 So I don't want to be redundant and I apologize I wasn't on the line to hear, but maybe just it's just appropriate to say that it's so nice to start our day with all of you. And I want to thank you all for the faith that you've bestowed upon us. You know, we've a lot has happened since we saw you in June. We've spent a little more than half of the money in the grants, and we expect within a couple weeks that it'll be fully subscribed to so we're feeling good about getting money out the door and helping people. It's mostly gone really well. We've, you know, learned a lot. I like to call these learning opportunities as we go and as Ted probably outlined yesterday that, you know, we have a variety of areas that we'd like to revisit with your help to to focus on some of the people that didn't receive the support that they still need so badly. And so please tell me if you didn't go over those but I'm talking about like sole proprietors and some very new businesses, nonprofits, and what not as well as really preparing ourselves for some months ahead that we wish this this crisis was going to be over soon but it looks like we need to buckle up for a little bit longer here and and plan. And we also have what we would call an urgent request to address the needs of some downtowns and communities that the better places safer spaces and some municipal grant ideas that would really enable businesses and municipalities to continue to deliver services to people, but they need some money to make some adjustments so we have a variety of things in the pipeline and as you mentioned, we want to talk to all of our commissioners about how things have gone and learn about what we want to want to do going forward so with that I will turn it back over to you and again really glad to be with you all. Okay, thank you for that. Just a few words. I personally think things have gone. Somewhat according to our goals and personally, my goals in terms of, I think you know there was a lot of back and forth back in June about how slowly or quickly we acted. Personally, I think our committee thinks we acted very quickly and we're only able to do so by giving you a great deal of discretion in how to go forward and the ability to learn as you went forward to come back at this point in time and make adjustments so we acted as quickly as we can. We could, if we had taken the time to design these programs to the end degree, we would still be in session right now and no money would have been out the door. So I think together we did it right. And now we're here to fine tune that and hear what you've learned. We did hear about all the things you mentioned, but only very peripherally we had Ted on for 25 minutes, yesterday, and we were hoping to drill down to more specifics, either with you or the commissioners this morning. So I'll leave it to you as to whether you think it's best for you to share those specifics with us. Otherwise, I would move into probably to Joan at this point. And let her tell us about the recovery grant issues. I think that's a great path. Don't forget to unmute yourself. Okay. First, I should say, well, good morning everybody and thanks for having us I. I want to make sure that you all receive the interim report on the economic development grants and if not I could forward it directly right now to mark Grimes so in there is a very good review of what we've done so far but it really goes up to probably the data from two weeks ago. But generally it's like 3500 businesses have already been paid across 22 different sectors in every county of Vermont. And, you know, yes we we tend to focus on the gaps right we know that we've left their sole props were not served and and new businesses that didn't have a prior year to compare to were left out people with less than 50% loss were left out people with over 20 million in revenue were left out and also our calculation in terms of being a percentage of revenue didn't take into consideration all of the unmet needs so we understand the shortcomings but having said all that we were able to set up a system rather quickly in a situation where over the summer there were many other agencies also setting up the system with the same consultant so you know all in all, we were able to get some help to the most, most in dire needs so first just let me ask do you have the report where I could share the screen and go through some of it is that helpful to you. I think we have, I mean we have at least what I have is the administration's proposals going forward, and we okay. We have Ted's work from yesterday, your beautiful restatement budget. So I did we get the, the update in terms of what's actually been done. I haven't seen it but I haven't looked at emails this morning so if I'm able to share it with us again. We do have the outline from Ted of yesterday and we have Lindsay's email from a week ago, but the actual detailed report I don't know that we can do that. Okay. And am I sending that to Mark Grimes? Is that M Grimes? Is that right? Right. That is correct mgrimes.leg.state.ft.us. I've also given you co-hosting permission so once you send that if you want to just go ahead and share the screen then you'll be able to roll right with it while I get it posted. Okay perfect. Let me just figure that out. You can also just email it to Senate Economic Development. We don't get it and we can bring it up. Yeah, I just sent it to Mark. Mark will take it from there. Okay. And now to share the screen. Let me just make sure I could see that. Oh, okay. Share screen. So what is your pleasure? I thought we should do a review of what we've done so far and then that sets the tone for kind of going forward into what the asks are for additional funding. Is that acceptable Chairman? That's fine. Have you got it? Did you do this yesterday in commerce? Yes, I did a bit of this in commerce. So this report was sent last week. This was asked for the statute that we needed to report on August 15. And it gives an overview of both the funding from Act 115 and Act 137. We combined in many cases the tax and ACCD data. In some cases, it wasn't comparable because we had some unique attributes that they did not have. This gives an idea of the amount that was subscribed for. And we use the word subscribe because we didn't award everybody on ACCD at least we do payment files every week. And this tax is a much more straight through system by virtue of their tax system is able to calculate this. We set up a sales force system and as you know, or may know that's a contact management system and then what we did is from that information from the intake of applications were able to make payments each and every week. So a fair amount of interest in terms of amount subscribed for. And then in terms of the amounts awarded here are the sum of the total grants awarded by county. And then the grant award amounts by county. So those are just absolute numbers and it can't really glean much from them. So what we did is we did a little bit more analysis. We did a little bit about the grant volume by county as compared to the state employment share. And there you could see there aren't really many surprises I mean the blue solid blue is the number of businesses served. The percent of all businesses served and then the state employment share in each of those counties. Not many surprises there but you could see there's a pretty even distribution in terms of the weight of how many people were served versus what the representation is on employment. And here's just more data in terms of aggregate applications the revenue reported. Sorry, I don't know what happened there. The grant details by county. Can't move this over there with me. And then again the county percentage of overall state employment. What is the the relevance of PPB ideal is that that shows for those people who receive state grants, how much they receive from the federal. Yes, yes it was an aggregation of all those applications we did ask for the amounts that they received from the federal assistant so we have the data. And it just kind of shows this is the dollars that have been deployed in those counties aggregate of some of the state awards and the sum of the federal as has been reported to us. So if I were to eyeball that. It looks like a very general statement would be that the state money equals about half of half of the people were spoken federal money. Really, it does that county by county pretty much but also the total 46 to 95. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. And then by firm size is an interesting one as well. The color is percent of grant dollars. The orange is percent of employees and the blue is percent of grant apps you could see on the very first row sole proprietors 36% of the applications were from sole proprietors doesn't mean that those are all funded. Again this is a subscription kind of data just to show the activity. In terms of the percent of employees that represents you'll see much smaller but but in terms of the percent of grant apps percent of grant dollars, you know, 28%, which is the largest, largest percentage of employees is in the 10 to 24 employee range. Definitely. Yeah. Sorry this Becca. Can you just remind me what does WBE and MBE eligible. Can you remind me. Sure. So in each 966 there was a separate set aside of $5 million to go to Vermont Community Loan Fund. And we ended up doing those transactions for them, half of the 5 million was for women owned business and half was for minority owned. So what we did is and the way the statute read it was the set aside was for entities that had zero to five employees, we set aside the money for just the ones that had sole proprietors with zero employees and the reason for that is because if they had one through five employees they were eligible for our broader, much more expansive pool. But this just shows how much demand there was from that group. You know, and the majority of the applications. So, and we were the only ones that that was the only area like tax did not do sole props, you know, so that was the only area for them to get funding. So, is this first line for sole proprietors. These numbers. Do they include sole proprietors who applied and were rejected, or this is just the women owned and minority owned businesses. Yeah, because this is the subscription data point it really is those who applied it doesn't mean they all were awarded so I will go to another graph which I think we'll show that bear with me a moment. Let me just find that. I thought there was another one. I thought there was another graph that showed that but what do you have on this graph here you have 20% of grant recipients were sole proprietors. That's right. So that yeah this is the grant this is the the the element then that is important the percent of grant dollars a percent of grant recipients and the business size contribution to state employment. So we really were it's much more heavily weighted on the smaller business. And I think like right from the beginning, you know, we kind of could tell this may happen because of the cap of the $50,000 that we had as a cap so the larger business to you could see that, even though they represent a larger percentage of the state employment. There's less of the grant recipients and less of the grant dollars. I'm just still struggling with this 20% sole proprietors of all the grants you gave out one fifth were to sell proprietors, and that's just from the women and minority owned businesses. Yeah, and that's not the grant dollars remember it's the numbers of applications. So how many applications. How many applications over how many grants overall were given to buy a CCD and tax. Is that the 3300 or something. Yeah, it's the 3500. 3500 so 20% of those did reach sole proprietors in the minority and women in those sectors. Let me ask a question if I may jump. And with with respect to the sole proprietor issue. But let's take a situation in which a person is a sole owner of an S corporation and the only W to employee of that corporation. And is not a minority and is not a women, a woman. I mean, they wouldn't be eligible under that category, but there was some restriction as I recall that restricted. The ability to participate. In which it said essentially there wasn't a restriction of at least one non owner employee that was zero employees for women and minorities. So how does this whole program affect that employee, that particular situation. Yeah, so, as Secretary curly alluded in the beginning, you know we learned as we went right you did give us discretion to organize this and the statute said, at least one employee. And we started out this by saying okay you needed one non owner employee because we didn't want to differentiate between sole props and people who registered as escorts. But soon thereafter we changed it. And so we allowed those who have escort or C Corp and they have themselves as a W to employee. They are permitted to apply but they would show up under the one to four category, not the sole proprietors, because technically they are a one employee operation and they themselves are the employee. There was a subsequent change but at the point that change occurred. This is a first come first serve program was the money largely expired by the time they were eligible to apply. No not at all they. So what happened when we made the change is we went through the system the system had a number of people who had been previously deemed ineligible or denied. And into the system and change that status to incomplete which meant that they were allowed then to upload a W to or some sort of proof that they indeed were the employee. And so those were tended to, because again that came out of the general pool it wasn't that separate set aside that had such a small, you know, portion of money. I say. Thank you. Okay. So what I have as I look at this is, there's a lot of criticism or concern expressed for the people that were not covered, and you're going to address that as we go on. Any outreach or have you started hearing from anybody in the form of appreciation for what has been put out on the street and how it's been helped people and have. I mean, it seems like we're putting out a lot of money between the state and the feds to help business to survive do we have any, we're keeping any catalog or trying to generate any success stories. Yeah, we are. There are people who are totally appreciative and they've sent emails to us and we, I think through our communications team will be able to present some very positive stories. To be honest, we've been kind of buried with this so I haven't, we haven't really kind of promoted, you know, here's all the help that's gone out we're also sent as sensitive to the fact that this is for many of them a mere portion of what they need to survive I don't want to claim any type of victory at this juncture but yes there are people who are clearly appreciative and again we all are we all seem to tend to go and analyze the gaps and make sure we fix those holes and that's what we're all here to do but yes indeed. We definitely know that this has helped. We people have told us. So, people have criticize us they start their email with, you know, you're doing a great job, but you know, or they'll say, you know, this is not helping me but you know thank you for all that you're trying to do so I think overall it's been a very positive experience for all of us and all of us that are all the people that are helping on this on this journey. Okay, Joan. I've heard those same comments that people are very appreciative appreciative, but I'm also still hearing people who are concerned that with the first come first served model that we're using because they feel as if they're being left out is that going to be with the next rollout will that be considered and will we will there be time to compare what's been put out and the businesses that are requesting and will they will those businesses that seem to have moved ahead, but still qualify for the requirements that we've put in will they kind of be second tier to the people that haven't gotten anything yet. Yeah, no we recognize that you know they're sort of with three choices of how we could implement this first come first serve was one. And the other was to put a date certain and assess all the demand and then distribute based on a prorata share so like New Hampshire did something like that where you know they had a pot of money, they did a pre at. They found out the total amount of the demand and it ended up being where the people got 17% the percentage prorata was like 17% because of that demand and we felt like that would be unfair to folks. So yeah, we recognize there are gaps we were not saying it's to be all end all, we are open to other avenues, I think each of them have their drawbacks so I think that's the nature of coming back to assess the gaps and figure out how to do this. And analyze that and talk about the best way to do it I mean, you know first come first serve has not been a problem so far, but as we announced the supplemental grant. Last week for for those who already reached the maximum, it will become more of more of an issue, you know, but I think that there's been ample time for people to apply to be honest means July 6, it came out it's already end of August. We still getting applications and the way the statute was written it was for one month loss from March through August so we expect there'll be applications in September for to account for the August loss so we'll see but clearly there are limitations both in the way the statute was written as well as the way the program was designed and we're open. We're open to discussing that. This next slide is just to show the distribution of across sectors. And as you can see it's no surprise food services retail accommodations are all up at the top in terms of the total grant dollars. And, you know, it's, we really touched just about every sector, the on the on the right hand side, there's a breakdown of the average loss. So what we did is, we calculate the average loss for each of those sectors. And then we see up at the top the accommodations being really number one and transportation and arts and recreation and food service showing the significant loss. You know, the first slide that I showed you know we kind of breeze past it but most of the funding came out of that 75% loss bucket from Act 115. And the people who applied for us were the ones most in need so in that sense, we felt like we were serving the people that we set out to serve. What would be useful for me is when I look at the food service $17 million in grants. Is there a way to do you have numbers on a further slide to what those grantees receipts were. I'm trying to figure out how much help this 17 million reflects I know we did 10% of their receipts up to $50,000 but I still don't have any idea whether we're, we're giving 1% of their receipts 20% of their receipts how big of a help is this and when I go back to the slide earlier that the grants generally represent only half of what they might have got from the federal government. I'm trying to understand how much help these individual businesses have gotten relative to their need, and that's going to be important as we look at your plan for additional money is going out. Right. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I don't have a slide, particularly for that but I think if you're what you're getting at is what what percentage of revenues is this really represent and even though we paid 10% of revenue, there were plenty of people who reached the maximum 50,000 so obviously it's going to represent a much smaller percentage of revenue for them. So, it's hard to answer that question at this juncture, I think for people who, who have smaller amount of fixed expenses. Obviously this is going to be a much more impactful for them. And for those where this represented a tiny percentage of their revenue this may not have helped them as much now the overlay. You can't really come to any sort of strict conclusions you'd have to look at that particular businesses overhead, and whether or not they got back to work in May, you know, able to do something, but the food accommodation services and hospitality and to some extent transportation for sure are still and just based on our kind of we at ACCD we had a two step review process so we had reviewers and approvers looking through each and every one of these applications and it was clear that those are the most damaged sectors which is why we came up with this supplemental plan to pay additional funds to them. I don't know if that answered it enough but it helps. I'm going to have to. I would like to dig a little deeper but let me just understand and I hope the committee can understand. How did you, for people who didn't reach the maximum. How did you calculate their grant or let's say you had a dry cleaner business that came to you that suffered a loss that qualify for the program. The next step is to determine what their and I guess I'm not. I try to find a business that's outside of the tax department but in your department. How did you determine the size of the grant. So in both in both the tax department and ACCD we had a standard grant calculation, the grant calculation was 10% of 2019 revenues with the maximum award of $50,000. So that was standard across the board. So that tax was able to calculate that by going through the tax receipts but you had to go look at tax returns. Yes, so we did. Yes, we had to the applicant filled in information about their annual revenue. They filled an application about the month of the loss they filled in that particular month revenue in 2020 and that particular month revenue in 2019. And so we had to include profit and loss statements and tax returns and the reviewers would go through that documentation. Okay, thank you. Senator, if I may, I think I see where you're one of the places you're trying to get to is, you know, we set the grant cap at the 50,000. For example, in, you know, we, we first sent grant awards out. In the $500,000 a year business, you received $50,000. If you were $5 million a year business you received $50,000 and that that $50,000 was supposed to represent two or maybe three months of your fixed costs. If you get those two businesses, their fixed costs are arguably going to be significantly different. And so if you're the $5 million business, you received an award amount that was closer to 8%, whereas the $500,000 a year gross revenue business received 10%. And that was why we ultimately lifted that grant award cap, because we were trying to make it a little bit more equitable and it still is, is imperfect, but I'm wondering if it would be helpful to you if we ran a report that maybe showed the was eligible what the total gross revenue was and looked at what the total awards was and maybe it'll give us a better percentage so you can really see what the grant award amount is. Is that the number you're trying to drive at? I'm trying to drive at the question you just sort of phrased is very early on, I know I wrote to the department I said, I really think this is in the $50,000 cap is an example for the bigger businesses and isn't there a way to do this. Better, and you're coming up with a way to do it better but you're still doing it in an imperfect way by having a cap. So anyhow, we will get to that so let's let's move on. I went back to this slide to show a little bit about what we're talking about because when you look and by county but so if you look at the applications, this 2019 revenue reported give you gives you a sense of the aggregate revenue reported for the businesses that applied in that county. So for Addison it was 60 million, and in total the some of the awards that went to Addison was 2 million. You see that is clearly it's not 10%. There are many businesses that went above it. Right, went above that 500,000 as Secretary Kelly is referring to. Yeah, and so we still have a cap because there's a limitation on on funding. I mean we talked about well maybe we do know cap. You know what I'm saying that there's always these decision points about how do you make this equitable without running out of funding. Here's here's a legislative executive branch question. If, if someone let's say our committee said, we think to do this extra money out the door is to have these individual businesses where 50,000 was not enough and apply and give them 30% or another 10% of their revenue, as opposed to capping it at $150,000. Because we wrote the legislation and the way to give you so much discretion, you're already moving forward on that make that idea better, because you're you've already restructured the program to tell people they can apply for up to an extra hundred hundred thousand dollars. Is that correct where where is the legislature fit into this process. And so on the supplemental award. What we did is we didn't change the ceiling for everybody. And we base this on the learnings of what has happened over the last several months right. And we know that the most damaged sectors are the ones that need these funds the most. And so we because it's fit within the program guidelines like setting the cap was within the program guidelines we raised it for particular sectors. And we've embarked on that like tax already has received over 700 applications. We have a smaller subset of that because they're doing the lion share of hospitality. And we have, we have some of that. So, yeah, I mean I think that that is an acknowledgement we, we aired on the side of being much more conservative at the beginning, because there's no way of knowing the demand for this we did models but it wasn't 100% certainty. And we aired on the side of being conservative so that now we have leftover funds that we could do the supplemental. So the legislature I think comes into play. Sorry, yeah. Well, I want to hear what you have to say go on but in terms of the restaurants that are now eligible for more money. How will you determine how much more money they're eligible for. What we did is because there's already a system set up. It's still the 10% of revenue except since they got 50,000 let's say it's, let's say it's a $2 million operation. So they'd be entitled to 200,000 but they already received 50. They could receive another 100,000 we set the cap at 150. What we did is we notified them we've sent them in a supplemental award application and they are sending that in. And then we will do the adjustments they'll have to do attestations, you know, and we'll then be able to send them checks. Honestly, we, you know, we calculated several different ways if we had no cap had a $250,000 cap we did a variety. And we tried to come up with the, the one that we thought would not exhaust the funds and leave people out again. And, you know, the uptake the interest in this has been nearly 100%. So it's showing us that people are and we did give them a calculator to help them understand where they might be in a duplication situation duplication of funds situation and yet they're still applying for the full amount. So it just tells us that the need continues to be out there. What in the bills we passed in June. I think they gave you discretion to factor in any other funds they may have received whether it's the ideal or people. I know you have listed some of that money here. Did you do anything with that or you disregarded the fact that they might have had help from other sources. We made the decision not to subtract it because of the fact that this is an ongoing crisis. There'd be no way of knowing that they were currently in a duplication of benefit situation. So we thought listed the so we have the information on, and, you know, we warn about duplication of benefit, and we have the applicant that tests that, you know, that if there is a duplication of benefit found they would have to return the funds. What would the duplication be. So it would be if ultimately they received assistance more than what their loss was. And we feel that risk is low in the hospitality industry because of the fact that they're still operating at very very limited capacity. However, we wanted to warn and we wanted to give worksheets so that they could do that calculation. Yeah, I remember that we had some disclosure transparency in our bill that said, all the grantees had to be listed somewhere, and the amount that they received is that correct. Yes, and that's on our website. In the beginning of the report there's a link to our website where we've listed both the ACCD recipients as well as the tax recipients. So include the federal assistance they received. No, it's just the amount of the state grant. It's the name of the business in the state grant. But given the given the fact that you have that information, it is available and isn't public knowledge. That's a good question. Yeah, we have it in total. Can we disclose it individually? I don't know the answer to that. I think did the Fed, I think the feds actually did end up disclosing that so. Yes, I think they did. Yeah, I think they did. So I mean if. Thank you. Okay. May I just say something, you know, as I look at this data, Joan and Lindsey, it's, it's, it's, it's wonderful. And I would say that one of the benefit of this is that this is, we are going to have a much clearer picture of, of, of this, of all these businesses that, and by sector, I mean, this is just, I'm just impressed by how much additional data we now have making decisions going forward about a whole host of things. So, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm impressed by how much more information we have here in terms of identifying both sectors and impact different types of impacts different. And it's, it's, I'm very impressed by how, by, you know, I don't know, by how much more we, we know and how full or the picture is. For sure. And you know, it's too humble to share this with you, but, but I'm not afraid to tell you that Joan has, Joan and the team have worked around the clock, and they have learned so much about Vermont employers and you know, we do have a lot more information and so hopefully we can continue to really help people. Yeah, it's, it, I just see it being useful as we go into the future in so many different ways. So this is, this is, this is good. Thanks. Thank you for this work, Joan. I mean, you know what we, so we had tremendous help that I just need to say public public shout out to Department of Finance regulation. They've lent us their people. You know, we've had examiners examining applications I mean there's been quite a lot of due diligence and we've had Vita and many people from ACCD so it's been in all hands on deck and I don't know Ted said it yesterday and he said in the other room they're all kind of redesigned our jobs and, you know, we've got the executive director of Vep C's the head of our kind of review team and everyone's been just lending a hand and it's been, it's been great, and we have a lot more work to do so. Thanks. Yeah, no. Interesting. So, I think that's the bulk of it I mean we've gone on to more slicing and dicing of data. You got the sector data. But I guess this, you know, I thought that this would kind of lay the context for you know why we have this next group of asks and did you want to focus on that now or tell me. Yes, that would be great. And as Secretary alluded to I think, you know, there are people who had like 40% loss and they weren't covered by this but they're still suffering intently so covering folks who had a 30 to 50% loss would be a useful next move we think and when we did some modeling with tax department to find out just at least in the hospitality arena, how many people that would impact it was like 700 businesses. So, we do think that that move would would be helpful. But we would make the move to, I think, look at it for a three month loss, like, and again, I think the hospitality and restaurant sector has no problem showing that since it's been months since there's been a true, two seasonal revenue that they're that they're accustomed to so that that is one big change. Let me ask you a question on that I agree with the three month loss. It seems like somebody could have a 40% loss in one month and be level for the rest of the year. So their loss would be somewhat minimal and given that we're basing the grants on receipts 10%. They could wind up getting more money than their losses indicate. So, have you started that change already where somebody who has had a 30% loss over three months time. Are you now applying and expecting a grant. No, we cannot. So, so we've made all the changes we think we can make within the current statute, right, like we, we change the owner employee segment we did a supplemental award, you know we're in the midst of doing a supplemental award. I think that's all we can do. The rest is by statute right the statute had 50% loss. We cannot take those applications yet, but that's what we would want to change is change that to 30% for three months. As an example. Right now we don't have that ability to do that. So is it three three any three continuous months from when to win. Forgetting what we put in the proposed legislation I think it's, I think it is any three months from March through December, I believe. Okay. And then the other thing is this sole prop do we want to open that up to sole props right now the statute says you need at least one Vermont employee. So, do we want to change that that was the other kind of gaping hole I mean as soon as it became people were aware that we allowed sole props with zero employees. That were women or minority on but we didn't allow that for anybody else that raised a big flag like you know it's not fair to those who do not fall into that category so we want to change that and allow all so props in. So, I remember, we asked this question repeatedly, we're going through and the answer came back consistently that we feel that there are maybe 40 30 to 40,000 businesses that would fall into this category, and we felt that it was just a reduction of it would dilute the benefits for everybody else too much. And I think there was also the comment that they might be eligible for PPP and they may be eligible for PUA. Can you comment on those two things. Yeah, all of that is true. I think, again, when we go back to analyze the decisions that we made at the time were probably the most prudent at the time, because it was no way to assess the total demand there was no way to assess our capacity to do this. And so they were made for the right reasons and if we had to prioritize businesses that at least created a livelihood for people other than themselves, perhaps that's a good priority. Now that we're at this for a couple of months, you know, many people have received