 And we are going to get an update from the commissioner for us in parks, Michael Schneider and the deputy commissioner Sam Lincoln on how the forestry project is going with the help from COVID-19 and move forward with that so that we are knowledgeable. And if any questions come up, we could help answer them. So good morning, a commissioner and deputy commissioner and glad to have you with us. And I would expect, Michael, are you gonna lead off? Sure, thanks, Senator Stern. Good morning everyone, happy to be with you. Thanks for the invite. We're pleased to be able to give an overview of what we've done with the $5 million that was authorized for us to make grants to businesses in the forest economy known as the forest economy stabilization grants. My part here will be brief to really just introduce and tee it up for Sam with my thanks and ask folks to appreciate this was a monumental effort and Sam led a team of our folks and some partners in standing up this program, working through VEDA and getting more than $3.5 million out the door to these businesses along the way. So we're prepared to give you a quick rundown. We can follow it up with a written report if you need. But with that and my great appreciation, I'll hand it over to Sam to just hit the high points and then I'd suggest the high points Sam and then we're prepared to give you details and background or answer questions as you may have them. So thanks all again and take it away Sam. All right, thank you. Good morning, everybody. Nice to see you. For the record, Sam Lincoln Deputy Commissioner Department of Forest Parks and Recreation Act 138 created the forest economy stabilization grant program with $5 million to go out to eligible forest products businesses suffering economic harm as a result of the pandemic and the eligible businesses were forest managers, harvesting, trucking, processing, manufacturing, crafting or distribution businesses all up and down the supply chain, everything from the stump through furniture makers, crafters and truckers, all aspects of it. We partnered with VEDA. They did their reviews on the applications. We opened up the applications on August 5th. And then tended to close on September 4th. We had the deadline of September 15th where the funding expires and reverts to the agency of commerce and community development. We got close to that date and we hadn't used all the funds up and we extended the application for four more days up until this Tuesday afternoon. At that time we have approved 70 grants totaling just over $3.6 million out of the $5 million appropriation. We did a revenue loss reimbursement for businesses that some of the other grant programs have done a percentage of past years, revenue or things we required business owners to upload a profit and loss statements for all of 2019 and year to date 2020 did a comparison of the revenue. And if they demonstrated $5,000 or more in revenue loss for the months of the pandemic we did a dollar for dollar revenue replacement up to $100,000. We did 70 grants that averaged $52,245 a piece. We had 32 managing or harvesting businesses, 24 manufacturers, distributors and crafters, eight forest trucking businesses and six processors which includes sawmills and fuel wood producers, et cetera. These businesses are all pretty significant throughout the forced economy of wide range and size, average six employees and the average revenue per business across the applications was just over $1.1 million a year. So these are all pretty important rural businesses out there in our economy. And so I'll stop there if you have questions or if there's more I can provide. One other good note of, I think just to make, right Sam, 13 counties we funded in and I don't think we had any from Grand Isle. So we made grants to businesses in every county of the state except Grand Isle for which there were no applicants. Yeah, Brian. Thank you, Mr. Chair and welcome Sam and Michael it's great to see you. I wanna express my appreciation to Senator Polina who sent me a email from one of my constituents as it turns out. So I just wanna read this and see where we are with it. His name is Bob Gasperetti. He's a furniture maker in Mount Tabor and he's having trouble accessing the forestry grant. We would like to know whether the Ag Committee would push back the deadline. And so when Sam mentioned your deadline right now is next Tuesday, is that correct Sam? Next Wednesday, the 15th. Next Wednesday. If I sent you this gentleman's name and email address would you be able to assist him in getting the application in before that date? I spoke with him yesterday Senator actually. Oh, okay. And called Bob yesterday. Yeah, that's how we roll at FPR, yes. And we were just in Senate economic development explaining the same thing to Senator Hooker who had called me about this as well. Bob, I've known Bob through the Wood Manufacturers Association. He had talked with Sam and others. Basically when it comes down to he had applied for an ACCD grant, I think he got one. He was trying to stack for additional loss of the forest economy stabilization grant. And at the last minute, for whatever reason he did not upload his application. It's not in the system. Our deadline, the statutory