 It's actually my son's birthday. I did call him and wish him a happy birthday already. So I got under the wire on that. And we are continuing a discussion that we started yesterday on the CRF money. So I'm going to go back to that and make corrections and additions and whatever else we want to do. And, but I also want to have a discussion about whether we actually produce anything to share with house appropriations. And whether that document feels like something that. People want to share. And if it's not. Some discussion about what we would communicate to them. So. We have plenty of time to explore this. Think about it. And Graham has done a little more thinking about the idea that I threw out there of doing a tax holiday. And we'll have him talk about that. And he's got another idea around childcare. Or has done some work around that. And as aware of what another committee is doing. So once we're done with that, we will talk about school construction. Bill. And really the question that I've got is whether we're. So far apart from what the. Administration wants us to do, whether there's a way to meet there. I'm not sure whether there is. So we'll. We'll tackle that as well. And I also wanted to mention that. I actually went into the committee room and looked on the wall to see if there were bills that were sitting there that we'd gotten that I'd totally forgotten about. Or whatever. Just to make sure that while we had some time, we used it effectively. And there really isn't. I can tell you what is on the wall. In terms of bills that were referred in. I didn't look at the bills that. We're originally introduced and came in the committee. There are a lot of those as people know. But I always feel that if another committee said, we have an obligation to take it up and act on it one way or another. So, so that's all I've got. I also wanted to ask Scott. Whether you had. Had, I know you'd communicated with Senate finance. I don't know whether you'd met with them or not, but just wondered if you could check in on that. Right. So actually they met yesterday. Okay. And I sat, I sat in and. Mark testified in. Abby. And secretary French. On the topic. Chloe Wexler was there as well. And so I went over the, I went over the high points of the bill. With them. Let them know what our goals were. And so I went over the, I went over the high points of the bill. And so I went over the high points of the bill. And so I went over the high points of the bill. With them. Let them know what our goals were. Clean. Give people there to be able to send out tax bills. Let the districts know that. That they're going to get the money that their voters requested. And that talked about the. The strategy for retiring. A deficit in 21. If there is a deficit in 21. If there is a deficit in 21. We try to refill the reserve fully in FY 21. And I explained our, our thought process and our conversation with the treasurer and. They didn't seem to have any big problems with. With anything that was in there. I think they appreciated the simplicity and the cleanness. Of it. And Senator McDonald actually. Seem pretty happy. So we'll see what happens. I don't know. Any questions for Scott. And where that is, was there a discussion about the fact that the whole that we were looking at had. Redu been reduced a bit. There was a mark showed them the, the same ed fund outlook that he showed us with the. The revised number and they were happy about that. And they were. I don't know. They were surprised, but also happy to know that that number does not include any federal dollars at this point. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. S or or CRF or anything else. So. You know, there's nothing that improves people's moods, like improving the number by 50 million. So. I know that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was amazing. So. Still a problem, but. Much more. Kind of problem. You can get your mind around. Right. So. Well, good. Hopefully they'll vote soon. Yeah. They may add the money that's being set aside for the ed fund to that bill. I think that's what the plan is. So. Yeah. They'll have better data when they make their decision. So. Right. Yeah. Okay. So let's, everybody got the. The summary that Sorship prepared. From the discussion yesterday. The people have comments about it. That's about it. I'm really looking for guidance. I don't. Robin said she did. It was an email. It was an email that sources sent to us. Yesterday at, well, it says CRF list of discussion items. She said at 1235 yesterday. Yeah. I was going to say it was sort of midday because I got it. I think we were still on the floor. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. That's okay. We can put it up and look at it. And I'm really looking for guidance from the committee. I don't have a particular plan in mind or. You know, a goal of. Doing X in terms of our response. I think that's okay. I think that's okay. I'm really looking for guidance. I'm hoping to what committee members. Want to suggest. So. Only part of the chart. There's two more categories after broadband. Okay. The PDF didn't transfer properly. Give me a second. Okay. See that Graham is still with us. Hi, Graham. Good morning. Still here. We're glad that you're with us. We're glad that you're with us. We're glad that you're with us. I think that child might come at the same time that my next grandchild arrives. Cause that one's due in a week and a half. So we're getting into. Yeah. Similar territory. Maybe there we go. So I thought so I should did a nice job. They're capturing the kinds of ideas that we're looking at. I'm not sure. She wasn't sure. Neither am I. Whether she captured all of it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Going back to the same question. Is this, is this. Do we feel that this document is something that we want to spend more time on and that it has value. Or do we want to just say to the house of corporations committee. We really appreciate the opportunity to look at this. And we don't have a. Recommendation. So I'm open. So people want to. You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, Scott. So I thought about this a little bit overnight and based on our conversation yesterday where. A lot of people had a really, I think a lot of good ideas and. It looks like a lot of these ideas. To me, it seems that. Other committees are dealing with them. And. So I circled back to, I just really think that the. Easiest. And it would boost a, an industry that is just reeling right now. Across the state is. A meals and room. Holiday or tax credit or some sort. Robin. Thanks. I would like to hear more about the holiday tax credit and also. Would like to. Maybe see if there's anything in the community grants that's. You know, Actually allowable. I agree with Scott that there are a lot of things that are being looked at in other committees. And without hearing from all the other committees, what their priorities are, it's kind of. Yeah. You know, that's not, and that's not what we're supposed to be doing. So. What do you mean by community grant? I didn't, that's not. Well, that was under Scott's. He was talking about. You know, I can't speak for Scott. I just remember being a little bit intrigued when he brought that up. Emily had talked about local gift cards. You know, I was, I was, my thought was, is that. You know, if. I'm kind of philosophically of the belief that when it comes to. Doing projects that support communities, the communities are best suited to. If we're thinking along the lines of projects, then maybe we should just be thinking about. You know, providing grants to communities, whether that's on a per capita or request or. Or what basis I don't know. Yeah. Peter. I agree. With Scott that the communities probably are best suited to make that effort. But I'm a fan of revenue sharing of some sort with. Local communities. I made a pitch for arts venues. And as far as I know. That's one of the major hurts that the restaurant and lodging. Industry has suffered because all the arts. Have shut down. And they were a major. If you will boost. To the going out for dinner. But I didn't get any takers of that. So I'll go back. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure if that's right. So that there's been some discussion around that. And I'm not at all expert on it. But I'm not. I'm not sure who has the risk. but I'm not I'm not sure who has the risk. But so I'm gonna I know Graham is here, still here. He sent me an email this morning about the tax holiday and also there's a child care tax credit that's been discussed as well that's in another committee and so Graham why not well let's talk first of all about the holiday and then we can talk about child care separately. Sure so I've been thinking a little bit more about the tax holiday and I've been thinking about what I've been calling the first hurdle of whether this is a permissible expense and I said yesterday that I thought it was getting dangerous or was getting close to revenue replacement and so what our office did is we have a group within our office that evaluates these things. We weren't quite we weren't 100% sure about it because it could have been it could easily be a rephrase as an economic development thing and so we wanted to see if if any other state had been doing this and so we reached out to NCSL and asked them what they thought they think this would be a permissible expense and they have been really keeping track of what other states are doing and they have speaking to the Treasury directly and they did not think that this would be a permissible use of CRF funds. Thinking about how you might structure it to achieve sort of the same goal so I interpreted the goal here as sort of bringing people to restaurants in order to help restaurants through more customers and one potential way that you might be able to do this in a permissible way would be to would be to have restaurants issue or say they're going to have a 10% off week or a couple days for the meals tax or they'll just say well for 10% off all meals for up to x amount of days and then what the state would do would issue like an advanced refund tax credit to reimburse them for those meals that they took the discount on so that would probably be in my estimation more likely to be a permissible expense so long as you got the money out by December 31st and so it is I think more permissible because at that point you're not it's not revenue replacement it's almost acting if it's a grant to restaurants which is quite similar to what we're doing in the economic recovery package that's going through both houses right now so there is a way I think you might be able to do it it's a little more complicated it's not as simple and direct but you could in theory achieve the same goal through some sort of credit like that so I'll pause there before I talk about child care stuff let me see if there's questions or thoughts from anybody it's not you and I seem to be the ones who are sort of most interested in trying to make this work what are your thoughts if you're speaking you're muted there we go um yeah I mean I think a credit might get get us the same the same place um it just would be really nice to help these this the restaurant industry out they're just really they're gonna have it's just brutal can't even um you know if everybody's focused on the outside right now we're going inside in three months and they're going to be hurting you mean right now you can have outside downing right but but in three months you know everybody starts to move inside and if they can't we can't get them to get people to go into restaurants again and within three months then we might lose yeah who knows how much that industry I mean I think one as I say one thing that would need to be ironed out with the credit is unlike a tax holiday where you sort of haven't you can make a guess at how much it would cost if you tell restaurants they can offer 10% off um we can make a guess but you know what if restaurants end up selling way more meals than we expected I guess maybe that problem exists with the holiday but you might end up breaching your five million um I guess cap or your allotment here under both situations but I'm trying to think whether that would happen more under sort of an advanced refund credit um but you do run that risk and I think maybe both cases yeah I mean I think some of I appreciate the work that you're doing and I think some of the um impact of a proposal like this is kind of lost if it's a 10% off your meal um people really like doing is not paying taxes right that's what they like um and if it were possible for the restaurant to say this is tax-free even though we're making it tax-free by way of a credit that might be one thing but if they can't say that then I I think I just think some of it is just sort of lost um it would be great if it cost a lot that mean people were going out and eating but um but it's I'm not anyway I'm sort of mixed feelings about uh Robin, Sam, and Bill and other ideas too we're gonna be stuck here so well staying on this one for the moment since we have no idea I mean can we cap it you could do it you know to a maximum amount of whatever I don't know how else we would do it because we have about a dollar so um and so would it would it be that that they actually don't collect the taxes they call it a 10% off but they wouldn't actually collect a meal's tax no it'd be the other way around they would collect the meals tax and and um we would call it a 10% off we would not collect it they get to keep it we don't okay I think are you talking about the credit is yeah yeah the credit the credit the tax yeah they would still collect the tax they would just be collecting on all on a smaller base um and then we would essentially send the the difference between what they're what they would have charged and what they did charge yeah okay Sam, Bill, Joey, and Scott and it looks to me like Jim has his hand up what happened to your blue blue hand you're gonna have to get in the list here um um I no oh Sam I'm sorry Sam I thought I thought you called I thought you called on me I don't we run into this I mean if we do rooms and meals tax holiday don't we end up shorting the ed fund I mean it's the whole thing seems kind of complicated to me it's 25 percent so uh yes that the five million that we have um well it depends actually I'm not sure it depends on how the money flows um you could redirect I mean you could reimburse yourself for five million dollars and then just direct the money to the funds I just wonder if that falls into revenue replacement again I don't know that's that's the problem with the whole idea they said it's very hard to do it and do it effectively without it feeling like revenue replacement um even though I think if it really is more marketing and economic development in my mind that's how it will that's why it's worth doing um and and what and what if like RDCs or something like gave grants does that mean they're doing they're doing grants I just don't know how much they're doing but I know other committees are looking at grants um restaurants um I figure that I remember seeing somewhere was 62,000 was that does that ring a bell with somebody yeah that's something like that's the the bill that's being that's been the bill that's I think past senate economic development and I think it's going into appropriations there's a grant in there for restaurants yeah hotels and um retailers yeah uh bill joey scott jim oh jim doesn't end up good okay bill so we're going to put a time limit on this and if there's a surge in covid in the fall are we going to this business is going to be clamoring for the redo yeah well if the if something like this works it don't it only works if you do it with a bang like for two weekends and you do it uh in july probably when you know people when we're trying to get people back in other than that it probably doesn't work at all um joey are we are we going to hear from the restaurant association or people about how they feel this would be impact their business and if it's a good idea and if it's worth doing and if they'd rather just have the cash yeah something like that i think it's important to hear from them i agree yep scott and jim so one thing i i think i i think i know this um is that presently