 Hello and welcome. It is June 4th. This is the Education Committee and the Vermont Health and Representatives and we are working today on a study to add to, I think, Representative Coopley, maybe you could that you somebody needs to mute. We are looking at the appropriation spell. We are looking to add an amendment related to a study related to Vermont and our public higher education. A group of us have been working on this. I know Peter Conlon has worked on this. Peter Fagan from Appropriations is joining us. Kathleen has worked on it. Mike Marcott from Commerce and we have all heard from the New England Board of Higher Education and with us today also I have invited the interim chancellor from the Vermont State Colleges just so that we can compare what we are doing here with what they are doing to make sure that we are not redundant. That was the concern the committee had. Following the committee meeting the other day and some of your feedback, we have reworked a proposal. Jim has put it into language and we have here as well. So Jim Demeray and Joyce from, Joyce Manchester from JFO have worked on this draft along with help from the New England Board of Higher Education. So with that, Jim and Joyce, could you present the current draft? What I'm looking at is this is something that you will be invited if you would like to be a sponsor. So as opposed to being at a committee amendment it will be if you would like to join on as a sponsor then you will let Jim and me know and we will put you on this. Therefore not making it something that if you don't feel comfortable you don't have to put your name on it. So Jim and Joyce, could you, Avery, could you bring up the document that's fresh off the printing press so to speak? Okay, shall I start? Yes, that'd be great. Thank you, Jim. So for the record, Jim Demeray of that console, we are walking through drafts 2.1 of this language. I was not aware this would be an amendment. I thought this would be going into the budget itself. So it's not in the form of an amendment now. Okay, so that's some drafting issues that I might need some help with. So you can help me. You, between you and Joyce and Peter Fagan, how this might work. If we're just dropping it in that's great as well. Yeah, okay. So this is a single long section on a session law that creates this new committee called the Select Committee on the Future of Public Higher Education in Vermont. Its purpose is to assist the state in developing a vision and plan for a high quality affordable and workforce connected future for public higher education in the state. The membership is comprised of up to 22 members. So we have 20 members specified and then at the end you'll see there's two other members which are discretionary. So we have one member of the House, one member of the Senate, the interim chancellor, VFC and an additional four reps from VFC. One from the board, one from the campus administration, one from the faculty and one from the students appointed by the chancellor. We have the president of UVM and a rep of the UVM board appointed by the president. We have the secretary of commerce and community development, the secretary of education, the commissioner of labor, three representatives of the business community appointed by the steering group which we'll come on to. There will be a five member steering group, steering group. Two community members representing legions in the state that are not otherwise represented appointed by the steering group. The president of VSEC, two representatives from Vermont organizations dedicated to higher education or workforce development appointed by the steering group. And then up to two further members appointed at the discretion of the steering group. So that's the membership and before I go on to subsection C, steering group, are there any comments on that section? Or do we need to go through the whole thing first? I think that's just a good place to stop right there. We spent quite a bit of time getting stuck on that the other day. It might be helpful to go through the steering group first and then we can look at the whole makeup because I think the steering group and the select committee, because the steering group will be made up of members who will be on the select committee. Okay, so the steering group, so on before June 29, the speaker of the house and the president, Portem, shall jointly appoint three members of the committee and the governor shall appoint two members of the committee to service members of a steering group. So that five-member steering group shall provide leadership to the committee and work with the consulting firm to analyze the issues, challenges, and opportunities facing Vermont's post-secondary institutions, as well as create a formal action plan to drive change and innovation. It may form one or more subcommittees of the committee to address key issues in their depth. And then why don't you just do D as well? Yeah, and D is just collaboration. So recognizing that there may be a number of stakeholders that would be valuable to hear their input but not to expand the committee further, this says that the committee shall seek input from and collaborate with key stakeholders as directed by the steering group. Okay, so questions, Sirita Austin. I'm wondering if there's, is there a faculty union or a faculty organization that might need to be represented here? I'm just not seeing any faculty, any teachers. There is faculty reference for BSC. So for the BSC representation, it's the interim chance player and then four reps. Can you scroll that, Avery? One of whom is a faculty member. Go a bit further. Okay, I see, BSC faculty. So they have one member. They have five members total. Yeah. One of whom is faculty. Okay, thank you. Yeah. So I'm seeing no further questions at this point. Oh, Dylan. Yeah, this