 Okay, next we're going to move. We are going today till 11 committee. I don't see anyone from DPS here yet. I get my guess is they're going to show up right at 10. Dan, we've asked you to give us an update on the chart of accounts system at the agency of education. And so you did provide some rain for us. Maybe you could just walk us through walk us through that. Once again, Dan Smith, the IT consultant for the legislative joint fiscal office. I'm not going to go through all the text in the document submitted. That's available. You can certainly read it later if you haven't read it already. I'll just do a short summary and I'd like to leave plenty of time for questions. I've got Tim Holland from the agency of digital services is also in attendance. He's the project manager for the system. We have detailed questions. He's really the one. Just a quick summary of how we ended up here. The shared school district data management system is a common financial system that's being rolled out to all the supervisor union supervisor districts. This is an effort that's going back to actually 2015. On the legislature said, we want all the skill at school districts on one financial system so we can really compare apples and oranges, get a picture, big picture. Over the years, there's been several changes by legislation to the required end date right now it's July 1, 2022. The system has been rolled out in a phased approach. And again, I'm going to kind of compare this to judiciary's Odyssey system that you were briefed on I believe in your last meeting. The advantage of doing these phased approaches is you learn from your mistakes each time, as opposed to getting it to everybody, and then just hoping that the thing works and if it doesn't you got real trouble in the phased approach. There's a group of common users get an install you look at how that went. You address user complaints. The next phase the next roll out you try to do better. And then over time everybody's done ideally everybody's. At this point through the deployment. They're approximately one third of the way through all the supervised genes and districts. I believe the numbers are 19 of 54 so far. The legislative deadline for completing the roll out is July 1, 2022. So they've got about 18 months left to do the remainder of the system. In November, the Kingdom East School District, which is due to be one of the next groups going to roll out submitted a letter to Secretary French or the agency of education CC to a number of the legislators and requested that their roll out be delayed because of problems that they heard of from. And then there was a person that had to roll out and it was accounting questions, etc, etc. I've been discussing this for the past week or so with a OE and a DS, I had the request of the joint fiscal office, try to get up to speed and what's going on. To summarize where we stand. It's like a way and a DS recognize that there may be some problems. There are things that need to be sorted out the request for enhancements, etc. And the constraint we have is that there is a hard deadline to this by legislative mandate, this has to be done by 2022. And while it's easy enough to say, yes, we can defer Kingdom East pushing farther back. You can end up with a situation where you push everybody to the back of the box. And at that point you've got too many installations due in too short of time and you could end up in a worse situation. So, my recommendation is that at this point is let ALE and ADS continue to manage the situation. Look at what's best for them for the roll out, you know, consider the kingdom these concerns, if they need to be pushed back, push back. Be cautious about it, because there are potential troubles for that. If ALE and ADS feel that there just won't be enough time left to do this right. I would request that the legislature and this committee be open to the idea of pushing back the deadline. One more time, if needed. I think everybody's objective is to do this roll out installation as smoothly as possible, keep as many people as happy as possible, but there are constraints there. And I'll stop there and ask if there's any questions. I have a question. So, having spoken with one of my two supervisory unions that has gone through this, they describe the process as excruciating. So, one of, I guess my question is maybe for Tim, but maybe for you, Dan, it's more around personnel and assistance that's available for supervisory unions as they are working through this process. Is that something that we're able to talk about? The one point I do want to make is similar to the judiciary system. We're experiencing a phase roll out of a very complex system to people that already had existing systems that may be better or worse than what was being provided. On top of that, we had the COVID-19 vendor, which has really thrown a monkey wrench into resource availability both in the SUSD side and on the state side. It really has made things difficult for everybody. That said, I'd like to ask Tim to jump in if he's available. Good morning. This is Tim Holland, project manager, the agency of digital services. Thank you for inviting me. And I think maybe to add to what Dan has shared and target a little bit of the question about personnel and the assistance that folks are getting. As Dan has just alluded to, the challenges of the teams that the districts have assigned with doing day to day work as well as addressing things they need to do to manage COVID challenges. We are continuing to work on the project. I don't know how much of a distraction that is for each of the members, but in terms of what our project team is bringing to the table about a year ago in October of 19. We processed an amendment to this contract and added $1.2 million for additional training and support services, and have provided the every district going through this process within a very generous and nobody has yet hit that threshold where they haven't asked for too much, but a generous amount of self directed requested help from the consultants so as soon as they find they need help, they're struggling in any area. They want guidance. They want more help with filling out their documentation configuring the system, better understanding what they're seeing in the videos etc. It is available to them. They schedule it. They get it. It's scheduled if they're convenience. And so I just want to say I think that in addition to our own team from the AOE and myself also following up and tracking with them. They have a lot of this support there in place. And so I'm going to ask one more question and happy to have both you and Dan answer it. So, and I think Dan has already answered it probably twice, but let's see. You know, in terms of the angst and anxiety that we're getting out of the districts for implementing this. You know, any, any, anything that you think we should think about in terms of trying to understand why, why that is. You know, I'm hearing Dan say this is just difficult and it's a staged process and it's, you know, shifting systems but is there anything else that you think that we should understand about why we're hearing from supervisor unions. I'll try and hit on three points. Change. And reporting. And there's another will come back to me. So we've got people that are working and very familiar with working in a variety of systems that they're comfortable with. And some of them are very feature rich, costly systems. And it's a transition of going from what you're used to doing in the system to having to learn to do something different and it may not be as convenient. And in some areas some features and functions may be more convenient. But the change. I'm sorry somebody have a question. Yeah. So that has been one of those areas where people have come to the new system. They don't see something they feel is important for them and have asked for that to be enhanced. We have established a governance and change advisory board with the districts of both members of the finance business manager group and the HR professionals group. They may help to advise the AOE in terms of prioritizing these or dismissing any that as a group. Maybe they help that district understand ways that those have already gone in are able to do what it is that the individuals brought up. And that has been going okay I'd say that the list of enhancements those ones that we have worked with the governance group to identify as agreed upon must have showstoppers. One of the things I would say is that in the list that King Demise provided there are several that are actually features in the system but they aren't as complete as they're used to. So a bank reconciliation process for example that works for the