 Well, good afternoon. As most of you know, I've reached out to the legislative leaders to schedule a special session for May 23rd. As I said to them, while most of the attention is focused in one remaining area where we don't have agreement, the work of the House, Senate and administration resulted in some significant successes and progress for Vermonters this year. But I've been clear since the day I was sworn in. In fact, since the day I announced I was running for governor, that it's my firm belief Vermonters need a break in constantly increasing taxes and fees. So to the surprising no one, and certainly not the legislature, I cannot support the budget and revenue bills that together increase property tax rates by nearly $34 million, especially when we have options. I do not make these decisions lightly, but I cannot support higher taxes in a year. We have $160 million more in new money as compared to last year. That's $82 million from organic economic activity, $34 million in unanticipated funds from the Attorney General's tobacco settlement, and $44 million in additional and unanticipated revenue recently added to the budget. This $44 million received in the last month is money from taxpayers, which was over and above everyone's expectations. So I can't support asking Vermonters for an additional $34 million when there's a way to avoid it. My plan doesn't ask taxpayers for more money and yet fully fund school budgets passed in March and addresses some of the inefficiencies of our education system as our K through 12 schools continue to educate three fewer kids on average every single day. Briefly, as a reminder of what typically happens at the end of a session, or at least what I've experienced in my last 18 years, is that the legislature adjourns, but sets a date for a veto session before July 1 to deal with any vetoes the governor may issue. This allows the legislature to either take care of any technical issues or override the governor's objections. That's what usually happens, and that's the tool in there to a box to respond to vetoes. This year is a bit unusual, especially knowing they passed bills, I would veto. Maybe this is a political calculation. I don't know. You'll have to ask them. But the point is they left me with no choice but to use one of the few tools I have in my toolbox to ensure the executive branch has a voice in the process and call this special session in order to minimize the time needed for the special session itself. I've asked legislative leaders to meet this week to begin working towards a solution and have reserved multiple times each day in order to do so. To ensure our discussions in the special session are productive and in good faith, I've also invited Republican leadership from the House and Senate to participate so that everyone is on the same page. When an agreement is reached, knowing that I may not even have the budget or tax bill at that point, we can enact it through an amendment to those bills. I've also let legislative leaders know if they would rather, they can send me the bills immediately for veto and we can start over on the budget and yield bills in the special session. From my perspective, despite the tension that's obviously there, we are actually very close in what we are trying to achieve. Because with the approach I've outlined, we can prevent an unnecessary 33 million of property tax increase on Vermonters, fully fund school budgets approved in March, stabilize property tax rates for future years, and improve the efficiency of our education system. So we have more financial resources to reduce inequality in our schools and expand educational opportunities for our kids from cradle to career. And I believe we can achieve these goals using many of the same proposals the legislature has worked on, although not all have passed. I'm open to changing some of the mechanisms if that is their preference and we can still accomplish their stated goal of reducing the unfunded liability in the teacher's retirement fund. And by the way, that 100 million in savings they keep talking about won't materialize until the year 2038. But we can still do that if they'd like. But it doesn't have to come at the expense of the nearly 200 million in property tax relief for the nearly 300 million in savings we can reinvest in our kids, both of which our analysts believe will be achieved in five years, not 20, like the legislature's proposal. I hope when legislative leaders take a step back and stop looking at individual elements of my plan in a vacuum, they'll see it's reasonable and responsible. And I think if they are willing to recognize that a K-12 system that will soon serve fewer than 70,000 students is diverting resources from our kids. They recognize that doing nothing is not responsible and shouldn't be an option. Last year we were able to work together to pass a budget and education financing bill that did not rely on any due taxes and fees. I am more than confident that we can accomplish the same this year. Again, as a reminder, because we have 160 million more in revenue than we did last year. When you consider all of this in agreement, that fully funds our school budgets and avoids raising taxes can be reached. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Why are you negotiating through the press instead of meeting directly with the legislative leaders like you could have last week? Well, again, there were two meetings that were canceled last week. They didn't want to meet. I had proposed meeting this week and I'm still hopeful that we'll hear back from them so that we can start to meet and iron out some of our differences. My understanding is that you didn't have direct negotiations with lawmakers before last week. That we went the whole session without any real bargaining between your office and legislative leaders. Well, I don't think that's accurate or factual. I think that if you look back and you see all the times that our commissioners and directors and secretaries went into different legislative committees offered testimony, offered to come to some resolution in different areas, but knowing the bottom line is that wasn't going to accept any bills that raised taxing the fees on Vermonters. We didn't come to a point where there was agreement. Again, over the last two or three weeks, I haven't seen any outreach from them either. Right, but in the past, previous governors and previous legislatures, the leaders of the executive branch, including the governor and leaders of the Senate and the House, they've actually gotten together to broke through these deals. Well, I think that doesn't seem to have happened. And I'm just wondering why and why now, you know, we just finished the legislative session. Now we have to come back and now you're negotiating for the press. Well, again, I think over the last six years, we've seen a supermajority. We had a Democrat who was a governor, a democratically controlled Senate, democratically controlled House of Representatives. I think it was pretty easy for them to get together on issues. Before that... Well, maybe, was that the year that they overrode his veto on the final budget? They negotiated. 2009? Yep. 2010's when I'm talking about the current negotiated legislative leaders and 2010 on budget and tax issues. We've been more than willing... More than willing... ...to compromise the decision. More than willing to negotiate. To Ann's point, the letter that you sent to Mitch and Tim was... The date stamp was at the exact... It was sent to them at the exact time it was sent to all of us. Is that really a process that indicates a good faith effort to try to cultivate a meaningful dialogue? I would guess I would have to ask all of you. So if we sent the letter to them, I'm sure we would have gotten FOIA'd for the letter and then another date so that you could see what the letter said. I'm just trying to get everything out in the open so that we can have a process that isn't based on misinformation that we put everything out in the public and are able to move through. So any negotiations you have this week or early next week, the legislative leaders, would be open to the media? Well, that's entirely up to them as well. I want to get together with them first to see what the rules will be in terms of moving forward. I don't mind having it in public. Did Republican legislators make a mistake by voting for these bills that you intend to veto? And are you disappointed in them? No, I'm not sure that they... I mean, you'd have to ask them. Well, you're going to veto what they support so... Well, again, if you look at the tax bill, the revenue bill, I think there were many Republicans who probably... You can't hang with Randy Brock when he was running for lieutenant governor. You supported him, he supported you. Did he make a mistake voting for this? Well, again, I said from the very beginning, I've been very clear over the last two years I wasn't going to support anything with a new tax and fee. But he did, so did he make a mistake? Well, again, I don't know what he promised or what he had said. I'm just telling you what I would do. But again, they do things for their own reasons, and I don't owe it against any of them. He said you want all correspondences related to this issue to be open to the public in the interest of transparency that we might have a right to know, because we're down to very few issues. Yeah, would you be willing to extend that policy to correspondences that you and your administration have had with individual lawmakers for the whole of the session? I guess I'm not quite following something that you can't get now. Any correspondence that you or members of your administration have had with lawmakers over the course of the session? It's been a different situation. Here, under the public records law, we would be obligated to turn those over. Only the legislature could withhold those documents, because they don't have the same public disclosure standard that the executive branch does. So we would be compelled to turn them over. They could make a claim on privilege. That's what I'm asking though. Are you all, is this administration committed to turning over, those are public documents now, if they're coming from the executive branch? Okay. You've got on a Monday you identified four bills that would be, for sure, right tax budget. Well, again, we're working our way through them. I think it was a flurry of activity on Saturday, and some of the bills that I had concerns with, they change. So we'll take a look at them as they come through. I've signed a few today, so that we received, we haven't received any of the other ones at this point in time. But we'll take a look and take each one individually. The prescription drug, our re-importation, I signed that, and there was some other municipal bills I signed. Why did you sign it? Well, I'm in favor of doing whatever we can to reduce the costs on Vermonters. I'm not sure we're going to do our best to make sure that the agency of human services does their