is just a general comment and I don't mean to be too harsh on legislators, but you know, I wonder if we do have a concern about size. I do wonder if it's necessary to have legislators on this panel. I don't know if that's a prerequisite, but for me personally, I would rather have some balance between the number of BSC representatives and UVMs and make it more similar because there isn't a UVM student trustee. There isn't a UVM faculty representative and I don't want to blow up this process because I know that we have a specific goal in mind, but I just don't particularly feel I need to hear from more lawmakers on the subject of higher education because I'm not sure we have that much expertise relative to folks who actually are involved in those institutions. It's very specialized. So that's just an observation. I would really welcome feedback from the committee, but I feel as though it's time to hear from experts to tell the legislature what we need as opposed to the legislature weighing in on this particular matter. We actually had a good conversation about that and we will be getting to the consultant, which will be very important, but I think Michael Thomas, I think you had a comment on that, having worked on these kinds of things in the past and the value of having a legislator or two on them. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think it's a very valid point and I think this is probably less to hear from legislators in terms of viewpoint or expertise. I think it's more for legislators to have a defined role that from invent is from which they can hear and be the recipients of the input and the testimony and the perspectives not only from the other people on the select committee, but the people who will sort of be brought in as witnesses and contributors to the process and having them there to hear and gather that input and be able to take it back to legislative leadership and to the legislature and also to help foster sort of further and expanded ownership within the legislature for the future of public higher education in the state was really the purpose behind that. I would note that the current version is also I think fairly scaled down in terms of the number of legislators from the original proposal, but I think that was our thinking. Larry Coopley, did you have a comment on that? Let's just be on this for one quick. Yes, and I certainly agree with Dylan's perspective on this. I see the value of the legislature tuning in to this serious, serious problem, but having legislators on this committee, I think we hear enough testimony from the professional people involved that I don't see where we need the legislators on the committee. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Kathleen, did you have something? Only to say that I'd be guided by the input of Nebbi and having maybe at least at least one rep if they feel that's a value, but I had noted earlier the sort of imbalance between VSC and UVM. Now that I take a second look at that and Dylan points it out and I don't want to get too far into the weeds. I know how much we struggle with making lists like this but I don't know whether there's a little bit of streamlining we could do in order to make room for a little bit more balance from UVM. Remember that we do have two extra slots in there to be determined which is why we put those in. Yeah, okay, thanks. Yeah, Sarita? Yes, I totally agree with Dylan and if we do have a legislator on there, I hope it would be someone who is very on, has a lot of background knowledge and information of what's been occurring in the state college system so they don't have to get up to speed or need to learn a lot of stuff. So we have UVM trustees, legislators that are UVM trustees and we have legislators that are VSC trustees. So at least they would have some understanding of the context of this conversation because we don't have a lot of time and I would hope we wouldn't spend a lot of time getting anybody up to speed. I think I'm going to push back a little bit on this. I think I'm going to say that I think that we should have legislators on this. I think in terms of moving forward and what we're going to be doing with this document, having legislative buy in and having people there to represent and speak for the group is helpful in moving forward. We don't know what kind of legislation might be coming out of this and I think having legislators there and in the process sort of stabilizes that commitment that we are going to do something. So that's my two cents. I'd like to agree with Kate on that. Yeah, I wasn't saying not that legislators but if we have some legislators that also could bring something to the table in terms of the conversation with skills and knowledge about this issue, it would be like a twofer. You know what I mean? And there's nothing in here that we can't double up. I mean, you look at someone like Dylan who could be a legislator. Is the language flexible enough for us to, I was looking at the VSC thing for example, is the language flexible enough for us to count some as representing more than one entity? Jim? It doesn't contemplate that. So I would say that should be clarified if that's your opinion. Yeah, because I think that's helpful. Peter Fagan? Kate, so you may have hit upon an idea where and we cannot be so directive that we aim at Dylan but we can come fairly close and I would be very comfortable doing that by the way, but we can come fairly close by saying one current member of the House who shall also be currently serving as a member of the Board of Trustees at either UVM or the Vermont State Colleges and then one member of the Senate who shall be currently serving, but we need one each member of trustees from each of the institutions as a thought. I know that I think Sophie, you had some creative ways that you were doing