in vermont a business cannot run a promotion that says you know will pay your sales tax that's that's not allowed in the state of vermont as far as i know and i'm just assuming that it extends to the the meals and rooms tax kind of like you can't have a happy hour something like that um so what if we you know sent this out to them as a credit or or a grant base and we'd have to base that on something which would probably be their their rooms and meals tax reported in some month july august i don't know what it is and uh you just make the math work we know what we know what we collected in in rooms and meals taxes and we know what we could send out and then you just you drop that um you you not withstand drop that moratorium um for you know a brief period of time and then the businesses can could use that that grant to cover the discount that they effectively be giving by um by not by not by taking the meals and rooms out of their out of their hide i think i think that's sort of a version of what graham was talking about is it um yeah i don't know what the legal parameters are so if i understand right the idea would be that the business would essentially be paying the meals and rooms tax so they would charge the customer essentially they'd be paying the meals and rooms tax on behalf of the customer and then so in effect giving the customer 10 off and then what we would do is reimburse them for the tax that they paid right um i don't know about that's slightly different than what i was saying what i was saying is that they would just make their meals cheaper and then we would reimburse them for the revenue that they are for the cost of doing so um i don't know what would have to be done in order i don't i'm not aware of the the language about what their businesses can can pay sales tax or not so i'd kind of have to before i give any sort of uh thoughts on it ask abby how you would do that or how it would work i think i think the way a business would do this is if if the state had a program and they said here's a grant you know some amount of money that we're going to give you and for this period of time you can run a no sales no rooms and meals and rooms tax promotion what you what a business in a competitive environment would do is they would say hmm we can use that grant to offset the discount we're gonna we're going to be effectively giving by not collecting the the that's how that's how a business would do that they would they would do that to to increase their revenue to increase their bottom line if you gave them those two tools and if you had one or two in a community took advantage of it the others would follow suit real quickly because they don't want to be the ones that aren't doing that that's how a business would would react to those two things yeah i see what you're saying i i think it's it's a it's another iteration of what i'm saying and my judgment of looking at the guidance that that's closer to what i was suggesting this morning and therefore is more likely to be a permissible use of the money um and so i can work with abby on this and see how that something like that might work if that's what the committee would like um jim finally well here's a wacky idea completely wacky optics are bad won't fly but you'll see where i'm headed i guess which is what if during this two-week period or whatever we're talking about we double the tax and then we give twice as much money back to the restaurants well i mean i mean i'm trying to figure out a way new hampshire's loving you jim what's that new hampshire's loving you well but we're giving it all back Scott anyway this is offered as a concept but i don't know how to do it you know so i i appreciate the creativity here um i think the i think the issue is that with that one is that it is the it's the consumer who pays the meals and rooms tax in both cases so i think you would have to do something in statute or i don't know how it would work but yeah the money if you're going to refund it back in some way like you're suggesting the money has to go to the consumer not to the restaurant um because because the tax it belongs or the tax is paid by the consumer so we had the same we had this issue come up with the um with the tax deferral question a couple months ago is you know can you just give can you just tell restaurants hey you don't have to send in the tax as a way of providing them to relief the answer no because it's actually the consumer that pays the tax so yeah part of what's uh difficult about the navigating this yeah right so yeah the other the other idea that i was sort of trying to figure out this weekend is whether an amnesty made sense but basically the tax department what amnesty is is you you um don't assess penalties and interest you still have to pay the tax typically um and that's basically what the tax department did um on their own um so um and i think that has the same problem um and i'm going to get to you in one second i just got an email from austin davis um at the lake shamplain regional chamber of commerce about an idea um which fits it's not not restaurants it's not what we're talking about here it has to do with uh nonprofits and i'm going to i don't know much about it i'm going to forward it to sorcia and um and so the committee can look at it uh emily the thing i like about jim's proposal is that i know a lot of people double tax the tax when they're figuring out their tip and so we'd be getting a lot more money to wait staff and bartenders one of my concerns um about i guess just generally the short term spending but particularly the proposal for restaurants is that they're they're going to be really sustained challenges for them um you know especially if um as we go into next winter an outside seating isn't available and that's going to be a lot of where the business model this summer that's sustaining them is sitting in um and so i'm nervous that by doing sort of a quick boost um we're sort of like artificially inflating a recovery that really needs to be more nimble and what we need to be putting our energy into and is helping them figure out a new business model in some way and so which i don't think is necessarily like what our committee would do very well since we don't spend any time talking to the restaurant industry and so um i think that's where i'm a little stuck on this proposal well and and i you know if we if we wanted to keep this moving along it would only be in conceptual form because we haven't talked to the restaurant um folks and i had the similar question that joey had is this if we want to help this is the right way to help i guess that's really what you're asking to emily um so um is that sarsha do you have that uh document i just send it to you um yes i forward it to the committee members it'll take me a moment to get it ready to share on the screen and it says it's it's essentially unreviewed by me i'd got it while i was sitting here but it was somebody who listened to our discussion yesterday um austin davis and had an idea that had to do with nonprofits that i thought was worth sharing with the committee uh scott just uh kind of um i was thinking about emily's comment and something i said earlier about the the problem we are going to have when the restaurant industry has to move inside again you know if we pursued something along the lines of what graham is you know kicking around maybe we should think about hey should we do this in september or october to you know kind of hey come into a restaurant and um and i think once people go in one time and they're like oh this is you know this isn't this is nice and they'll come back and so maybe we we should think about the the calendar timing of when we do it yeah i would just worry that we would target a time when people weren't allowed to go in um that's so yeah that's definitely like yeah we're not in control of the viruses no yeah um so you all are learning about this just as i am um and somebody who understands unemployment that's one of you who used to serve on commerce i think it's not me um might be able to understand this and explain it and say give some thoughts about whether it's an idea worth pursuing i think