due diligence in trying to accomplish that. Not sure what the outcome is going to be, but we'll do the best we can. How is an agreement close of legislative leaders who are opposed to using one-time money to solve this problem? Well, they're using one-time money for other things. There's one-time money that you continually refer to is money that I believe is an investment that will be paid back within this five-year period. Again, I'm not sure that they can say the same. They don't want to use that money to pay for an ongoing expense. I guess the question is, if they see it that way, how is an agreement close if they don't want to put the money? Well, it's close from my perspective because some of the issues that we believe that are in the plan to implement the plan are issues that they've worked on. So if we put it all together and understand that I'm not going to sign anything with a tax offender, then we can make progress. Did you reach out to Joe and Don to see what time to work for them? They received the same letters that the others did. But did anybody from your administration communicate with them to see when they would be available for the sit-downs? Not before offering the times to the legislative majority of leadership. And if Mitzi Johnson and Tim Acher are able to make a session, but it doesn't work for Joe or Don, would you be willing to go ahead and... Well, I've already put that out. So they received the same memo. I believe that they've reached back out to us, I believe, and said that their flexible could meet some, if not all, the meetings. So why do you want them in the room? Well, I think, again, they hold some cards, too, in this, in terms of rules, suspensions, and so forth. So if we want to get this done quickly, everyone should be at the table in order to do so. Could we be facing multiple special sessions? I hope not. If that's possible, do you mind? Well, again, I believe that we can come to conclusions on this if we get together and understand that I'm not going to, once again, I'm not going to support bills that raise taxes and fees when we have $160 million with revenue, extra revenue this year as opposed to last year. So I think it's reasonable to expect, I think Vermonters expect, that we'll, we don't, from their standpoint, I'm not sure they can understand why we would contemplate raising taxes on them when we have money, more money than last year. Has JFO and your administration come to a consensus? I believe, I believe that they have, that they've been working together and figuring out some of the ups and downs, but maybe I could answer that. We're working on a daily basis, exchanging information as far as the five-year forecast and the savings that we believe are there. As far as the five-year forecast of what can happen if 9-11 were signed as we all understand it today versus a five-year forecast, nothing happens. We're using consensus numbers there. I think as you'll continue to hear the same questions you've asked about can we achieve these ratio savings or how will we achieve those ratio savings? That's less a matter of math than it is of will working together over the next five years. So that's less of an analyst, mathematical exercise than it is. Are we on board with this plan and can we all embrace it? Did the governor's office ask Donald Turner and the Republicans put forward an amendment on a pay act that would extend the current year's budget in the event of government shutdown? I don't know if we asked them directly. I know we had some conversations about that because that was the question, what happens if we don't come to some agreement and it was suggested by, I think, from their standpoint that maybe some sort of continuing resolution would work to prevent that from happening. How likely do you think it is that we'll see a continued answer? I hope we don't have to take out of that. I believe, again, that we are close in some respects. It may seem like we're far apart, but I believe we're close in time to agreement. But once again, if it includes a tax or fee, I'm not signed. In H911, is it only the property tax related pieces that you have concern with, or I think I won't point out a concern with the way that they're responding to the federal tax changes. Is that still a concern for you as well? Well, again, I want to focus on the areas. There are some pieces of both budgets that I'm not in agreement with, but at this point in time I'm willing to accept some of that, that I really just want to focus on the additional $34 million in additional tax burden on Vermonters. That's what I want to focus on. So if we do that and not open up everything else, I believe that we can come to consensus. So you're willing to let that piece of that happen and stand? Yeah. And again, there's some give and take. They went over my growth rate of calculation by $6 or $7 million, I believe. And I'm ready to forego that in order to get to agreement. Senator Bash has now answered your letter with his own letter. And he indicates that they'll determine on the wrong how they'll conduct this special session. Are you guys prepared to go through their committee processes to... Do you have that letter? Yeah. We don't have that letter, so to your question here. So Neil only received it before we did. Well, again, if they're saying that they have control over the special session, that's absolutely correct. I call a session from there. It's a separate branch of government. They can do whatever they want from that sample. So the question is, are you prepared and ready to go through the committees and work on this proposal? I mean, again, I don't know if there was any alternative for me. There was no veto session, as normally what would happen at the end of the legislative session. So the only thing I could do was call a special session, knowing that this is pretty much starting over or can be. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understood from what you've been saying, do you want to get together with them ahead of the special session and try to work out a deal? That would be, I think, what I've heard from their side is they have no interest in that. They will bring underneath members into the fold and are you okay with that? Well, I have to be okay with it because that's their process and if they want to spend the time that way, that's their prerogative. Again, I'm calling the special session in order for us to get through this and if they wanted to do something different, then they should have had a veto session and then they could have overrode my veto if that's what they thought they could do. So from my standpoint, again, we'll work through whatever process they initiate, but my thought was if we could get together and negotiate some items that we could make this a lot easier on everyone, but whatever process they decide to move forward with, we'll adhere to. If you're so close and I would agree that you're not that far apart, why couldn't there have been more active interaction last week during the conference committee process that might have produced some additional movement? Why wait until the end and then say no? Well, again, I think the natural reaction has been we have to raise taxes and fees. We have to do it. There's no other way to accomplish this because of different philosophical outlooks in terms of the education fund. I believe that we can manage the fund and I believe that we have to put into place initiatives that will save us money over the next five years. We can't continue on this unsustainable path in terms of education financing. So from my standpoint, coming together in order to prevent that from happening in the future and not raise taxes this year was what we were trying to accomplish. How did you think lawmakers would respond to an unprecedented march veto threat? What march veto threat? How did you think lawmakers would respond to an unprecedented march veto threat? That's the first time I've ever heard of a governor threatening to veto a bill a month at the end of the session and I'm just wondering how you thought they would respond to that. Well, I'm going to just read you the letter and I'm sure you've all read it and remind you of what the letter said and said, dear legislators, if we work together with a focus on pro-growth policies and diligently work to ensure the cost of state government do not increase more than wages Vermont's economy can again grow faster than the cost of living our state can be I don't have my glasses on, I'm sorry measurably more affordable each year for families and businesses and we can sustainably meet our obligations to the most vulnerable. These are the priorities of my administration with these priorities in mind and with respect for the legislative process I write to reiterate my opposition to new taxes or fees in the biennium and provide examples of problematic bills below. As we did last year we need to provide for Montes a break an opportunity to keep more of what they earn and I'm fully committed to ensuring they receive that relief. However, many of these bills with new or higher taxes or fees does contain other good ideas on which we can agree. My request is simple let's work together to find ways for many of these proposals to advance while responding the need to provide for Montes with another year of relief that begins to moderate the burden of taxes and fees and then I listed 13 bills. In the end, after the 13 bills were listed I said again, aside from these new taxes or higher fees many of these bills contain provisions I could support. Let's work together to find ways to advance some of these proposals while ensuring for Montes can keep more of what they earn again this year. My team and I look forward to working with you to resolve these concerns and reach an expeditious conclusion to the legislative session. I don't call that a threatening letter. Did you meet with Tim and Mitzi right after that lose? We met weekly. Did you actually discuss policy matters in this meeting? We talk about policy matters in every single week what they're moving forward with what are they working on? Did you negotiate with them then? Just to reiterate what my bottom line was. Right, but that's not a negotiation. But it isn't a negotiation. It takes two parties to negotiate. I'm willing to negotiate. I was willing to, we provided On what? On every issue and every committee. Yeah, but if they're saying we want to raise taxes and you don't then we have a problem, yes. Right, okay, that's what I'm asking. We have a problem with raising taxes in a year that we have extra money. That's a problem for me. And I continue to reiterate that. I don't think it's any surprise. But that's not a compromise. There's a difference between reiterating your stance and actually negotiating. So it sounds non-negotiable. It's not negotiable in terms of the tax of fee. Not when you have extra money on the bottom line. Taxes should be a last resort and this isn't the last resort. Not with $160 million worth of more revenue. So how