grants we're bumping it up for those that are most damaged sectors the question is, what about the people who didn't even have a shot. And even though everything that you said is true, you know, yep, they were eligible for all of that. It's just an open question about whether or not we think it's fair and equitable. And the question also is, how much is how much is this policy change going to cost, how much money do you have, and what I'm struggling with the need. If most of the folks were getting PUA benefits plus $600 a week. Do we actually know. Sorry, do you know, do we actually know how many of the sole proprietors got PPP and or PUA. I mean one assumes a large percent but do we actually Joan in your in the applications. Was that picture clear. So, so props are a big wild card it's really it's really hard to assess just because like they don't have employees so we don't always see that I check with Department of Labor and not everybody was even if they were eligible for PUA they ended up not getting it because of one reason or another so it's really really hard to tell, however, we have heard from for example lodging properties that are technically higher contractors or, you know, they're accustomed to a certain level of revenue that PUA is just not cutting it right so. In terms of cost because these end up being smaller operations I think the 23 million that we are asking for would help would help would help figure that out I mean here's another example. The CDBG had a program that Commissioner Hanford worked through bdcc and to rivers right it was a sole prop stabilization program we thought for sure be oversubscribed. In fact only 300 a little over 300 people applied. So it's a wild card like we know that there's like 30,000 or so but does everyone apply for it no not necessarily. And the interesting thing about the sole prop was that. I mean that it was a lottery and it felt like it was unfair, but it ended up where I think everybody who applied got something. Maybe I'm going to speak and maybe it's not everybody I'll let Josh talk to that but you know a fair amount were able to receive it so I think making the facility available. You know, would go a long way in terms of being a fair, a fair playing field, you know. It would not be a way to construct the application or approval process in such a way that takes into account other benefits that that individual received so as to ensure that what we do is at least equitable. Yeah, I think we could do that. I think we can I just one of the things I want to mention and obviously Senator Brock you know this as well as anybody but there are people who are in a corporation. Who were able to draw on the PUA, but also were eligible for these grants. We have sole proprietors that may or may not have received the PUA that were not eligible for these grants. So there's an inequity right there and I think that was one of the things that as Joan mentioned earlier when the women and minority owned businesses that sole proprietors were applying I mean they were so grateful and so relieved to have this money and I think it really highlighted to us the need to try to find a path forward for the other sole props who are who are maybe getting personal income through the PUA but not able to cover their fixed expenses that are related to the business that they the service they provide. So just, you know, for what it's worth I think in the beginning I was back and forth on it but it really grew strong on me and I it's not an easy lift for us. And it's hard to quantify the amount that we would need to do this but I think we we are feeling in our hearts that there is a lot of need there. Is it 23 million dollars just for the sole proprietor as it's supposed to go for. It's for all of the things you. Yeah, it'll cover it'll cover the 30% or more loss for three months, the sole props and there was another group that we left out which is the new businesses people who started their business like in September of 2019. And yet we're closed in March, and they had no recourse they had no ability to apply for our grant because our grant needed to show a loss from March through August of this year as compared to last year and if they weren't in existence it was an impossibility for them. Right. Those are primarily that the groups, you know, and nonprofits. We did we did issue grants to nonprofits but the nonprofit calculation was a little bit different because in age 966 I believe the Arts Council set aside required that we don't include grants and donations I think that was how the language was so because we weren't going to include grants and donations on the Arts Council nonprofits we thought again to be equitable that we would treat all nonprofits in that same regard. And then there were some nonprofits who did not have what's called program service revenue. And so they were left out. So, yeah, so how do we, how would we fix that right how would we be able to to help them. Right, and I think we need to because we were all so focused on what people couldn't physically do anymore I mean we were very focused on nonprofits that had people going to them rather than nonprofits that were serving and didn't have entrance fee. I mean, you know, so I think we definitely need to address that I mean, certainly all of us have had nonprofits that we've been working with. Since the end of our first part of the session. Right. Okay, so can we talk about the, the even newer businesses. A little bit. Sure. So, sorry, did you have a specific question or you want me to just what could just talk about what you're proposing. Right so on the new businesses instead of them comparing it to the prior year, it would be a loss proven any month since, I believe it's since January. I don't know the language in front of me but I think it was any month from January on through present to show that there was a loss, and that we would kind of project the annualization of their. So, you look back, instead of having to show a loss from March to October or whatever it was, where they may not have even been in business. What's the time period you're going to look at now. I can't believe it. Okay, Ted, you have it in front of you. The way we drafted the language was to say that you could compare it to February or January. So let's say in March, you had a 30% downturn from February. That would qualify you for the grant or let's say it was June that it happened. You know you had a normal May and June went down. There's really no way to show an annualized loss so you have to at least do a good faith effort to show the loss and you know I think of the two or three that have contacted me. A new hotel opened here in Williston that hotel opened February 1. You could show that they had a loss from February 15 to March 15. So they, that's the kind of test that I put on it and say okay that makes some sense there's still going to be some that might not be able to show a month to month loss if you opened February 14. And you're, you know, a restaurant. You had no real revenue 14th to March 14, because you're brand new. And I can be able to capture that but I think this would capture most of the new businesses we're talking about. Right. So you can show any revenue from January or February in 2020. And then you compare that to a lesser revenue amount in any month since and and it went down by 30% you qualify. That's the proposal. And do we have a notion, Ted and Joan of how many businesses that actually is just the people who came to us I suppose we could always do a search of who was newly formed but we don't think it's a lot we think it's enough I mean we've been contacted by enough of them at least 20 I would say. And again remember a lot of the folks that are reaching out to us there while their in person operations have been permitted to reopen, they may be at 25% for example so again it's it's our restrictions that are continuing to cause, you know, strain for them so it's it's not that hard to determine, you know that there is a real impact with those. I guess I'd ask the same question about the nonprofits. Do we, I mean I know in my neck of the woods how many nonprofits have been in touch but how many nonprofits so if you have about 20 new businesses that weren't able to be awarded a grant. How many nonprofits roughly have have have applied, or have you worked with that haven't been able to receive a grant. So there have been very few that have been denied I think the nonprofit critique is that we've we've awarded them, but it's not at their full revenue figure. And I don't have the number of the top of my head it's not in this report I can get that number but we served many nonprofits but they, we base their award on the program service revenue we subtracted out grants and donations so they got a lesser amount. Right. And there were a few that were denied but but probably have nothing to do with the revenue or they have no program service revenue like there are some that just live off of grants and donations and were unable to provide their services and it felt unfair that we couldn't give them a grant so we'd like to fix that we don't think that's the majority. However, if we do fix it for a few, I could imagine everyone who got a lesser amount would want additional funds. Well, I don't know what the original intent was about excluding grants and donations but that was our mistake, because I think we were thinking, you know, we were thinking attendance rather than than the whole picture I think that was our bad on that one. But I think it made some sense I mean it did make sense because it was sort of like when you think about it the business end of the nonprofit was was, you know, sort of hampered, you know by the closure so yeah, I agree but with such a significant percent of our businesses in Vermont being nonprofits this is, you know, obviously this is something we would want to fix. I'm sure you've all been contacted by the preservation trust to Vermont. Yeah, what a perfect example of just something you could never really foresee where you know their loss has happened in a triple met lease. Well, there are a lot of nonprofits that have these crazy relationships with other nonprofits and it doesn't show up on a balance sheet the way a typical business would so I think we have to give a little bit of faith and credit that these folks are asking for funding they really need and we said does it does our best and I think that that would be it let's just treat them the same way 10% of their total revenue. Yeah. It's, it should work. I agree. So, I want to, before we move on to the consumer stimulus and marketing and I think maybe that's different witnesses to but Lindsay I and john I would hope you could get us sort of a one pager on your thinking you said you went, you did look carefully at the sole proprietor issue and whether there should be any consideration of other assistance people have gotten you know the elephant in the room here and we're practically practically your biggest supporters for spending the surplus dollars on economic development. However, there's a lot of people in the legislature want to spend it on education. It's harder to defend these proposals. If there's not numbers or detail as to why these programs aren't why these folks aren't already getting additional help that could carry them forward and somehow fine tune this a little better so I would like to not now but I would like to get something in writing with some number justification that you could look into to show us that these sole proprietor people haven't already gotten the help that they need to get through. Michael, before we go on, can I just ask something about the hospitality sector. We've been contacted several times by the tent people are they included in the hospitality sector. Yes, indeed. Thank you. Yes, anybody who's like sort of event affiliated could come in for the supplemental. Okay, thank you. That supplemental though, again, is is moving forward, and you don't need any legislation or tweaks to the existing law to lift the cap to those particular groups. Correct. Yeah. And that I understand. I remember that. That was a conscious decision on our part to let you decide what the cap would be. Did we give you the authority to treat different groups differently vis a vis the cap. And I'd have to look. More clearly, I think it was more, it was generally described as program parameters. Okay. Well, we'll be looking at that as well and have our council look at that. So, let's move on to. I guess the consumer stimulus of that be in your neck of the woods or that be Heather. Heather. Okay. Well, don't leave us if you can stay with us, John, but let's let's let's listen to other talk about the expansion of the consumer stimulus. Mr. Chairman, if I could, I hate to suggest a different approach, but Commissioner Palm might want to segue that straight into the $50 million ask for the hospitality industry. Just because it actually is tied to the economic recovery grants and to Senator Hooker's question. That'd be okay if we started there. It would be but I thought we had already talked about it. Okay. Okay. This is this. This is not. This is different than. Yeah, this is different than raising the. Cap to $150,000 for the hospitality section. Yeah, it's like another. It's another reinforcement, if you will. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ted, for that suggestion. So Heather. Welcome. Good morning, everybody. Happy to be here. And I will rely on both Ted and Joan for this portion as well, but it's just, you know, in terms of thinking about the unmet need that is still out there specifically in the lodging and hospitality sector. As much as we have learned as we've talked about that, you know, there are still some gaps and we know that the. The lodging and hospitality sector is facing is this unprecedented ongoing loss. So the types of relief we've been able to offer so far as we've discussed have been based on either one month loss of revenue that the attempt there was to cover fixed costs for a certain period of time. In the lodging and hospitality industry, those losses are continuing and we know that they will continue through the fall and into the winter. So that's one of the travel restrictions and all the other limitations that the sector is facing. So the $50 million proposal is an acknowledgement that the this sector in particular is far from out of the woods. What can we do to make sure that they are able to survive to preserve that infrastructure. When we do get on the other side of this, you know, hopefully someday that those businesses are still able to provide that the economic engine that they, they provide to the state. So this $50 million would be for, you know, this is where we have a little bit more flexibility with your help to figure out what exactly is, is the right type of assistance. But for instance, you know, in all the talk so far, the award amount has been based on revenue. The fixed cost specifically so could there be an opportunity for to cover those businesses that let's say would not be eligible for the supplemental award due to the amounts of their revenue so they've already received 10% of their revenue, but that that amount because they're a smaller business doesn't come anywhere close to either meeting the unmet need of their lost revenue or to be able to maintain them through the next six months. So that's really the intention of what this additional funding would cover. We also were proposing a set aside for ski areas in terms of an acknowledgement of the type of accommodations that they will have to make to be able to provide an experience that is as contact less as possible. So that we can still bring visitors to the state as safely as we can. Again, knowing how much that sector provides in terms of economic activity and acknowledgement of the, the additional investments that they will need to make an infrastructure based on the the COVID crisis. Is there language floating around now on this particular program. Yes, it's included in the package that Jess sent you yesterday it's very simple the idea is to use the existing emergency economic recovery grant program to distribute this funding but as Heather said, potentially adding a new layer of a new formula a new formula for the grant amount so that the business that received the $50,000 grant or the $40,000 grant could get another grant. Yeah, but it's in addition to the new cap. They could also theoretically some of them could qualify for up to $100,000 more on based upon their revenue but you're saying now there will be other criteria where they can apply for an additional grant in addition to that $100,000 more they could apply for more money and forgive me if I didn't catch it all. What would the criteria be I don't have the new language in front of me. Yeah, how they qualify for above and beyond the additional 100,000 how they qualify for more money and how the amount of that money is calculated. The new language says they have to demonstrate an additional loss. So right now you have to demonstrate that loss between March and September this idea would be now demonstrate that loss between September and December. And again this is primarily, you know one of the targets here would be for those folks who are not eligible for a supplemental award, because they don't make over that revenue. The revenue because