 Welcome back to Senate Education. We're going through a new draft, close to our final draft of the library, Bill. 1.2. And I think if you would take us through it all, you know, mind, this is our final, maybe close to final walkthrough, to my sort of business, line by line a little bit. Absolutely. Good afternoon, talk to Anderson Legislative Council. We have in front of you the committee's amendment to S-220, we're going to be working through draft 1.2, starting in Section 1. Sections 1 and 2 are going to relate to the selection and attention of library materials. Section 1, amendments 22, the setting of Section 67 to state that one of the goals is to ensure that Vermont libraries protect and promote the principles of free speech, the authority to discovery and public accommodation. It is necessary that the trustees, managers, or directors of free public libraries that adopt policies that comply with the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and state and federal civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. This is an expression of intent for purposes of the chapter of the section since the 7th sits in to describe the need for the policies at the Freedom of Libraries. Moving into section 2. I have a 10th to that, but should we wait till then? I know. Go ahead. Let's just tell us where you're at. We're thinking. I did have school libraries we shoved in me. I think this would just be where we add it. Certainly we could add it here. We would likely need to call out what school libraries are captured because within this chapter, the term public library is defunct. They just would like a school library, material selection policy, explicit in 20 and possible. I can share the language with Mr. Anderson. That's okay with you all. Do you like me to read it right now? Yeah. Why don't you read it? All right. So it says. So it would add to chapter 1644 of BSA, section 1, 16 BSA, section, wait, I'm sorry. It's the legal still something I've worked on. Subsection 16.4. Thank you, Sandra. I'm sorry, let's forget about that. Each school board and each approved independent school shall develop, adopt, ensure the enforcement of, and make available in the manner described under subdivision 5631 of this title. A library material selection policy can procedures for the reconsideration of materials. The policy procedures shall affirm the importance of intellectual freedom and be guided by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, the American Library Association's Freedom Bill of Rights, Library of Bill of Rights, and Freedom to Read Statement, and Vermont's Freedom to Read Statement. So this is just kind of codifying. Does that mean we have to take testimony from all of these on this now? Only because we really should vote it tomorrow. I'm not opposed. It's going down the hall for a while, not opposed to it being amended along the way. But I mean, can we pull it up by including not including a break this second short? We'll just keep, I think, now we sort of know what the issue is. See how controversial it is. I don't think it's controversial at all, but Ms. Dillner, do you want to say something about this? Sure. I think that this is something that the department would support, but using the same language that is in place for the public libraries, which covers the same principles. The department's not supportive of listing nonprofit entities outside the state that can change their policies. So that was not up in the case? I think the school library proposed language, which I know came directly from the school librarians, but the department would recommend that we refer to existing laws and not to the Bill of Rights just because it has changed over the years and it's more proactive. The opinion of the working group and the department to go with the principles of intellectual freedom that are specific to the First Amendment and the Public Accommodation Law in Vermont and Civil Rights Act of 1964. So you would suggest small C just incorporating our public and independent schools into that language? Using the same language in the appropriate place, it's a little tricky because the collection development retention section, I think falls in the public library subsection, probably not referring to those sections and subsections properly, but it falls in the public library area. I think that Ledge Council would be able to point us to a place to put the school. I would say why not academic libraries that are publicly funded as well? We're talking about school. I totally get it. I get it. It just means EVM, everybody comes in, and just a little worried that we're getting late, and I almost would rather have people work on it, and we can amend it in approach or on the floor if that's okay, Senator Gilligan. That's totally fine. Just thinking about anything, they're all going to have to come in and say, we're going to get into the universities. I'd say just hold for now. Senator Gilligan wants to work on the language and bring it down to approach. Does that feel okay? Yeah, that's fine. Still within this subject area, I'm going to move the end to Section 2. This adds a new Section 69 to Title 22, governing the selection and reconsideration of library materials as free public libraries. The public library shall adopt policy for the selection and reconsideration of library materials that applies to the First Amendment Civil Rights Act, under the 64 and state laws prohibiting discrimination in places of public accommodation. So that's the mandate that follows the adopted as compliant with state federal law, and then the next sentence discretionary public library may adopt as its policy a model policy adopted by the Department of Libraries. And Section 3 in the bill is introduced in the draft 1.1 was that Section 606. But as you'll see when we get to the end of the bill, I put all of the department's authority that was scattered throughout the bill in one place again, so we'll touch on that in the last section. If you are ready, we're on Page 2 by the way, Section 3. This is the confidentiality of library records for minors. The amendment is in 22 BSA, Section 172, Subdivision B4. It lowers the age from 