accounts payable checks but not payroll. So we have an enhancement schedule to go in for and it's actually scheduled for the upcoming spring. Prior to the release of or the next round going live in July of 2020. And there are a couple like that. Another one Interfund Transfer or due to do from its reference desk that's currently in test now that there is a process but it's it's not exactly what the districts are used to. And so we've been asking that that be modified as well. So of those top priority ones they are in a roadmap to be introduced in the months coming before the next round in flight will go live. And then some of the things that we found with reporting. Well it's not necessarily that all of these are our findings that an auditor may have pointed out what we're learning as we're trying to do some root cause analysis is that what the setups and the data that's coming in from different may be the root cause of different results that maybe for example somebody who did not load a beginning balance when they started versus somebody that did. And a customer report was built to try and work across multiple districts and based on the structure that the first one or two groups that asked for that report. So it was formulated around that with the the eye towards working for everybody. But as as another round comes in and new districts try some of these, they're finding that perhaps there's something that they, something didn't work. So we're addressing those on a case by case basis. So we're looking at them to either resolve it, or to identify that there is an outright thing that needs to be adjusted for everybody and we've only had a couple of those, and they are on a list that we're working with power school aggressively right now to work with the districts to make sure we identify any any areas that potentially don't tie out to their systems. And give them what they need our goal our objective in this is to, is to give them the system they need to do their work. I think that was, that was all I would say it's mainly around change. I think that's difficult. And as Dan said, you know, other distractions if you will and challenges with COVID and I think that this lastly maybe to say that this is not the kind of work day in and day out that these people do like a dedicated person or persons that work purely on extracting data, loading the tools and and these being spreadsheets that then can be imported into a new system, setting up tables and areas that they're there. Some have gone through migrations before others have not. So the learning curve there is a little bit more for some than others. And, and we have heard some pluses along the way to so, like you see in many projects, you don't always hear about the things that are going great, but you're you're often, you know, you're about the challenges as they come up. Okay, thank you Tim. Any questions. Okay, Dan, thank you. Oh, Marty, did you have a question. Well, no, I just wanted to comment. I, I certainly understand all of the comments that Dan has made and that Tim has made as well. I, in my former life, I lived through a gigantic computer change as well and I know how difficult it is to get people to learn a new system and to do their old work at the same do their current work at the same time and then learn a new system and figure out how it relates to them and why do we have to do this and the office didn't have to do that before I understand all that I just want to make sure that there is a mechanism for the local school district. In this case, the example was my school district, King Demiest, that had those concerns that they have someone they can go to to express those concerns and perhaps get some guidance on how they might be able to better utilize the system that's being offered to them, learn from examples of other people and to have a realistic consideration of does delay really make sense or just figure out how to get additional support from the vendor as as Tim mentioned to help them through this process. I understand Dan's concern that you've got, you can't have everybody asking to go to the end of the line and be the last one that that doesn't work. And I also understand the legislature's concern about this project has been delayed and delayed and delayed and people don't understand why they can't just get it done. So I guess I want to make sure that there's a process that the school district can go back to Ali or back to Tim as an example, as a project manager to get some concrete steps where they can get some help and to make a reasonable decision about whether parts of it should be delayed or not. It's still keeping in mind the whole project has to get done at some point. That's a question. And so, great. Tim, I don't know if you had anything else to add outside of the cons, Marty, are you looking for something outside of the consultant time. I don't think so as long as that time is indeed available and personnel are aware that it's available and AOE still has a guideline of when things need to get done. And then that both the consultant and the school district simply have to work together based on everything else they have to do at the same time, in order to get their portion of the project done. I just want to make sure there's open communication on that area. If I could, I'm sorry I had to step away. I'm actually facilitating another meeting starting at 10 so I just let them know I needed another couple minutes to answer your question. There are mechanisms in place. We have bi-weekly meetings with each of the rounds, and we talk to them about the process, how it's working, the pace, what we can do to give them more help and get a pulse on the process of how they're doing. And in those meetings, we've also learned and agreed on infusing more time where we have, let's say, a room to adjust the schedules and the activities we've done so. Individually, these folks also have a direct line to the AOE. We've given them an email address that they can send us any questions they want directly to us, and we feel those. We also have a weekly meeting that we've been having for the better part of the year with leads from the rounds to get their direct input and to vet some ideas with them to make adjustments to training, to schedule to our process. We meet regularly with the VASBO and the VSHARP groups, the HR and the finance teams, and we give an update there and we field questions there. And the governance change advisory group that I mentioned before, where we discuss issues and things that will prioritize the work that has been asked to be done in addition to the enhancement. I guess I would lastly say that, you know, we aren't, our team is not, you know, crossing our arms beating our chest and saying, you're just not going to get any wiggle room out of us in terms of a pause per se versus trying to, as we have been, allow the time needed. So, where we need to infuse a couple more weeks to finish an activity, or to try and give them a little more time on the back end, we still continue to have those discussions on how we can help facilitate their success. And for each of these rounds, and some have been very successful, I think this is probably one of the ones where we're up against the deadline with a couple more activities more than we did in the past. And I think that is COVID related. And again, I think we're going to be working with these folks to make sure that we can elaborately get through this. And thank you very much, Dan. Thank you for Senator. Just a question. I'm sure you've looked at the Kingdom East School District's letter in which they detail some 11 issues. The issues that they're talking about, are there any of those issues that represent deficiencies in the fundamental functionality of the system, or do you believe that all of these things can be addressed by user training? I would say that I think it's a blend, and mostly, I won't even say it's mostly one or the other. Some that we've already gone through this response have identified that it is a misuse of the system and what I'll call not inappropriate, just training, back to your point. And there are some that we have identified that are not features, as I mentioned a couple earlier, that are either partially or in full available and we're working to get those in before the next round, the current round goes live. And lastly, there are a couple that have come up that we are working with the vendor, power school, to confirm that at the root cause while it's not the way the system is intended to be used, or what could be perceived as training. It still is questionable that a person could be able to do that activity, and that may end up resulting in an enhancement request to shore up any items that could be something that just shouldn't be able to be done. As an example, really quick, the reference about changing the name on a check, there is a report that shows what names were on every check ever issued. But the vendor table that a check is issued to is pulled from when other reports are run and in pulling those vendor names, if a vendor name has been changed, it's going to reflect whatever the current vendor name is. And it's not the process to go back into a list to be able to change a vendor name. And again, you can always see who a check has been made payable to from an auditing perspective. But it's one of those things that we think, even if it was done incorrectly, the fact that it can be done, we want to ask that it be an enhancement so that it'll always have to be a new, a net new vendor, even if you're trying to correct something about that vendor. We have to work through the details of that, but that's an example where it's kind of in between. It's a training issue, but it's also something we're taking seriously enough to make sure that it goes away. I hope that helps. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. There's no bar. I'm going to jump over to my other meeting. Thank you very much, Tim. And Dan, thanks for your work on this. We are going to move into reports from the Department of Public Service. Commissioner Tierney is here with Clay Purvis and Rob Fish. We have three items that we want to get through here. We want to get an update on the current status of the CUDs, which we had hoped to get to at the last meeting. So we'll start with that. We want to talk about the latest monthly report and the spend that cares our spending. And then we want to talk about emergency plan and that plan for the creation of the 10 year telecom plan. And we do have both the monthly updates and a letter from the commissioner regarding her intentions for the 10 year telecommunications plan update that have been posted to our site. And Mike, I'm seeing you post in chat if there is another document besides those two, it would be good to let me know. Yes, there are five. There are five additional documents that I have posted to the web came in shortly thereafter. I just sent the link to review all of them and I've made Clay the co-host so that he can share his screen as he presents them. Okay. Great. So, excellent. Let's start then with commissioner if you could get us started with the CUD update. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here again. And I think in the interest of time, we'll just go directly to Rob, who is going to give you a combination of what would have been presented the last time and then the more recent developments we have to report. Go ahead, Rob. Great. Thank you, commissioner. This is the same presentation I was planning to give last week, but I will add additional information. Do I have the power to share my screen or does Clay want to go through the slides? I don't know if I have that power. Robert, I've made you a co-host so that you can if you know how to share your screen. Perfect. Well, let me do that. And I will figure that out. Hold on a second here. I apologize. Well, first before I get there, this is actually an updated map of the CUDs. The one in the presentation is a month old. Another town has joined Deerfield Valley, the town of New Fane recently voted. There's several towns that are in consideration right now of joining the Lemoyle CUD and the Northwest CUD. So there is additional expansion that's going to have this new version of the map shows in a lighter color associated with the district of what the study area is of other towns that are considering joining. I've also recently learned that I'll be speaking to the Chittin Regional Planning Commission that there's some discussion there of whether creating a CUD or joining neighboring CUDs, which in my opinion that is the way to go is to join on to some of the neighboring ones. So let me switch back to the presentation. If I, for being a technology person sometimes Zoom is a bit complicated here. I apologize of switching the screen share. Sorry, wonderful technical difficulties here. Robert, sometimes if this is this is Mike sometimes if you just stop the screen share and then start a new one and select the screen that you want to share that works better. Okay, that's what I'm trying to find is that's stopped the share there we go. Okay, thank you sorry about that and now let's try this again in the presentation. Okay, thank you everybody for bearing with me there. So just to give an overview of the CUDs of where they were at as of November as I mentioned there's at least one other town that has joined. There are currently nine communication union districts. This covers 157 towns that are members and another 55 are study areas. So what this means and to get just to get an idea of how many people how many volunteers I think that's one thing I want to stress over and over again are working on this issue that comes out to being 140 157 board members and 157 alternates. These are the people that we've mobilized to work on broadband around the state. So I'm just going to go through each CUD one by one. It's, I've, I've hoped many of you had had the chance to take a look at this when it was sent last month. So I don't want to read every slide but dearfield valley. Dearfield Valley down in Wyndham County one of my favorite parts of the state. And almost all of these CUDs were formed right after town meeting or at town meeting last year, or during the pandemic. Since then they've grown to now 20 towns, since I mentioned new fame joined, I believe it was last week, covering parts of three of the county. So it's not just Wyndham anymore. They are one of the most advanced in terms of volunteers that are motivated taken action and meeting the number of hours. We should put a dollar amount to the number of hours these groups are putting towards these projects. It's impressive. I end up talking to someone from this district, probably three to four times a week at least. I'm not going to go over everything on here right now but with the updates I can do is I know they're planning on issuing an RFP. They're looking and reviewing the results of the art off action which I know clay will talk about more. They're also just in discussions with the next CUD I believe on this thing Southern Vermont CUD about how to work together whether that's a partnership, or whether that's an eventual merger. So briefly, one thing that is at this point discouraging mergers is many of the programs that we've that have been created in the beginning are a dollar amount per CUD. So that's something the CDs have identified to look at going forward because there are economies of scale with larger districts. So Southern Vermont CUD. They also started a town meeting 13 towns actually I'm sorry it's 14 towns London Dury joined them as well. A town can be a part of to see you to see you these, which was a surprise to some town and some CDs but that's how it goes. They are moving along. They are looking for and needing what what all the CDs need as a project manager. These are volunteer groups. This CD in particular. They're struggling, they're struggling a lot of the work is coming down to one volunteer. And they were also, I must say that they are a bit discouraged. A few months ago they were, they were hit with a records request and I were all about public access and transparency but when you're dealing with volunteers. That's it's enough to suck a lot of energy out of people unfortunately. So that is another issue that the CDs have raised with me is of how to make sure the public is in the know and how to also be able to compete in a competitive environment. So and on each of these slides is also the link to the website and most of these CDs are working on improving their websites now to to integrate both information on various programs to increase connectivity to just be more of a force in their community. Otter Creek CUD or representative civilly do you have a question. Yes, I did really quickly. Can you just tell us the pink outline what that means. Is that the study area. On the new map we've associated a study area with the respective CUD that's why we that's why we made that change but for this for this presentation it was based on the old map so great. So those are towns that that may end up joining. And this is in the case of this one that's Otter Creek CUD it's mostly Rutland County and you could see some of the towns in the south are already built out by fiber from detail. So they are currently not not part of the study areas. So we expect this CUD to to grow a bit more. We also expect them to continue to working