are we getting closer now than we were in March if it's non-negotiable? Well, the tax and the fees aren't negotiable. Right. But there are areas where they want to do things. Maybe they want to expedite. Maybe they want to broaden it. Maybe they have other ideas of their own. We're willing to listen. How many votes do you have for your five-year plan right now? I don't. I have no idea. Your office hasn't reached out to members and you have no idea? No idea in terms of the five years. Who is willing to step up and say I'll vote for this? Well, we'll find out. Your shop has no idea? Well, obviously, they have gotten together to decide that they didn't want to do that at the time. They were willing to move forward with this legislation and with their own legislation to raise tax and fees. And so they voted in favor of that. I'm saying I'm not supporting that. So you had your plan and it's understandable that you want to push that plan. I don't think anyone begrudges you for that. But you don't have any idea of how many votes you can muster for it? I think we can muster enough if we can get to a point in time when we can agree on certain aspects of this bill and come out together. We'll get enough to pass it. Why do you only want to address the property tax issue in the special session when there are other proposals that you've supported like the merger of liquor and lottery that would die, that would basically be punted to the future if that was the case? Well, again, if they had decided that they wanted to take that up and other provisions, other bills that they never got to, they would have stayed in us their day or two to be able to accomplish that. They said that they were done. The session was done and they were all in agreement that the session was finished. So I have to accept that part. You're worried at all given the 117-14 house voting in that you could be over? I think when you take the difference, and again, you have to look at both bills together because they're connected. You have our tax revenue bill and then you have the way to spend it. So it's a lot easier to spend money than it is to raise it. So I think the vote was substantial in terms of the revenue. It was just substantially closer in terms of the revenue bill than the overall budget. Again, I'm sure there were a lot of provisions within the budget bill that the members wanted to vote for. Can you address the difference between the 117 and 117? I can't assure you of anything at this point. Why this year are you not going to do the last year? Right. I thought that that was the wrong approach last year. I still felt it was that we negotiated and came to conclusion. I wish I had, in some respects, had stuck to the $25 million state teacher health care contract that now seems to be a good idea. It wasn't a good idea last year, but I think it's got more merit this year. If we'd done that, I don't think we'd be in the position to do that this year. I believe Vermonters are solidly behind this. They don't want to see more tax than fees in a year that we have more revenue. I'm ready to stick it out. You're fighting for property tax rate to state level. If a person's house value goes up, their taxes will still go up. We've been over that before. We argue that that's comparable to income tax increasing if your income increases. But there's a dramatic difference between those two because if your income increases, you have more money to pay the tax bill. If your house value increases, you don't have any more money unless you sell your house. So if property taxes go up because of growth in the grand list, anybody whose house value goes up is going to see a tax increase. I'm not arguing that at all. But what I am arguing is the fact that we're going to make it or the legislature has made it worse by raising the rate. So it's still going to happen. Your grand list will go up because of more activity, more development, more housing on the market and values going up. That's going to happen. By putting this into place, the tax rate increase, the problem is going to be that much worse than it is today. So I'm trying to prevent that from happening. You talked a lot about your ability to foster meaningful and collaborative relationships with both your allies and your adversaries throughout your editorial campaign. You said that's been a hallmark of your political career. Why do you think that your relationship with Democratic leadership has fallen into such disrepair? I think it's a two-year cycle. It's campaign year. Do you think you bear any responsibility for the state of relationship right now? I'm sure we all share blame. I'm sure we do. But at the same time, I don't know how it will be more clear over the last two years about no tax and fees. I just don't know how it could be any more clear than I have been. So for them to get to the end and think that I was just going to change my perspective on that, I just don't understand. In the constitutional arrangement where we have separate equal branches of government, did you get to decide that on everybody else's behalf? The governor gets to decide that's for Vermonters. And that is the power of being governor that to veto bills that you feel would be detrimental to Vermont. And I'm prepared to do that. To follow up on what you just asked, you know, you have a reputation for being the nicest guy in the world. And it's just kind of interesting, you know, why are you using DC tactics with the threat of a CR? Well, I'm not using that threat. I just said