16 to 12. And that, someone just reminded me that this is from Florida, that is current policy coming out of it's consistent with other policy that health and welfare. I know that's on the books now in terms of what? But I'm just wondering first from Ledge Council, the 12 wasn't just pulled out of the air. What is it kind of aligning with? That's 18 BSA 492.6. Is he right? I believe the plus editor is correct. And the age. We have him mad. like totally. I'm totally. That's impressive. There are actually, I think, two statutes in Title 18 where care can be acquired starting at the age of 12. And the reason that this age is here is not directly because of those statutes but because this was the age reviewed by the working group as the appropriate age for confidentiality of records, specifically in this case from public libraries, school libraries are separate and are governed by federal law, specifically for parental and guardian access to library records under FERPA. So are we? Oh, no. It's good. Anything else on that? Okay. Safety. Public safety. This section amends 13th BSA section 1702 to add public libraries to a list of locations within the criminal threatening statute. So the person who commits criminal threatening and that is making a threat to the place of any person who is reasonable to have prevention of death, serious bodily injury or sexual assault will occur at, in this case, a public library, Jovian prison not more than two years defined, not more than $2,000. This covers the gap between public libraries that are municipal buildings that are already covered by the statute and public libraries that would not be considered municipal buildings because they are association libraries that are publicly funded but are not municipal facilities. Okay. The first chair just here, I'm wondering clearly since we're pulling public libraries in, you guys will likely want to see it and have to see it. I don't know how long you think. Well, I mean, you know the room there better than I. It is changing of crime. Yeah. So there's, I mean, I feel like, so there's a part of me that wants to say it's fine, but I don't want to overstep with the chair. Right. So we can keep it in and maybe go down to the hall after this might make a couple of steps. I got a problem with polling place except that from a constitutional standpoint, except a lot of polling places. So I already take that into consideration. Well, I appreciate the comment. The polling places are current law, right? So we are only adding public libraries, but okay. Okay. No, that's fine. Please go ahead. Next sections are the library government sections. There were four of them in the bill is introduced. This has been pared down to two sections that are going to amend specifically the government's models in statute for trustee libraries and managed and directed libraries overseen by boards. The two sections that dealt with the establishment and appropriations for municipal libraries pulled out because the only remaining amendments that were in the bill were very minor technical correctance and it didn't fit within this section anymore. If the committee has the desire to go back and technically correct those sections, I can put them back in. But you didn't remove the substantive policy decision around the appropriations for municipal libraries. So section five, amendments 22, the S.A. section 105 so that this will now read most of this is existing law by the way. It's just clarifying this that the trustees, managers, and directors shall and in the new subdivisions 24 adopt file loss policies governing the operation of the library, established budget, fold regular meetings, and ensure compliance with the terms of any funding, grants, or requests. This language reflects what exists and the next steps you get into is governing the trustees. So we're there now. Page four, section six, amendments 22, VSA, section 143. In subsection A, language is moved into this subsection from later on in section 143, stating that when trustees are first chosen, they shall be elected or appointed to stagger terms. Subsection B, subdivisions 136. The board of trustees shall have the power to manage any property that shall come into the hands of the municipality by get, purchase, devise, or request. Adopt policies governing the operation of the library, establish a library budget, fold regular meetings, and ensure compliance with the terms of any funding, grants, requests. Same language you saw before. Subsection C, there's clarification here. There has been conflict in the past between who has authority over library interpreters at these libraries. We are on line 12 in subsection C, sub-H5. Absolutely. So a line here. Library director shall be under the supervision and control of the library board trustees. This clarifies moving forward that this is the position that is under the library board, not the legislative body of the municipality. All right. Moving into the section of the Department of Libraries. These discreet pieces of authority were scattered throughout the bills introduced, and in the last draft you saw. So for ease of seeing what the department's going to be doing, moving forward, I'll put them all together in section 7. This amends 22 VSA, section 6 of 6. To amend first, we're on page 6 now. Subdivision 5 states that the department shall provide a continuing education program for a certificate covered public librarianship, and shall conduct seminars, workshops, and other programs to increase the professional competence of librarians and states. As we discussed in the bill, this certificate and public librarianship program already exists. These are continuing education and professional development programs that the department has already offered. Okay. Subdivision 8, a duty is struck, and that is the duty for the department to be the primary access point for state information. And Ms. Delano, that's because it just, what did you say? When you testified on this section, it was not happening. It's sure. When it's asked on the floor, what should we say? Catherine Delano, State Librarian. That duty has been taken over by others within the state. The department is not