closely with Addison County CUD which is also known as maple fiber. One other thing I didn't, I didn't touch on is in each of these districts, we are working with the districts to install additional Wi Fi hotspots to the point of where we're covering almost every single town. So I was hoping to share a map I will send that later but the, we are going so fast with installing the minute I create a map it's outdated. We will have 190 sites statewide by the time this is, this is over off the top of my head it's about 45 in the kingdom. I think 19 in Deerfield Valley it's there spread evenly around the state but with a focus in areas with lower levels of connectivity. So Addison County also known as maple fiber was there their new name, which is great. They, like all the other CUDs are working through their feasibility studies and about to move into the business planning status right now it's 16 towns and other towns are considering joining the Northwest CUD. This is another CUD that has a great number of volunteers that are participating it's one of the newer CUDs, mostly Franklin County, they're also maybe moving into the Grand Isle County with with the islands. Most of the islands are built out pretty well with cable though. The CUD is starting to work very closely with LaMoyle and the Kingdom CUD so they're in the end there may end up being one communication union district across the northern border. So LaMoyle Fibernet LaMoyle Fibernet and this is this goes to most of the CDs the CDs that are working closely with their regional planning commissions that are getting reached that are getting administrative support or project management support are the ones that are moving along the quickest out of the new ones. And that's one thing I want to highlight going forward and that type of cooperation and collaboration is something that I'm working hard to promote. It's one of our smaller CDs at this point consists of most of LaMoyle County, there are a few other towns that are that are considering or voting soon of whether to join, or whether to go at their own. Like many of the CDs they're discussing which model makes sense, whether it's a working with the utility whether it's a public private partnership. And then the Kingdom, our largest CUD will continue to grow. They are moving along one of the highlights of the project that they have underway is they're working with Kingdom Fiber right now to the goal is to connect 100 under served addresses in Albany with with Kingdom with fiber to the home in several towns and Albany, Crosbury Greensboro and Hardwick I believe 35 have been connected so far. We'll see if they reach 100 by the end. It says everybody everybody's up against a big deadline right now. I don't have to remind any of you that the challenges that go with that, and they're operating in it's a hybrid public private operator. The CUDs are looking at looking at that they may not duplicate what you see fiber is doing, where they both only infrastructure and opera and operate it. In the case of the kingdom, they're looking at possibly having multiple operators, but working to try to own the infrastructure. These are all questions that each of these CDs are looking at it's been quite the learning process. It's important to remember that the majority of these CUDs only really got started this summer. And I am beyond impressed by the number of volunteer hours that are put in and the progress that they've made. It's never enough of course there's still plenty of people that don't have access to broadband, but they are making progress and putting position positioning themselves to to be major players going forward. The fiber is about to issue an RFP. They are working to submit a loan application to Vita and are looking to build like several other CDs they had big plans for what they hope to be able to accomplish by the end of the year, they are moving forward. They have a project manager. I believe they're going to be looking for a new project manager. And that's just to identify another challenge. One of the challenges is, so some of this cares act money was able to provide that administrative and project management support, and that runs out the end of the year. So figuring out how to fill that gap is something that I've been spending a lot of time on. We've been partnering very closely with the Community Foundation to direct some funds to assist with that but it's, it's never enough. I can go over a little bit about some of the other funds we've leveraged at the, at the end of this. So, EC fiber, they admitted eight new towns. They hope to be building out some of them this year. They're very familiar with EC fiber. They are also just selling additional I think it's 12 million in the municipal bonds they were said they were going to be closing early December I don't know if that's happened, but they continue to steam ahead with serving additional people. So I know that was a quick overview of a lot of information on that slide. Welcome questions and can go from there. I'm going to stop the share. That was great. Rob and exactly what I was looking for in terms of giving us just a high level of where, where the CDs are to takeaways. I heard you talk about where the need for project management. Well, the first thing I heard you talk about where the hundreds of volunteers that we have standing these answering this call, and that they need project management support, and that they're having some public records request challenges that probably relates to the project management support. Committee do we have questions. Senator. Will the department be offering any recommendations to us about needs to change amend or expand the legislation that we have for CUDs. Thank you, Senator. That's a very good question. I think the, the answer is yes, but the question is timing. We're very much focused right now on CRF and emergency response recovery. So we've only had limited ability to convene internally to discuss the kinds of changes that are needed. I'm hoping that we can have a collaborative interaction with the jurisdictional committees on this as the session gets going but I am not where I'd like to be on that right now. Where I'd like to be with our own affirmative recommendations and the CUDs are all meeting they've created an organization called the CUDA that is meeting and has a policy committee that's looking at a lot of these issues. One other thing that that's happening that's being created with with the support of the Vermont Community Foundation is what we're calling a cut broadband accelerator program. That's going to be housed at due north that's going to address just bringing people up to speed when you have, I think we said it was 157 volunteers that are members of these boards. These are people that have a lot to learn in order to be able to actively participate. I know just since I've started last year the number of different terms I've learned. So we're creating this program that's going to be I think it's going to be a six week program where they help them get up to speed on the various issues, the various terminology the various tech and not technologies. So that's one other way of technical technical support that's being developed. There's also going to be a track for the executive committees of the various communication union districts to facilitate additional sharing of lessons learned ideas and strategies, and to keep facilitating more collaboration on things because there's new ideas out there there's always going to be new ideas, but there's also always lessons to be learned and we don't need to recreate the wheel every time even if the model is shifting a little bit with the times. One of the issues that you cited has been the problem of these open records requests and the fact that they have been very difficult for these volunteer groups to do. So have you provided, this is a multi part question, have you provided any guidance, particularly standardized guidance to the CUDs about how to do this. These groups now create yet another group, which is kind of an umbrella organization for the CUDs. Have you provided any clarity as to how and to what extent those that entity is also subject to the Open Records Act. Have you sought any legal advice that might help clarify that. So I'm going to take those questions, Senator. Forgive me, I've got a frog in my throat. Senator, you're highlighting a very difficult issue because the department providing legal advice is fraught with problems. So, we have provided as much guidance as can be provided without tripping over that line. And I cannot recommend that the department be doing that. So, some of the CUDs, if I'm not mistaken, Rob have used some of their CRF