this might be one of the first times i've ever agreed with austin on something so i'm really excited about it um well i i i got enough out of it to decide it was worth sharing you know there's this really interesting phenomenon um with nonprofits where instead of um for their employees they pay and um you know someone from lech council can explain this better than i'm going to this is a brief overview um instead of and you all might know this already instead of paying into the regular ui fund for employees they um get to basically be in this category where they cover their they have to reimburse the unemployment fund after they've had a claim um and a lot most nonprofits opt into this the place i work does some huge institutions in my community do as well um it's always struck me as a not a great risk proposition but nonprofits seem to be you know be doing it anyway because it helps costs cut costs in the short term and so this particular um mass of layoffs has been incredibly difficult for nonprofits in our communities especially um places like schools um summer camps wilderness organizations sort of the nonprofits that are a little outside of human services but on the edge of human services or um but what about arts organizations with organizations as well absolutely um they tend to have fewer employees and more um higher up like other costs but yes um arts organizations um also adult day facilities have had huge layoffs um and have had this problem and so the um the money that came from the feds that created the pandemic unemployment insurance and all of that um also created a mechanism so that um 50 of those costs could be covered for nonprofits which was a huge win but it still leaves them with a really tremendous debt load to um our trust fund and so i think this would really go a long way to supporting some of the nonprofits that are struggling right now um so this is slight shifting of gears but it's an interesting idea other um other thoughts that people have about it i'm trying to raise my hand but oh i'm sorry i don't i uh so um yeah sam scott robin or sam robin scott joey i think it's a i think it's a reasonable thing to do with five million because the the state is also a reimbursable employer and municipalities i don't know about colleges but i suppose they could be but but for just like the smaller nonprofits that would be it might be in the ballpark of five million it would be a really good thing to do i mean they were you know they also laid people off through no fault of their own um and are hurting and probably donations have dried up i mean i think i think it's like libraries and museums and um yeah the world that i know better but yeah uh robin and scott yeah i i think this is a great idea i certainly heard when everything um went south in march heard from a lot of nonprofits who are reimbursable including uh one of our adult daycare centers and one of our arts organizations and things like that so it seems to me um it would be good we we we probably have to put some parameters around it um i guess if that's our job i'm not really sure where our job is um and it just brings up the longer question for the future about is this the way we should there be this reimbursable thing but maybe that's a commerce thing for next session anyway it's just something in my head but i support this uh scott um i i my only comment is i mean it's it's certainly a worthy cause um i i would like to know what what i'm sure commerce is trying to deal with a lot of ui issues right now and austin says nobody else is looking at it but then i think we need to find out if somebody else is looking at it right yeah yeah um i mean we have well we have to tell we have today so we may end up having to say we think this is a really good idea if nobody else is looking at it um but you know it's um and it doesn't it doesn't um um it doesn't exclude our putting other ideas out there as well so um uh i just had a note from uh oh peter is there peter and then graham had a graham sent me a note and so i'm not going to speak thank you very much the reason i thought of this is i worried that nonprofits whether they're arts or social service or daycare or museums and galleries are um potentially orphaned in our committee system in the sense that economic development and the agency and so on generally focus most of their horsepower on for-profit enterprises and so i threw it in as potentially an orphan activity but one which is very very important to the host communities uh graham um i don't i i just want to make one quick comment i think this is a good cause i am from the tax perspective i'm trying to think about a way to get it to nonprofits by december 31 through the tax code um i know exactly how i don't know exactly how it would work unless maybe we did some sort of advanced credit thing again where we issue checks through the tax department it's just something i think a detail that would need to be ironed out um if this if the committee was worth to move forward um and i think maybe talking to the tax department would be would be helpful if the committee moves forward on this because i don't quite know how um we could get the five million into the hands of nonprofits um well i mean we're not required to do it through the tax code we can do it are you thinking we would need to do it through the tax code because we're the tax committee or that's that's why was my understanding of the discussion i mean i don't know where you're the limits are just issue grants or anything like that um but we're fortunately we're not actually doing anything we're just coming up with ideas to to share um um and so yeah ideally i agree with you ideally an idea something that we come up with out of have a connection with the tax code um but it's it's really challenging to do that for all the reasons that we've just been discussing because we can't replace revenue um and that any kind of tax credit and so on just it does you can't get the money out in time so we're not in the this is not a world where our great innovation and creativity is very valuable um unfortunately Bill mark peter yeah jenna our task here is to prioritize where we want to use this money yeah go ahead sorry unless i know unless we know that someone else is taking care of small businesses i can't prioritize nonprofits okay that's fine i i think it's i think it's um the tier one and tier two talked a bit about priorities but i i really think that what the speaker was looking at looking for was for each committee sort of within its area to um see um whether there were recommendations um that you know did the help the economy help from honors can remember there were three things um fit within the uh restrictions of the um cares act that um that that we wanted to recommend so i don't i don't think the speaker was saying that each committee should say you know we think broadband should be number one or whatever um we could do that but i don't think that's exactly what she was looking for but i get your point um mark and peter um i just wanted to point out i'm looking at the uh the guidance um that was released on may 4th and this is specifically allowed um as a use for crf money so yeah yeah so why is nobody else looking at it or do we know um i i don't know and it may be somebody is uh peter just um because uh it seems to me one of the suggestions that we had if we couldn't coalesce around a specific strategy we could simply make a recommendation to the appropriations committee that our share be directed uh whether it's small business restaurants or uh nonprofits uh and and the like uh should receive some extra boost and they could use our money to accomplish that uh as long as it met the criteria it's a way around this um the trouble the complexity of us working within our usual world of taxation seems terrifically daunting uh are there any comments anyone has i think that's what the the summary that uh sorcia distributed kind of indicated is that there probably isn't an agreement on the committee where the priority is so um jim and we'll all get a chance to vote at some point jim i'll admit to being other than my wacky idea not particularly helpful in