that to make sure that groups were represented in your group that kept some of the numbers down but kept the interests represented. Yeah, we did try, we thought about the different areas that we were looking at for our task force and then we tried to come up collectively with the presidents of the colleges with representatives that would meet the different things we were looking at so we didn't land up being too heavy in one area and not enough in another area. I will say Dylan is our trustee on our task force so maybe his plea to have fewer legislators, maybe just he feels he's going to be overwhelmed with being on higher education task forces and committees but yeah, we certainly value having Dylan on our task force but yeah, we did try to get that balance and I know Representative Austin had asked about unions on our task force, we do have representatives from each of our full-time unions on it including the faculty federation as well as our other two full-time units and to answer her question from earlier we actually have three faculty unions, we have a full-time faculty, part-time faculty and then the CCV faculty so we have three faculty unions but they're all represented by the faculty federation. There's just a way that we can make sure the language doesn't exclude someone from being double counted, I think would help. Oh and welcome Representative Dickinson, I'm glad to see you you're able to join us from commerce. Thank you. Peter Collin. Thanks, I'm going to join in support of maintaining the small number of legislators that we have picked to go on there but we might want to be cautious about being too prescriptive as to who they are, people's circumstances change every two years and I know this is just a short-term committee. Actually, when does this end? It ends in I think it's January 22. January 22, so you know things change, terms end so we may not want to be too prescriptive but I do support legislators. Peter Fagan, are you still there? Sorry Kate, I forgot to take my hand down. So in terms of can you, I'm going to ask that we keep the two legislators if there's a way that Jim can make sure that the language does not exclude someone from being double represented. Okay, so yeah, I can work that in. Representing two groups that is. Yeah, yeah. We certainly did that when we did the Special Ed Advisory Group as you well remember. Well, we did initially and then we changed the whole. Shall I continue? Yes. Okay, I can't see faces here. Are you okay if we do that? Trying not to be. Yep. Yeah. If you don't agree, let me see that your little blue hand. All right, we're good. So we'll keep the two. Okay, okay, so we're on subsection E which is powers and duties. So there are three principal areas but the lead language says that the committee shall study the structure of the current higher education system in Vermont build on previous studies in this area and offer recommendations on how to increase affordability, access, retention, attainment, relevance, and fiscal sustainability including the following issues. And these three categories tie into the timing of the reports you'll get back. You know, we'll go through that later in the language but the first area is the financial sustainability of the public higher education structure and its impact on institutional capacity to innovate and meet state goals and learn its needs including a comparison of higher education programs, delivery models, and structures in other states to the current organizational structure of public higher education in Vermont and its ability to promote student success. And three, the alignment of higher education and workforce development goals, policy frameworks, and partnerships between businesses and institutions of higher education that are designed to meet the needs of employers and promote the public value of education. Any comments on that? Seeing none. Good. Okay, so I think... Lynn, did you have something on this? No, I'm just reading. Okay. Other Lynn. Okay. We have two lens. I know but her real name's not Lynn. Serita Austin, did you have something? Okay. Let's move on. Okay. So F is the subjection dealing with the hiring of a consultant. So it says JFO in collaboration with Nebe shall issue a request for proposals to hire a consultant to assist the committee with responses due for industry parties on before July 17. And the consultant has to be selected by July 31st by the steering committee, steering group. So this consultant is probably more of a firm with more than one person is what my understanding is. I think Nebe, you might have a little bit to say about possible consultants that have been used to address issues like the ones facing us today. Sure. Yeah. In our experience, what you've just described is fairly accurate that this would be one organization that would probably employ a small team of folks to undertake some of the research and analysis that's described here. We are familiar with a few such firms, and I know that Joyce has been in conversation with one of them, which is the National Center on Higher Education Management Systems, which conducted a similar report and analysis for the state of Pennsylvania in the very recent past, but also has worked with Connecticut on their students first consolidation plan. And in a couple of the other New England States, one example among several other that may apply for such an RFP. Right. Okay. So an awful lot of the meat is going to be performed by the consultant, but making sure that stakeholders and members of our community in higher education and communities are involved in the direction here. Stakeholders. Okay. So we're up to G. G is the assistance. So administrative and technical assistance comes from JFO and Nebbi will provide project management support. Okay. The reports are phased, as I mentioned. So the