money to retain legal counsel and to get advice on Public Records Act issues. The other thing that's very touch, thank you. The other thing that's very touchy about this subject is that you're, you're talking about something that goes to the core of transparency. So the department would not, my department at least is not going to be making an argument for less transparency. But there is a real friction here, especially given the volunteer nature of the people who are doing this work in deciding how much of their time can we realistically accept will be spent on doing the work of the CUDs and then tending to the responsibilities of a governmental subunit when they're not even governmental employees. So these are things that need to be thought through. And I think the best thing to do would be to hear directly from the CUDs on that. The department's end or in a very, I think, untenable position if the expectation is that the department would provide the kind of legal counsel or clarity that you've highlighted and that I agree is needed very much. The other issue too is on this point, it's not just about logistics and resources, it's also about parity in a market. So there's a market dynamic that needs to be considered. If we're expecting the CUDs to participate in what is in the end a competitive market, then having them subject to a degree of disclosure about their business plans and the like, that their competitors are not is in my opinion problematic and something that needs to be addressed. Does that answer your question. It does and it also kind of begs the question about is there anything that needs to be done legislatively. It certainly as I said we aren't where we would like to be I have to say the strain on the department is enormous at this point and it's not just the telecommunications work that we're happy and pleased to be doing very proud of done. We're just, you know, we're dealing with the emergency and it's not sustainable in the end. I mean for a longer period of time and as a result our core missions are suffering at this point I have to frankly say, and you've, and this is there's there are a few issues I care more about than things like public records. And what's happening in our country shows that, you know, much of what we have in public records today as a function of the Watergate era. And what's happening now nationally in our federal government is showing that the lot of those reforms have limitations and we're learning lessons there that are going to need to be applied and do course and you know where we're going to find the time to digest all this I don't know. Senator kitchen I think had her hand up. She does. I did, I do. Um, obviously the staff of time and burden to undertake multiple for your requests is proving to be very substantial. Commissioner Tierney is there a provision under existing statute where, in fact, after X amount of time or requests that that there is a provision to bill for the time involved. I think that this is an area that needs further review senator because my memory of the statute as drawn is that yes there are provisions that that require or that that allow for billing the difficulty that we're struggling with now is there's a subsequent litigation, and a decision from the Vermont Supreme Court, and the administration has construed that decision in a manner that on the safe side counseling side, instructs the, I hope I'm using that word right the agencies to not charge their time. So at least not in ways that are that are for activities that are core to how we are dealing with records requests now that the records are available electronically. And I just want to emphasize for the record that the department has met every request that has been sent to it. We have not complained about the burden at all because it's not it's not good form and it's not proper for government to complain. I think it's a little different. These are volunteer citizens. And I think if you asked anyone of those people who are volunteering they would be the first to say they want government transparency so this isn't about feeling like someone's put upon for having to do this good transparency work it's that our expectations and our resources don't match the ideals in the statute. I just wanted to someone mentioned that and I just wanted to clarify because I think perhaps is the burden on CUD is particularly considering how thin the staffing is and dealing with volunteers poses a significant demand so I guess what you're saying is yes we've got some language but in response to Senator Brock's question maybe it's something that in light of that court decision needs to needs to be looked at legislatively in terms of what's in the statute. I think and it's very important to be clear about the different issues here that are intersecting. One is clarifying the statute in light of recent case law. The second is re examining the statute in light of what state government's capabilities actually are as opposed to the expectations and making greater harmony there. But the third is the what I think of as unique position of the CUDs. The fourth is more quasi governmental and in that arena to the extent that they're governmental yes there are public records request issues that perhaps need to be revisited for them, but on the other side of that the part that's quasi where their competitors in a market. That's where I think if there was ever a case for some form of carve out treatment. It's in that regard because he is just not fair to expect them to compete with a hand tied behind their backs. So, happy to revisit that more perhaps and go ops or whatever the the committee is but yes I think that would be productive area for legislative attention. I think it's good information for this committee and the committee's jurisdiction to have not only the time that this is taking for the CUDs, but also the volume of requests that I'm aware of that are coming into the committee and just understanding that and what it takes to to respond to that I think is important when we think about all of the work that needs to happen at the department and just making sure we're, we're aware of that. Does the committee have any additional questions on CUDs. I do have one more thing do it one more thing I just want to touch on and that is the Vita broadband loan expansion program. Many of the CUDs are looking at that right now and I believe there's less than $10 million left in that. There's also the issue of it's the way the legislation says is that Vita can fund up to 90% of the loan. It was interpreted by a lot of the CUDs as meaning that only they had to come up with a 10% contribution from our talk with talks with Vita. That's not the case. It's at least a 10% contribution and not having a set number is causing challenging issues, just a planning issues. So, Rob, I have a question for you on this have have we had a beat alone that's been made. We have we have not had a beat alone that's been made to a CUD it looks like CV fiber will ideally be the first the ones that have been made so far are to are to private private to a private entity. And one, correct. I think that entity has had several loans now, but it's just a single entity yes. Jane. I need to see my memory is like a junkyard. But we did appropriate money to be the match for the CUDs. And I don't, I think it might have been general fund, which allows us, you know, we're not working against that December deadline so I just wanted to remind people that the legislature did respond to that, to that neat match need to help with the development of the CUDs and so at this point there's been one then match. Okay, everyone's very excited about that and know that there has not been one match yet, because no CUDs have applied just to just to clarify there. But they're they're excited and we're excited to roll out that roll out that program. Thank you. Thanks Rob. Okay, we're going to move on into the monthly report. It will be I just want to point out that we provided you with a document this morning that Brett Clay is going to be briefing you off of those numbers are the most recent numbers as compared to the ones in the report that are now out of date. So, Clay, go ahead. Okay, I'm sorry. Whether or not clear, I'm sorry. Well, no, I just want to make sure I printed out the November 30 report. There's a document that we gave Mike this morning. It's a it's a table of figures basically. I plan to share my screen so. Okay, go ahead. So you'll, you'll see the information I'm talking about. Great. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Clay pervist director for telecommunications with the department of public service. In a moment, I'm going to share my screen. Is this showing up. There are three showing up clay and it's essential and there you go. I'm sorry there are three. Okay. It's there now. All right, great. Thank you. So it was asked to prepare information on CRF expenditures. We filed a report for the November COVID response connectivity report. Talking about our expenditures to date. So this chart here that I have, we put together to show what our expected expenditures will be at the end of the year. And most of them aligned with the chart or the report we filed in November, or for November, excuse me. The one variation that I want to discuss at the outset is that in the November report. We're going to subtract the amount that was reallocated for the water wastewater. So that is not present in our report, but it's present here. So these numbers should be correct. And as far as the spending authority common spending allocation column goes should align with what reports the administration is filing with the joint fiscal committee. So for connectivity. At the outset, we allocated 12 million. We've, we've obligated as in we have contracts for 11,974,000. For line extensions. And that was capped at 2 million. We put the 2 million toward line extensions. We've only had 550,000 obligated. These are line extensions that could be done by the end of the year. So that leaves a rather large balance at the end of the year. And the cause of this is largely due to the constraints on the December that are placed on carriers by the December 30 deadline. So, excuse me. Question on that. Yeah. I've seen a document that talks about what would appear to be the possibility of extending the amount of time to do installations because of things like supply chain disruptions. Yes, we talked to Apple previously about long lead times to get fiber in. And as a result, that backed up our timeline but I gather there's some, that some treasury guidance out that provides some exceptions. Could you address that. Yes, I can. They, there is treasury guidance. The state's consultant has a memo out on. I can send you a link to that memo on line on extensions of time. It is possible to have a copy of that memo. It's just called supply chain disruption guidance and analysis. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. The major different when we will probably avail ourselves of that for some line extensions that we funded as well as connectivity initiative projects because we are experiencing delays due to things like supply chain issues make ready has been a big issue. Not to put any poll owning utility down every poll owning utility that we've dealt with has has gone above and beyond what they were required to do under the poll make ready rules, including consolidated and GMP GMP has really done a lot of extra work to get polls prepared. But in many instances, I think we're going to see the need to to provide extensions of time for both line extensions and connectivity initiative projects. The fundamental difference here with a lot of these projects is from the outset carriers told us no we can't get this completed by December 30, and I think it would be disingenuous of us to attempt to start a project knowing at the outset that the carriers just don't have the resources, such as staffing to complete line extensions before December 30. The thing that I was thinking about in particular was further expansion of fixed wireless and I know that there were number of proposals some of which the department accepted. There are others that are still on the shelf. If the equipment were in fact available. I would think that some of those could be finished by the end of the year, but they're not available and would not fall within the the guidance of this particular item to allow that to be accepted now, but subject to the equipment being delivered later and therefore qualify for that exemption. If there was a possibility I'd have to review the guidance a little more closely on that particular hypothetical and give you an answer. It would seem to suggest since the department has already accepted several projects along those lines that that might be one way to expand broadband fairly substantially within the confines of this $3.8 million that's unspent So along those lines. I think before we are looking. I'd like to understand about the current obligations for wireless that have been made before we're talking about expanding that and I have some pretty good questions in that regard. We had asked in October. How those wireless addresses and particularly made to folks who don't have the best track record and delivering what they have said, how those would be certified how we would know that they were in fact providing 253. And so, you know, I'm, I'm wondering if we can get an answer to that question to several questions I have in that regard. The first one being have all the wireless addresses that have been paid paid, not obligated been certified for 253. And if so, can you tell us about the certification process. If I, if I may for a moment jump in here. Senator Brock was asking a question about the use of the cares act money. And I'd like to just tie that up and then go to your Q amp a representative Sabilia about these verification issues. Well, I think Senator Brock is asking about using these funds to expand wireless. Yeah, I just want to make sure the record is clear about what it is we're talking about, because the document that's up right now reflects the amount of money that we have obligated squarely within the existing Treasury guidance so that if there's an other, these are things that we have a high degree of confidence are going to pass muster this variance that's left over the 1.4 million to which Senator Brock is pointing along with the other remaining funds in the balance. What I hear you to be saying is couldn't we be accepting more projects, because there is this Treasury guidance out there that says that under certain circumstances, if it's an equipment delay or the like. There is act eligible activity, not withstanding that it wouldn't necessarily be tied up before December 30. And the way I would answer that is, in the first instance, we've, we've hewed very closely to the Treasury guidance as it existed. When we first started approving projects under this program. And as clay was saying the standard at that time for us was, if we don't think there's a good faith chance that this is going to get done by that December 30 timeframe, then it's irresponsible to have the project launch that said clay if if I remember correctly we have kept track of folks who have contacted us and who wanted line extensions, whose projects we could not necessarily in good faith go forward with in the hopes that if the timeline were to be extended or if the consultants were to be more forgiving, if you will, and the guidance they give along the lines of what you're talking about is that there's a lot of work that those could be then funded. And then, thirdly, in the emergency telecom plan draft that we're reviewing right now. Those folks have made a case that this program should continue. And because it's a useful tool and toolbox subject to the concerns that represent a civilian is now articulating. In that case, and there is some chatter coming out of DC that the deadline that December 30 deadline will be extended. Of course, there will be a question of whether this legislature choose chooses to leave this funding in place or sweep it to use it for something else, but assuming that the deadline were extended, or at a minimum that we're to opine that we in fact could procure equipment, knowing that it isn't going to get here, and isn't going to be deployed until after December 30. It is possible that we could do more extensions under this program, but that is not where the department is right now and we would want something more directed from the legislature I think before we went down that path. Thank you representative civilians questions. Do you want us to tie off the CRF expenditure discussion, or do you want to go into the verification process now. I'd like to go into the verification process now because of the time that we have left and I have. I think it's really pertinent in terms of thinking about how any remaining funds may be spent and so I have a number of questions. So we're talking about certification process and the ability to claw back on particularly wireless and fixed wireless awards that have been made, and so we are as we speak we are in the process of getting these grants performed. So the first the first focus has been getting the grant signed the contractors getting to work on deploying to the addresses that are specified in their grant agreements, and for which they have assumed a legal