they don't make more than temperatures they've already gotten 10% of their revenue but that still doesn't cost their fit. So excuse me still doesn't cover their fixed costs and projected losses. And how do they, how do they demonstrate that loss I know we had a default position just looked looking at loss and revenue before how will they. show additional loss. The proposed language says you'd have to show that quarterly loss. And so we'd use the same economic recovery grant formula but you're going to have to demonstrate the new loss. So we're not going to calculate your whole loss we're not going to make you wait till December and say we lost another $100,000 so we need another $50,000 grant. We're going to say okay starting in September, you'll be able to accumulate and demonstrate that loss to us which will allow you then to request another grant. That's the simplest way that you know it's worded now you can of course be changed. Yeah, I mean there are a variety of ways that we can handle it I mean one way that you do what's most challenging about this crisis is that it's not over so we can make a determination on like let's say it's a ski area that projects. If you're operating at a limited capacity they project their revenue to the end of the year is going to be X and that X is like half or more than half of what, or less than half of what they typically get. We could do that we could go through that type of scenario to say the projected loss. We've gone through that level of detail I know, last time around we, we presented a whole bunch of detail and how we're going to do all these programs and it got changed anyway so we thought more broad brush let's allocate funding to rescue this industry. And let's come up with a way we've got one way that's already in our system. We could change that system we could do something separate, you know there are ways that they could show that they still have unmet need. We could have this language yet on this additional 50. In what chess sent us yesterday anyway, I just see language taking us through the consumer stimulus program. I think it's just three lines it's very short. And really just allocates $50 million to this sector for supplemental additional grants. But I'll go back and make sure that didn't get dropped sorry senator. No, I'm just cruising through it and I'm just not seeing those three lines but you know. Can you, can you send us some thoughts. Heather Ted or Lindsay as to what some possibilities might be. That are simple to calculate the loss for the upcoming months. I mean I'm not going to be. I don't think I'm going to be very receptive if it just says, I don't have that language in front of me but it just says to cover additional losses and leave it to the department to on a case by case basis. I would like to decide what constitutes a loss and how much of that loss, you're going to pay so I'd like to get, get some ideas I mean you did it in the past based upon 10% of revenue loss over comparable months. I don't have any ideas of, I don't want to be one size fits all but on the other hand, I don't want to give total discretion to the agency to look at an application and say, Oh yeah this. We think this company is going to lose money and we're going to give them $30,000. It sounds to me like the language is broad enough at this point that that would be defensible by the agency at this point. I know for one I would feel uncomfortable that we don't have some structure to what the size of the grant and the eligibility criteria are for the new program. So we need to work on that language, but it'd be better sooner or later if we got some ideas from you as to what will work for you for you guys from an administrative perspective. Is that clear. I've lost all. I've lost, let me see. Okay. I'm not seeing anybody except for my committee members at this point. So, if it's okay I think we'll want to get a consumer stimulus. Yes. I'm sorry I would be happy to talk about our proposal or consumer stimulus. So, you know, as, as folks are aware that the corona relief funds are not available for us to provide money or benefits directly to residents to individuals. We don't know the power of no spending decisions if those are made locally. So this consumer stimulus proposal isn't is a way for us to support the local businesses that have been so impacted, as well as putting a little bit more, you know, spending power into the pockets of consumers so that they receive that benefit and support those businesses at the same time. As you are, you know, as you may recall, we are standing up a, what I would consider a pilot program for consumer stimulus right now, based on the money that we were allocated in June. So of that $2.5 million for marketing, they did just send a status report to the to the committee so that you folks have that as additional background for the activities that we have completed so far. Within that original allocation we put aside 500,000 to do a consumer stimulus program. We are getting that off the ground right now. It did take some time to do a competitive RFP to find the right vendor for that to make sure that we were able to use the bulk of those funds directly for consumer stimulus. I know there's been concerns about administrative costs so it did take some time to stand up who that the right vendor would be. We are now in the process of enrolling businesses in that program, and we have a expected launch date of September 8 for consumers to register for that program. The broad brush of how that works is that businesses sign up. We're targeting direct outreach to the businesses that have been most affected by this crisis as we've talked about lodging restaurants retail health and wellness entertainment and attractions to sign up for the program. Businesses enroll. They decide exactly what the structure of that gift is going to be. And then when a consumer decides, hey, I'd really like to be part of this program. They are presented with a couple of different options for different stores where they can, you know, or locations where they can use that where they can use that stimulus based on their interests. As soon as they sign up for the gift, the money goes directly to the business. So there's a real benefit here and that the businesses don't have to wait until that consumer walks into the door to receive that needed stimulus. They get it as soon as the consumer decides, you know, which gift they would like. But then when the consumer does go and redeems that that gift, you know, evidence has shown that they will spend, you know, several times more than that when they're there. So it's this whole idea is to get the foot traffic into those local businesses to hope that they spend more once they're there and then they then become either new or loyal customers to that business. So there's actually a webinar this afternoon for businesses to enroll that will be recorded so that will be available if anyone is interested in seeing a little bit more of the fine details of how that will work for merchants. And I'd be happy to send it a link to the recording. You know, once that is completed, if that's helpful. In terms of how consumers will, you know, we'll work with this program. We are actually working with the local action support team from the the Governor's Economic Recovery Task Force to make sure that our outreach to consumers includes bone marrow monitors and those that have been traditionally underserved so that, you know, this is going to be a first come first serve program, but we want to make sure that in our outreach that we are trying to to use this pilot program to really show how we can get that additional spending power, you know, into the hands of folks who might be might be needing it the most. So that's that's that's how the pilot program is going to work, you know, the reporting that we get out of it is going to show exactly, you know, how much, how much, how many businesses were involved, what was the stimulus money how much more people spent when they went to those businesses. And we can, you know, we're thinking that this is is a great opportunity to look beyond just this pilot program and see how much more that we can do with it so that's where the proposal comes from to expand the program. So the ability in the original legislation, as you'll recall, talking about how we could think about this potentially as a mechanism for hazard pay. There's also the opportunity there in terms of expanding the program, you know, we can, the idea is that we want to make this available to as many folks as possible but if there was a, you know, and a desire to have it be more targeted. So I think that these incentives could be specifically provided to hazard pay employees, however that is defined. And they, you know, we also have the ability to target, we know where those incentives can be used. You know, if it's at restaurants or if it's at any other particular sector, you know, as, as folks. So can you just give us a count, well, an example, following the dollar of an individual store, how they relate to the state how they get their money how they qualify as it as simple as I walk into a hardware store and any particular item or every single purchase in that hardware store is subject to a 10% discount that the consumer pays less and then the employer, the store owner just submits a bill to the state for to make up for that 10% discount. So it's actually even a little simpler than that. So a store, a hardware store would be able to sign up and, and you know, they create a profile so that when they can explain, you know, what their business is. There are some exclusions. So, you know, with this would not be available for alcohol or for, you know, fireworks or, you know, firearms and so forth. But you know, beyond that, the business is signed up. They do create within their profile that includes the funding mechanism so there is a link to their, you know, financial records so that when a consumer says when the consumers provided with a number of choices and they say hey I'd really like to use my $30 at this hardware store. That money goes directly to the business. So the business doesn't have to, there isn't a separate layer where the business has to then ask for reimbursement from the state. That all happens when they sign up. They are connected to that funding. So as soon as the consumer chooses that gift that goes directly to their bank account. The consumer has some sort of card. They can either can do it through an app on their phone, or for folks, you know, who don't have that ability, they can get a paper coupon. So when they come into the store, the merchant will then scan that or otherwise, they will basically have a portal to this program that to indicate that the gift has been redeemed and that's how we can find out if they spent more than the face value of the gift card or if they spent more as part of our reporting to know how successful this program was. And you've gotten clearance from the powers that be that this money will qualify for CRF funding. I know, I know when we were dealing with the hazard pay, we had to go through all these hoops to make sure the employer got the money. And sounds to me like in the first instance, you're almost giving the money to the gift card or to the individual to the vendor. Well, but the benefit goes directly to the business. So the, you know, the, the remonder gets the benefit of the service or the goods, but the money flows directly from the, you know, from the CRF funding to the business. We have structured the amount of incentives to target those sectors that have been most affected, you know, and another acknowledgement to make sure that this, this funding is going to those businesses that have been most impacted by the crisis. Yeah, it said that firearms and alcohol and those things are excluded. But it sounded to me like everybody else was included. So how much targeting really is there. We have the ability to distribute the funds by sector and by region. So we have of the 425,000 dollars in direct stimulus that will be going out through this pilot program. We've allocated 100 million to lodging 100 million to restaurants 100 million to restaurants. Excuse me to retail. 25 to health and wellness 25 to make sure I get my mouth right 25 to entertainment and attractions and then another five to other. And in the reason why we have that other categories we did want to be as inclusive as possible we didn't want to leave businesses out. But we also wanted to allocate the funds based on those who you know really were suffering the most losses based on this crisis. You said millions I assume you meant thousands right. I'm sorry, thousands. It's, this sounds a little like jump on it. Is that like what it is going to look like and how are consumers, is it all going to be online or consumers going to be expected to go online and choose the businesses that they want to support or the gifts that they want to receive. Like, I'm, I'm getting a will they will they can they can do it online they could also do it on their phone but yes it is an online platform. What the consumer will do was indicate that the type of interest that they have the type of gift they would like to receive. So somebody might like to receive, you know something in a restaurant somebody else might like to receive something at a spa or you know at a hair salon. So they would have the ability to pick the kind of gift they would want. And then they were presented with several options based on the businesses that have signed up, and then they get to just choose whichever, whichever gift they would like. And like I said, at that point that the amount of the incentive goes directly to the business, and then the consumer has the next, you know, up until the end of December to go ahead and redeem that gift and get that service. And how to, how do consumers know about it and get in line and or apply. So that's where, you know, we will be doing as much broad outreach as we possibly can. And like I said, that's why we're working with the local action team to make sure that, since this is a first come first serve program that you know we get that that outreach to make sure that you know folks who might benefit the most from this program, you know are really targeted with our outreach so that they can participate. So that's for the $50 million program. What have you done for the $500,000 pilot. This is all for the $500,000. Yeah, how much, how much are you giving out per person on the $500,000. And the $500,000 will be a minimum of $50, excuse me a minimum of $30 per recipient. But there is some variation there because we know that to incentivize a larger purchase for instance at a lodging facility. You know they may not be incentivized with a $30 gift. So for there are some higher amounts that that customers can receive for those higher ticket items like lodging but the the average gift amount and the minimum that folks would get when they signed up with the $30. So how many people are you projecting service servicing under the pilot program. We're projecting 20,000 gifts, and we're hoping for a minimum of 1000 businesses to be able to sign up. And then the plus the plus of this is a pilot is that if it even a part even half of the consumer stimulus program goes forward. We have those business relationships already set up so you already done some of the work, getting that transaction that transaction relationship set up. Exactly this would be very easy to add additional funding to this program. You know, once it's in process. Right. How long is the pilot and at what point will you get any statistics back from it. So the pilot we like I mentioned we hope to launch it to consumers on September 8. We will, we will continue it through the end of December. As soon as folks start choosing gifts, we will have statistics back in terms of you know where people are choosing. And then as soon as they redeem them will know exactly how much more it created. I would say within the first couple of weeks you know we have we have every intention of giving you folks an updated report by October 1, as in was in the original legislation that would show, you know that return on investment for this level. So within the first couple of weeks we will, we will see how many businesses have signed up we'll see, you know, what folks are choosing and we'll see, you know how quickly they're redeeming it. With respect to the illusions that you have cited such as alcohol. What are the exclusions are there any additional exclusions. I'm happy to send the list. They're they're based on, you know the exclusions that generally come into play for federal funding. So, you know firearms cannabis lottery. Like I said, and those are based on federal rules as opposed to anything that we've established. That's correct. If for example you have a person who gets a gift for a restaurant in which you have a meal in which alcohol is served is the alcohol then deducted from the amount of the gift that's available. That would be how the program works. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And you have a finite amount of money and you're talking about a possible 20,000 gifts, people will register for these gifts and then Heather you said then we'd know when they redeemed them so once somebody registers for the gift you deduct that from the amount so that this could go forward with money left over. Possibly we assume, you know, we're under the assumption that people will really find subtractive and so we're not we're not going to have the problem of having extra funds. But yes, we will be able to see in real time, you know, how many gifts have been chosen and thus, you know, drawing down on the money. And by doing that then we can make sure that, you know, as many businesses benefit as possible so we know for instance if someone says you know I'd love to go out to a restaurant and they choose, you know, somebody who who like a pizza restaurant. You know, maybe the first couple of folks might want to choose the same restaurant. Well, then if another, you know, batch of five people also want to go out for pizza. We present them with a different pizza restaurant for them to go to so that we can balance the fact that as many businesses as possible are able to have their gift as the suggestion for folks to choose so that we can make sure that there's a distribution there if it's equitable. Okay, and you talked about starting September 8 and going to the end of December. And but if you, if it's very popular and you run out of money, because people have chosen these gifts, then there's a stop to it. That is, yes, that is correct. This is a first come first serve based on the funding that we have so far. This additional, it could be added to it. I mean, and rolled out, you know, in a similar fashion. We have that ability and so the $50 million has proposed, you know, the way we came up with that number is that, you know, our intention would be to try and reach, you know, all 300 households in Vermont and that would give them an average gift of $150. So that's where that comes from. And that would be more extending it directly to that household via some method, rather than having them apply to get it. We could look at ways to do that. Yes. Right. So the $500,000, the pilot program, are you in any way, it's a first come first serve, but you talked about trying to target it to people in need or hazard pay as a potential age. I assume that would apply to the bigger program if you got the money but what are you doing to target this $500,000 in the pilot program. So the targeting that I mentioned is for this pilot program so we're working with the local support action team to make sure that we can reach some of those populations as well as our broad awareness that we normally would do in terms of, you know, using all of our channels using all of our news leaders all the communication channels that we normally have, you know, there has been some media interest in this as well so you know we think we'll be having some earn media as well as you know the kind of own efforts that we would do on our own. But in addition to that we did want to make sure that we were, you know, strategizing with the local action team to make sure that we reach folks that might not otherwise be looking for this news you know might not be as tuned in or otherwise just you know we don't want to, we want to make sure that as many folks as possible are available to this opportunity. Yeah, I found. So, I don't know if you know what you know about this you mentioned hazard pay you know there was an idea that came out of this committee to give almost exactly this kind of idea to people on hazard pay. Exactly the number of people on hazard pay. I think it's like 16,000 you're reaching out to 20,000. I think I have to go back over the language but there was a directive to somebody there to study the feasibility of doing exactly this to the hazard pay population. Do you know whether you did that or anybody did that and followed the law. Yeah, we did do that. And we feel like this program would be a perfect way to carry forward that intent, because we have the ability to target it to specific populations so you know whatever the definition, if there was, that could be the existing kind of a frontline hazard employee, or if that was expanded, you know we could target these incentives to those folks, you know we can also target the types of incentives they receive. So I know in the original legislation there was talk about restaurants, we can absolutely do that through this program that we have set up. But it sounds to me like, thank you for that. And obviously our committee has an interest in seeing something like that but it sounds to me like that has to wait for more money and expansion of the program. It's not going to happen with this first $500,000. For the first $500,000 we really wanted to see the breadth of our monitors that we could service with this and really understand exactly, you know, the types of services that they'll be interested to be able to reach all those more impacted sectors so it's really I think the learnings from this pilot program that would help us be most successful with that expansion. I have talked with the folks that are implementing the grant program that exists for hazard pay employees. And so we have started those communications in terms of, you know, if we were to able to expand in that direction, understanding how we could work with those businesses that are already implementing the existing grant program to make that as easy as possible. Heather, do you have national data or maybe you have local data on when I mean you're talking about the how much people tend to spend when they go into a business, additionally to the $30 they have. So, is there is there is their data on on on how much more people tend to spend once they're in a business. I have to look at the specifics but as I recall it's about three times is the is the average of what they would spend. And that's really the ticket here is that is that we want people to go in spend that $30 but also spend $90 they might additionally spend. Exactly. And just to you know it's also so it's it's that additional spending power and it's really to, you know, incentivize people to to walk back in the door of that local business is to really think about their purchasing decisions and, and this acknowledgement that you know the only way that we're going to come out of this crisis as if we really focus on on buying local and supporting each other and acknowledging that those businesses aren't going to be there if we're not, if we're not reinforcing those habits that maybe we used to have, and we've fallen, you know, out of that habit, or just to reinforce even more. This is a way to just really focus people thinking about, you know, where can I spend my money that it will make the most impact for all of us. Right. And I think this committee in particular is very interested in, and how much we can leverage. So $30 leverages X amount more. You know, we see that with the downtown tax credits we care so much about in so many areas we want to see an initial seed that leverages much more. So that's, that's part of I think what interests me about this program is how much more it might leverage in terms of revenue for our local businesses. Exactly. And the reporting we're going to get is really going to be able to prove that out, which is, which is exciting. Right. I'm very interested in this program, especially as it applies to the hazard pay. But I'm curious as to the timing of the pilot project versus the $50 million you're asking for. When do we get something concrete from the pilot project that we could use to show the value of this, or do we have to like jump off a cliff with $50 million before we even see any results. And how does that dovetail with the timing of the session and next session and I mean, the idea is a very creative one and I, I like it, but it is going to cry out for some demonstration from the initial 500,000. And I'm fearful we're not going to see that in the right timing to get the rest of the legislature to buy into the $50 million. Yeah, I do understand. I understand that concern. No, we have, we have stood up this program as just as quickly as we are able there's, you know, as with so much of what the agency is trying to accomplish there's, there are details here that are very important for us to get right. You know, we will have, we will have metrics to see as soon as, you know, very soon after the program goes live so you know within the next few weeks and I would be happy to, to come back to the committee, you know, just as soon as I am able, once that program gets off the ground within the first week the first two weeks, just to give you that that real time data as soon as it comes in. So that would be, you know, let's say, by, I'd have to, I don't want to promise it too soon, but I would say like, you know, by the middle of September, we should really have like at least one or two reports on what we've seen so far. Certainly we can report on the number of businesses who have signed up, the number of consumers who have signed up that we will have, you know, in just a few weeks. And then in terms of, you know, how quickly consumers redeem those gifts to see that return on investment. That's a little bit out of our control but we certainly hope that folks will will activate on their gift as soon soon so we can see that. So I think to go to Michael's question is, and our need to be able to demonstrate the success of this quite creative idea is, would it be make any sense to shorten the time frame so that people would front load it with requests I mean particularly if it's a first come first serve. Is there any way we can shorten that window, so that we front load applications. And we can look at that to see if we can accelerate the timeline a little bit we did want to make sure that because it's first come first serve we just really wanted to have that communications plan in place. So that you know we were giving folks a fair chance at it. And we also wanted to make sure that we had the businesses enrolled so that they knew what they were choosing between and they had a breadth of options. And you know the team we're working with is, you know, as with Jones team and everything they've been doing they're they're really working around the clock on this so you know I definitely hear that timing is of the essence in a in the ability to prove out this program. So if we can accelerate that we can, we certainly will continue working on that. Right. Okay, so let me do a time check here and people's availability. Now 1040. I do think looking at our schedule we can get everything and we still need to hear from Heather on marketing. And we need to hear from Chris on downtown development initiatives the agencies proposing and from Josh on the renovating renovated housing. The housing terminology we used to use for that program. And then we have more Collins, but we do we can eliminate in our, in our schedule the 1130 slot for committee discussion so we can go with those witnesses straight through noon and I think that should give us enough time. Any comments from committee members before we move on to economic development marketing with Heather. Yeah, sorry I just thought we were. Are we not doing the joint fiscal asks that the downtown better places discussion today are we doing that tomorrow. I can't remember that's that's Chris Cochran we're doing that today. Okay great terrific. Okay. Okay, you want to finish up with the $10 million request. Sure, I'd be happy to. So this additional request would be to build on the restart from on marketing campaign that we already have in progress right now so we have been focusing our efforts. And this is in the progress status report that I sent to folks, we've been focusing our efforts on the non quarantine counties right now in northern New York and northern New England. Just to make sure that we're talking to folks who can travel here as easily as they can, but we've been spending the summer developing a much larger out of state campaign with new creative assets that we can share with our partners and put out into a community that would keep, you know Vermont top of mind for the fall and the winter season ahead to make sure that that we are really supporting these businesses are so desperate for this, this type of revenue. So, you know, in the past, our marketing budgets have been very modest and with that you know we, we look very carefully at every tactic at every target, everything we're looking at. The competition that we see around, you know, our closest neighbors that you know, all the states are in the same position. We are really being outspent in our ability to drive visitors to Vermont. And it's and it's not even just for, you know, fall and winter but anything we can do brand awareness wise to make sure that Vermont is on the radar as folks are making plans either for this fall or beyond is again is crucial to supporting that the whole workforce and infrastructure and the whole industry going forward so with additional investment in that, you know, we can just do things that we never thought we would be able to do in terms of if we're looking at, you know, native advertising and you know we might target a publication like outside magazine based on one behavior well now we might be able to look at the New York Times or the Boston Globe. It's just this additional money gives us the scope and the reach that we wouldn't ever be able to achieve to bring a publication to the state and that much needed revenue. There's also a component in the new proposal to focus specifically on Vermont products to make sure that that is part of our marketing mix to support our Vermont producers in that way. And also, a recognition that, you know, Vermont is is well positioned now even more than ever before in terms of relocation and so how can we make sure that we are continuing to remind folks that Vermont's not just a great place to visit but it's a great place to relocate, you know, especially as we have done so well managing the pandemic. It's, it's maybe that a bit of a silver lining in terms of another way to think about the demographic crisis that we're facing that hasn't gone away. So we really have an opportunity here to, to just push Vermont as much as we more than we ever have before, you know, with additional funding to make sure that we think about that brand awareness so that folks are thinking. Is it a one page or can you get us one on this particular $10 million. Sure, I would be happy to provide that. Okay. And can you, can you explain very brief I don't mean to put you on the spot but you know the relocated worker and remote worker program is very dear to this committee's interest, and I don't see the consistency with what you just finished up with and cutting that coming back. Well I wouldn't see that the two are in conflict with each other. This is just, you know, as I said, if we are able to make this investment in marketing. It's just another way to convince folks that the Vermont is the place to be so you know incentives are one way we've certainly talked about that with consumer stimulus and you know broad brand awareness marketing is another way to, to make that final. You agree they're not inconsistent, but on one hand you're asking for a $10 million up on the other you're asking for a half a million dollar cut, or something that amounts. I want one and quite honestly living here in Woodstock. One of those things is already happening. It is astonishing how hot the housing market is here and how many more children we have enrolled in our elementary as a result of the pandemic. I mean, you've got poster people here for this program of relocating, but I would agree with Michaels in some ways. Yeah, it's hard to look at spending more and spending less all in the same breath. I think one of the challenges is that I don't believe that a, you know remote worker new worker type incentive would be eligible for CRF funding. It's a different pot of money. Option. Right. Right, it is a different pot of money. I guess we get has has anybody looked at whether I mean I think that is the answer. They're different part of money one looks easy. The other looks hard one looks like free money the other looks like dear money. Anybody looked at our remote worker program relocated worker program, at least through spending through December 30, why that couldn't be used, why that couldn't come from CRF funds. That's a good question. I don't know. I mean, I'm just thinking out loud a little bit here but I would think that for CRF funds you have to show that the money is used to help defray and expense or or hardship from the COVID crisis. Now the fact that people are moving here, and that the real estate market is hot in some areas might be an argument about why you don't need an incentive. You're saying you want money to incentivize people to come here. Not incentive more like a marketing campaign. So, for example, let's make hay out of the fact that we're the safest place in the country. Let's make sure that we could capitalize on that by being out front, not just for visitors but for people who might want to relocate here, or for businesses that want to locate their headquarters here, or who want to distributed workforce. It is different money and we could, you know, get the 10 million spent by December. You know, I think, you know, why don't you make an inquiry if you would to the powers that be as to whether there's a creative way to do the incentive grants for relocated workers through December 30. In some fashion to that could qualify for a CRF, you know, you