this discussion but i'd like to go back to emily's comment and a few other people saying you know it's now summer it's all easy this time of year comparatively speaking in in in the sustainability of our efforts through the fall and winter are really going to be where the rubber hits the road and i'm kind of at a loss at how to use our little corner of the process to help there other than really wacky ideas that are disallowed and quite complacent revenue well i you know in terms of a tax holiday whether it's meals tax or something else the meals is the one that strikes me as most useful maybe but um the um i've never supported them i don't typically like them i do think the economic environment that we're in right now that may make sense um you know i'd feel comfortable saying if we could use the money this way this is this is you know an area that we think is worth pursuing this is not going to be final legislation this this bill um earmarks money for certain things um i think that's the bill they're trying to put together doesn't deal with all the details um and you know there's x amount for healthcare x amount for small business x amount for higher ed x amount per k-12 it's that kind of thing um you know so it may be that something can be figured out um or that the rules will change enough or some other state will tell us a great way to do something um and you know we could say i certainly would be willing to say that a tax holiday in this environment is a good idea if we were able to do it if we're not able to do it these are some other areas that we think are worth exploring um but i don't um i'm not sure where everybody yeah so other ideas thoughts want to move on to school construction um yeah ma'am chair would you like me to talk about the the child care thing tonight um yeah it's something else it's it something another committee is working on right right um sure so yesterday i remember hearing the committee talk a little bit about child care being something that they might want to look at um the senate education committee did a fair amount of work on a um a tax credit um for parents that had out-of-pocket child care costs um during the the closure of child care so um back when the child care centers were not open the state essentially paid 50 percent of the cost to the child care provider and then the parents had to pay the other 50 percent of the cost even though they weren't sending their kids to child care anymore this was a tax credit that was um i think it was $500 per child and it was up to um it was 100 percent of the cost paid by the parent okay grams frozen so wait for me to unfreeze well this brings up a little side note i had an email yesterday from a constituent that the soonest install date for a new internet connection through consolidated is september 15th so we're doing good yeah my my and yeah you're back you're back we if you were talking we missed it but we could tell you i was like i wonder why nobody's reacting um you got to uh $500 a child 100 percent of the cost paid by the parent and i think that's when you froze yeah i think so yeah it's $500 per child 100 percent of the cost um it was for a period between march 1st and sometime in june um and i know i'm missing some specific specifics here there was no agi limit so it didn't have any anyone could claim this credit um and i preliminarily had that costing around $78 million so it's somewhat in the neighborhood of the five million it's in the tax code um and it was it's something that the committee has discussed as a as a thing that they want to look at because there there was a period when there were many families paying for child care that they were just holding the spot um and so this was an attempt by at least that committee to provide some assistance to those families and what's happened to the idea it hasn't moved forward since oh i see they did work on it but they didn't move it they did not move it no and it was in the same education committee so i don't know exactly how or why it was originating in there and every and every even testify on it but i did work on estimates adi had written a language on it um and so but i think at the time it may have been it was slowed down by the fact that it wasn't sure whether we could use crf or such a thing so i i don't have it i don't have a ruling on this one either but it it seems uh it i wouldn't rule out of hand as not being available to work you would be able to you would be able to use crf here because it is related to the public health emergency and when do you get the tax credit what's that when do you get the tax credit so that was in the bill you would get it when you apply for your income taxes um so it would not work yeah it doesn't work yeah so you could in theory if you we could do something like this advanced tax credit or something like that but how would you how would you do that if people hadn't filed so i just um yeah i'd be arguing it but the the if it's a tax credit and it's an income tax credit there has to be an income tax filing to credit against right right or you you would turn it into something like you you would submit your child care expenses to tax and then they would issue like a credit of some sort in advance not not against your income tax but just as a similar to like how the irs is sent out stimulus checks in a way so again these details would need to be honored out i agree um but it is something that was discussed um and it was somewhat close to to five million dollars so i thought i would bring it up uh jim and emily um just off topic but related to sam's comment about internet connections um we're aware that the state would do well to have a training program for people to install um fiber optic cable but to try to get that ramped up and everybody paid by the first of the year is really really a problem even though it's a no-brainer just thought i'd offer that out thank you emily um i think i get a federal child care tax credit um you probably do okay and so i know i check a box somewhere and then some money happens so i wonder if um and then do i guess i wonder this is a super beginner's question about how this all works so for does the state tax department get to see our federal tax returns at all or have an access to that yeah and there's there's a state child care credit that piggybacks on the federal one right brane yeah it's the child independent care credit it's yeah it's um it's somewhat limited the income thresholds are quite low and i think the total cost of vermont is i won't say more than two million dollars um so that's the vermont but there is a link between our credit and the federal credit so yeah it's already that communication happening yeah i think it's 24 percent of the federal credit i think it is yeah and so and so that means that we already know who it would be eligible for this um because there are folks who are paying for child care not necessarily because um a lot of people who pay for child care don't even file for that credit because their income is is too high the other reason they might not apply is um for instance like i when i was sending my daughter child care we're was using a flexible spending account and you cannot double you can't take the credit and use a flexible spending account so i made the determination that it was better for me to use the flexible spending account so um not really as many people file for the child independent care credit as the people who actually use child care in the state um and so there's a lot of dynamics going on in child care in terms of out of pocket cost because we also have the cc fat program yeah um reimburses a lot of low income low and middle income families for their child care expenses so that's one of the reasons why i think that the our child independent care credit is not actually that expensive the state is because we are subsidizing child care mostly through to the cc fat program from lower middle income families what this credit the beneficiaries of this credit and i'm talking about would really be those who don't get cc fat a little higher income a little higher a little higher well actually we said there's no upper limit so it