obligation to verify that the speed that they have told us in the grant process that they are going to be delivering to those addresses, in fact, is being delivered, or deliverable. That's the 25 three or better speed that's correct. So they have assumed that obligation in the grant agreement. We have not yet closed out any grants agreements to my knowledge clay and I don't think we expect to. Before December 30, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong in that clay. I'll close out a few I'm not sure. We, we are not right we have not dispersed any funds either except to the extent that we have done pre approved payment agreements for the smaller providers who simply can't afford to do this on credit. All of which we've documented. So, at this time, we have not paid anything. I'm sorry, tell me what closed. Can you please explain what closed out means. Clay, will you speak to that place. After the project is completed, you know, what we get from grantees is a report describing the project that was completed. The information will be vast including certification that the addresses included in the grant agreement do in fact have service. So we've each a grant agreement has the list of addresses down to the 911 each site ID that they're required to build service to for wireless carriers they do have to perform a speed test and provide us with that information in addition to the certification that they have in fact serve those addresses. They have to do a speed test where at the address or is that. Okay, and so then every wireless address that you will pay for when you close out that grant is when you will pay for it and that will have a certified speed test for the address done by the provider. Correct. So, my, my next question on that is what, yeah. Well, there's one detail before you go to your next question which is that there's a provision in the grant agreement that expressly states that if they fail to certify less than 85% of the addresses in their grant. They are subject to forfeiture of their entire grant. So, to be clear with you, there is a margin in there of addresses where they may not be able to certify. And the check on that is if that margin gets beyond 15%, they lose their entire grant for the addresses that they are not able to certify they get a pro rata reduction of their grant. So, is it, is it, you know, 5% is 5% off. It's up to 15% at 15% if you failed to certify 15% of the addresses that you said you were going to provide service that you lose your entire grant. And so if you fail to provide at 5% is you forfeit 5% correct. Yeah, you forfeit a pro rata share that's correct. And is there any provision commissioner, you know, in, in March, say these have been paid for certified paid for and we have they don't actually the folks don't actually have to be taking service correct. So we have folks that go to take service and it is found that in fact a certified address is not providing service. Do we have any the service obligation is for five years so once the, the, once the project is complete they have to provide service to those locations in accordance with the grant agreement for five years. Okay, and that that five year period is important because that provides the framework for what I think of as the, the independent check by the department. So we don't just rely on the representation in the certification, although I want to emphasize that certification has a very precise legal significance. It comes with what's, you know, called heightened indicia of reliability, and it forms the basis of an enforcement action if they're found to be a breach of their agreements, as in, you certified that you were doing this and now you're telling this, you haven't, that's actionable as a breach. But that said what we plan to do is to put out a mailer to all of the listed addresses. Announcing to them that this service has been procured and deployed. It's available to you to take. And if you have any difficulties taking the service, or if the service is not at the speed that was represented. Then contact the Department of Public Service. So that's the, that's the first, you know, you know, and I think the most important check on that. I will, I will tell you frankly that what happens next depends on judgment about what the feedback means. We're from two or three people about problems, and we contact the carrier and are able to resolve two or three problems. That's indicative of a system that's working, meaning a regulatory check. And I think, you know, we can be, we can, we can applaud that if we are getting back a response level that indicates that there's a bigger problem. If we start hearing from 10s and 20s and 30s of people who are having difficulty getting the thing that's supposed to be available to them. That becomes the basis of an enforcement action that's more legal in nature, as in going to court suing for breach of agreement. There's a degree of judgment that will have to be exercised about what to do in the face of the numbers that we're getting by way of feedback and that's very much the way that we approach other types of enforcement actions like like this for other utility services. Thank you commissioner this as you know is an area of significant concern for me and I'm satisfied today with that your department is really managing for legitimate concerns. So thank you for the explanation. We are getting close on time. I would like to give clay a moment to go through the rest of this. Do you mean the numbers on the screen. Yes. Yeah, very good because I just want to draw the committee's attention in case we run out of time to the fact that we've also provided you with a new coverage map that shows the outcome of the opportunity fund auction that the FCC just concluded that may be of interest to you. There wasn't on your agenda for today so we'll, but it's there for you to look at and if you have any questions please let us know we're happy to answer them. Go ahead clay. Thank you. I'm saying the line extension is under budget but to the extent there is an extension of time or we are able to do line extensions in 2021. I do believe the capacity is there. We have a lot of applications that are simply on hold because we've been told that by the carrier that they just can't simply get to these by December 30. And if there is an extension we would expect to complete those and significantly increase that number on broadband subsidy. Thank you to the low take rate take rate has increased significantly in the past two weeks. I think as a result of some advertising efforts that the department undertook in November. So we still have 1200 applications that are pending that carriers are working through. This program we budgeted 3 million, one over 3 million for. That's now down to 2 million 658 but again, if an extension were to occur. I think this would be a valuable program to continue through the school year. I don't know how many spots Rob could speak to that we're going to blow the budget on that everybody wants a hot spot. That's been very successful and from the standpoint of deployment and popular with the towns and the communities that are receiving them. If you have questions about CD infrastructure and planning I would defer to Rob. The 2.3 million that was allocated to to CDs to do planning. A lot of the same problems with the other infrastructure projects, just getting projects done by December 30 has proven very problematic. But CDs have come up with some creative ways to do something valuable in their communities. So with 19 telecom plan. We budgeted 500 we're spending 475 peg TV funding we're going to draw that down to zero. But if we could just go back to the emergency telecom plan we've also provided you with a slide deck that the consultants have been using to brief folks and public hearings around the state. So we're going to go back to those findings we expect the final report December 20. And at that time we're happy to schedule a legislative briefing of any description that you folks feel would be useful for your colleagues to ask your former colleague Mr done to walk through that report for you. I have gotten we are. We are at time. We have not gotten to the emergency plan and we may not have gotten to. I have but I want to be sensitive of my colleagues and your, your staff's time commissioner. Are there any. Last questions or important issues that you think should not wait. Commissioner or committee. Well at what point will we be as a committee be able to hear about the, the broadband plan. And again, the planning which is also on our agenda read the 10 year telecommunications plan those I think are critical. Those I think are critical issues that should not wait until