I've read something from March. You've read the letter that I sent out. I believe we're close and we've come to a resolution. That doesn't sound like a DC tactic to me. Well, you're going to shut down through some of it. I'm not saying we're going to have a government shutdown. I'm saying, I said in the memo to them that I believe we get together and meet over the next week. This session on Wednesday, I believe that if we can get an agreement ironed out that we could be out of here by Friday. That doesn't sound like a DC tactic. But you are prepared to let state government shut down. We're going to continue to work on this. And we're just going to continue to work to try to come to resolution. I'm willing to do that. But again, without any increase in tax and fees. What happens if the legislature decides, much like you have, that they're an equal branch of government. They've been elected and they decide what's best for Vermonters. And it's not you. It's not your idea. They decide that November. Your idea is not best for Vermonters. What if they are just as intransigent and refuse to move? Your equal branch is a government. As much as you want to decrease something, you can't do it and they can't either. So neither of you can do that. So I guess I'm struggling to see the path forward here. I believe there is a path forward. And I believe that we have a plan that makes a lot of sense. Then it makes a lot of sense for taxpayers in particular. And we're prepared to make that argument. You said it's possible to both pay down pension obligations and avoid the tax increase. Tax rate increase. How is that possible? Both the path forward to have both of those things happen at the same time? Again, with our proposal we believe that there's savings upwards to $475 million. Two years though. How do you work for this kind of fiscal year? It's a five-year plan. In terms of utilizing some of the one-time money to buy that down and then pay it back over the five years with the savings. How do you do that? Again, to pay down the retirement obligations their plan would do that, wouldn't receive the savings that our plan does in the short term or even in the long term. You can still do that. If we pay this back over the next five years, pay back the savings of these dollars, they can utilize it. That could be part of the negotiation. They can utilize it for teacher retirement. What's not so-called borrowing? You call it borrowing? Yeah, it's borrowing. But some have not utilized that term enough. I'm glad to hear we're starting to use it more. Because it is borrowing the money to pay down the tax rate and put this plan to spending. It's utilizing money to get us to a conclusion that's beneficial for Vermont. I'm still not clear. Are you saying that they could use money to pay down the pension obligations in the future but not this fiscal year? It's kind of a tradeoff between using money for your plan or using money for the pension obligations. I'm saying you can use the savings if we move forward so that we have. There will be savings along the way and we believe $475 million with the savings as the plan is initiated today. You can utilize some of that to put back into teacher retirement if you want. I'd rather put it back into early care and learning technical education and so forth put it back into the education system but you can do whatever you want with it. That could be part of the negotiation. I'm going to borrow some more money this year in addition so that you could also do their pension obligations. Not for this year. I'm saying they can utilize over the next five years make this part of the plan where you can utilize the savings to go back in for teacher retirement. I was telling the pension buy-down sometimes. For the next 238, no matter when you buy it down. $10 million in their settlement tobacco dispersal. They have $14 million from the tobacco settlement and I believe they put at least $10 million into the retirement fund. So they've already started with $10 million there and now they want to put another $33 million in. And to your question Neil on the plan and whether there's support I would point out as we have every chance we get this is the plan that has several components two of those components at least. They've got the commission the task force ratio commission is the 9-1-1. They have passed the special ed bill which we've been looking at. They didn't even begin to discuss healthcare negotiations until the end of April. Unfortunately those did not come out of committee but we've discussed that for two years and have recommendations from the commission. So there are several areas of the broader plan where there's already been strong support and I think what this boils down to is how are you going to finance it? Are you going to finance it by using $33 million in a property tax increase or are you going to use the one time money pay it back with the savings that you achieve once you have the plan in place implemented and manage it. The reason I asked is he had an interview with representative Turner who you've invited to the table who says he doesn't support it and so that's why I wonder if he does support it. He's always been very public about his discomfort with using one time money for one time expenditures. He has seen the plan that we have put together will return that one time money to the general fund over a period of years and I think that he's getting some comfort with that. He has other ideas. He's welcome to the table. He's presented