would be no upper limit so higher yeah um so yeah they would be people who weren't getting the child dependent care credit not people on cc fat or they could be on cc fat but just not getting fully having could they have not yeah they have to pay some sort of copay so it would affect a broad range of filers um so that's why the cost was relatively high for a roughly two three month tax credit i'm sorry suggesting it just because that would mean that we could sort of send it out now saying we know that you you know paid this in the norm okay well i think that's the issue is that you the bill as it was imagined was you and with most tax credits like everything the tax goods an income tax credit you would file it next year and that is not crf permissively because the money needs to go out before december 31st so yeah in order for something like this to work through the tax code you would have to somehow create some sort of credit you'd be spending um a lot of money on administration for a one-time payment yeah it would be one-time payment yeah they want to want but you'd have to set up a whole system for people to apply and to do some kind of audit or whatever i mean i because you wouldn't have the income tax is it a refundable credit yes no well interesting emily and scott what about a refundable advance credit to child care providers because we know who they are because they've paid some sort of taxes and or they're already connected like they're already licensed um um because we know that they're folding right now because of all these financial struggles right so you if so a i don't know exactly how all child care providers file they might be some of them might be nonprofits some of them might be um partnerships so they might file an income tax turn so even if you were to look at their income it would be backward looking right so you'd have their income from last year and so that's definitely not reflective what their income is this year the second thing is um the that wouldn't be in addition to all the to the the support that the state has provided thus far for child care providers so i am aware that there are centers folding the state these provide during that time when there was closure they did pay 50 percent of the cost or the tuition that they receive so i'm not an expert in terms of knowing what the need is but i do think a credit any that's based upon income of either an individual or a business i think is going to be very difficult to get out before december 31st without setting up some sort of administrative things because you're going to have to in order to get a tax credit of any sort out by december 31st that's not related income someone is going to have to check that the expenses were made or people are going to have to make applications for it and it's going to have to be processed by someone so um yeah i i don't know whether that capacity exists at the current moment in tax or not so but that's the only way to do to to get more accurate or to get money out the door i mean it's very possible the committee could decide to use backward looking tax information that's not a lab it's not going to be a reflection of what people's income or businesses income is going to be so for instance like the the federal stimulus checks used tax here 2018 and 19 information to send you the checks that was what that was based on and lots of people were upset because that's not what their income is now so it's not unheard of but it's you do run into that issue um that the income is not going to be necessarily reflective of what their current state is so i think i think i'm inclined to let some of the other committees help child care um this is kind of where i'm following out um the hospitality industry the people that they collect 160 million dollars in trust taxes every year and send it to us to spend um the daycare industry child care it's very it's a fantastic industry they don't collect any trust taxes um and they don't pay any business taxes if they're not profitable so i'm i'm thinking that i i'm a lot more interested in preserving 160 million dollar revenue stream um and let another committee handle child care anyone else i think my reluctance about this is just that i don't understand it well enough i wouldn't know how to design something for child care providers because i don't understand the business model well enough to sort of think what it might be but um i certainly support work that other committees are doing on this where they i know human services spends a lot of time on it uh robin um i agree with a lot of what's been said i just want to also point out that a lot of places probably aren't going to be able to open if there isn't child care um for people to go work in those restaurants or in the hotels this is a lot of um lower paid people so it's all connected it's pretty hard to to dissect it and i'm not suggesting that's where it should or we should be spending our money but i just want to make that point that it's all connected yep um anyone else i guess i just would say that i'm i would like to put a a priority forward from our committee and and at this point i don't actually like i don't want to i'm willing to go along with whatever the majority of people are willing to get behind um sounds like it's leaning towards uh restaurants but also i mean i'd be happy to do the unemployment for nonprofits either or um that feels like the the highest level ones that i'm feeling coming forward but i would i would like to put a priority forward from our you'd like like the committee to say something yes yes as opposed to i'm willing willing to go along with a majority of what other people are willing to say i just well um i'm i'm i'm sort of right where you are and um i it's very hard this is one of the things that make these remote meetings so difficult we were sitting in the room i probably know where a majority of people were but i don't hear um and so i need i need people to to say to just offer an idea and let people weigh in on it because i can't i can't read the room as easily when i'm in my kitchen um peter uh robin i'm sorry you were first and then peter thanks um if we are going to set for something i'd recommend that we do too i think that the unemployment for nonprofits is also really important uh as well as doing something for restaurants okay peter i i uh i want to second that i i think helping uh any uh small business let me frame it that way whether they're for-profit or non-profit in the within the universe of ui and that obligation is probably uh something i i think that would unify our message that we want to figure out a scheme which supports uh or or uh lessons the ui bill for both profits and nonprofits of smallish businesses around the state especially connected to the hospitality and restaurant business that's a kind of general uh statement i think that most people could could get behind and a unifying thing is that we we are involved in ui taxes so i that's a new idea i think that what we're talking that we're talking about ui for um for profit businesses i i thought is that did other people know that we were talking about that i didn't um okay thank you um so um i i thought what we were talking about was the ui for nonprofits because they're in this unique situation um and that if we can come if we can figure out the right way to do it um something by way of the tax code um or uh as in recognition of tax obligations or something um something for restaurants i'm not saying it very well but it felt like those were different things sam i i also thought we were talking about uh ui obligations for nonprofits yeah and because we already we already relieved the for the for profits we already relieved um experience rating for people that were laid off for co-off uh for co-vid so we've already done it in the for profit and this is for nonprofit um so are we coalescing around something as um unable to articulate it as i am um are we are people would people be comfortable if the committee's communication to house appropriations focused on these two areas um with a um something that says you know obviously if the need is greater elsewhere i mean this it's not