we're back in January. So we have a letter from the commissioner and that is posted on our site about the regular 10 year telecom plan. Senator, did you want to try and schedule a hearing before in between December 20 and January 6 so that we can hear the report the issues going going out the gate that we we need to deal with early in the legislative session but I'll be mindful of what other members of the committee think at this point. I certainly would agree with you I think that we had some encouragement not to, not to add additional meetings at this point and so you know we're just running into the, you know, we're running into the holiday, we're in the holiday period and looking at the legislative session and then we have the committees of jurisdiction, coming into play who of course will want to be hearing about this. You know maybe, Senator, this is something that you and I can speak with the commissioner about offline and maybe the chairs of the two committees jurisdiction maybe we can hold a joint hearing on that telecom plan, either with the commission with our committee. I don't know if you have any other suggestions for today. Again, we don't have to proceed. Okay, so take it offline and and discuss the best way forward. Anyway, there are a lot there's a lot to discuss and learn and hear about and limited time so we did receive a number of documents. Before we conclude the meeting play why don't you, if you wouldn't mind, just tell us about the documents or commissioner, whoever is best suited to tell us about the documents that have been posted to site. I can do that so there's this document. And I can tell that he went over is also posted. I've posted as well the the rural digital opportunity fund map. And I'm happy to discuss that map with members offline, but that shows the census blocks that have been funded through phase one of the art off auction. You can see it's many areas of the state and so that that's broadband that'll be built in state over the next six years. I believe that's it for material. I'm missing one mic you might chime in if I forgot something. Okay. Okay. So with that, I think we will adjourn I want to thank everyone for their time today commissioner. As always, we've run out of time and you're we have a lot that we want to discuss with you so we will be in touch to talk outside of this committee and look forward to working with you in the upcoming legislative session. If it helps to happy to offer that we come in as early as possible in the legislative session to brief you on what will then be the final emergency broadband action plan. And happy to brief you on the RFP that we've put out for the 10 year plan. If that helps I just know that between now and the end of the year, things get awfully crowded for everybody. I understand Senator Brock's concern about wanting to take these very important matters up I think what we're starting to feel frankly is the the lag is now caught up to us the things that are getting deferred because we're dealing with the emergency. However, we'll get you a available a copy of the RFP that we can look at glad to get you that we can send you that. Thank you. Let me just for the purposes just just to do it does do folks on the committee feel like we could meet again prior to the session. I think it's really tough and so I, I guess the question is, is there something there that is so time sensitive that action needs to be taken to warrant another meeting versus a briefing, and maybe we could get through other material. I, I am, I am feeling just really hammered with meetings between now and Christmas to be honest. My sense was that was the case. I think Commissioner if you find that your department is in a position where you're looking to reallocate. I think we would be quite interested in weighing in on that. So, yeah, it gets tricky because this is the joint fiscal committee process and of course Senator Kitchell is very familiar with that too. But you know an answer to your question is there anything time sensitive if there is that would be it right that we're trying to move some money around in ways that are is materially different from what's authorized right now in statute. In terms of the planning that Senator Brock is interested in. I don't think it's time sensitive. Unless in reviewing the RFP. You see an issue there and anyway, I do be perfectly our focus right now is on emergency response. I have one comment and I, I'm trying to find the document because in fact, at our lot this joint fiscal committee meeting we had there, the administration was proposing different uses of these funds, and I suspect and some of it was over a million from that we had allocated to education and raised the concern about how how and we're proposing alternative uses. And so I, I want to check that list because I do believe that there is the potential that money that was originally allocated Commissioner Tierney's department has is being proposed for reallocation which raises a serious concern if there is in fact an avenue to preserve that CRF funding for the purposes that were originally intended as Senator Brock has identified an avenue to do that. So Senator I'll have to look into that I can tell you that as far as my desk is concerned and my pen is concerned. I have not proposed any reallocations of my department's funding to the administration. I'll chase that down somebody else. If that has happened. I will chase it down because we received a graph chart from the administration that indicated where they were going to find the money to support the proposals that they advanced to joint fiscal committee meeting. Two days ago. That's the document that will tell us whether the money has been scooped identified to be scooped and the at that point the committee was reluctant to move forward. Because of where some of the sources were that were identified. And so we did only a minimal approval of two requests. One was very straightforward to the National Guard for setting up the surge hospital and the other was to make sure we had adequate funding for the hazard pay benefit program for those frontline employees working in retail etc. So I will I will look at the chart and I will send it out to the chair and co chair and then you can distribute it from there. And Senator, if it's possible if you could let me know if you find out anything because I'm trying to give you comfort that as far as I know my monies have not been touched. I obviously I don't control what the administration at levels above me chooses to do, but my experience has been that they have not yet taken money from me without talking to me and I don't believe they have taken money. I hope that's the case. Yeah, I've walked I've tried to walk that line with how do we where I felt responsibility is getting money back to you folks if you've wanted it for something else that I've held on to it too long. Was that the December 7th meeting. Yes, yeah, I'm looking at the chart and we don't have DPS on there that I. Because I stayed out of that one because I was involved if you recall in the November one, but I didn't put anything forward in December because I was thinking you know let's see how far we can get with our money. Before we turn it over to you folks to put. Representative Sabilia has answered the question. None of none of the, that chart did not include any reallocation from your department. But this is a very helpful exchange because as you saw from the chart we presented today, if we do have that $3 million overage. My thought is, and this is really what Jai talk can help me with my thought is that we should try to hold on to that money. In case there is an extension of the timeline and use it for the purposes that it was appropriated for, but there is tension there because I'm aware that money is needed in the unemployment insurance fund and the like. So if you have guidance to give me on that I'm all ears. But we've we've it's been weighing on us heavily that we do have this $3 million here that we're having trouble with. So Commissioner, I'm going to ask that if we get to a reallocation spot for you that you reach out to Senator Brock and I and that we see if there is, at least if there's a way for us to meet briefly to talk about that. Sounds like a plan for the year. Senator Brock is that work for you. Okay, great. Okay, I want to thank everyone and I appreciate your patience. I wish we had more time I appreciate everyone staying with us over time here. And wish you all happy holidays. Thank you again Commissioner and your staff. We know that you all are doing triple time. Thank you for all of your input legislators you've been extremely helpful and I've personally enjoyed this collaboration.