his ideas to the speaker. He's going to have everyone there who's got a vested interest in it. Speaker Johnson said that before she meets with you she wants to see a list of the bills that you're going to have your plan on vetoing. When do you think or do you plan on providing a list to them? I'll veto them as I see fit as they come in. So it's still too early to tell for you to say what's on the list? But I fail to see what that has to do with anything at this point. They're the bodies. The legislature decided not to come back for a veto session. Not that their work was done. In terms of your decision to decide when to call them back for a special session at any point did you consider seeing what they thought would be a good time for that? No, in terms of I thought we should get back together as soon as possible. And not have it extend into June. In some respects not having the appropriations bill and the revenue bill gave us some flexibility in terms of amending. So the sooner we get back the better, I believe. But again as I stated in my opening remarks if they would rather then just send me the bills and I'll veto them both. Governor, I just wanted to rewind back to the prescription drug re-importation bill for a minute. One of the concerns that people brought up that opposed it was safety concerns. Do you have any safety concerns about this? Well again, our agency of human services will be working hand in hand with others to make sure that this is safe. So I'm confident in our agency of human services. Are you going to be a candidate for the bill? Yes, I plan to be. I'll be turning my petitions at the end of the month. This does not inform that or change that in any way? No. Not at all. Are you going to be racing this summer? I haven't decided that yet. We'll take it one race at a time. I'm pretty busy here in the building now. We'll see how things work out. Which parades do you plan to skip? Well, you can't get to them all obviously. I always miss parades every single year. So I'll get to as many as I can. I know you won't miss the Bennington battle day parade. Yeah, I usually go to that one. So we'll see. How long do you think you can keep up the no taxes and fees commitment before just the tension over that comes too much to it? As you're going to the fall, will you campaign on no taxes and fees again? Well, we'll take a look at that time. If we give for monitors a break and we're able to put policies into place for policies where we can grow the economy as we've been striving to do, we've done a lot of good to work within government. We've also been able to put some initiatives forward with the help of the legislature to try and grow the economy and try to make it for more attractive. So if that happens, I believe we'll see more revenue growth. We saw 82 million dollars more this year than we did the previous year and plus the additional 44 million. So we're on the right track. We just have to keep going and solidifying that and keeping our eye on on areas where we can again grow the economy and make for more affordable. There is a fair bit of political rhetoric on all sides. But from the people in your office last week in the closing day of the session there were some implications that the JFO was not playing straight. Is that going to be toned down? Should it have been toned down? Does the JFO deserve an apology? Well, the emotions run high at the end of the session. I have a great deal of respect for the JFO. I've worked with them over the last 18 years in many different capacities. I have a great deal of faith in them. As does our different departments, particularly TACS, and we're back on the right track, I believe, and we're conferring with one another and maybe Kai can reiterate that we have been able to continue to work. Yeah, they're working together on a daily basis, the JFO analysts and my policy analysts and statisticians and economists, and just sharing the data we have and seeing what data they have. Again, largely when it comes to a forecast of revenue components and costs in the education fund we're on the same page on these numbers. I'm asking for an apology. I'm sorry? The program is asking for an apology for the Plain Politics Compact. What level of the JFO is that? I apologize to the JFO. I have a question. I would like to add though, I think Karen O'Neill is deserve an apology by the Senate Commerce Economic Development Committee for the ways you've redid in the committee. Would you like to read one more? I haven't even contemplated that at this point in time. You could. You could, but you could. Thank you. Are you satisfied with what's been done this session on school safety? Is there anything more that needs to be done, either special session or coming months or next year? We haven't appointed our task force and we need to. We want to take a look at that over the summer and I believe that there will be other recommendations put forward and we'll go back at that if I'm in the same position next year to try and do whatever we can to keep our schools and communities safer. The training bill did not make it through the legislature. Is it a disappointment? It is a disappointment I think for all subjects and again it's one of those issues that the last day of the session had to have been another day or two. Maybe it would have made it, but again that's just not the way it works sometimes. There are some paid family advocates that are going to be holding an event tomorrow suggesting that you're setting corporate interests over