 and my leadership have brought forth many clean water bills. We've brought forth several just in this last biennium that got defeated by the governor because of his mantra for no taxes, no fees. And that's the real discouragement which Terry just talked about, about borrowing money into the future. So driving while black, racial discrimination, health care, they're all pressing issues that continue to need our attention even though we've given it our attention, it's baby steps, legislation is baby steps. And the targets do keep moving as new problems arise. If I had to choose what specific new bill I would put in for bill number one, it would be force fragmentation, a bill that I created along with Representative Sheldon from Middlebury that made it all the way through the house, gut into the Senate and through treachery. Never got to the finish line. It's an awesome, important bill for the state of Vermont as more and more climate change and people are moving into the state and sprawling out away from our urban centers. Okay, thank you, Jim. Anthony, tell us your priorities for the next biennium. Perfect. Most of my platform revolves around a couple core issues. The first being conservation to sort of echo what has already been said as well, mainly with clean water. The late Champlain Cleanup Fund, it needs to establish a long-term source of funding, the EPA set their standards. We received a near-failing grade for it and haven't been able to pass legislation to establish long-term funding, to revise our permitting process for stormwater runoff for the excessive pavement, that's a paving that's occurred in Burlington and other water side towns. That's a huge part of it. I think clean water funding, not just for recreation, but it's a source of drinking water for us. It's a natural resource that we need to care for and that we need to establish the funding for. The second sort of arm of my platform deals mainly with social issues and I see social issues as a great step, as sort of mentioned before, that we can use it to attract people to not just come to Williston, but to actually stay in Williston. Things like paid parental leave, I think that would be probably my main priority upon potentially being elected to provide a source of funding for young new parents so that they don't have to worry about the financial threat or potential job loss. I've read a statistic that one in four mothers go back to work within 10 days after giving birth. That shouldn't happen, that absolutely we should be caring for young new families within our town and I see that as a way of strengthening our economy and strengthening our communities as well. So certainly creating a liveable, affordable environment in which businesses can then begin to thrive. I see social issues certainly as accomplishing that means. Great, thank you. You all are well-schooled in the two-minute limit. I'm very impressed. This is very rare that you all are almost on the dot, so thank you for that, I appreciate it. Is there a brief opportunity for a rebuttal on this? We could do a one-minute rebuttal. One minute rebuttal. Would you like to do that? Definitely would. Clearly, Jim would like to do that. And I'm rebutting Governor Scott. Okay. Not what I just heard. If we want bright, young minds to come to the state of Vermont, beautiful new families and ideas, we give them paid family leave, we give them a livable wage, we give them the security that racial systemic racism is going away in Vermont. We don't veto all these things. We give them clean water. We give them good quality education. These apparently are not on Governor Scott's agenda and have not been from the get-go. Okay. Actually, we'll go to Anthony and then I'll go to Terry. I gotta keep it in order so I don't get confused. Just another minute rebuttal if you will. No, I actually agree with that whole hardly. I think we have this fixation on cost and reducing costs where we can or potential new taxes, things like that. The economy and growth will come in time with acknowledging that something like paid family leave could potentially increase the number of people that would want to be here. The quality of life, just because we have a great economy, doesn't necessarily mean that people's qualities of lives are improving. Having affordable housing, livable wage, affordable health care, access to health care in general, all of those things will allow the rest to come in time. And I think sort of to echo what Jim said, those should be the priorities and the legislature's expressed interest in accomplishing those things. And it's a shame that they haven't been accomplished yet. Terry. Just one thing to add, we're talking about cleaning up Lake Champlain, but in the legislature, we need to talk about total cleanup of waters in the state of Vermont, the Connecticut River, Lake Monfery Magog as well as Lake Champlain, and that will help to sell the bill in the legislature. Yep, well said. And many of the issues that you all have talked about for your first priorities, we'll be talking about throughout this session. So we'll get a little bit more, dig in a little more detail, because I bet you guys like that. Okay, we're gonna talk about education, decline in student population in most of Vermont, although please feel free to comment on Williston in particular if you'd like to. And how can we as a state continue to deliver high quality education and all these questions seem to have two questions. Do you support consolidating the teacher healthcare contracts across the state? So two pieces to that question. And Anthony, you're gonna start us off. Sure, thank you. I certainly see education as a priority, obviously for the legislature to tackle. We seem to run a deficit every year. We have discussions about student-teacher ratios, where additional funding will come from. I see a model similar to what Colorado currently has. We recently legalized recreational marijuana that I certainly see as an opportunity to regulate