first interim report will be due on before December 20 of this year, and we're focused on the topics described in subdivision E1. So remember there are three areas. So the first reports on that first area and that first area as a reminder is dealing with looking at the financial sustainability of the public higher education structure, etc. The second report will be due by June 15 of next year. We'll focus on the other two areas, which were the organizational structure of public higher education and alignment with workforce initiatives. And the third report would correlate the findings of the first two and include the action plan. And that report would be due by December 15 of next year. All the reports would be in writing and delivered to the joint assembly and the governor. Okay. Comments? Serena? I had just, when I wrote U.K. in phase two, bullet two, I'm not sure if I'm using the same documents, but I just wanted to add. Yeah, we have changed that one since then. We did used to have four. We now have three. Okay. Did you add the word though? I added we were describing the different categories of students, you know, low income. I asked if minorities could also be included in that. We don't have that in this draft. Okay. I wonder if we can we, because it looked like those were some of the students that we were hoping to be able to reach. So it was in the, I don't know. Can you scroll it, Avery, back to that. In another document, the three phases I believe were described in terms of what the consultant may be doing, what the outcomes were. So this was in phase two of that document, bullet two. But do you know which one I'm talking about? I'm sorry. I just, I apologize. All right. I think, I can't quite remember that, but I think we're, in this one, we're trying to be more general in our language. I think that that can certainly come out in the letter that we will write. Okay. We're certainly interested in some of our target populations. I'm looking at that what I saved from our Nebbi presentation, the future of learning and earning, described as being learner-centric, workforce to connected, future and talent focused, and stakeholder engaged, and under learning learner-centric includes delivery models and target populations. And so I think that we can probably address some of that and make sure that we're hitting those target populations. Does that, does that help? Yeah. It was, I think in the, maybe the proposal that Nebbi sent in terms of an outline. And so that, that there were the three phases in that. And there was, there was a second phase bullet two that I just thought that would go in nicely. But yeah, that was a very, that was a much more fleshed out document that may end up being more in the letter. Okay. That we will write. Thank you. To, but, but we do want to make sure that we are, we are addressing, we are addressing our target populations. Yeah. Thank you. Particularly as those are, those are probably the best source of, of enrollment as well. Anything else? Okay. So let's keep going then. I don't think we've hit the bottom yet. Let me report. Yeah. Yeah, me. So we're on I, so line 19. So the secretary should call the first meeting of the committee on before August 28th of this year. And then down further, the speaker and the president pro tem show jointly select the committee chair, majority of the acorn and the committee would cease to exist on July 1, 2022. Um, the next is compensation reimbursement one and two is the standard language that we always put in here, but per DM and reimbursement. If you go down to three, for the down every two talks about the number of meetings per year, per fiscal year. So compensation would be for six in person meetings of the committee, eight in person meetings of the steering group, and four remote meetings of up to four subcommittees, assuming compensation reimbursement for up to five members of each subcommittee. And the, the, the appropriation is to JFO to make those payments. And then if you scroll down further, the last section is the appropriation. So we got $40,000 approximately for the per DM and reimbursement and 250,000 for the consultant. That's it. Peter Fagan, maybe you can help us a little bit with the number. Now we came up with that. Sure. It's, this is a standard calculation based upon how much the, the legislative individuals receive on a per DM basis. And I'm not going to tell you what it is because it has changed and I'll, I'll get it wrong. Plus then the per DM basis with mileage, and we have to calculate that in now, whether it's zoom or not to be determined when, when these things start, but it needs to be calculated in now and put into the, into the numbers here. So that's, that's really how we got the $40,000 amount. The 250 is a best estimate. I believe Nebbi came up and assisted us with that. And just so that you know, we're still trying to identify a place where we can get these funds. We're still trying to identify where we're going to pull these funds from for fiscal year 21 out of the general fund, which as you know, has got almost nothing in it. So, but this is just too darn important not to. Thanks, Kate. Thank you. Joyce, do you have something, Lynn Dickinson? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question. There's a VSC trustee. We have some parallel going on here. Yes. We have this, Sophie knows we have a task force that's been organized by her as the interim chancellor. You've got, we've got a search committee looking for a longer term interim chancellor that would be on the same time frame. This is a search committee for the VSC board that would be looking at an interim longer term chancellor till we come up with a solution or an options, A, B, and C, or whatever to make the VSC system sustainable. And now you've got a steering group. And I know the steering group has a slightly different charge than what the VSC board is trying to do. But I think we're all sort of, I'm wondering if we're all bumping into each other and maybe counting on the same $250,000 that may or may not be there for, certainly for all of it, to accomplish sort of the same goal. I know yours is a broader charge to look at all of higher education. Ours is simply to get someone who can get us into a place where we can make some hard decisions and get a sustainable system for the campuses, colleges, whatever it may be. But that's my, that's my initial question. And I think it's an important one as we look at all these parallel tracks. Well, I would certainly check in with Sophie. So Sophie, do you have anything that you can add in terms of what the scope of our work and the scope of your work? Yeah. So thank you so much, Lynn, for speaking up in terms of what we're doing over at the VSC. We do have a task force that we announced on Monday to the Board of Trustees and they approved moving forward. We're on a slightly shorter timeframe than what this select committee is. We're looking at getting proposals back from the task force, at least an initial read back from them in mid-August and then sort of final decisions towards the end of this calendar year. Again, we have union contracts that have provisions in them. And so it's, and students, obviously, who need to know what's going to happen. So, depending on what changes we're looking at, we need to let people know as soon as possible so they can plan accordingly. So we have quite a short timeline. I did share with Representative Kate Webb in terms of concerns about how these two, our task force and the select committee, would work together. But I do believe that it's valuable to have the select committee, that it serves a different purpose. It's at a higher level. It's going to look at more comprehensively at higher education, public higher education across the state. I think it can have conversations and look into issues that even our system-wide task force isn't really equipped to do. We do exist for the benefit of the state of Vermont. That's our charge from the legislature and the statute. And I do think the select committee has a valuable role to play in informing us as to what it is that will be in the best interest of Vermont as we move forward. My hope is that we'll stay in close communication with the select committee that will make sure we're not running into each other. I would hope that the select committee will differ where the experts in terms of internal experts at the Vermont State Colleges have their expertise, just going back to some of the comments that were made earlier. But I'm hopeful that these actually could really be beneficial. I think we'll hopefully feed off each other in a productive way. And again, it may be the select committee's taking the next higher-level view over our task force, and it can help direct and steer and motivate our task force to do what it needs to do, knowing that there's another committee out there looking as well. So I think we're just going to have to stay in close touch. We certainly don't want to get to a point where our internal task force is really strongly encouraging us to move in direction A, and the select committee is saying no, no, no, move in direction B. That would be a waste of everyone's time and effort. So I would hope there would be, you know, strong communication between the groups moving forward. But I think we'll be looking much more at the local level and our footprint and what we can be doing internally. And I think we'll be a little bit ahead of the select committee, which hopefully will be helpful so that they'll know what we're doing. So they won't be duplicating what we're doing, but hopefully building on it. Thank you. I'm Kathleen James. Thank you. I had actually had, as Kate knows, a very similar first reaction and a very similar first question for Peter and the APPROPS committee, and was also a little bit worried about overlap between the select committee and the task force, the Vermont forward. But it does make me wonder, or bring me back to our earlier question about the composition of the board, and not to beat a dead horse, but whether we might not revisit the number of members on this committee between UVM and the state college system. I actually have a message in from Wendy Koenig from UVM asking to participate. We are working at a speed of light in a world of remote meetings, and she unfortunately can't meet before then. But I have sent the draft to her. I've also sent the draft to VSAC, since we put them on it as well. And we do know. I know we're focusing obviously on publicly funded higher ed, so we're not going to be talking about Vermont's independent schools. But if we do have parallel steering committees and task forces here, it does make me think about maybe boosting up UVM's presence here, even if that comes with one or two slightly less voices for VSC. And I would be interested in hearing from Sophie on that. Sophie, what is your timeline? Can you remind me what your timeline is for your full group? Yeah, so we have asked our task force to come back with just sort of not necessarily final recommendations, but just a report on what they're doing by mid-august. But our goal would be if we're looking at doing significant reconfiguration, that we would know that before the end of the year. Again, I mean, I think we've taken to heart and appreciate the support that we're getting from the legislature. But I think our anticipation was that we would have this one year in which to figure out what we're going to do. And again, it takes time and higher education to make changes. So for example, when we consolidated Johnson and Lyndon into the University of Northern Vermont University, that was a two-year process because