaning up 17 contaminated acres, creating 490 jobs and 202 units of housing in 80 new hotel rooms. So think about what we could do if millions more were invested in economic development, projects, jobs, housing, new business, new green spaces and revitalized communities can flourish. I wanna say one more time, the general lack of development of Vermont over the years has led to our housing supply shortage and the inability to grow the tax base in so many of our towns. COVID has spent two years continuing to harm development and damaging the financial stability of some of our most important sectors including arts and culture, travel and tourism, agriculture and small locally owned businesses. ARPA has given us the resources to bring historic development projects to every corner of the state, continuing to ensure our business community has the support they need in the short term and also to bring about some bold new investments to continue to yield into the future. Let's use these funds as they were intended and return economic development initiatives to the state budget, thank you. Thank you commissioner. Well, now we'll open it up to questions. Starting with folks in the room. Contractor and the rental registry bills that were in the housing bill, specifically which bill is in this Senate economic package that you vetoed prior? There's some provisions within the bill like the minimum wage, I think that was one area. There's some other areas within that bill that are problematic. If changes aren't made to the House's budget and the Senate moves along with House's recommendations, would you veto the budget? A lot of ifs there, have a long ways to go. I'd like to give a path forward. If they look at some of the veto letters, for instance, with the rental registry and the contractor registry, if they look at the veto letters, they see a path forward where they can have what they want and I can protect Vermont as well. So, if they can just adhere to that and that's my line in the sand, so to speak, we'll be okay, but they have to be willing to make that step. Talk a little bit more about what you need by a grand list enhancement program. Yeah, I'll let Commissioner Goldstein talk about this a little bit more, but as we know, just providing for capital investment in buildings, dilapidated structures and so forth gives us a lot of different positive things. One being, you know, fixing up the structure enhances the value of the building, providing more enhancement to the grand list and more taxable income, but also provides for more housing and so forth, which we desperately need. The Governor did a nice job of answering that. I think that, think to bear in mind a grand list enhancement would be that it is utilizing ARPA funds, so any project would have to meet the final ARPA rule. However, if it's from a town within, that has had a stagnating grand list, we would give preference to that, but basically the more properties you have on your tax roll, the better off. Governor, I wonder if you could sort of put this issue that you've identified in perspective for us as you send a message to legislative leaders. Is this, hey folks, we got a problem, we have to work out here, or is this, we got a problem here. This thing needs to be figured out in order for us to go forward. Can you just sort of put that in perspective for us? A little bit of both, right? I mean, we have an opportunity right now. It's the house pass budget, for instance, as I said, is unbalanced, and it's not as though some of the initiatives within the house budget are all problematic, it's just some of them are, the Senate is now going to have to make choices because I believe even the house agrees we need some economic proposals. They have said, they told me, that the Senate was going to take care of that. That was their agreement. The Senate's gonna take care of economic development, and maybe some housing as well, but that money has come from somewhere. It's not an endless pit here. We need to be realistic about the amount of money we have to spend. And so again, they spent the money. They didn't put a placeholder in the budget saying so much for economic development. They just went and spent it on other things, which puts the Senate in a somewhat difficult position because they're going to have to make cuts in order to do that. So again, I think the message is a little bit of both. We have a problem here, and we have an opportunity to fix it. But if it goes much further, then it's going to be the extra emphasis you put on it. We have a real problem. If the Senate passes it in the same manner, then we have a real problem. The US Congress is also looking at a enhanced program right now for restaurants, hospitality. Have you had a chance to look at that and see how that would affect Vermont? I've heard that. But again, as we've seen, I don't know if we can count on Washington at this point. There's been, for instance, the Build Back Better plan. It doesn't seem like it has any legs at this point. Even the COVID dollars that the president wanted has been cut in half. And much of that is going to come from reallocations from money not spent from the state. So I think we need to, again, move forward with our proposals and because I'm not sure that we can count on them. And Commissioner Levine, is it here? But it seems that COVID cases are ticking up slightly and self-reported tests. I think those are also ticking up over the past few weeks. I guess, what is your assessment right now of where we are with this virus? It's not surprising. I think I've talked about this in the past. Dr. Levine has talked about this as well. The expectation wasn't that COVID was going to disappear. COVID is here to stay for a while and we just need to learn how to manage it. And from the very beginning, it was about managing our healthcare system. So thus far, I think we're not surprised by any slight increase, but at the same time, it's fairly