reviewing all of the website contact, nor is it serving as a point of information or a switchboard for state information services. Thank you, Rob. Subdivision 9, this was formerly within the selection and retention language. This grants discretionary authority to the department to develop model policies concerning displays, meeting room use, patron behavior, internet use, materials reconsideration, other relevant topics to ensure substantive confluence with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Vermont laws that have been in discrimination. Do you hear best of your language? Oh, the next one. Okay. Thank you. Subsection 10. Subdivision 10. Subdivision. The department shall adopt a collection development policy that reflects Vermont's diverse people in history, including diversity of race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, religion, political beliefs. This subdivision was reorganized to match how the state curators, collection, development is built in statutes and religion and political beliefs were added as two of the callouts of examples of Vermont's diversity. And that matches, like you said, the curators, this language. And it's great. Yeah. It's not meant to be exclusive. It's not exhaustive. It's awesome. Yeah. It's not meant to be exemplary. It's ample. It's important. Aspirations. Thanks for doing that. This is great. And then finally, a new subdivision 11 is added to authorize the department to develop best practices and guidelines for public libraries and library and service laws. July 1st, back to David. So I don't want to close out your question and your thing at all. My only thing is that I also have devoted tomorrow. And then so two things could happen. We could do a committee amendment, you know, because it's going to probably be a couple weeks between approach and everything. We could also, since we are getting this learnings education, but for some things, something on that. The other thing is we could have the house or if you really sleep on it, you really feel like you want it in this spring support language and try to figure something out. And I hope that's not the one you choose, but that's okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, do it doing it tomorrow. Yeah, no, I won't. Okay. That one. I don't see why you couldn't do a committee amendment on our floor. We'll just like or send it to the house. I will. Yeah, no, if we do a committee amendment on the floor, because what I could ask Jane to do is hold it. Yeah. All our bills will be out. And once all our bills are out or waiting for the house bills, we could take a couple days of curing. Yeah, I also think the house would be in need of multi padding. And so I think it's probably fine. I'll just simply search. Any other questions on this? Otherwise, we've, do you need to do any tidying up language? Everything is set. And I sent a clean copy to Ornith earlier that I will be exposed to. And how are you guys feeling about it? I'm still troubled by what we're all locking from the supermarket. And we heard yesterday, I think pretty clearly from DCF that there are procedures for to address abusive families. I don't think we need to legislate for that. That's just where I am. So I don't know. Yeah, sure. I don't want the bill though. It's great though. Okay. But I just troubled. So you'll vote against it. Yeah, okay. Yes. Okay. Okay. So we'll vote this today at the end of the day. So I guess the thing is, I see a clean copy of that though. Okay. That is one point. Actually, you're not going to, it's just mine is messy, right? I wrote on it. So mine's fine as well. All right. So before we go, we'll vote on it. Unless you think there's something else you'd want to hear from that might get you there. But we, but it's in there. I just want to give you the opportunity. I completely understand. I've been listening for two months. But you know, while we're committing, it's like, if it's in statute, why would we need to put it in? Oh, I see what you mean. Right. It's in statute related to health welfare laws. This would span it to voting. We'll vote it later. Yeah. It's going to add, I miscount, I was misunderstanding the calendar earlier with 191. I'm fine with voting on it today. Does that have anything at all? Or did you get that? Yeah. I just understood the notice. Great. Great. So we'll do that also. So I'm going to notice tomorrow. Yeah. Thanks so much, Dr. Thank you all. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Delnaio. You're going to get that trophy. Seriously, that was a huge help. I would love the trophy. With the honor of thinking about it. Today at some point. Thank you. I mean, let's take five minutes before the Attorney General can sit. Welcome back to Senate Education. Nice to see you, Attorney General Clark. Just to set the table a little bit, we have S20 is an evolving document. And by that, I mean, we have asked the University of Vermont to pull together a number of different stakeholders to bring back a draft that we'll see at probably during the week of town meeting. And then we'll take it up during the last week prior to crossover where hopefully all of the parties will be on the same page. So because we do want to move something like this by any. So with that, we would love and certainly welcome your general thoughts and feelings on the issue. And so the floor is yours. Well, thank you so much for having me. And I'm very sorry that I'm not there in person. Motherhood calls. No, I believe it. I do. I do prefer to testify, especially in person and wish that I were with you today. I will be sending you some like written testimony that doesn't that kind of goes into a little bit more detail on the various sections. But I just I asked to come and speak to you on this issue. I think it's really important. And I wanted to just share our perspective. First, let me say that I learned a lot when I ran for office. When you run for statewide office, you have to go all over the place and talk to people. And of course, like, like all politicians, I had a stump speech. And my stump speech, like one of the first things I said in it was because I was the first woman running for Attorney