may be right. Maybe they'll just come back and say, it's a no no. I think it seems like very nuanced differences as to where you want to spend. I think they, they either both could get in or they both could fall outside the scope but if you can look into that I'd appreciate it. So just to keep track of my three asks so far. It's this one. It's a question on the sole proprietors. I think it's a question of some evidence as to why this is stronger evidence monetary evidence as to why it's needed and I also wanted a question answered on, is there a default position in calculating the grant for the metrics or how you calculate the size of the grants for the targeted hospitality and tourism grant funds of $50 million other than just folks coming in and saying I had a loss. What is the size of that loss. I just want to repeat that because sometimes chairs make requests and they don't necessarily lock in. I wanted to lock in those three things. Anyhow, was somebody, did I interrupt somebody I probably did Joan will you about, oh no I think it was Senator Brock was about to say something. I was just going to add something that I know we talked about before we left for sabbatical. And that was this in my judgment is not a time to be spending money to pay people to move to Vermont. The optics of that to a state in which we have tons of people who are hurting and a limited amount of federal funds available to help them, I think is dreadful. And if we use any of the coven money to pay people to move here, and we have people who are small businesses who are standing in line waiting for money that we can't give them, I think is the wrong thing to do. Now on the other hand, I think what we've said here this morning about marketing to solve our long term demographic trap problem by taking advantage, if you will, of the pandemic and the, the impetus of people who want to move here for safety I think that makes that makes a lot of sense because we're improving our economic pie in a way that I think would be much more palatable to most of our people, but spending money to pay people to move here I think to me as a non starter in this environment. And obviously, obviously we have a disagreement here. And the compromise may be is that money was appropriated for this purpose, and it's being taken back. So at least the money that has been put out there should go forward. And I think it's an ideal time to supplement what is already happening in terms of our demographics and people coming here with that creative idea. I think we should seize on the fact that that has worked and could work even better. Now that we have such a great track record, relatively speaking, on COVID. Anyhow, we can save that for committee discussion. Where are we. I think we're done with your areas Heather is that correct or do you have something else you'd like to add. I believe that covers it but you know I'll have to stay on as long as I can if there are other questions. That's a huge piece of the ask of 110 million of the of the ask. Big. Okay. So what we have three remaining witnesses Chris Cochran, Josh Hanford and more Collins. I'm not scheduled till 1115. So for the next 15 minutes I can either do Chris. He's on the list first or Josh. Do you guys have a preference. Doesn't matter to me, Senator. I mean, let's go with the order we have it is is Chris with us. Yeah, I'm with you. My internet connection is bad and I think we'd plan to have Josh present the downtown stuff. I can speak on the tax credits, but I can chime in if needed. Okay, so Josh, I was thinking of Josh for the VHIP stuff and you for the downtown but if Josh why don't you go ahead and do both of those. Well, and may I just clarify that there is there is the immediate need of that the joint fiscal committee would like us to weigh in on the import and how we support some of these requests so in a way we might want to divide what is an ongoing work. There are sort of three different requests here one is what a request that's already been made of the joint fiscal committee that they want confirmation or affirmation on and then there are the additional recovery monies and then there's the general fund money. So to me there are three different sort of action needs and timeframes is that correct. Yeah, that's correct. I think probably the most pressing is just to give you, you know, a quick overview of our joint fiscal ask, because it is urgent. Yeah, and we can roll in some of the other asks and I wasn't quite prepared to give a detail on some of the CRF housing results. Not on in House General on Friday but I can give a high level summary, you know if there's time, but I think probably in interest of time, want to explain our sort of joint fiscal committee requests of 8.75 million. There are sort of in three parts. One is to ensure that our downtown organizations have the staff to exist, frankly, after this pandemic is over, you know they're mainly supported by municipalities and business sponsorships, and those are pretty hard right now. And so the 23 state designated downtown organizations we have a 1.25 million asked to supplement their their salaries to help businesses market plan and permit and organize a safe and fall and winter season, you know to help with events and promotions and visitations and increase sales. You know, winners coming in the businesses in the downtown organizations are very worried about their future. Along with their sort of like the quarterbacks to ensure that the better places safer places money is spent, most efficiently and is put to good use. And part of this request is 2.5 million in funding to directly help those businesses, nonprofits and municipalities, you know purchase the equipment, the materials and put measures in place to ensure that they're, they can function. Now, summer is the easiest time for them to adapt you know you've seen your successful sort of vibrant downtown, many of the merchants move out onto the streets and the sidewalks and pocket parks and and be creative. That's going to get real hard as the weather gets cold. And you know if we want to ensure these places. Which from, you know, the better safer places we want and you know become sad places and shed in the shuttered places we need to invest, and then do it now we really are concerned that if we go through for six weeks of this process to get an okay on this it'll be too late. You know they'll these businesses will start rolling up what they have outside, and they'll be shutting their doors, you know, maybe for the winter, unfortunately. And so that's what this is about. There's also a 5 million request here from municipalities. This would include nonprofits, you know, many of our sort of support has these municipal, whether it be senior centers, libraries, community centers, recreation facilities. We've received requests from the Vermont Association of Park and Rec directors that they need millions of dollars to ensure that that their rec centers can open safely we've received requests from libraries. You know they need to be able to install, you know, sanitary systems, accessibility features things that they can welcome people back to to use these facilities that are part of our civic life in a safe way. You know, or our vibrant downtowns and village centers are just going to be a sort of just a shell of what they were and what they could be and that's our fear. This is a modest request that, you know, we think needs to happen right away to have a chance to be successful. So there is an urgency to it. We do have lots of people reaching out to us on this we've we've been, you know, hearing from, you know, Vermonters, Browderboro to South hero everywhere in between local business leaders, volunteers who are really doing everything they can to keep their communities, you know vibrant and try to keep them alive. But they're really anxious about the coming winter struggling right now, and are wondering, you know how they're going to make it so this is an effort that we've had a lot of input on there's a lot of support behind this I think you'll see organizations such as Preservation Trust of Vermont and League of Cities and Towns ARP, VNRC Arts Council, all the 23 downtown organizations, business owners, you know, others all supporting this request with us, as well as the other sort of general fund budget will not have a general fund budget but you know revenue with our tax credit ask, you know, we just came off a record tax credit round. We had over 50 applications. Last year was only 43. We had to turn down $2 million and unfunded requests from every corner of the state, you know, general stores and and downtown developments, you know, all over the place you know that the Shackleton Mill and bridge you know unfortunately didn't make the cut it's, I can send you a list of a no doubt every one of these projects you would say oh those are great projects and yet they didn't get funded that because the competition was that fierce. The one bright spot in the economy right now we've looked at the data is construction. They're building they're doing home improvements. The sector is up over last year. I forget what the percentage is but it's over 10%. I mean this is the one bright spot of the economy that is, in our opinion going to pull things along. And so this is not the time to cut these resources. You know we didn't modify the program at all we talked about delaying the round and giving more time. And we said you know what we'll keep the July 1 deadline for the tax credits as it was see what we get. And we were blown away that it was the you know record round of all time that people are reinvesting in their properties and doing this work and some are actually expanding the facilities because they just physically need more space to be able to do their business. And so it's the perfect time to do more of this. It's every it's from housing you know new housing rehab housing you know business expansion, you know, service and retail sector. It's across the board. So we think these these two programs work really well together. One is an immediate need to inject, you know, a survival lifeline for the winner so that they can, you know, stay a vibrant place in downtown and the other is another injection of these tax credits which, you know, are 17 to one leverage and in my opinion it's one of the best, most efficient tools we have to, you know it's a reimbursement program so these, these private owners and nonprofits they're already doing the work, based upon this sort of commitment and leveraging 17% much of it private and then we're reimbursing them for things you know fire code improvement sprinkler systems ADA, you know fire safety has been monitoring the improvement in our, you know, sort of the fire prevention in our downtowns over all these years, and the number of fires and damage tracks remarkably we're doing well with our investment in these tax credits because that's where a lot of it goes. You know we were one of the most unsafe states for fires in our historic buildings 20 years ago. We have changed that graph and you know I have heard some director Dorosha, you know submit a national award for this program because it has actually reduced devastating downtown fires in a way that they can measure that sort of a side note you know these two programs in our opinion, you know are needed now and they're the right mix of reinvestment to keep our you know award winning downtowns and villages going. And they need this lifeline to keep putting up the fight that they're that they're having and and that's the field of play for this corona game that we want to win so happy to take questions and Chris is a lot more detail than me if you want to dive into these details. So the 1.3 is general fund for gone revenue for gone revenue. That's not too dissimilar to what was in the governor's budget that hasn't been acted on this is a budget request. Exactly. It was 1.4. We've come down just a little bit. But but yes, we and in our 256 we had taken it up to 4 million. So, but the first part of your ask is in a response to the Joint Fiscal Committee, the 8.5 and that is out of money that we're still holding that's out of current CRF money that that the state is still holding on to that you are asking and you're asking us to what right a letter of support for that to JFC. Exactly. Exactly. And you know our understanding I haven't had a chance to speak in house commerce yet but they're full supportive of it you know they, you know unanimously passed out this program, you know before COVID hit to start this in this program anyways. And so yeah we're hopeful that between all the support. Wait a second. What do you mean, commerce is fully supportive and they, they endorse this program what program you're talking about the better places safer spaces you know this was already something that was in the budget, you know and proposed as one time for us before COVID hit at a lower amount. What was the amount then? Oh, Chris do you know what the original request was. I want to say the original request Chris Cochran from the department was 200,000. When CRF hit the request went up to $5 million for better places. It got passed out of house commerce at a lower amount past the house and then got kind of cut at the very last minute by Senate appropriation so it's been through the house it has support there. How much did the house pass better places up? I know we rejected the 200,000 how much did the house pass? It was over a million. Okay. Two and a half million. Two and a half. Correct. And what I think I remember but can you give us an idea what this two and a half million dollars and was the houses when the house passed the one million? You said, what did you say the house passed one million or you weren't sure? I believe it's one million. I don't recall. I can, I will check and confirm all this. Okay. And was that general fund or was that CRF funds? It was CRF. Okay. And in the last sort of hour of Senate appropriations discussion, you know, this was was on the table and it was kind of the last minute cut that it was it was viewed that some of this was just going for things like picnic tables outside and, you know, I think it wasn't fully understood at that level, what the ask was here. Now the challenge is even harder. Many of these businesses have scrapped up what they could and adapted to being outside this summer. And that's going to get harder and harder, you know, they're working, what I hear is they're working twice as hard for half the revenue, half the business, and that's going to get worse. You know, they're going to need to move inside in many cases or they're going to need to adapt and have, you know, more permanent tents with heaters and shared spaces, and all sorts of, you know, safety and heaters brought inside all, you know, at the expense, you know, cost to the to the business that they're not even able to operate at full capacity. So, it's why it becomes even more urgent as we go into this coming season of fall is a is usually a, you know, dramatic season for our businesses that see lots of revenue come in and that's very uncertain right now. And we want to give them every chance to be successful. And, you know, we know that cities like Montreal or Quebec City and even Lake Placid, they do these outside festivals in the wintertime in a way that still brings people and they can be safe and they can inject, you know, that that spending into the economy, and we think with some modifications and some funding to help our downtown organizations and help the main street businesses make modifications we can do that here in Vermont to we can invite people out of their city where they would probably welcome a chance to get out and go downtown spend some money, you know, participate in an event only if they feel safe and if they if the businesses are able to adapt and be open. That's what we're trying to do here. So, Josh, does everybody on the committee have this memo from Lindsay Curley to the joint fiscal committee. I'm not sure our committee has it to for us. I'm not sure everybody has it does everybody have it. I'm not sure I do. So I think that would be helpful for us because our, we're kind of running out of time here because I you're asking this for basically for us to support this request out of current CRF money that's already been held held for these kinds of businesses, and the JFC is looking to us to affirm this span and confirm that, you know, to affirm this request is what I understand so I think it's important for everybody to see this memo. That would be helpful. Okay. This is Chris I'm sending it to you now and I just confirmed that in the original governor's budget for better places back in January was a $250,000 request, the house moved that up to 1 million in equipment grants that's what passed the house. Right. Right. Okay. We're going to move on to a new urgency with code. Is this. I had viewed better places safer spaces as far more broadly than equipment. Are we just talking about equipment here. No, it's more broad than that it is, you know, turning a sidewalk into a permanent spot for for businesses to to expand their stores and offer, you know, what they have to sell outside. You know, a pop up addition to their restaurants so they can have more seating. But it does include sort of safety equipment if they need to have you know touchless doors or hand