and tax. It's sort of a missed opportunity in my mind that we aren't using this as a potential revenue stream for the state. Instead of considering cuts, there's potentially revenue sitting on the table that we could allocate towards something like education. Just in the first years alone, they're able to allocate tens of millions of dollars to Colorado towards updating, building new schools. I think that would be a fantastic opportunity for us in Vermont. As far as the teacher healthcare contracts go, it sounds like the Vermont Teachers Union is on board with that. I would say as long as the healthcare is being administered in a timely and effective manner, and it's clear to the teachers how they are able to get healthcare through this new administered program, then I certainly agree with it if it can potentially save the state and teachers money to actually be spending on other important programs as well. Okay, thank you. Terry, education. Sure. So we have a problem with education in the state, obviously, we have small high schools that find it very difficult to give a good quality education. So consolidation while it's on the front burner in Vermont failure, there's still a lot of concern about local control. So somewhere along the line, the smaller schools have to figure away to how they're going to pay their own way and not depend upon rich towns to bail them out. That's going to take some time to do. The issue of local control certainly is one that we've seen in the, well, as long as I've been there and probably longer, which will not go away. We do have these so-called small school grants that need to disappear as well in order for consolidation to occur. So we've done a couple of things in the last couple of years. In the last year, we just did pass the bill for a special education that will allow more diversity, better ways to spend special ed within the school districts to take better advantage of the money. And yes, I do support the concept of the consolidation of healthcare contracts for teachers and others that are in school districts. Thankfully, there's a new commission being established for equilating of teachers and others as far as school employees go. And a lot of people don't know, of course, that the paraeducators are covered by usually in contracts and the school health issue. They don't make as much money as teachers. So that has to be recognized as well. Okay, great. Jim, education. Education. We all need it. Some are better at it than others from the receiving end. And I want to just start out by saying, if you want to afford Pinto 1975 or a new Tesla, there's a huge price difference, but there's a huge difference in what you're getting. Our education system in Vermont, depending on whose standard you're looking at, but widely believed is we're in the top five for student outcomes in Vermont. What's not to be liked about that? Perhaps we ought to turn it into a Pinto and be in the bottom three. I would disagree with that. I think the governor is on track for doing that. I believe he wants to do away with school boards. He wants to do away with collective bargaining. So then, off that soapbox, Jim, and on to Act 46 started a tsunami of consolidation which is expected to save dollars and increase outcomes for students. Yes, we have a declining population across the state. And yes, we need to address all manner of education issues. And we're doing all of that carefully and productively without 11th hour theatrics that have been the governor's want in the last two years. How about statewide healthcare negotiations for teachers? The NEA finally said that would work for them. If it will work for them, what am I worried about? I would support that with a tear on my cheek. And this is why. They used to have an equal say in their healthcare on the state board that designs the teacher healthcare possibilities that got eroded through politics to where they only had one voice instead of equal. Now they is proposed that it's gonna be equal, but that's now what happens next year or in a different administration, who knows. So I don't particularly like it. I like my own town deciding what they're gonna do in their town and my own teachers liking or disliking and having input. Thank you, Jim. We mentioned healthcare, so let's actually talk about the larger issue of healthcare as well. Obviously increasing costs of healthcare, putting pressure on individuals and the state as well and the economy. Should we continue to move to the all payer model? And the second question, how do we contain healthcare costs? And perhaps that's all really one question. Terry, you're gonna start us off. Sure, so we've looked at all payer now for a long time. And I think we've come to the conclusion at least at this point that it's not possible to do the cost. So we're looking at something different at this point. And in the last biennium, we've established two pilot projects using something called Total Care. And the biggest user of this is the UVM Medical Center that has implemented Total Care. And there are two pilot projects, as I said, that encompass about 150,000 patients in the state. And this is something that I think, looking at the pilot projects, we're gonna see whether this really has an impact on saving money or not, whether it's something that will extend throughout the whole state. We know that Maryland did all payer for a number of years, not probably about 40 years. And it was success there, but a lot different population base in Maryland. They have now gone along with all payer to use the Total Care concept. And they think that it will reduce the cost to patients there. So I think that will be something that we'll be looking at. We'll also be looking at and looked at in the past biennium was something called universal primary care. And that would be sort of like an all payer system. There was a proposal to have this studied during the next, during the course of this coming year, that failed in the Appropriations