flat. And so I think we're doing okay. I heard from a lot of people on the COVID question that they feel like they're getting a mixed message from the administration about the second COVID booster. On one hand, from Washington or the CDC, they're saying they're hearing, hey, this is actually a pretty good idea for folks over 50. But is that really the message from the state health department? Is there sort of a mixed message here? Well, I'm gonna refer to Dr. Levine when he returns and let him answer that. But again, I'm in that boat, right? So I'm contemplating whether I should or not. And it's not necessary. It does have seems like a shelf life, so to speak. And I'm going to determine whether I have mine now or wait till maybe later in the summer fall so I'm better protected when we come back indoors. So the message I'm hearing is that if there's no harm in having it, but in most cases, it's not necessary at this point in time. That's what I'm hearing. But I'll let Dr. Levine answer that. So personally, you would wait for a couple of months because you think you would have better protection in the fall? Yeah, that's when we typically, I mean, right now I think cases in the US are flat and I don't see the need. I'm pretty well protected right now. And if I did happen to get COVID, it's fairly mild from what I've seen thus far. So I would, I probably will wait a bit, but it's not to say that I shouldn't because maybe I could have another one then but I just don't know what's going to happen then. That's not a question the House Education Committee is looking at several different revenue sources to fund the universal school breakfast and lunch program. I think there's a sales tax on candy as a possibility. No. You want to go through the list? Well, you probably know the list better than I do. They're all the same. No, no, and no. I mean, in this time of unprecedented budgets, surpluses, this is the last resort. I mean, we're not going to increase taxes now. That makes no sense to me at all, not at this point. I mean, you have to make choices. I mean, we all have to make choices. I mean, it's priorities, you know, comes down to that want and need that we all go through individually in our own households. Do we really want it? Do we need it or do we just want it? And we have to prioritize that but to increase taxes right now, I think most Vermonters would not understand that at all. I don't understand it. Again, we've had two years of budget surpluses and we're an upgrade in the allocation for next year in terms of the money we're going to spend in a budget surplus in the Ed fund. It just, again, it doesn't pass the street based us. I'm starting with Sid, NBC Five. Sid, we'll move to Greg Lamaroe, County Courier. Okay, we'll try Tim McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. Well, thank you very much. I am here. Governor, I had a couple of questions. One was for Dr. Libby and perhaps Dr. Kelso who could answer it. On the question about the small business loans, the PPP type financing you're thinking of, there was a lot of discussion and angst actually amongst very small businesses in the PPP because it was some question about whether it was going to be taxed as income, whether it was a straight loan or a grant. How are you thinking about this process for this money? You don't want Dr. Kelso to answer that, do you? I don't know, I have a separate question. But if she does have an answer, then we can give the shot. Hi, Tim, it's Joan. Yeah, this will work like the PPP but it'll be a little bit more flexible than PPP. So provided, it really acts more like a grant if the applicant pays for the expenses as outlined in the rule, which are basically any operating expenses. So it'll act like a grant and as such, grants are typically taxable. Is there employment limits or something like that? That would be... No, not that I'm aware. I think we wanted to make it even more flexible than PPP. PPP I think had a predominant impact. You needed to spend most of it on payroll. This will be really any operating expense of the entity. So that's, we proposed it specifically that Vita would administer it so that they could analyze each and every business's particular situation. One formula really doesn't fit all, so. I'll look forward to that. So Governor, the health question I had was a little disconcerting. We talked to someone from out of state yesterday and as you may know, my youngest son is down syndrome and this family has a son, a teenager with down syndrome also has also other health conditions and including a heart murmur and they weren't gonna get him vaccinated and said that their doctors and Dr. Fauci were recommending against it. And this was the head scratcher to me and there's a lot of other people that obviously have children with health conditions who are in the same position. So I was worrying about that's not how I understand the health recommendations either here or from Dr. Fauci. Yeah, I don't know if Dr. Kelso can answer that or not. If not, we'll have to wait for Dr. Levine's return but he could get back to you in the next day or so, Tim. He'll be back I think tonight or tomorrow. Dr. Kelso, do you have any response to that? Yeah, that's not much easier than a PPP question for me. I think it's certainly a clinical and patient, doctor-patient discussion that needs to happen at an individual level that we would not make a statement that would apply to every person with down syndrome or a heart murmur. Those folks should be talking to their own healthcare providers about what's best for them given their health condition. And as you know, Dr. Fauci has weighed in on this sort of thing. Not to my knowledge. Okay. All right, well, I'll look forward to hearing from Dr. Levine if he has anything else to add to that. Thank you very much. We'll have him give you a call. Thank you. Guy Page from on Daily Chronicle. Governor, Maine and Massachusetts are starting to