you have accreditation issues, Department of Education issues, et cetera. So if we're going to be making, and I don't know that we will be, but if we are, we're certainly going to talk about those things. If we're going to be making changes along those lines, there's a long lead time to do it. So we feel that we need to move forward expeditiously in getting to a point where we're ready to make those decisions by the end of this calendar year because it won't happen immediately. I mean, if changes like that is coming, it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to implement it. So I think we're on a shorter timeline. I know you've got one report that's due in December about financial sustainability. And obviously that's one of the critical questions for us along with the other issues that you've identified. Peter Fagan. Thank you, Kate. So regarding the UVM and the Vermont State Colleges, an equal representation on this committee, I think it's a good idea. Even if we add three to UVM and don't worry about who we're going to call out from the study numbers, I think it's important to equally represent both sides or else people aren't going to look at it in a realistic manner. They may look at this as it was skewed from the start. So disregard it. We don't want that. We need good solid recommendations that are actable upon when the legislature meets again. Very in mind. It does have one campus Vermont State Colleges. Four campuses and you know, community college in towns around the state. So just, I'm a double graduate of UVM. I appreciate UVM. I got both my bachelor's and my master's from UVM. I appreciate them once I'm represented. I am concerned about slowing the process down and loading it with educators. It was a suggestion. Yeah, yeah. Dylan. Let's see. Dylan. Yeah, just one piece. Go ahead. This is a really good discussion. One piece that I'm also weighing is just I have a real sensitivity to a need to include faculty and students because the public signals around higher education are so deeply personal in a time of upheaval that that's where I I'm very sensitive to the idea that they're very different institutions in terms of footprint and locations and so forth. But certainly the experience of a UVM student probably looks quite a bit different from some of the BSC students. And so I do think there could be a value in having them at the table. And then also the faculty it's quite they're quite distinct. And so I share the sense of urgency and also appreciate some of the viewpoints we've had here because I just want to make sure that voices are heard because in the world of big change right now the greatest blowback I've seen and this applies to my experience with the board recently is people feeling as though they're not heard. And so I just go forward with that in mind front and center with the education committee here because it's going to be very important if changes come that voices are heard. We're back to work. We're back here again. Are we going against your desire to keep it at 20? Or are we going against your desire to have more people on it? They're mutually exclusive. So who would like to increase the number on the work on the steering committee? The select committee. If you could do blue hands I would rather increase the vote is I would rather increase the size of the select committee. So vote now. And just to clarify are we saying for UVM positions specifically for balance? I'm going to leave it. I'm saying because I'm hearing UVM and I'm hearing students. Okay. So we could say yeah to include UVM and students. So who would like to increase the number to increase more access for UVM and students? Vote now. Can I just say something? Yes. The numbers is one part of it but the outcome of this task force is really important. And so I think for me it's like whoever has the skills and knowledge where they can you know come to a solution and work together with people. Those are the I'm looking at the skills and knowledge that people need to bring to make this happen as opposed to the numbers. So unfortunately we're right now we're talking about the numbers. I hear you on that. So the numbers we're right now talking about are we adding more voices from UVM and students? I see two, three. No I see three. Who would rather keep the number? Okay I'm going to still let it roll in here. So right now I have I think there were three of you that wanted to increase the number. Okay without put hands down who would like to keep the number of members lower without expanding? Okay it looks like I've got four to three with me not voting that want to keep the numbers smaller. Make sure I'm not missing somebody here. And the rest are not voting. And that's four that would rather keep it smaller. Can we just look at the document again that talked about Kathleen? Can we just get the there's a place in the document where you're you're actually able to get get feedback from stakeholders? Correct Jim? It's collaboration it's I think uh some session FPD. Let's see uh collaboration where they go. All right D. So it's a piece three uh subscription D right there. Okay I'm gonna propose we add one more to UVM. Would that help? That included a student? Comments? Um I can't remember if there were votes or not. I can't tell if there are votes or not. So why don't everybody put your hands down for a minute and we'll start again. Okay so now if you if you have a comment you'd like to make. So Jay who represents Castle. Yes um I mean VTC. Uh Vermont Tech. Yeah um you know I I get the the desire to have everybody equally represented in terms of numbers but let's be honest who who's this about? This is about the state college's system not UVM. I mean UVM needs to be in the conversation but I really don't think that it would be proportional to have an equal number of UVM um I