Committee. So that bill will be reintroduced and we'll see whether that's a way that we can actually get sort of an all payer concept with saving money. Okay, Jim, we're talking about the future of healthcare. The future of healthcare we can only hope is bright. I would add that in 2003, one of my major platform points was affordable, accessible healthcare for everybody. That remains one of my platform high priorities. I only want healthcare for Vermonters and for everyone who lives in this country to be as good as our congressmen and women have. Is that too much to ask? I do not believe it is too much to ask. Can we afford it? Of course we can afford it. Can we, we can't afford not to take care of our people at least as good as the rest of the developed nations in the world. Big Pharma is driving our bus and it's not acceptable to me. So I think affordable, accessible healthcare idea in 2003 is still on the table and call it what you want but I want healthcare for Vermonters and the entire country that's as good as Peter Welch has. Okay, thank you Jim. Anthony, future of healthcare in Vermont and beyond. So I will echo a little bit of what has already been said about healthcare. I think it's becoming increasingly clear that the state of Vermont needs to do whatever we can to protect the right of healthcare within our own state. Even just yesterday the federal government slashed the budget for the accessibility to Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act by 26 million dollars, down to 10 million dollars. I see that as a way of simply undermining the availability and affordability of healthcare to people across America. I see Vermont as a progressive state, one that values has a lot of socially progressive values and I see healthcare as absolutely falling into that category and we need to do whatever we can to protect the availability and affordability of healthcare. Again, that falls under the affordability in general within Vermont but certainly healthcare and making sure that people have access to medicine and hospitals, paying employees in hospitals, fair wages. I certainly think all of those things will help make Vermont a better place to live and improve the quality of life overall. So certainly the state will have to take some sort of action in order to protect the affordability and availability of healthcare. Great, thank you gentlemen. So underlying all of this is the discussion of the budget, yes? So given perennial revenue and expense challenges we face and certainly legislature has faced, how would you approach balancing the budget in the upcoming next year? And we are gonna start with Jim. Thank you. Doesn't sound like an answer, does it? But the way we've been doing it largely for years, Vermont has a balanced budget presented every year and we worked very hard throughout the budget debates to keep it balanced. Having said that, the governor for the past two years, Phil Scott has been unbalancing the budget by taking revenue that he says is free money that we didn't plan to get and making holes in our budget in the upcoming years by spending that money now instead of paying off old debts and obligations, instead of, as Terry McKay mentioned, paying now for water pollution control. We're putting it on the credit card. This is all about balancing the budget and how would I go about continuing to do that? What the legislature did three years ago ceased using one-time money to put a finger in the dyke. We made the necessary cuts, we made the necessary expenditures from receipts to get the job done and not put it on credit cards. So that's how I approach the budget. Thank you. Anthony, how are we going to balance the budget next year? I certainly agree with a number of things that Jim said. I understand the concept of not wanting to raise taxes. It certainly seems to be the governor's go-to strategy for avoiding having to tax anybody additionally. That's obviously not a very popular thing to run on. I do see, as I sort of mentioned before, the regulation taxation of marijuana as a potential revenue stream. While it might not be enormous, some estimates have put it up to $20 million annually. And the last budget shortfall that we had was $54 million or so. And I see that as at least covering part of the gap. In addition to that, we have another industry that was just legalized through Supreme Court ruling, being sports gambling. Again, that's a potentially untapped source of tax revenue for the state. And then again, to sort of echo what Jim said, we need to prioritize our funding and ensure that we're not just trying to do something one time to appease people or make people happy that property taxes dropped slightly. Instead, we could use that as a meaningful source of funding for longer-term projects and paying off anything that also has been apportioned that needs funding as well. Okay, thank you. Terry, how are you gonna balance the budget? Yeah. So constitutionally, we are not required to balance the budget, but we always do. And if we didn't, we would be in trouble on a Wall Street. So we're gonna have a balanced budget. The governor proposes a budget. The legislature disposes of that budget. And last year, we did not agree with the number of the governor's suggestions about cuts and reinstituted those. Jim mentioned the use of one-time money. We've tried to do that now over a course of several years. The governor last year convinced us because of the veto that we needed to use one-time money and created a problem for this year. He convinced us, again, with the veto that we needed to use one-time money, which creates a problem for us next year. Anthony has mentioned the possibility of gaining in monies through marijuana regulation. And the bills that were introduced a couple of years ago, all that money was being spent on education and using the monies to for people who become addicted to that. So while that may come about, I don't expect we're gonna get a lot of money to balance the budget. So