like we have a stake in the ground um but but these are ideas that we've spent a little time talking about and trying to understand bill yeah i want to go back to what sam was just saying you mean that uh nonprofit employees that were laid off did not get uh unemployment insurance sam um no what i mean is that they would have got unemployment insurance but that the nonprofit itself has to fully reimburse the amount because they don't they don't pay as insurance they actually have to pay it out of their own pocket after the fact because they don't pay a monthly or a a premium on their wages they don't pay right they don't pay into the fund they just have to pay the full out-of-pocket cost of the unemployment it's a different impact on the employer right yeah so what so this this idea would try to make the impact similar for nonprofits as it is for uh for profits Janet we're going to list these as prioritized um i i haven't written anything so i don't i don't know and as usual i'm looking for guidance um i'm thinking probably um that they wouldn't they'd be two ideas um not prioritized because i don't get a sense really of whether the committee um feels strongly more strongly about one than the other but if i'm wrong people please tell me uh scott here's what i said i just sent i don't know if anybody else has i sent an email over to to commerce and ask them if they're looking at this too oh good great okay and and i had a text message pop out of the ether that said no other committee is looking at this issue did the text message come from a reliable source yes as a matter of fact it was a former committee assistant of the ways and means committee okay all right um good thank you um okay good well so i'm gonna um i'm gonna this has been interesting work it it's unlike most of the work we do we're trying to think of something as opposed to react to something that's put in front of us and that's hard as i said especially in this in my kitchen um so i'm going to give us a momentary break um and uh i want to just spend a few minutes on the school construction bill um and i think we're not going to run all the way to noon because i i mean to 11 whatever time we were headed for um partly because i've got a somebody's got to write this communication to house appropriations first of all is there a volunteer to do a draft on that i'm looking at my drafters come on people no nobody wants to volunteer okay well i'll volunteer somebody but i'll do it privately um so um so we need to come up with something it needs to be circulated and people need to look at it um but school construction uh we heard testimony last week that was not very positive about the bill that we were looking at and i just wondered if people had reaction sort of where people were thinking um and whether uh what should be our next step sam uh did uh the secretary or the executive director of the superintendents association offer us a language um we got a communication from the secretary i think am i right sotia something came this morning or did it just come to me um no he sent written testimony um based on the testimony he provided last week and i did send it to the committee this morning and posted it um that's right yeah yeah i know i'd seen it somewhere um so did it come but is it from you or is it from him it was in the email this morning with the zoom link and the agenda and the documents i could also pull it up if you like yeah why don't we look at it thank you i know i'd seen it and i just couldn't figure out where Emily one thing i'm confused about from the um testimony we heard last week and from this written testimony is um the resistance to the COVID nexus with this bill um and i feel like um you articulated we all articulated quite clearly that we were sort of interested in looking into the future construction needs of the school with regard to public health and that's sort of where the nexus it is we weren't just talking about you know like plexiglass dividers that are needed for three months um you know that air quality and health quality is an important part of school construction and that that's sort of where the nexus was sitting and so i'm not sure how to make that um clearer before we i'm worried that we're going to get recommendations before um the folks from aoe and the superintendents understand that that's where we were coming from um because i think that's an important piece of the puzzle yeah and it was it was one of those things that was getting sort of articulated as we were talking about it um so i think it was i think there was some misunderstanding in the beginning that the um thought i have is that when we do school construction from here on in we ought to think about how we're going to make sure that kids can be educated safely um in in the building um and that the ideas get keep get them in the building because teaching remotely is um works for a few people and works on some subjects and there are a lot of and works in some ages but for a lot it's just not it it doesn't have the same quality and the kids don't learn as well so um i think i think that was uh a miscommunication um so this is the memo that came um i don't i'm not sure people did have a chance to look at it because it was um did come in this morning so um i i guess i mean when people have had a chance to look at it um i think i'm still left with a question about whether what whether there is something that can move ahead in the context of this bill that we feel will be valuable um and based on the testimony we heard from um the superintendents and the secretary of education that whether they also feel it's valuable um i don't i don't have a answer to that i mean this this is also it should it it is something that's um should be done soon if we're going to do it but it's not urgent that it has to be done by the end of june necessarily so there may be some time to think about it a little bit more and spend a little more time um having uh you know getting other folks in into the committee and it you know it may also be something to bounce back to the house education committee that's another thought uh robert i i think this is worth pursuing i'm not ready to to drop it at this point it maybe it is we continue into august or whatever and get education involved but i think i think we have this opportunity a unique time and we have to be thinking about long-term i am puzzled by the uh resistance and the uh maybe the misunderstanding that this is really about long-term and as you said how can kids be educated safely in the building not just this fall but forever years from now um we really this is our opportunity to look at that and we should be um we should be doing that i think it's we we have a responsibility to do that so uh peter um i would point out that both jeff frances and secretary french made an observation that has always um impressed me namely there's a certain segment of the school districts which historically have had a difficult time passing budgets those are also the ones that are difficult i have difficulty uh uh getting a community behind a construction bond and consequently that i want to say third uh who are on the probably lower spending spectrum per pupil are the ones that probably are struggling with uh physical plant bricks and mortar that are most in need of updating or replacement uh in the sense in which we've been talking about it namely can you create a safe indoor environment particularly in the air handling system and create flexibility in that space um because if if bricks and mortar have not been replaced in the last 20 or 25 years which is very likely for those communities that have a hard time passing a budget those are probably the ones that should be at the front of the line uh in terms of state participation and outs have a thought about this um you know maybe this is one of those um moments when it would be helpful to me anyway into the committee to have a couple people on the committee take this issue and do some work on it and bring something back um i i i feel that if if if we had heard positive testimony from advocates and from the secretary we were probably coming close to an agreement