General on the Democrat credit ticket. I said that no, no woman, no attorney general had known before what it's like to walk to your car in a dark parking lot, holding your keys in that special way that all women know. And I just thought this was a good line for my stump speech. But what I learned when I went when I went around Vermont is that it resonated with both men and women who said, I knew that you were my candidate the minute I heard that. And for men, it resonated because it was such a foreign concept. And for women, because they knew exactly what I was talking about. I have kept that with me that that knowledge that I that I acquired of how how gendered the issue of of safety can be for us. And we know that and I know this was previously said it bears repeating that when it comes to sexual violence, women 18 to 24 or four times more likely than other age groups to experience sexual violence. And we know that this council was created because the voices of people and probably especially women in that age group demanded that something be done. So I think that we have this opportunity, all of us who are working on this bill to honor their voices and make steps in a direction that removes this culture of silence from campuses on this issue and tries to do better because all people especially in college deserve to be safe and feel safe. The idea that young people arrive at college and are vulnerable in this way is unpalatable. And I'm just really glad to see the work being done. And I especially applaud the colleges who are coming with the spirit of collaboration and humility in spite of the fact that college campuses are the setting of these violent crimes. And I think that all of us working together are going to create progress for students and all of us, but especially for those in that age group. So it's really wonderful to be a part of that work. So in brief, I support the bill. I wanted to make sure you know, you knew that I from the sidelines was watching this bill and cared a lot about it. And I wanted to come in and tell you that. I think one thing that I've tried to do as Attorney General is elevate voices that aren't always heard. And we're fortunate we heard the voices back in whenever that was who were protesting and telling us that they wanted more and better for them. And it feels good to be at this point in the process so close to putting in place some of the changes that are going to make a difference on Vermont campuses. Thank you. And I want to publicly recognize Senator Hesheen for putting the bill in. And for following up on it this year, you know, work was done in the summer, people got together. But sometimes when we come back, certain things when your committee member or chair can get lost in the shuffle and he brought it back out and put it at the forefront of our work. And I'm feeling now that we're going to leave with something this year. So I just want to recognize and having done that. So yeah. Anything else, Madam Attorney General at this point? No, I would just say thanks again for having me today. Sorry, I'm not in person. And I appreciate the opportunity to share the perspective. Right. And what we'll do is during town meeting, we'll work to get you a copy of the bill as you know, the reworked version that everybody's come together and worked on so that hopefully maybe the Wednesday or Thursday when we're back, we can vote that out and get it to the floor. That's wonderful. Yeah, we'll look for that. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the Attorney General before she goes? Okay, thank you. Okay, bye. Okay, so thanks again. I think we're going to be good on this. So that took a little, it was a little shorter than I thought. So can we work to get Cassandra Ryan and Matt Muscray in sooner rather than later? Is that possible? Cassandra is with us online already. Great. And Matt, I have a question about. Oh, you could. So we, why don't we go off for a minute. Welcome back to Senate Education. And Ms. Ryan, welcome to Senate Education. It's so nice to see you. Thank you. It's great to be there. We are shifting gears to, we have a draft of the Miscellaneous Education Bill that we are going to add some other things to, but you are seeing draft 3.1. And I believe, I know Mr. Muscray is here to talk about school construction contracts. And are you here for the same, Ms. Ryan? I am. I'm actually here for a couple of things this afternoon. My understanding is I'm here for the Public Bid Law. Hold on, we can hear you. So we're going to turn up the volume. Okay. Okay, try it out. Yes. So Cassandra Ryan, Director of Regulatory Compliance from the Agency of Education. And I'm expected to discuss today the proposed changes to the Public Bid Law, Title 16559, as well as the proposed changes to some post-secondary statute as well. Okay, floor is yours. And do we have your written testimony? I believe I'm just here to comment on that draft 3.1, which is the agency's proposal. Okay. We're in agreement with that proposal. So the idea, would you like me to start or? Yes, please. If you move a little closer to your microphone, we still don't hear you that well. Okay. Please do tell me if you don't, if there's any. We still do not hear you that well. I think the headphones help. Oh, good. Okay. We learn. We're still learning. All right. So, yes, we're excited to talk about the Public Bid Law today, and to see if there's any questions about some proposed changes that might alleviate some of the burden that our districts are under right now as they're trying to properly procure their services according to the state law, but also to make sure we can secure competition to make those bids competitive. So there were a couple of changes to 559 that we thought would really represent some improvements and recognize today versus, you know, it's been a while since some of this has been reviewed. A few years ago, there was a threshold change to Section A that was a great change and we thought it was appropriate at the time, but Section B was not changed. So that holds still steady as defining a high-cost construction project at $500,000, which I wish I could tell you that was a high-cost