sanitizer, washing stations, all that sort of stuff as well as, you know, promotions and event planning to get people to come out in a safe way. It's pretty broad. Okay, what in terms of the. This is in your mind this is in no way duplicative of recovery grants that businesses can apply for. The recovery grants are, you know, making up for their lost revenue, you know, helping them to get through this is for, you know, funding future funding to put measures in place so they can, you know, operate with a better bottom line. You know, I've heard the same question about the municipal side of this, you know, why isn't the municipal grant program that taxes operating going to serve this purpose well, that's a reimbursable program for expenses they've already incurred, and it has to be coordinated with a reimbursment. This is for municipalities, you know, and when I say municipalities, many of the libraries and rec centers and others are actually quasi nonprofit or there's some relationship, maybe other than a municipality and they would be eligible. This is to actually install the safety manner measures some need a ventilation system some need, you know, new sanitary systems in their bathrooms and expanding their bathroom facilities. So they don't overlap because that other program is meant for reimburse cost that they're already incurred that have a FEMA component, and these would be in adaption adaptations that they're making to these facilities going forward so they haven't done this work yet. Okay, how about the designated down town organizations is that, is that like Charlie Baker's thing or is that the church street marketplace. It's like a mob kill your alive. The Brattleboro they all the 23 designated downtowns, they have a at least a half time staff, many have a full time, maybe even an intern in addition to the full time. And those designated downtown organizations have a relationship with the municipality. The municipality needs to support them at some level, you know, whether that's $30,000 a year or something, they make a contribution. And they're connected but they, you know, act independently have a board, and they sort of, you know, coordinate the needs of the businesses in that downtown district they, you know do events they do collaborative marketing they do. And those organizations are like I said the quarterbacks, and they're under threat right now because you know municipalities don't have extra money to, to send to that that organization that staff and a lot of their, why, why aren't these people eligible for our new revised nonprofit recovery grants. They, they might be eligible for some of that but the losses that they experience are so small that that formula is going to be like a couple thousand dollars. You know when you're only talking about a one month loss of an organization that runs off a $60,000 a year. It's really not enough to more than a, you know, two weeks paycheck or something to give them the confidence to sustain and plan for this fall and winter. There really isn't in, you know, it's true that the business sponsorships have dropped off so they could show a loss there. You know they're not having events so there's no loss there. But the net sort of the formula we have just doesn't provide enough funding to really, you know, ensure that those organizations can do the work necessary to prepare for this fall and winter. And this doesn't include the chambers right at the moment. This net the moment it doesn't but you know we have our plan here is, you know, counties like Grand Isle and Essex that don't have a designated downtown organization, working with NBDA or north with planning commission the RDCs RPCs and the chambers to ensure that those communities have access to this support as well as is our plan. Okay, and the municipal facilities programs $5 million. Explain that to us again. So what we've been hearing, you know, like I said from the direct Vermont Association of Park and rec directors libraries and other municipal facilities civic community centers senior centers. They all are, you know, mainly located in the heart of the community in the downtown in the village, and many of these facilities have not opened back to full capacity and they feel that they can't safely open them, unless they have funding to make modifications. So these facilities they feel like they need better ventilation, especially if it's a rec facility. They feel like they need sanitary systems and the bathrooms upgraded and changed some, you know, ADA work for touchless doors and so it's basically to help them with the financial support needed to make these costly repairs so they can open safely. And once again be part of, you know, vibrant community. They're renovations. I mean it sounds like they need to adapt the adaptations so that they can function. Exactly. You know, and this is, you know $5 million. This isn't like every single community has one facility that this money is going this is going to be competitive. We're going to help the most pressing issues in the communities that have not been able to do this yet and that these facilities are not fully open and can't be safely open without some additional support so this would be, you know, competitive and targeted to those with the most need. Was there wasn't there some money on the federal level that went directly to municipalities. So the CRF money, you know, Vermont, we all appropriated about $13 million as a tax department program for municipalities. I mentioned that earlier but it was for reimbursement. You know, so let's just say they needed to, you know, hire more staff or actually pay more overtime for some of their municipal employees or they needed to do some, you know, purchase PPE. Those sort of expenses are eligible for reimbursement from that 13 million, but it has to be in coordination with FEMA because FEMA has some reimbursements for these added and necessary costs born by municipalities. And this is sort of completely separate this is forward looking this is for things that they haven't done that they're not eligible for reimbursement because they haven't done these repairs. I mean these modifications, but they will, if someone provides them with some funding so they can open these facilities back up and be parts of the community again. The reason that the ask is small is because you know this is some sort of capital improvement work that we only have till December to get done. And so we're going to target this to those most needed, most ready to have the best, you know, the best case scenario to have the biggest impact. I'm sorry, Josh, I'm not understanding why they couldn't do this and then through FEMA asked for it as a reimbursable expense. You know, from what I'm hearing is there just not willing to go out on a limb like that some of these type of expenses might not be considered eligible and they'd have to spend it at the risk of they won't get reimbursed. They would be granting them money so they can do the work. Right. And plus they have lots of other costs that they are expecting, you know, eligibility, they're there are eligible for female reimbursement. And these would be projects that are left out of that. But this is all CRF money don't they have to qualify under CRF for the money to be released to them. This would all qualify this is directly eligible for you know impact from COVID. You know if you can't open your community rec center, because why are they afraid under the FEMA thing that they won't get reimbursed. My understanding is most those expenses are different type of expenses they are for staff over time for other accommodations they've made. It could even be for lack of revenue coming in from you know if they have a municipal wastewater and sewer system, those sort of expenses not to modify their senior center or their recreation facility. But you know you're raising a very good point that we don't want to be duplicating any efforts and you know that is a standard test for these funds and duplication of benefit that would be front and center. You know this small request is just based on the ask that have come to us over these last few months saying there's no help for this for our community. You know we're not going to be able to open these facilities and provide this, you know boys and girls club you know they have affiliation with some communities. They're expecting to have increased after school care because of the hybrid, you know, school model, and they're like we can't safely provide this space unless we have money to adapt into, you know, make our facility safer. And so it's those sort of requests that this is based on. Okay. I would like to, you may have done this already, but I would like you to draft us a one page justification on this 9.5 million as to why you need this money today as opposed to a month from now and why it shouldn't take its place with everything in the budget that has to compete for limited funds why this is so absolutely urgent that you need a decision within the next week. Okay, it's I think 8.75 isn't it. 8.75. Yeah. And I think I see 9.5 on the joint fiscal committee request on Ted Brady's memo from yesterday. Okay, you get the point let's let's move on and Josh will do the VHIP thing. I think we'll squeeze you in on Friday if you're available. But I think we're going to move on to more right now. And that's probably all we're going to have time for unless you have something you'd like to add Josh or Chris at this point. I'm all set. Thank you centers. Thank you. Yeah. This is Chris here. Yeah, I think the memo that we sent to joint fiscal committee does explain the urgency and I just sent it to all the committee members. If that's lacking in any way please let us know. But again, the FEMA reimbursements from our experience are incredibly slow municipalities are understaffed they do not want to take risks they need certainty if they're going to make these improvements that they're going to get the cash flow. Receipts are down revenues are down and this is going to fill a critical gap. It also takes municipalities at some time to get stood up so that's the urgency. And again, winter is coming we need to be able to prepare for this change of seasons and we need to be able to do everything we can to capture more revenue for our businesses and more revenue for the state. Thanks. Thank you, Chris. Okay is is more on the line on the waiting room or how does that work. I'm here and always good to see you all again. Can I jump in center. Yeah she kind of trying to find you on my screen here but Hopefully that'll help. Hello, I've missed you all and hope you enjoyed your long break and more Collins with the Vermont housing finance agency. Thanks for the opportunity to give a very quick update on the mortgage assistance program that you all supported with CRF funds, and not just thank you for the opportunity to speak today but honestly thank you for the opportunity for picking VHFA to do this important work. I mean that sincerely because I'd like to draw your attention to the handout that Mark put up on your committee web page, if you're able to pull it up. Most of that document is a report that we were required to submit to the state, giving an update on the people we've served which is what I'm going to tell you about in just a minute. Just this morning, I added a cover page to it, which are snippets of their excerpts from the applications where people who have applied for this important resource have talked about why they need the money what was their needed need what is their family or employment situation how has it changed and why is this so critical, and we've had over 280 applications and I've given you probably less than a dozen of these excerpts but it is so compelling to read how great the need is and how important this program is and so it's been really meaningful work for VHFA staff for us to be able to fulfill our mission in the way that we've been designed to do by statute. These are these are moving. I mean these are great and sadly underscores the fact that we weren't able to give as much money as we wanted to this program. So let me speak to that you'll you can follow along with the rest of that handout that you'll see which was my August 10 update, but when I start throwing numbers at you they're going to be different because we're two weeks past August 10 and so I'm going to give you the I'm also going to start with the best part which is the end of the report where I talk about who we've helped and then I'm going to jump back to the beginning of my report, which talks about how did we design the program so that I can answer any questions about why we did what we did. As I mentioned, we've had over 280 applications and the median monthly mortgage payment that people owed is just about $1,200. So you can, we pay for up to six months of their monthly mortgage liability, but most folks are four, five, six or more months delinquent over a third of people are five months delinquent and another 25% are six or more months delinquent. So some of these delinquencies are long standing. And while we do know that two thirds of folks do have a forbearance agreement, meaning that their lender due to either federal regulations or their mortgage insurer or the lender just decide to offer forbearance. That's great that two thirds have a forbearance agreement because it means that the lender has said that folks can skip a few payments. Those forbearance agreements have to be paid back, and it's modifying the loan terms that could create a consistent unaffordability of these mortgages, long term. Can I ask you a question on that. So was our program designed to help those people who had the forbearance protection or not. Yes, we allowed one of the design decisions we made was that this could be used for folks with forbearance or without. We chose a batching process as opposed to first come first serve, mainly because we're really focused on equity and that it would not be fair. Those with the fastest internet who apply on day one, and are savvy about working these programs may then get assistance that others who may have language barriers disabilities, slow or no internet might be delayed so we went with an approach of we took applications from early July. We said till the end of August but we're keeping it open because we haven't spent all the money yet. So we took this approach where we prioritize those at greatest risk of foreclosure and who has the lowest income so I would say that someone without a forbearance agreement would it be at greater risk of foreclosure. But we do allow folks with these forbearance agreements to be eligible. That's a forbearance agreement typically like on the federal program where they were forbearance agreements I guess were required. Is that essentially a tolling of the payments so that if somebody had two years left on their mortgage. They would be paying for several months and then they'd still have to two years left on their mortgage so there really wouldn't be any worse off. No, there are probably as many forms of forbearance agreements as there are loans out there. That can be and that's what we would love to see across the board is if all lenders could just tack the extra let's say I got a six month forbearance can you just tack six months under the end of my loan and my term is now extended. That's not ideal but for most of us who have still 1015 20 some odd years left on our mortgages. That means that that investor of the mortgage now has not received payment and is giving an interest free loan for 20 years until they get those payments that they were expecting. What we often see is that forbearance agreements are for six or 12 months and then at the end of the towards the end of the forbearance time the loan gets modified and the borrower then has to pay back those six or 12 months. Through some kind of reasonable payment plan, but even a reasonable payment plan may mean that they have one, maybe two years to pay this off, which means that their mortgage payment could be going up by hundreds of dollars a month once the forbearance is over. Right. So there is a real risk of foreclosure, even for folks who have forbearance if they're not able to afford the modified loans and we set income limits on this program and are working mostly with low income homeowners who would probably not be able to withstand that kind of shock. Right. Okay. So, I'm really proud of the fact that so far our applicants have been younger, more racially diverse with larger household sizes and more likely be disabled than the general population. We've intentionally done a lot of work around language access. We've had 75 downloads of a in different languages of our application guide and out of 280 applications I mean that's saying something 75 different languages. No, I'm sorry we translate it into nine different languages and there were 75 downloads of those various languages of nine different languages. Wow. The original dispersion of the applications is fairly in line with where we see Vermonters with mortgages. We're a little over serving Chittenden, LaMoyle and Wyndham counties and we're a little lower in Rutland and the Northeast Kingdom. We're working with the state's homeownership centers, ALV and the Vermont Center for Independent Living to help folks who are interested in this program, and they will sit with someone help them fill out