the people of Vermont for working people of Vermont and that your desire for tech corporate interests is the reason that you'll be presumably vetoing that bill. It's about the affordability of Vermont and I understand their goals to provide for those who need help during the times of family crisis and otherwise. I believe that there's no path forward. I've offered in the past that maybe it could be a volunteer effort that we could put forward. New Hampshire was looking at something similar and maybe we could join forces with them, but the conversation is not over what it is for this year. It's a tax or a fee. Water quality bill passed without the funding or the pathway to funding peace in it. It does have some other pieces like lake and crisis designation. Are you comfortable with the way that bill came out? Well again we haven't looked at it yet, we haven't received it yet, but we'll take a look and see what's left. I just understand that the funding piece had been removed from the bill, so we'll take a look. What bills do you have that you haven't acted on yet, if any? I don't think there are I don't think there's anything right now. I think I've signed everything. So just the drug importation was today and there was four or five others municipal bills and so forth that they were passed. There was a technical bill for transportation a technical bill for municipalities can't get guidance law, some small changes can't get guidance law prescription drug bill there was a bill on short-term health insurance and association health plans and we are going to be studying one tomorrow with respect to re-insurance companies. So all those were signed except for the re-insurance? Yeah. I have a question on corrections. Okay. Where is the new contract issued with place can't go? Yes, the RFP process has been initiated and I don't know as we've heard anything back at this point. I haven't heard back from corrections as to whether the end date on the the RFP has reached yet or if they have actually analyzed any proposals and have a recommendation yet. I think there are four ongoing investigations. Have they concluded anything? Not that I'm aware of. Is that even in confidence? It's been six months, seven months since the incidents occurred? We're taking action at this point in time. We want a replacement for the remaining facility for the four incidents. The investigations. I can't speak to why it's taking so long. When I interviewed you last summer you talked about differentiating, I understand you don't control the criminal justice system that people were afraid of versus people were mad at. And I think I gave credit to that one. You did. Have you tried to do anything about that? For the commission of some sort of review some sentences from the past. I believe you've come to a number of populations. The Judicial Branch and others and advocates are way ahead of me on that. We've seen a number of bills even in this session. There's an expungement effort on the part of Chittin County and Windsor County I believe. There are initiatives that are happening right now I believe in that regard. Do you support the policy where parents cannot touch their children if they're in a pressure? I'm not even aware of that. If a mother goes to see their kid and will board a Springfield they're not allowed to touch them. They can't shake their hands, can't hug them, can't do anything like that. For your passing drugs this is the thing. Yeah I'm not aware of that. But when they're kids you mean not juvenile? Adults. If you have a child who's in Newport and you go to see your child you may not question the child. 20 years old I'm sure there's protocols in place to try and protect in certain ways I just don't, I can't speak to it. Can you look into it? Sure. I have another question on Form H144 which is a form that this would be a type of Yeah. According to a woman I talked to who will arise is based on trust. You don't have to provide a documentation to represent your actual income. We have a voluntary tax system where a lot is based on the good faith of filers putting and increasingly we have a lot better data to be able to match with other sources of information, wage social security, department of labor but I think I wouldn't be the first tax commissioner to say that the H144 is the household income form that determines income sensitivity has a lot of complexity to it it's very difficult to administer and it is very difficult to check the credibility of the numbers but increasingly we're getting better there with the VTAC system but I think a lot of folks in this building and the tax department would love to see reforms to how we do household income. Speaking of tax enforcement, how is the use tax collection going this year with the roll returns? I think we're even with the use tax table the safe harbor amount having been halved due to certain large retailers beginning to collect and remit even with that revenue change we still have more in voluntary use tax payments on the I-N-111 the income tax form and we have I think close to double the rate of filers who are paying use tax with their income tax return. Is it 10% or 4% or is it 20% now? Yes, generally I think it was 8 or 9% statewide or 18% haven't checked recently. And it's the same with Dr. Dinosaur where you don't review information about people's income? The tax department doesn't do Dr. Dinosaur that's the AHS I believe there might be some data matching going on. We have a two o'clock. Thank you very much for coming in.