construction project, but nowadays it just doesn't buy that much. And so I was active in the school construction program at the agency back in the like 2006 era, and 500,000 did buy us a lot more. Now, it's very unlikely to even buy you an HVAC improvement project. So 500,000 is just not considered a high-cost construction project. Accompanying a high-cost construction project is a lot of complications and delays and costs. And what we are finding in today's bid climate is that prospective bidders just aren't that interested in working with school districts on these projects. Right now, with all the emergency funding that's come into the state at the federal level, there's just a lot of money being spent on construction, and bidders just don't seem that interested in putting in the extra work of working with the school districts when they can take on a similar project, a similar amount, with a lot less investment in that upfront bidding process. So we just felt it was time to maybe, you know, to see if there was the ability to more accurately represent what we think is a high-cost construction project. And 2 million certainly seems a more reasonable number. Although as I said, I regret that I have to say that 500,000 is not a high-cost construction, right? But it just simply isn't in today's world. So that was the first part of it. I'm happy to go in further if you'd like me to to discuss the extra work or the burden on bidders that do trigger a high-cost construction project. Would that be helpful? I'm just wondering if this testimony will completely be in line with or will be redundant to Mr. Westgrave's testimony? Okay, so when you do, when a school district does trigger a project that is over $500,000 and the nature of that project is construction, it triggers what we call pre-qualification requirements, meaning that bidders have to submit 60 days prior to a bid opening. Interested parties have to submit a pre-qualification statement. That's a lot of work for them. It has to be submitted on a particular format. It has to include all of the information. The intent of it obviously is consumer protection to some degree because these are public dollars. So we want to make sure that the interested bidders, when we get to that point, are able to handle the project. But it is a lot of work for them to put that proposal together. There's also the significant time delay of the 60-day requirement for that pre-qual process. What we're finding, at least in the last few years where we've seen this boon of construction in our school districts for those projects like HVAC projects or security projects, things that are in line with the federal funding, what we're seeing is that we're just not getting interested bidders for our school districts, meaning we're seeing a lot of bid waiver requests at the agency. That's our trigger. That's how we know that's happening. What we're finding out as we dig deeper is that school districts are having a hard time getting one bid, let alone multiple bids. And of course my worry is that if we're only seeing one bid, that kind of goes awry of the intent of competition. It's a public process, so everyone knows there's only one interested party that's been pre-qualified, meaning that when they get to that bid stage, everyone knows there's only going to be one bid. So the idea here is could we, on those smaller projects that maybe are not rising to the level of a high-cost construction project, alleviate that requirement for the pre-qual, pushing them back up into subsection A of the statute so that they could just go out to bid, so to speak, receive in bids without a pre-qualification process. Any questions on that? Again, I don't know what level you want me to dive into on that. No, I think that's really helpful. I mean, giving that background as it relates to what is happening on the ground is great. Senator Weeks. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. It's a good testimony. It's a good recommendation to get it. We understand the environment. I do have a question regarding the number of bids, three or fewer, obviously leads us to accept a single bid given the climate of construction, the firms available to do work and such. But my caveat is that the environment is likely to change over coming years. Should there be a sunset in this provision so we don't just keep chasing single bidders to do projects indefinitely? Yeah, no, that's a really good question. And I appreciate that. I want to quickly scroll up on my side over here. So the part where we're actually removing the requirement to select from amongst the lowest three bidders is actually attached to subsection A. So those are two separate sections of the law that that's the over 40, but not the high cost construction. So in that, I can talk about that separate or we can talk about it here. When we're talking, oops, I'm sorry. I'll hold the question until we have them. Okay. So for the high cost construction for projects over 200,000, those would we're not recommending that those would change. It's just the threshold that would change, meaning that once bids are received, because those are just meteor projects that folks might have more interest in. And certainly we are not intending to release the hold of the gate of competition. That would never be my intent. In fact, I am the procurement person. So I respect competition. I also just need to acknowledge when it's not there and it can actually be causing the reverse effect where once it gets out there, this is such a small state in the community of bidders here is very small. So my worry is that folks are starting to recognize that there's not a lot of competition. Okay. But I'm happy to talk about that section under C where we're talking about the contract award and where we're saying to maybe we're suggesting to change it from selecting from the lowest three bids to selecting from among the three or fewer lowest responsible bids. That's a different that's a different section of the procurement regulations here, which is that if a if a certain purchase, let's say it's transportation of students or it might be heating fuel for your school building, it might be a small