the application if they don't have access to a computer or internet they will fill out an application with folks and answer questions and we've trained all these organizations and then we're using a little bit of the funding to reimburse those nonprofits for the assistance that they're providing and I think that that is proving to be very well worth it looking at who we've had come in for the program. I'll fly through some of the eligibility and then take more questions. You all in statute required that we set income limits, somehow taking into account based on area median income. We're looking for a lot of simplicity with this program because of the tight turnaround and so we wanted to have one statewide income limit. But knowing that Chittenden County's median incomes are so much higher we did set a limit for Chittenden County and then a separate limit for the rest of the state, which roughly translates to about 80% of area median income for those areas. We're certainly looking at income from the last 90 days, because we know that there are many people who may have had moderate good incomes in 2019, but it really this pandemic has hit everyone and so it's looking at their recent income. That's most important to show if they have a hardship. We actually started the program saying that we could give up to three months of past due mortgage payments. The statute says we could have done six but we were worried that the demand would be higher than the money we had available, and that has not been the case. We looked at how many lower income mortgaged Vermonters there were and we, I believe I testified to you all a few months ago saying there could be as many as 4000 applications coming in and as you can see from me saying we've helped 280 that has not been the case. We are still processing and doing our due diligence on the applications that we've gotten, but if we were to pay everyone, everything they asked for and all the numbers that they gave us turned out to be accurate. We will have spent about $1.8 million of the $5 million on direct program costs. Wow, that's a lot less than you had anticipated. And what we're seeing is is that each month of course it's going up we didn't want to create a moral hazard of people not paying their mortgage just to get government money to pay their mortgage. So we do require that someone be at least two months behind on their mortgage before they're eligible. And we still believe that that's the right benchmark to set. That being said, as you know the pandemic unemployment insurance was available through the end of July and so one could imagine that August, September, October, November, you know we're going to see much greater demand for this program as time goes on. And as you know, we are in a really between a rock and a hard place of knowing that the demand is growing, while the time limit of this money ends December 30. So we did expand the program and say you know we'll do six months right off the bat if someone owes six months worth. And so we, if sticking with that first round of applications from July and August, they're being processed currently but we have September to sort of process those and we'd make those servicer payments by October 1 and we would include that September to make sure that the amount of payment so that those households would get the maximum that they're eligible for. But like I said we are going to keep the program open we're going to be hitting the ground with more marketing and advertising and we expect that demand will continue to come in as each month goes by. Another way that we expanded the program was that we have allowed that there were households we learned, some of us escrow our taxes in with our monthly mortgage payment and so if you did that, you could get your, your principal interest paid for as well as your insurance and taxes if that's your monthly mortgage payment that you pay your servicer because you escrow that. There were people with mortgages who did the right thing in paying their mortgages despite the fact that they were unemployed or furloughed or whatever. They didn't pay their mortgages that fell behind on their property taxes, but because they don't escrow their property taxes that tax bill was not eligible for our program originally. And that wasn't right, you know, if I escrowed my taxes my tax bill would be covered but if you didn't escrow your taxes yours would not be. So we got quick approval what we heard about a specific instance in central Vermont where a woman was facing a tax sale and really stepped into action the state was tremendous they got us approval from their state star consultants and all this within a day or two, we've been able to work with the town and make the payment that we that she was the max amount she was eligible for to save that home from tax sale. Before anything happened and so we've we've opened that program up broadly, and we'll be promoting that more in September about how in that way property tax payments, if you have a mortgage are eligible. I want to wrap up my comments even though I have so much more to say about how great this program spend I'm happy to answer questions but one thing I want to pose to you all for your consideration is something consider which is a limitation of the program that we've discovered that that gets to this property tax question, which is the way the statute's written, we can give up to six months of your monthly mortgage liability. So in this situation, the property taxes up to the six months of what that mortgage payment is, but what about people who do not have a mortgage on their primary residents, but do pay taxes on their primary residents. So we expand the program to allow to pay the property tax bill six months of property taxes in that situation where someone does not have a mortgage. If so, it would require a statute language change. And I, there'd be other questions about well then where do you set that limit that is it six months of the property tax bill or not. Well, while we all know that CRF funds cannot be used to replace state revenues and taxes in general, the Treasury guidance, the reason we were able to get that quick approval on this is because Treasury guidance in their q amp a very clear couple sentences that speaks to the fact that if property taxes are due and the non payment of them could lead to the disruption in someone's housing like a foreclosure eviction, then the payment of past due property taxes is an eligible CRF use. So, again, we were able to get the quick approval from guide star. If someone has a mortgage, but we do not currently have approval to do this if someone doesn't have a current mortgage. So what's the interplay more with that and income sensitivity that we already have in place for for property tax payment. Already provide for some of this through income sensitivity. Absolutely. So therefore someone's property tax bill will be less if they are eligible for income sensitivity. But it doesn't mean it doesn't always go down to nothing. And so some people still have a mortgage that they don't because remember your property tax sensitivity is based on the assessed value of your home, not on the mortgage that you have on your home. So, right, but you're talking about people with no mortgage, where they are, if they are low income they are probably if they earn less than $90,000 a year they're already being income sent they're already paying not by assess value but by their income. And sometimes some of these applications we've seen are people who I don't know if it's over 90,000 but you know sometimes there's people who in 2019 earned a good income and and then we're furloughed for several months by their employer and so it's a temporary thing. I'm posing the question to you all about if this is of interest to you to expand the program because I feel like it's my responsibility to bring it because if I came to you and said I've spent all $5 million then I wouldn't be talking about expanding the program. Well can decide that seeing how much of the program we spent so far do you want to keep the box small and know that more applications are naturally going to be coming in come September 1 and then come October 1. Or do you want to expand the box because there's money left on the table and this is one way that we could spend it. Well, as a former ways and meaning I have to say I think that that is the once you go to paying property tax. To me that's a finance issue that the Senate and House Houseways and means and Senate finance should look at perhaps for people who are income is being able to look at current income and not your income a year ago that I think your initial response about this program and about the 5 million was that it was way too little and you were quite cross about how little we were able to put to this program and given the reduction of the PUA and part of me thinks this is already still not a lot of money and that there may be a bigger demand coming forward partly also because a lot of these people are not particularly in the hospitality industry they are not getting rehired they are not they're still not working even though as we saw in the UVM research sort of study income is not as big an issue for Vermonters but it is in certain sectors and I look back at those excerpts that we started my testimony with that tells that story exactly so I'm with you which is why I'm not coming and saying this is something that I'm going to strongly advocate for and if you don't do this the sky's going to fall. I wanted to point it out as an opportunity that you all should consider that's come through the program that we've discovered and if this is something you wanted to look at I want to make sure you knew of this so you could consider it. There are people with no mortgages who have property tax bills who may be at risk of losing their homes to excel. There also may be a whole slew of people who are hurting but because of pandemic unemployment haven't been eligible to apply to this program yet and are waiting in the wings and come that September 1 mortgage payment deadline are now going to flood. I don't know. I really wish we had longer than December 30 to figure this out but I know I believe we share that concern. Yes. And we're hopeful that Congress will get its act together and act on many of these things extending those deadlines and providing more assistance. Okay. Thank you more. I did have one question circling back to the forbearance question. If you have an applicant who was in a forbearance situation, what are you offering that person presently? What are we offering? Is that what you said? We're offering them the same. It goes up to how many months delinquent is that person on their mortgage? They'd have to be two months delinquent. If let's say they were four months delinquent then we would pay those four months of the monthly mortgage liability. So they're still in their forbearance agreement but that four months has been paid for by this program and maybe their forbearance agreement continues but it means that when they modify the loan to pay back that forbearance, they don't have to pay for those four months that this program paid for. Or maybe that four months was all they needed between the forbearance, that helped them to skip those payments so that money could go to food and transportation and other costs. And then this program is backfilling that mortgage and so maybe that's all they didn't pay and they won't have to modify their loan at all as a result of this. And you said two thirds of your applicants are have forbearance agreement. Yes, which is not surprising when you think that all Freddie Fanny and FHA mortgages all require you know government insured mortgages that that's not out of line with what I would have expected. And when we were talking about this program in this spring, we were viewing this program as helping people with forbearance agreement, equally to those without forbearance agreements. We talked about it being eligible to both and but we want to prioritize those who are at greatest risk of foreclosure, and I would say that those without a forbearance agreement are by far a greater risk of foreclosure. And so I would that's why I want that batch process so that we could make sure that if there were two more applications that we had money for, we were going to pay the people without forbearance agreements first. And then get to those with forbearance agreements because that risk of foreclosure is lower because they have the forbearance agreement. What we've seen is is that the applications are lower than we thought and we've been able so far to pay for July and August, both those with forbearance and non forbearance. Can I just ask, can I just ask about the property tax issue if we decided that we wanted to expand that because the program hasn't been subscribed to as much as we thought it was going to be. Would you still, how would you then determine which applications were going to be accepted. Would the mortgages take preference would and then if there's money left over would there be money for the people with their property tax issues, or, you know, I guess because you do a batch process it sounds as if that's what would happen, or do you determine if it's simply the property tax issue that these people are hot at a higher risk of foreclosure. I mean how would that work. I'd like to say that we take a common sense approach which is just the goal. What I heard clearly from the House and the Senate when this program was created, and I believe it's in the language is that this is a foreclosure protection program and we're trying to keep people in their homes and not out of their homes during a public health emergency so I would prioritize those at risk of losing their home. And in the case of the person in central Vermont where tech sale was going to be in the month of August, you know we got that approval and got that payment done because that household may have been out of a home very quickly for a lot of where I don't want to say we're taking our time but we are working through these other mortgage applications, because there's a foreclosure moratorium still and so you know attack sale was at greater risk than a current foreclosure which takes a long time to get through the courts even when they're open and fully operational. So I don't know if I was close to running out of money and you say would it be a tax sale situation or a foreclosure. I'd have to, I don't know that I have a clear answer for you I'd like to think I'd look at what makes most sense if it's a imminent tax sale. Maybe I'd go with that one because foreclosures can take a full year because we're a judicial foreclosure state it does take a long time. The foreclosure moratorium needs to lift, then the foreclosure process has to begin it can take a year after that. We do have some time before people are out on the streets. So it would benefit the program to have the authority to expand it to property tax and people with property tax issues. It would benefit those people in that situation without a doubt benefit the program I'm not sure because I do believe there's pent up demand that we just haven't seen come through the door yet. Okay, in both cases as far as mortgages and property tax. Right, but we also have a program that's currently addressing people people where it's an income issue for property tax. And, and maybe we should tweak that program. First, I think, I mean, this money has this money has to be spent by December 30. Yes. But I'm hearing Senator Clarkson say that right now property tax sensitivity is based on you know your last year's income. If you tweak that system and look at a shorter term more recent income snapshot maybe there could be some property tax relief in that way I hear where you're right. Yeah, and because I think what you've done is very wise. I mean you only look at the last three months of income. You're looking at the 80% of the median in area median income in Chittenden County and then the rest of the state, and you're it looks like it's 18,000 as a result. Your income levels are lost it but I feel like I'm 15,000 per three months and 15,000. Yep. Now that is something that we plan on looking at, you know when we were designing this program and it was launching for July and August we could look back at three months and say what was your March, or, you know, April, May, June income. And when you apply in July that made sense. We need to, we have plans to look at if those income limits should alter in round two that's starting up soon, because maybe your income loss was not the most recent 90 days but maybe it was that you didn't get paid in March, April, May. You're not 90 days from when you're applying in September or October but you know losing one's income for three months has a lasting ripple effect in a household. Yeah, so, so we're looking at how we can reasonably and responsibly look at those income limits, knowing that maybe it's not, maybe you did come back part time recently but that you had zero income back in the late spring. Now all good things to think about. Laura, thank you very much. Good to see you again. Committee we are pretty much out of time unless somebody has anything to say we'll see you at one o'clock on the Senate floor. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you so much more for this. Thanks Laura.