deadline of the 15th is for the money to be spent. And given the process and the timeline we didn't wanna be in a position of awarding someone a grant and then not being able to pay it because of it closed. So we needed to time it right. Sam was very careful with this to try to, well, let's extend it to get as many as we can but not push it too far. So that was the eighth was deemed the close. So Bob's application actually never got loaded in by the deadline. And that's kind of the problem here. We've talked to him about his alternatives, his options to go back to ACCD, to the working lands cares recovery grant. We're gonna help him there. And I indicated to him that we had talked about coming in before you all and saying, hey, can we change this deadline? It appeared that it wasn't legislatively possible to get the change made in time. So unfortunately it's closed. He didn't make it in and we're standing by ready to either, if there's extra funds left over, it reverts to ACCD. We just got done speaking with Commissioner Goldstein. We would be working with them to try to get Bob money through that alternative funding. So I hope that explains just generally that certainly we're aware and jumped on the situation as quick as we could. And it's an example that there are additional businesses out there that we've not been able to get help to and we want to. Sorry, Sam, if you wanna fill in there, just I had the conversation with Bob. I wanted to be sure to report on it. Well, you have, or you had one point, you still have it, 1.4 million that's not expended. We didn't put that in where it would revert to the working lands program in our bill, did we? No, it goes to ACCD and just to be clear about the remainder, whatever remains, we still have to take out what we will pay Vita for their role in this, which was statutorily designed. So we don't know what that will be, but it will be less than the 1.4. But so the remainder will not be the total that you see there or what we've reverted on because we have yet to be invoiced, if you will, by Vita. What about having Bob go to working lands at the Ag Agency because forestry, forest products is in there? That's what we've advised him. We definitely encouraged him to do that. And Sam just told me, it looks like they're gonna raise that cap too, which will really help in this regard. So we have, that's center-star, that's what we've suggested that Mr. Gaspar to do is go there. And I think maybe at first there was a concern that it wouldn't be big enough, but I think now they've lifted the cap, Sam, am I right that that might actually help his situation? That's my understanding. So you're saying you just ask a follow-up. Was Bob happy at the end of the phone call with you? I mean, is he satisfied that there's a path forward or should I call him or? Well, I don't wanna speak for Bob, but I mean, as I told Senator Hooker on the phone yesterday, I was like, listen, I wanna make something clear here. Bob was very, it was clear Bob was frustrated by what seemed to be a technical glitch and why can't I just get this fixed? But he couldn't have been more polite, more civil, more understanding. So I was grateful for that. I think he understands that we want him to get this money, but we have to treat the things fairly and we have to follow the rules of the road. So my sense is that he was reasonably satisfied, but still eager to get some help and whatever way we can get it to him. I'll follow up with him. Thank you very much. So just to be clear in the finish setup, you're suggesting that he go to working lands? Is that what you're saying? Yes, I think there's an opportunity for him to get one of the working lands COVID recovery grants, not regular working lands money. And that's another way to get help. I would say though, if there's beyond that, if our funds can be turned over and gone to ACCD, I know Joan seemed interested in funding him there through there. So there's multiple, I see at least two pathways for him to get additional assistance. Thanks, Sam. Rose? Yeah, so a couple of questions, not withstanding Bob, are there other people who you've been talking to and having similar conversations that may have missed the deadline or had technical issues that you haven't been able to fund because of that? I'll defer to Sam, please. Thank you. A couple of things, just to be clear, the cap for the working lands grant is 50,000. I'm not exactly sure when I said earlier, they'd raised it. I don't think they have. Okay, I may be mistaken when I said that earlier, but the cap is 50,000, which I think it's less than ours was, but it's still significant. But back to your original question, Senator Hardy. We have had other applicants that missed the deadline that heard about the program, but hadn't applied in time or for whatever reason. We had other people that had incomplete applications. There were, like I said, we required upload of profit law statements, reconciliation with tax returns, a fairly thorough review of these financials. And we had to cut a certain, let's stop a certain date so we didn't run the clock out and not have funding as it reverts to ACCD. So there are businesses that have reached out that either didn't apply the first time, and or didn't complete their corrections needed to make their documents reconciled. And so there have been some, and it's, like I said, it's unfortunate, but in order to treat everyone the same as the days go on and more people ask for that, we just felt like we would roll right past the date and no longer have funds as we tried to help people get through. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like, Sam, I mean, just to be clear, it sounds like you guys did a great job in a really short amount of time. You got a lot of money out the door. So that's really impressive. And, you know, it sounds like you worked well with Vita and that's great. So my question, the reason for my question, well, another sub question, and then I'll get back to what I wanted to say. The sub question is, did you, it sounds like you covered revenue losses. Did you cover expenses that any of these operations might have had related to? We did not set the program up to intake additional expenses, COVID related expenses. We hadn't been hearing about that as an issue in the forest economy, generally. And we made it clear that grant funds could be spent on COVID related, to be spent on expenses they'd incurred because of the pandemic and things like that. But we generally weren't hearing of needs or large expenses being made by the businesses in the forest economy that were related to this. The way that some other sectors of the economy might have to stand up lots of workplace sanitization or things like that. These were much more related to revenue loss. Okay, so I guess my, if we're, what I'm hearing from you is there may be other business owners in addition to Bob who have not gotten the funding and that the best, most logical place to send them is to working lands. So I'm wondering if we as, and this is more of a question for the committee, if we could put language in that the funds would work to the working lands funds, your unused funds, whatever it may be 1.4 million less what Vita gets instead of going to ACCD because if these forestry related businesses need help that's the best place for them. So I'd like to be able to provide the money through that. So I don't know if it's too late but just wanted to throw that out there. That's a possibility we could put it in our, in our ag bill. It should have, we should have had, I mean, we're the ones that put this together. We should have had it revert back to the working lands program. And then we could have funneled these guys through, through working lands to, you know to be sure to get to as many people as possible. Right. I mean, we still could do it. It can be retroactive, I think. And it, it may be just that forest parks and rec sort of holds onto the money and says, Hey, we know there's legislation coming. I don't know. But I think it might be something worth looking into because clearly there's still some needs out there that are in this sector. Give me another, go ahead, Sam. Oh, we have been ever since the beginning and anybody that we deemed ineligible for our program one way or another. And there have been some, we've found in particular that either some of our larger businesses in the state and the forest economy have exceeded the $20 million cap of annual revenue. We've found some of our very important businesses are not Vermont domicile, et cetera. But we have, for those businesses that have found a way to, to generate more revenue. They're good managers. And for whatever reason, they've not met our eligibility standards. We've said, go to working lands, go check that out. For whatever reason, they may, they're all very unique situations. And we've pointed all of them to the working lands, our website now directs people to working lands and we're ready to help support that program, however we can in the sector, the sector of the economy. The other issue is, you know, VHCB as a whole crew of people scattered around Vermont to assist people that are having technical problems or issues. I just, I don't have that number in front of me, but Linda could send it to you guys so that you, or have you been putting that out anyhow? We have Senator Starr. We had VHCB enforced liability program jumped right in with us immediately and they had several consultants contracted available at no cost to forced economy business owners to develop the proper documentation to upload applications if they didn't have internet connectivity. Our staff were available seven days a week from the day the application opened until it closed to help people get their documents corrected. So we've been all hands on deck there too. And we have been giving, I can't quite tell you Mariah's number off, I think it's 828-1098, but I'm not 100% sure of the number at VHCB, but I have presented that to many business owners. Yeah. He looks good, does any folks? He looks good for a man who hasn't slept since June. Well, people don't realize, the general public don't realize, I don't think, how had you folks and other folks in state government have been working to get this money out the door. I mean, they drag ass and don't get their applications in. And I mean, you guys are chasing them to get it done. And, you know, on dairy, we've had 550 apply out of 700 and something. We still