construction project, it might be a construction project that's over 40,000 but under the high cost threshold. For those projects, there's the requirement that a district must advertise they may invite or they may do both. They may advertise and invite and when those bids come in that they must choose from the lowest three. In effect, what that's done is if they have lower than three, if they receive less than three bids, they have to apply to the agency's secretary for a bid waiver and that bid waiver process is, you know, simply a review to make sure that they are unable to comply with the requirement to get three bids through no fault of their own and that through, you know, through their proposal that we're still able to ascertain that there was a competitive and public process. That also we've seen a great uptick in those requests, those requests for bid waivers on those exact types of purchases as I mentioned, excuse me, like fuel contracts, those small construction projects, where that can become pretty instantly problematic is when the bid waiver process actually causes them to lose the bid, lose the pricing that they've now obtained. So it's not uncommon for a fuel price to only last a number of days past receipt. So they may get a price for bid, excuse me, a bid price for fuel that lasts three days. And by the time they seek a waiver that bid price has expired, they are not able to enter into a contract until they receive a waiver. And so it starts this process all over again. And we sort of get on this cycle where we end up having to do some special considerations real quick to get a bid waiver through. Yeah, so then again, in summary, subsection C to line 12 does not apply to section B from page one, line one. So the three or fewer forms of bid does not apply to high-cost construction contracts. That's correct. The high-cost construction contracts after a pre-qualification process has occurred. You'll see line 20, if you go down a bit, that specs how a contract award can be made for a high-cost construction project. And that lets us know that after you've pre-qualified, you've had your chance, you know, districts had their chance to sort of look at the qualifications. And at that point, they've said this list of pre-qualified bidders are all capable of doing the work that we need done. They're responsible, they have experience, they've met all of our pre-qualification criteria. So at that point, it really does come down to price. And in fact, they're required to choose the lowest bidder unless those two lowest bidder base price is within 1% of each other, and then they could choose from the lowest two bidders. So there's a little different handling between those regular over 40,000 procurements and then that high-cost construction. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we just don't have all the language related to the Yes, I see that. And we were kind of like, we don't have such an A, which is Kind of important. And then so just another just general question. So you do low-cost, you take low-cost bids, yeah, lowest cost, lowest bid versus best value, but you don't have a best value. So no, so in that section, the subsection A that's missing from your paper there, that's for those projects that are over 40,000, but under 500,000 for construction, or it could be over 500,000 if it's a non-construction type purchase. For those, they're able to choose from amongst the lowest three bidders, and we would certainly expect them to choose the best value at that point. And oftentimes, we do see that. We see that there's no requirement that they choose the low bidder if they're under A, if they're bidding under A, if that procurement falls under A. So if they're bidding under B, which is high value, on a best value? Well, I think the idea at that point is they've pre-qualified. So they've sort of level set apples to apples at that point to say that any of these companies, any of these bidders would be able to do our project. So at that point, and they have a lot of movement in that pre-qualification process. So that's where they really get to add a little bit of their own expectations or their own values to the project. They're able to pre-qualify folks using a set criteria of the state board rules, but they can sort of wrap around with their own criteria. That's important to them to really get to that value point that I think you're looking for. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Roth. Any other questions for Ms. Ryan? Is Ryan any other information for us? I don't think so. I think what we're trying to do certainly is not, and I just want to make sure is not to lower any bar. I think we're looking to recognize a significant cost increase in construction. And I think we're also looking to make sure that versus creating a process just for the sake of a process in regards to the bid waiver and the ability to accept any of the lower bids when you follow the process is not that the process would be changing for those that fall under A, but that if a district who's been well trained in our districts want the best pricing, they want the best value, you know, if they do follow it and they can document that they've followed the state public bid law, they wouldn't need to come to the agency delay signing that contract, possibly lose out on the price, when through no fault of their own, they've advertised, they've invited, they've done the work. They just can't control how many interested parties are out there. I think we're just trying to recognize that as a, as a bit of a reality for them and allow them to at least enter into those contracts expeditiously. You know, mine's sticking around. We're going to have Mr. Musgrave join us here on the table. Mr. Musgrave, do you have a testimony up here? Thank you for having me on. Thank you. For the record, my name is Matt Musgrave. I'm with the Associated General Contractors of Vermont. It's an honor for me to be here for your committee today for a couple of reasons. Number one, I've actually never been before on the Education Committee before. And my old endeavor as a realtor, we never came in here. And now that I'm with the construction