we need to look at economic development. We need to look at job growth. That's probably not gonna happen over the course of one year. But I think that's something that we will be focusing on over the course of several years to help to balance the budget and keep on the study course that we're on right now. Okay, thank you. Gentlemen, let's switch to the role of nonprofits in Vermont. Seven Days has been doing a big story about nonprofits and what's going on with that sector. And I'm curious to hear what you see as the future of these nonprofits and how the legislature should or shouldn't be involved with the future of nonprofit organizations. And Anthony, you are our starting point. Sure, thank you. Nonprofits obviously serve a very significant role in the lives of a lot of Vermonters. Everything from housing to meal delivery to public access television, like we're enjoying right now. So they serve a purpose that otherwise might be assumed by something like the government. They operate on their own. They carry a zero balance budget. And they provide a lot of services that people have come to not only enjoy, but to rely on. There's something like 6,000 nonprofits currently operating within Vermont. As far as the legislature becoming involved in the operation of those, I see a potential for possibly more of an advisory board, a panel of people, whether they're legislators or not, that could potentially work as a resource for nonprofits to align by business mission or goal. Their actual social mission, whether it's through merging and sort of integrating based on a regional approach or the actual services that they provide. I certainly think anything that we can do to help them deliver the services that they are already delivering, more effectively, more efficiently, anything that puts more money towards the actual delivery of services to Vermonters, I think would be beneficial. I don't see an oversight panel as having regulatory or any sort of authoritative capacity merely as a way to help these nonprofits operate as efficiently as possible to continue providing the services that they have and have done for a long time. Thank you. Terri, we're talking about nonprofits. Yes, we are. The role they're of. Extremely important role for nonprofits because they deal with mental health, health, the elderly, nursing, and all sorts of other things that we're dependent upon. And they're sort of an outgrowth of state government. They don't get much money from us. And most of the stuff that we've talked about tonight, means money. And certainly, we need to fund the nonprofits better than we are right now. How we do that, I'm not exactly sure. But right now, those nonprofits, for the most part, are understaffed, the staff is underpaid, and that becomes a problem for them, which becomes a problem for us. So we need to find a way to beef up what we're supporting them with. Okay, thank you, Terri. Jim, nonprofits. Nonprofits. I ran a business that was supposed to be profitable, but was not profitable for over 40 years. And I will say that legislature rightly does not, makes every attempt not to dabble inappropriately in for-profit businesses. They get to run their business. We don't run it for them. In order do we really, do we tell them how to run it? And I would say the same for not for profits. I don't see legislation that has been talked about, or I don't have any of my imagination right now that does otherwise. I will say there is a very, very large not for profit. Half a mile from here, whose workers are going on strike tomorrow morning at seven o'clock, and whose management, no I should correct that, whose CEO's salary has increased 630% and the nurse's 17%. We've seen that with Blue Cross Blue Shield over the years, another not for profit, another very important service. Of course we need our hospital and of course they're very important and of course I love them. But I don't wanna get into legislating how much the CEOs get paid, nor how much their workers get paid in the not for profit arena other than the minimum wage and livable wage discussions that we have. So I don't have a lot to add to this discussion I'm afraid. Okay, thank you all. We're gonna do one more question with about a minute each and then we'll do our closing statements. Okay, so changing the rules a little on you. Okay, we talked about legalizing marijuana. So I'd like to talk about the opioid epidemic. Are you satisfied with the headway that we've made so far? What else can be done? And we're gonna start with Terry. So we've made some progress on the opioid epidemic and we in the past have, in the past we only have regulated the amount of opioids that can be dispensed by physicians and others that hopefully creates a fewer people that are addicted. In the past, this past year, the community that I serve on corrections and institutions produced a bill with Medicaid, Medi-Kill, assisted prescriptions for inmates and correctional facilities. So this will treat people who are addicted when they come into a correctional facility. And if they agree to participate in the program, there is less likelihood that they will be overdosed when they get out of prison. So this I think, and this is a large price tag for the correctional facilities. And it actually started on July 1st and superseded the program that was in place before, that was only in place for 120 days, not for the whole time that people are in confinement. So I think we've started, we have a long way to go. We need more rehab facilities or more beds and rehab facilities than we have at the current time. So I think those are the ways that at least a way that we can start to get a handle on this. Okay, Jim, opioid epidemic. Rolling Stone laughed at us maybe six years ago when Governor Shumlin said, we've got a problem here. Governor Shumlin was ahead of the curve for all the other states, but unhappily, even at that time, Vermont was behind the curve. So am I satisfied with what we've done? Absolutely