don't want to say advocates but you know people who are who are more closely associated with the UVM perspective. You know what I'm saying? Yes so is it necessary given what we're talking about is it necessary to have equal representations what you're asking? Right I I think yeah go ahead. Kathleen? Um yeah just I'll just say one last thing one last thing on this. It's about the entire post-secondary landscape you know in Vermont one. Two um we did have some I two I don't want the appropriation to get any higher. So um and three we did build some flexibility into the list later on I thought so we have some sort of vaguely defined community members um which I I think is great um but uh there was some flexibility there. I thought we had some two at the discretion ofs and so you know maybe if there's a way to keep the appropriation what it is because I don't think we should spend any more money on this than we are um give UVM a slightly bigger voice um so that um as Dylan said all people are heard and build just enough flexibility into this so that we can stop um you know micromanaging um and and let the list move forward in a way that allows enough flexibility and enough voices and I don't know I'm I'm just remembering our past experiences with the list and our desire to adjourn and our desire to adjourn before the end of June right so I'm I'm done I'm done commenting on the list I've said my comments it goes to another body it goes to another body let's also remember that um so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about UVM um I've asked them they're actually in the Senate right now so say they're down in the Senate right now which they're just in another little box somewhere um we will get their feedback and they'll have opportunity to present feedback in um in the other body I I also just understand that this is going on the floor tomorrow correct Peter thank you Kate I was just raising my hand so just just how this is going to need to be connected with the with the budget language because the budget is already um on the calendar for us to drop it in as just a part of as if it came from us we would have to pull the budget back into our committee and that is not a good idea if we actually want to be out of here uh by the end of June so my our recommendation and I was on the phone with Kitty a little while ago is for you to recommend an amendment you can do it prior to third reading um that would give enough time to make sure that it's all it's all tidy and and correct oh no you're giving us more time or you can do it tomorrow morning before we before we read it for the second time yeah you know your your option I will say this um between Steve Klein and Kitty uh they also came up with the idea that that Kitty likes is that the cost of this study shall be from the appropriation that we set aside for bridge funding to the Vermont State Colleges that way um number one we're not trying to identify a specific source of general fund money number two we're not telling any bidders how much is that they've got to bid you know it's like the thing where you appropriate $250,000 for some first study how much did they bid $250,000 so gee um you know you set yourself up for failure by doing it that way uh this way it would just we would state something the effect that would come out of the appropriation found in section whatever um and work it that way I'm sure that's not good news to Sophie but I think that actually there's there's going to be there's going to be a pretty significant amount of bridge funding that will eventually end up in there I haven't seen the treasurer's final report I've heard I've heard rumors and and I and because it's just a an initial rumor I am not going to share yeah that sounds wise since we are public okay um Joyce do you have anything to add sure I'll just say a few words um um JFO did make small inquiries about the cost of of such a study maybe six weeks ago we were calling around to find out if there were firms out there that did this kind of work and um at the time we were thinking of a much shorter timeframe with a with a final report due in December and at that time the the dollar figures range from about a hundred thousand to about a million depending on what kind of firm yeah so I think uh yeah we're going to have to be really careful about how we write the RFP and and how the selection is made of the consulting firm so that's point number one point number two is that uh JFO currently is listed as providing technical and administrative assistance it seems to us that this is a lot of work a committee of of 20 people 22 people plus the steering group meeting more often plus the subcommittees this is a lot of work plus dealing with the uh with the consultant so we are very grateful that nebby is willing to help us but we are still uncertain that we have the the resources to do the job so my office is is trying to look around to see if there's another group out there that could take on more of the burden so um at the moment we are listed in in the language but uh we're just warning you that that there are lots of other things on our plate so we'll see what happens and this allows me to take a moment to just turn to nebby to see if you can you can be in conversation to see if there's more that you could do yeah absolutely at the ready just let us know how we can support it okay we so appreciate having you there um i'm gonna try to set up so in terms of generally in terms of of the language our folks then comfortable to be on this bill um uh other than just the last little bits about the uh you know our our foray into into the into the group which i'll i'll bring uvm in tomorrow if i can are people comfortable with this would you be who would be in okay peter did you have something else to say yes just that uh as far as the funding