got 200 dairy farmers out there, farmers that haven't got their application in yet. And Gali, it's important that we kick this money out the door to keep the economy going and help these businesses stay alive. Other questions, Chris? Hi, thanks guys. And, you know, you should be proud because a lot of other programs, aid programs have struggled and you've basically been able to spend the great bulk of the money and help for monitors. I'm encouraged by that. Somebody sent me the list of where the grants went. And I guess I was a little surprised that they were more on the recreational side and seemed a little less in the forestry. I had thought more of wood products and stuff like that. And I wonder if you can just talk to us a little bit about the thinking and that logic. Sure, Senator Pearson, and thanks for your comments. We really appreciate it. And I think you may have seen the list that I shared with several that was for the another grant program that we were authorized to spend. That was the Outdoor Recreation Grants. Oh, okay. A pool of 1.5 million to us to give out to outdoor recreation businesses. So those are tours, summer camps. That's totally separate than the five. Even a separate legislation, separate bills. That makes more sense. Do we have, is it on our website, the list of grantees that the... No, no, Sam just ran through a quick sort of overview, but we can prepare that, right, Sam? And send that along. It's there's 70 and they range from consulting foresters, logging contractors, maple sap producers, distributors, crafters, trucking, and a few sawmills. So they are, as you would have expected, all very much in the kind of core of the forest economy supply chain. Great, well, don't prepare that for me, but I'm assuming you have a report like everybody else does on this stuff. So I'll look for it there once you submit that. But that gets at your question though. That's, yeah. Did, do you recollect a TAF from Charleston ever got in? I don't know if I'm just to identify individual applicants or not, but I believe that we were successful in resolving issues that came up in your county, Senator. Well, of course that's where it all got kind of started. Deserved that, I'm just hoping that, you know, you took care of folks that at least get in. Now, has ACCD, have they offered to help do these folks that didn't have complete applications and didn't help out? Did they, that damn phone. I don't know what happens when I unplug the thing right off the wall. But are they trying, or is anyone trying to contact the ones that didn't make it in because of incomplete applications or do you know if they are or not helping? So I've been sending emails to the incomplete applications reminding them that they're in the queue and that their application has not been approved, that it needed corrections and saying if they missed, I think I sent an email a few hours before the deadline on Tuesday saying if they did not get through the door to go to ACCD and or the working lands fund, which has been a regular recommendation of ours. It's on our website now directing people. So we've been clear and as we're wrapping up, I think we haven't had another conversation with ACCD or working lands in the last few days as we wrapped up, but we can certainly plan to talk about that and if there's a way to direct more communication to those businesses to do that, we're happy to do so. And one other thing that I, to some of the other comments that have been made and I certainly, I wanna make sure to point out a lot of tremendous work by our staff helping this all happen as well as that I mentioned the forever force viability program, but Vita was an enormous help to us getting this up and running. They had worked a lot with ACCD and Vita staff were also reviewing applications seven days a week and they helped us get, get this program up and running very quickly. We wouldn't have been able to do it without them. Any other questions for Michael or Sam, Brian? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Not a question, just wanna echo Senator Hardy and Senator Pearson and Senator Starr and I assume Senator Polina is feeling you guys should really feel good about what you've done. It's really rewarding and it feels good when state government functions as efficiently as it apparently has in your department. So thank you both very much and please pass along our thanks to your staff. We will. And again, we really appreciate it. It's really nice to hear these folks really, really cranked and it was not easy and we share the same sentiment. We're proud to get it out the door, do what we're here to do, help people and I'll just turn it around and say to you guys, thanks for giving us the chance to do it and authorizing it and supporting this sector as a specific sector of our economy with a lot of values. So we really appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. Well, eventually we're gonna try to get forestry moved to Ag over in the Senate side so we can help you guys even more in the future because it's really important to our rural economy and I think you would get more and better attention if it dealt with an agriculture and forestry rather than in some other areas of the Senate. Thanks