organization, we do touch base sometimes with education. And we really appreciate all the work that you're doing with the CTE senators and trying to bolster their growth and the results we're hoping to see will help help bring more contractors into the field, help bring more different types of tradespeople that come out of those programs out there. So that's a great thing. So just real quick, I'll tell you who we are. I forgot my second honor. Did I happen to be testifying before my French teacher for high school? I wasn't going to bring that up. Okay. Well, it's funny you say that. Okay. She just emailed us your transcript. So you know that I was a late bloomer. The chair was a late bloomer. She prayed. Well, no, so it is an honor and I appreciate the invitation. So I've been talking to talk about because we like to hear about construction school. That's something that members really appreciate. So the AGC is Vermont's largest trade organization for construction professionals. We provide industry specific training, including occupational and safety health administration training as OSHA, Mind Safety Health Administration training as MSHA. We do a number of other job specific trainings, whether it's fall protection or confined spaces. We do leadership training. We do blueprint reading. We're working with a number of folks and putting together a weatherization program to help improve our climate goals here in Vermont. So we do a number of different trainings. We have approximately 200 members that includes not only general contractors, that includes electricians, that includes people in the industry, including equipment dealers and supply companies. So we really do have our finger on the pulse per se of the whole encompass of the business of construction. And our members generally are working with the state agencies oftentimes B trans buildings and general services, agency and natural resources. So we're familiar with the procurement process at the state and participate regularly. And one thing that I would like to bring up when I'm talking about our membership is that we're very proud to say that the 15 to 20,000 employees that work within our ranks are earning much higher than livable wage jobs here in Vermont with benefits and how comes it's, you know, I can recall and I never understood this when I was a real estate agent at a young age, 21 year olds were buying houses. I didn't understand that, but now I actually see it. I see them coming into my building for training. They're driving brand new trucks and their outcomes are great. So we're proud to talk about that. So we're happy to hear that the school construction is coming. I know this is something that's been a challenge for the state of Vermont. You know, our schools are a necessary piece of our infrastructure. This is where we broke people's minds and get them interested in life and being productive and working. So, you know, we're looking at the physical conditions of the schools, we're looking at recent hazardous material being found in schools that show it's absolutely critical to invest in these properties at this point. In addition to providing a safe and inviting place to learn new school construction will allow the districts to employ more technologies for their programming. But also they would be able to design these buildings to Vermont's energy codes so that they'll be more energy efficient. That helps out on the cost end. That also helps out on our carbon goals to reduce our footprint here in Vermont to hopefully be a leader for the rest of the country and world. So reading the bill, I only reviewed section one that has requested for testimony and I noticed there was some change from the original text to what we have here. So what I'm here to testify on is the increase of threshold from $500,000 to $2 million that triggers the high cost construction contract. We think it's appropriate. I mean, at this point in time, I don't know when the $500,000 was put into law, but I would guess 20 plus years ago. So even just simple inflation gets you up to that number there. So we understand that the other requirements of this section, I mean, that they already exist. If you're opening that up to those, the below $2 million that you just go to the low bid, that's great. My members don't have any objection to that. Although they're also not generally worried about going through the DGS project process. And I think, you know, I arguably, you know, I would support the procurement officer's opinion that, you know, some smaller, some smaller outfits may shun and turn away from those because maybe they don't have that. We think the qualification process is very important, but it is, it is cumbersome to smaller firms. Now we at AGC are mainly working with larger firms. Our members generally have a bidding and estimating department. They have all of this stuff fairly ready to go and generally are already qualified through buildings and general services. The other requirements in this makes sense. You know, the process that we're talking about here is largely known as the closed low bid process. It's intended to get low prices without sacrifice of quality. And the public nature of putting those out to bid and marketing those bids makes it more inclusive. So everyone has an opportunity to come out and bid. It's not just not saying any school district would ever do this, but not me just handing business to my cousin. And we're a very small state. There's a lot of cousins around. So I figured I'd point that out. But so the process makes sense. While this process has in the past, then the best way to get to the best bid is changing. The market is changing around us. So where we're seeing maybe some chilling on bidding, and we're not just sitting in schools. If you spoke to anyone in buildings and general services, they're having difficulties getting people to come in and bid. AOT is having problems getting people to come out and bid. Because since 2020, when we went into this pandemic, you know, we were able to relatively predict what inflation looked like at that time. And it's not just inflation of your materials. It's also inflation and challenges of the