pieces under appropriations will amend it uh when when it's presented in our committee so you don't need to worry about getting that that correct we we will take care of that but it will be in accordance with what i just told you okay i just don't know how the language is going to look we'll leave that we'll leave that language in the in the bell and then you can do the appropriations don't let them okay um serita austin um i just i guess i would just for i i kind of share representative dickinson's concerns about the redundancy and i just would like to hear from um nevy about if you've read the white paper i feel like a chancellor chancellor former chancellor spaulding um came to a had a rationale when he made the recommendation that he did and my concern is we're going to spend a lot of money um and a lot of people's time and come back to that similar conclusion and i guess i would like some reassurance that by looking i assume you've seen the white paper maybe um seen his recommendation that you can see because i it's way too complex and a big issue for me that you can see that there are other solutions other than the one he recommended um considering all the issues that we brought into this i guess i would just like some kind of assurance if we're going to spend this kind of money that we're not going to two years down the road come back to where we are and and be in and be in much you know big much bigger deficit yeah madam chair i'm happy to respond i think it's a really great point you know i think um interim chancellor uh sobie zedattani really i think spoke well to this i don't know that there's i could say anything more than she said she hit it right on the on the nose i do think uh we're certainly familiar with the white paper nevy's been engaged with um the former chancellor and others at various points over this important conversation um you know i think your point is one that we'll have to use as sort of a consistent beacon uh to sort of navigate and triangulate uh and it's exactly that let's not let's find a way to not be redundant here i think a core theme that i've heard from the beginning of the conversation around the select committee is how this can be a platform to pull in the best work from the system and its various task forces uh and to uh push it even to a higher level as sophie said to be a conversation about the whole of post-secondary educations is it ought to be brought up regularly during this conversation and uh to work oops just lost you for a minute there michael i'll just remind folks that there is a reference to looking at previous work in the bill that was following the conversation with you folks as well as with besack so i i just think there's like 53 million dollars of deferred maintenance on the facilities um you know that's just going to increase you know over two years it's i you know it's just concerning and i i just i just want to get out of this a really good solution that is sustainable and affordable and good for her mom kids our efforts here are to make it something that it's not just a binder on a shelf yeah great points yeah okay i uh i'm going to avery can you see if you can set something us up for us tomorrow morning and and invite wendy and scott um giles in before floor yep i can do that and anything else to madam chair this is not a committee bill is that correct it will it will be if you want to sign on to it okay uh with as many as many sponsors as you like so this everybody does not want to be a sponsor on this to me let me know otherwise i'll include the members okay okay so your job is to let let jim know if you do not want to be on the bill um lynn i don't know where you are you can also speak to to jim if you if you'd like to it's we've had basically a week to work on this and it's not been an easy task to do something this that has this much weight to it and importance and we've got to ship it off tomorrow morning tomorrow 10 o'clock it's on the floor of course we might have to do a little bit more with um fishing licenses so the first one is the second being correct that the third or am i wrong um that is second reading is tomorrow so it is possible it is you let me know so peter what do you think should we just save it for tuesday were you trying to put this through all stages of passage or not this bill will not be put through all stages of passage it will be following normal track so you could save it for tuesday i wouldn't count on i know we're going to do floor tuesday so i i think it's going to be finished tuesday so you can come in you know monday and present this okay so we have a meeting tomorrow afternoon at two so maybe i'll just keep it at that point um i think that might not be a bad idea because i've actually already got wendy coming in um i didn't know to say calib's not on i don't believe he's participating so just maybe we could send him a copy or give him let him know yeah well it's it's it's his responsibility to to know what we're doing but i will um i will let him know that he needs to do that thank you for that reminder so the only change i've got on this language is one to pray into a different format so amendment format and second to provide the members of the committee may may serve in more than one role yes yeah that's the only thing i've heard so far for changes yes and then we're still debating on the uvm question now that we also know that it's being funded out of money that was supposed to go to the vermont state college i don't know if it's actually going to go there sophie but that's what it looks like it was going to be okay anything else on committee any final words from candles and and michael no just congratulations on moving this forward important work if we can do anything else to help please let us know thank you um so with that i believe that we can go offline