Senator Starr. Could I make one more comment please? I just wanted to say, I always knew, I've been here a long time now, I always knew you had a plan to get a bigger committee room but I had no idea you were gonna go global pandemic to pull it off. This is very comfortable here. Yeah, it isn't bad at all. We're all socially distanced by hundreds of miles and no, we're still working on the committee room now and boy, it's like getting teeth out of a chicken I'll tell you is this problem and that problem and this one has to say okay and this group has to okay it. I mean, it's way beyond my thinking the complications that people raise but anyway, we really appreciate you guys all the work and your time this morning and keep up the good work and hopefully we'll be back in Montpelier. Well, of course we got a little election between now and when the legislature reconvenes but hopefully we'll be back so we can work together again. We look forward to it, thank you all. And the other reminder is if you bump into problems between now and when we go home that you think we could help you with don't be shy about emailing us or getting hold of us because when we work together we get good things done and sometimes you shy away and say, well, I've been to the table too many times but feel free to contact us if something arises. Appreciate that, we will and that's really nice to hear because we do have respect that you're busy and you have a lot of incoming and I don't wanna be a pest ever. It's nice to hear that you welcome a little incoming if we have something to be at least to run it by so thank you for that, we'll do. Yeah, and I'll tell you if you're a pest. I'm counting on that, yes. I'll throw out there too that the situation, the drivers and all this and the forced economy are ongoing and the big major drop in the global demand for paper is ongoing. We're talking to paper mills that still have wood cut last winter in their yards that they haven't used yet in the orders and 16% of the low grade wood or all the wood harvest that in Ramon's forest lands at a paper mill and that demand has been curtailed severely. So as long as people are continuing to work remotely and a few other factors there's a real whiplash going on in the forest economy. So it'll be good to check in and talk about that again and we'll certainly be ready to talk about any ideas as they come up. Well, and don't forget that we did get the I think it was S 190 that was in Chris Pearson's finance committee. We did get that voted out and sent to the house and it would be nice if we could get S 190 passed through the house. It's the extension of the Rye Gate paper mill to so we could know that we've got long-term chip disposal area right here in Vermont. And so if you get a chance to weigh in on that we'd appreciate it. We'll do. Yeah. Any other questions? Any other questions? Well, thank you guys and we'll see you around. Great, cheers. Thank you. Take care, everyone. So committee, we need to have a little discussion in regards to the holding tank legislation for Addison County. Sorry guys. We have talked about this almost as much as we've talked about chickens. Yeah, it's close. I mean, I don't know which one's in first place, but here they're running neck and neck. We haven't visited the holding tank yet though, except for me, I didn't go visit. So maybe we don't need to go visit. Well, Ruth, you add correspondence with your county seatmate in regards to the holding tank and I think he's agreed to take it up this next week. Apparently, yeah, he wants to get a lot of testimony about it, I have a draft that Michael drafted that is a very narrow amendment that would just do away with the financial surety requirement for holding tanks for very specific nonprofit limited term organizations. This would just make it cheaper for them to get their replacement tank. They do have to get a bigger tank. So this would make it so they didn't have to pay for the basically the insurance for 20 years or whatever it is. So yeah, it's pretty limited and it would only apply to very specific organizations. And did Peter, as Peter Walk talked or you talked with him in regards to the legislation and he's in agreement? So DEC, Commissioner Walk and DEC actually proposed this. They proposed a much broader exemption to the financial surety that would have exempted which would have gotten rid of the financial surety requirements for all holding tanks. And we based on our conversations, Senator Starr and others, we made it much more narrow. So it's only for nonprofit limited time organizations like the fair. So I think DEC wanted a broader one and this is a compromise narrower one that would just allow the exemption for certain organizations. So yeah, I think they're supportive of it. I haven't talked to him recently but I certainly could get him in to see what he says. So what I was thinking as possibly next Tuesday if we can arrange it, we will have our Michael O'Grady and Peter Walk, Commissioner and us get together to go over everything and make sure that we're all on the same page and we're all in agreement. And then try to get hold of the Committee on Natural Resources to see what day we might be able to have a joint meeting if