see repeated robberies of legal marijuana stores. Some suspicion that the cartels are behind them in order to snuff out the competition. Are Vermont law enforcement leaders, I see that Commissioner Scherling is on the line, are you or are they aware of this potential problem of yet another drug crime group targeting Vermont in a new way? I would just say that there are a lot of cash businesses out there that are susceptible to any of this to crime. And we do our very best to protect each and every one of them. But I don't know if this is on the radar of law enforcement or not, but I'd ask Commissioner Scherling if he has a response. Good afternoon. Now, as the governor's general response actually is right on point, safety measures for all businesses, particularly ones that deal in cash are essential. Nothing specific to Vermont on the radar or retail cannabis industry is not yet functioning. So if and when any intelligence or information came our way, we'd certainly share that with the affected businesses. Okay, thank you. Governor, you're the chief executive of an enterprise that includes the Vermont Commission on Women and other groups established to benefit women. How would you answer the question, what is a woman? I, yeah, I haven't contemplated an answer to that. Are you getting, are you saying that at these, during these times that not everyone wants to designate as a male or female? Is that what you're referring to? Well, I guess that's kind of what I'm getting at. I know that our Supreme Court Justice nominee was asked that and couldn't answer. And there does seem to be some confusion over or at least perhaps unwilling us to define what exactly a woman is. Well, I think anyone who's on the Vermont Commission on Women, I just assume that they refer to them as her, she or her. So I think we're okay there, but maybe that needs some consideration in the future. I just don't know, I haven't contemplated that, but I haven't heard any outcry from the commission or commissioner of that, of that entity. So until such time, I guess I'm not going to be too concerned about that. Thank you. Tom Davis, Compass Vermont. It will try Chris Roy, Newport Daily Express, Homer Chris, Andrew McGregor, Caldonian Record, quiet group. I'm not doing very well, Jason. Colin Klanders, seven days. Hi, thanks. Can you hear me? We can. Great. Governor, I just wanted to see if we could get an update. Have you come any closer to deciding whether you're going to run again later this year? No, I'm not ready to announce anything at this point in time, but I did make a commitment. I do so before by the end of the session. And if they adhere to, I think they had targeted March, or May 6th, so it'll be sometime between now and then. Okay, thanks. And the other thing I wanted to ask, I know the last time you used one of these press conferences to talk about the housing bills, and in particular the registry proposals that you still are unsupportive of, the response from lawmakers was that they feel like they've given you enough. They feel like you should come over, you should essentially compromise. I just wanted to get your reaction to that. They feel like they've gone far enough where the bills now represent something you should support. Just want to get your action to that. I guess we feel, we have a mutual feeling on the opposite ends of the spectrum. I vetoed the contractor registry and the rental registry because I don't think we need either. So that was my starting point, but I did put a path forward for acceptance. And they haven't met that standard, at least with the rental registry that I know of. The contractor registry, they're getting much, much closer. Thank you. Erin Botanko, Vermont Digger. Last week, Dad French spoke out in opposition to school districts setting their own math policies. I hear now that the CDC has reversed course on putting three Vermont counties on the high risk level of the COVID map. But I think the question kind of still remains about what school districts might decide to do going forward if cases and hospitalizations continue to rise. I was wondering if you kind of had any final thoughts to add on whether you believe that school districts should be allowed to put their own policy. And also what parameters or metrics are you going to use going forward to measure whether things like the school math mandate or the general math recommendations could or should be re-implemented given that we have a shifting testing strategy that's affecting COVID case reporting. We have reportedly a lot of hospitalizations that they would be COVID related or not COVID related. People are just testing progress in the hospital. How do we know if we are in another surge? Well, again, we from the beginning, we've looked at hospitalizations as the metric that we use because it's the most consistent. So we'll probably, I don't see any reason to reverse course on that since we've been doing that for two years. Secretary French, anything you want to add in terms of school and schools and guidance? Yeah, thank you, Governor. Just the general recommendation which has been consistent throughout the pandemic is that districts should defer to Department of Health and these issues. And my point, Superintendent, wasn't so much about local decision making. It was just a strong recommendation that they defer to Department of Health. I think the county by county sort of approach that CDC has been promulgating might sort of work at a national level where counties are much larger. But I think that kind of approach leads to more volatility in a small state like Vermont. And this is not a moment when we need that kind of volatility in our decision making. So again, I think it's important that school districts do defer to the Department of Health when they're making their local recommendations. And Department of Health has been very successful in formulating those recommendations throughout the pandemic. Okay, are