on a bill but we didn't hear that so um so obviously we need to do more work whether it's um you know private discussions or a different draft that is um you know um maybe states what we're trying to do more clearly i don't know uh so i will see if there's a couple people who would like to volunteer to do that volunteer second i got scott i got peter that's what i got that would be great um anybody else who's interested um should you know stay involved with it but um i'm not sure that as a group we're going to sit here and come up with a a a different draft um i mean i think it is i'm willing to try to do that but i i think it would be great if if there can be some work outside the committee and uh robin um i just was looking back at my notes from june fourth when they were both speaking in our committee and jeff frances said that they'd get back to us next week with specifics on our bills so that was last week so perhaps you know we'll have some information from him as well yeah maybe um and that was uh secretary french this that's the testimony that he just provided was his follow-up on that um so peter we have his but not jeff frances i i don't i don't have it anybody that's what i'm saying yeah uh peter i i'd appreciate refreshing my memory for the sake of scott and i'm moving ahead um i don't remember hearing uh a a discouraging word on our idea of trying to at least uh evaluate the existing universe in terms of need antiquatedness uh suitability for safe occupancy that section of our proposal and and yet nobody uh i'm reading very quickly in secretary french nobody said gee that's great i think you ought to hang on to that notion of making funding an evaluative study of the existing bricks and mortar i'm kind of surprised about that i think that that was removed from the bill which was why they were that's the part of the bill that they wanted to keep in and and the reason why it's out of the bill quite frankly is is um uh we were hearing from our own staff that they didn't feel that they could manage that kind of study in the time frame that we were looking at it doesn't mean it shouldn't get done it just means they didn't feel that they could do it now so um so the request i'd make of scott and peter is also to work with kathryn uh bannum who's been the point person for joint fiscal illness and i'll speak for myself i will i would like very much to have our joint fiscal staff involved in whatever study gets produced um and partly it's because if it's legislative staff that's um doing the handling the rfp and the contract um it does mean that the questions that we have as legislators will actually get answered um and that is important to me if we're going to spend main bucks or whatever we're spending so they they have a tremendous amount of work to do right now and um we will kathryn did you want to speak no i'm just listening and i wanted to know you and i was i was listening so that's all happy to work with um your little subcommittee yeah i think what we heard from uh both witnesses last week is that the original bill was was an assessment um and um that that has now morphed into this more um uh trying to um and think about what we really are asking schools to do and what we're you know this whole notion of of making sure that whatever money we spend on construction is is geared to making sure that kids can be in school in a safe way um and that that's a different perspective i think that's what they were objecting to other other facts so i'm going to um whoops peter again what's up um i'm i'm a little just to be clear was it daunting because the uh department of edgy agency of education had so much on their plate because originally i thought this was jfo work not uh aoe and the other part of my question is is it daunting because we didn't specify any kind of uh subset universe to to examine closely and we just said all the buildings which which may seem daunting do you want me to yeah sure i'll be happy to speak to it no it's daunting because we have a lot on our plate right now for the summer all you're coming back we just have a lot of um we often have you know several months of time when we can do studies and and with you all coming back in august i don't know when you're leaving i don't you're coming back in august i don't know how long the legislature will be meeting then it's um it's it's just i'm i worry about the level of work that this report will require and that bandwidth we will have for it this particular year you know i think in other summers it would be a typical summer it would be much simpler it's just not we just have a lot of different demands and there are other studies that are also being proposed at the same time as this one so a few actually that um you're involved with and i'm i've said this before but i'll say it again the reason why we keep asking you to do these things is you do actually really good work and it's work that i feel that when we get it we can make decisions based on um what you give us and so um and and it's helpful if it's work that is going to inform decisions that we make if we're involved in the study in the sense that we can develop the questions and we can sort of check in on the progress of the study and so i i would like very much to have joint fiscal involved with us and um i understand that you you're uh you've been a little oversubscribed yes i appreciate all the good words and i i think we do try our best to do good work and studies but that does require a fair amount of uh work on our part even when you're hiring contractor it requires a lot of um you know making sure they're staying on topic and and and refocusing things and and as new topics come up so it's it's it's just a question of how much can we have on our plate at one time and do a good job with it and um there are other other bills have us working on other studies as well this summer so we're we need to in the end figure out what makes sense and what is reasonable um it would i don't want to know about the study it's just not it's not the full assessment that what we were talking about in march emily that's right um slightly broader question but wondering if there's been given that we're working through the summer and so lege council and jfo are also working through the summer and doing sort of regular legislative stuff and so there's no you know staffing space for most of the summer studies and committees is has there been a conversation about adding additional temporary staff to lege council and jfo with the crf funds i actually have not heard that i mean to be it might be more work for us to take on somebody and get them up to speed um we do we do have some people who work part-time and they're they will work more hours over the summer than they might typically work i think and um i think legislative council for example committee staff they have their pool they don't you know i think they're using committee staff in ways that they haven't in the past part-time committee staff so in that sense the answer is i'm sorry i should say yes we have talked about using crf funds but not really to hire somebody new it's more about um the cost that we're expending to staff all this work over the summer um so in that sense we the answer is yes not new staff but current staff just more hours more hours yeah all right anything else um i will like um there will be a draft circulated i'm not sure who's gonna write it um so um be checking your email um and and i think that's it i i'm not sure whether we'll meet tomorrow um i don't have anything on the schedule unless peter and scott come up with an idea for us to look at tomorrow on this issue and i'm guessing you may not be ready by tomorrow but you let me know yeah i'm just checking sarja's gonna send us that uh note from dan french i said this morning bill with the zoom link yep it was part of the zoom link okay thanks yeah and it's now probably posted as well right i think so yes it's posted for um last thursday the day that he testified right yep so unless something comes up um between today and tomorrow i don't think we'll meet tomorrow um but do be looking at your email for um a draft all right good thank you