they so desire and kick that out of there because Chris has said that, well, it's under his jurisdiction and anything in Title 10 regardless of what it is of course under his jurisdiction, not the Senate but his. And so we're gonna have to meet with them and I don't know Chris, if that's something you could call him about ahead of time and yeah, you and see him. The guy he's had for me to deal with because of his demeanor and it's question. Well, we are recorded, sir. I mean, I'm happy to call him. I also, I guess I wonder if Senator Hardy as a district mate, why don't Ruth and I talk about what makes sense? But you're basically saying any chance we could all get together on Tuesday to just talk through this issue. Is that what you're asking for? Yeah, it would be kind of nice to get this done for those folks because we'll be into another, somebody will be into another legislative session and then it won't get done until maybe until spring and be too late for the fair. And hopefully we'll have this squared away when the pandemic, by the time this pandemic is over so that things get back to normal or some kind of normal, they can open that welcome center up and have people utilize this wonderful building. Yeah, Chris and I can, Pearson and I can talk about how to move forward with it if you want, if that makes sense. Can I ask about another thing? Is it, does it make sense or is there interest at all or possible to move the money from the forestry thing to the working lands instead of over to ACCD or is it too late to make that change? Well, well, they're gonna, they haven't helped Tuesday, right, to move the money. And I doubt if we're gonna have our bill done, you know, our COVID changes dates and all this done by then. Yeah, I can ask. Yeah, I mean, it's just, if we're sending everybody to working lands, but then we're not putting the extra money in working lands, it's gonna detract from potential farm operations and businesses that are going to working lands. I don't know if it's gonna end up making a difference. It might be a couple grants, but just a thought. It's a million bucks at least, so. I would think that ACCD would support that. I mean, their hands are, I would think are pretty full. And, you know, ag's all set up to help forestry applicants and, you know, woodworking companies. The same basically, it's the same language that we have in working lands for forestry. So, I would think that we could do that. I mean, it's logical and it makes sense. So, we could, Michael isn't with us. He's in commerce today. So, why don't we put that on the schedule for Tuesday? And maybe Michael on Monday could get something drafted up so that we could do that. Would that work? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Senator Start, Linda's asking in the chat box, Senator Star said he wants committee to meet Tuesday before a joint meeting. Are we talking about two separate meetings? Well, I didn't know if we should go through everything. So, we're squared away, good, before we meet with natural resources. So, if we met, say at nine and we meet with them at 10 or something, that, do you think that's necessary? Well, Tuesday, of course, we'll have a floor at 930, right? Yeah, so, yeah, 10. So, well, do you feel comfortable not meeting before we meet with natural resources? Well, the only thing I might suggest, if Ruth wants to send Chris Bray the language, maybe you already have. And DEC has already, in essence, approved it. And then maybe there's, as little Richard said a long time ago, good golly, Ms. Molly, how don't we talk about this thing long enough? Can't we get this thing done for these people? Yeah. Man. Senator Bray has the language and as does DEC and to be clear, this will not fully take care of them. They still have to buy a new tank because the one they bought was not sufficient, but this will make it cheaper for them to finance the purchase of that tank. But this is the, if we can do this, I'll just say, we're done, this is all we can do. They still have to have a tank that's sufficient to meet the flow of the building. So, but this, it's just meant to make it more affordable for this small operation, especially now when they had a whole year of no revenue. And the crazy part is that they already have, I think, three tanks and three different facilities. Their population at the event has not increased. So it's the same number of people. We've added a 7,000 gallon tank on top of the other three, but yet it's not quite enough to handle the same population that's been going to the fair for the last few years. So, you know, it's all very weird and strange. But, so why don't we then just try to meet with Chris? We'll meet with Michael and Peter if we can't meet with Chris, because I'm sure he'll have his schedule all laid out for the next month. But he's gonna try to squeeze us in. Okay, I think it makes sense to have Michael and Peter, and if we can meet jointly and take care of this, that would be helpful. Thank you, Chris. And we'll try to meet after the floor on Tuesday. Sounds good. So I think we'll jump off. Is there anything else that needs to be brought up? I don't think so. No, if not, thanks a lot and we'll see you on the Senate floor in 15, 20 minutes.