there any kind of specific tracking that you're doing at a regional level or whether schools or pediatric cases are arising in certain districts or certain counties? You know, we follow all the data very closely. But again, it hasn't been about specific metrics. It's really about the trends. So we continue to have regular updates on the data including the regional data. But again, the Department of Health has always taken a very measured approach in that regard. And right now we still think the trends are very manageable with the recommendations that we have in place. Okay, this might be more of a question for maybe Dr. Kelso, but it appears that the self-reported antigen tests rose significantly this week. There was also kind of an increase last time. The metrics were released. I was wondering if in the testing giveaway that you guys do through the state from site, if there are specific instructions or parameters that you guys get about with those antigen tests that might be influencing that self-reporting. Would you like me to weigh in? Yes, Dr. Kelso, please. Thank you. I first wanted to point out, you said the CDC reverse course in designating certain counties as high risk. I wouldn't characterize it that way. CDC recalculates those county level community metrics on a weekly basis. And the data shows that the risks were at lower levels. And we know that we, the Vermont Department of Health and state government and CDC know that with at-home tests being used more frequently, we are less reliant on case reporting to assess levels of virus activity. And that's why the community levels were developed because they factor in case reporting, but also hospitalization. You are correct that the number of at-home tests that are reported to the health department has ticked up. It was two weeks ago, it was 247 positive. Last week, 421, and this week, 516. So it reflects what we think we're seeing through other data that COVID is still around. The risk is not zero. And yet while we're seeing perhaps an uptick in cases, we're not seeing the same thing happen with hospitalization. And we know hospitalizations are a lagging indicator and we know we need to keep our eye on that. But given that BA2 has been in Vermont for a number of weeks and we've not seen a significant uptick, I'm hopeful that while COVID is still around, we won't see a dramatic surge and we won't see an increase in hospitalizations to the point that strains the healthcare system. Okay, that's all. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry, Dan. Your specific question about instructions that we give out at the testing sites. I believe that from the beginning, the at-home tests have been accompanied by a little card that says you can self-report these results on the health department website. And I don't think there's been any change in that. All right, thank you. Lisa Loomis, the Valley Reporter. Good afternoon. I'm hearing from community members who are concerned that our access to PCR as well as the rapid and lamp tests that are being handed out by our local healthcare center, which is an affiliate of CVMC, which is an affiliate of UDMC, is not able to provide either boosters or testing. So it's leaving some of the people here in the Mad River Valley feeling potentially stranded in terms of access to vaccines as well as ongoing testing, whether it's PCR or rapid testing. What does the state plan to address that for our community, but also for other communities in the state? Secretary Samuelson, are you on by any chance? Welcome, Deputy Commissioner Docherty or Dr. Kelpo's all the way in here. So I can look into the specific situation in the Mad River Valley, but generally the opportunity for testing continues across the state. We've simply begun the process to hand out rapid take home tests versus reducing actual access at testing sites. The goal here in providing rapid tests is to give individuals testing opportunities so that they can determine the results immediately. Given the more recent strains of the virus where they are more highly transmissible, it's really important for individuals to have rapid results. And so again, we have been committed to ensuring continued access to testing across the state, but also transitioning over from PCR to rapid tests in many locations. In addition to that, there's been a wide array of testing that has become available through local pharmacies and other options across the state. And I think that we will continue to see that as a long-term and ongoing strategy for individuals. Well, I appreciate that. And I appreciate the fact that we've had local testing throughout the winter here. And most recently on those local testing days, people are offered the choice of either four rapid tests or one lamp test. But there is still a need. I had a parent call my offices this morning looking for me to lead her to a lamp test because her child wasn't allowed in daycare today and she needed to work. And I could not pull one out of my hat because I don't have one. So there's concern that this child needed the lamp test before he could be led back into daycare. So I'm just hoping people will have access to enough of this testing. Will the state be offering any further mail at home test? At this point, we don't have a plan to offer additional mail-in tests. But again, we do have sites across the state. I'm happy to talk with you offline about specific areas of the state that you feel are missing options. So far, we've got pretty wide distribution. So again, happy to talk about a specific situation offline to see if there's an issue to address. But tests do continue to be available to lamp tests, antigen tests, and PCR tests across the state at testing sites. Okay, thank you. Who was your spokesperson? To whom should I reach out? You can reach out to Will Terry. Okay, thank you very much. That's it for me. That's it? Okay. Thank you very much, and we'll see you again next week.