not. Am I proud of what we have accomplished? Yes, we, as Terry says, we still have a long way to go. And it's all about the money. Some movie says, show me the money. Regulation and taxation of marijuana will show us the money. That's where meat is that can be directly put to not just opioid, and in fact, the Senate versions of that bill consistently have delegated the receipts from that bill to addiction, not just opioid addiction, alcohol addiction, tobacco addiction, you name your kind of addiction, and those dollars will help. And that is not designed to just take care of medical or issues from marijuana. It's going to help the opioid addiction tremendously and give us the dollars we need. Thank you. Anthony, opioid epidemic. I certainly agree with both of those statements. I think I am pleased with the progress that we have seen. We've eliminated the wait times in Chittenden County alone for people seeking out treatment. I think part of the problem now is finding a productive way to establish outreach, to actually connect with people that are seeking treatment and that want to get better. For a lot of people, unfortunately, the end of the road for them is either passing away due to their addiction or going to jail. I don't see that as a productive way to solve this problem. I think getting to people when they need help and having an effective means of outreach and reducing the stigma, a lot of people don't reach out for help because of the way that they may be judged by friends, family, their community, similar to mental health awareness. I think certainly addiction, as Jim mentioned, not just within the opioid epidemic, but across all addictions are certainly treated with a stigma. Eliminating that will help people feel comfortable seeking out treatment. We need to expand the number of rehabilitation facilities that we have. Incarceration is expensive and it means that someone is no longer contributing productively to society. Rehabbing them and getting them back into the public arena and contributing to society will be our best bet in solving this. Great, thank you so much, gentlemen. We're gonna go to closing statements. That went fast, didn't it? Yes, it did. Yeah, good. Too fast. Too fast, there you go. Jim, why don't you start us off? Thank you very much. Yes, I am representative Jim McCullough and I've been serving Willis since 1964 and dozens of commissions and positions. I have been your representative in the state house now for 16 years and yeah, I got a gray beard but I've got all the social programs, all the environmental programs, all the economic programs as a leadership role and as your representative for years now and I still have new and better ideas than we've been able to get on the table and off the table into reality. And I'm doing a great job, I'm having a great time. Thank you very much, voters of Williston for that. Don't forget to vote in the primary August 14th and don't forget to vote for me. Thank you very much. Okay, Anthony, closing statement. Perfect, thank you. Thanks again for moderating for us. Thanks to Channel 17 for having us. I'm very proud of what I've accomplished in my time as a public servant within the town of Williston. Both of my time, the conservation commission and the Catamount Community Forest Study Committee, I certainly have a lot to owe to what the town of Williston has provided me with as a young person that grew up here and chose to stay here. It's a reason a lot of people leave Vermont to seek out better opportunities. I found my opportunity here not just to make a living but to actually give back to the community and to sort of provide the same things that both Jim and Terry have managed to do for a very long time now. And I'm very proud of what we've accomplished within our town. I think I can bring a lot to the table in terms of a new perspective. As a young person who chose to stay that understands the hardships of affordability and the cost of housing and the cost of healthcare, I certainly wanna bring that perspective to the Vermont legislature next January with the support of the town. And I wanna, yeah, thank everyone for having me. Great, thank you. Terry, closing statement. Sure. So thanks again for hosting the panel that we're having tonight. I can reiterate that I've enjoyed my 40 years in the town of government in Williston and other aspects of the town of Williston. Yes, I'm the chair of the select board right now and I think that we've done a lot of things in the past 13 or 14 years since I've been chair of the board in the last 10 years as a state representative for Williston along with Jim. I've been fortunate to serve on the Corrections and Institutions Committee for all those 10 years. And it's a money committee that uses bonded money and that's something that's very important for the towns and for the state to have the bonded money ability to spend those funds. Going forward, if I'm reelected and I hope that you will consider that, there's lots of problems that we need to solve within the state and there's lots of opportunities for us to solve those problems. Sometimes it said that good ideas take a long time to develop in the legislature. That's true, but we'd like to continue doing that and encourage you to vote tomorrow or through August the 14th, which is primary day and vote for me. Great, thank you so much and thank you so much all for coming out tonight. And I always forget about early voting. It was just one of the weeks called absentee voting. I'm giving myself my age away but I wish to make sure everyone knows that absolutely if you can't come out on August 14th because maybe you're on vacation, it is summer, that there's opportunity to go down to town hall during office hours and vote at any time so we hope you'll take advantage. Or call, get an early voting ballot delivered to your home. There you go. So again, thanks for joining me and don't forget to vote August or now or August 14th on primary day. Thanks so much for joining us.