workforce. So we've lost in the workforce a lot. We have more people retiring right now than we're able to bring in, which is why we're here. So always going to be supportive of our CTE feeder programs. So those things cause a challenge. And I think the Department of Ed pointed out very, very smartly that back 60 day period, then your 30 day period, the decision period, and then the construction have started to take place. There could be months in between that. And then you also have to think about the fact that you have different phases that go through the project. Now, on a million dollar project, you might be talking about four or five windows in this building. So that's a little bit different than a larger project where you're maybe replacing a high school in Burlington, or you're doing additions or full replacements of systems. There's going to be different subs that you're going to bring in a lot down the way. So what we're seeing is the contractors have been pulling away from this low. It's not has nothing to do with the qualification process. It has nothing to do with having to deal with Jennifer and the gang over here at Buildings and General Services. It really has to do with that upfront risk that a contractor takes when they submit that low bid. Now I put the bid in on the lowest bid. This is grade six months down the road. I run into an issue where the windows are delayed or there's an additional cost for these things that happen. And as the contractor under most state contracting, there is no nothing in statute or requirements that would require or allow an agency of any kind to do an escalation agreement. In most cases, possibly education, I don't know, but I know for working with AOT, BGS, and ANR, there's no escalation agreement in there, which is generally included in a private contract. So when you look at the private contracting side of things, these commercial outfits and agency event is correct. They are preferring to work in the private sector right now because the private sector is more enviable to different types of procurement. And one that I wanted to bring to your attention today and not to throw a wrench into anybody's word, I think this is another tool that districts can employ by using a process of procurement called construction managers. Now what construction management does is it still encapsulates all that upfront. And I'm talking for the projects that are over $2 million. But that construction management process at the front end still looks the same in terms of your qualification, determination, as far as the initial, what will happen is there's an initial engineering idea. So there's a basic, when the school districts are maybe meeting with engineers or architects, they're coming up with what that initial estimate of dollar figure will be. And then they go out to bid. And at that point, under the construction management model, people would come and then they'd show up their qualifications where they'd win based on what that initial engineering estimate is. And then the model changes a little bit. So what happens then is you have the construction company partners with the owner, which is a school district, as well as with their designers. So if you think about the projects and phases, right? So phase one, you're saying, well, we've got to put up the frames of the building. So we need to stay within $2 million. And all of a sudden, the contractor comes back and says, what you'd like is $2.7 million. So because they're in this process, at that point, the agency or the district can come back, work with the designer, work with the contractor, and they can amend the project. Sorry, I just want to report a question. Thank you so much. You can use the construction management process, can't you? Now? Or is it prohibited? I didn't see that in the law. What do you think, Ms. Ryan? Absolutely. It's D. If you're in 559, it's 559D. That specs out the law for construction management. And then if you're interested, it's also held up by some state board of education rules for construction management. So there's rules that recognize the construction manager as advisor role, as well as the construction manager as constructor role. So there is definitely a path. In fact, I should not probably take this guess, but I would say at this moment, with all of the federal construction that's come in and the projects we've been seeing in the last two years, I would say construction management has by far been the preferred method that our districts are using right now. They're kind of going away. I think the industry is leading them away. I think you're absolutely correct. The industry is sort of leading them away from those GC contracts and really focusing more on those construction management contracts. But absolutely, that's what we see the majority of right now. I feel like that's what we're using in Burlington. There was something similar to it. We've had a lot of back and forth and a lot of art stuff. Yeah, I got a little further into the chapter, I guess. Senator Weeks has a question. If I could, Ms. Ryan, kind of need to put it in terms of, I understand, are we migrating away from a fixed price model of contracts above $2 million? Because construction meant the way it was just outlined. Sounds like we both evolved together to realize what the price is as the project evolves from framing to whatever steps there are. So we kind of moving away from an initial firm fixed price model to something that's a little more. The construction management model when you're using the construction, so this we call it like a CMC or a construction manager at risk, does result in a guaranteed maximum price at a point farther down the road when the design is all figured out and agreed upon. Thank you. So that means they make the changes while they're going through to maintain that price setup. Saying you get to phase one and identify a problem, that gives them the ability to get back together with the contractor, make changes. What happens when you do the open close bid process and you come in and want to make changes, let's say, again, go back to the $2 million discussion, contractor realizes it's going to be $2.7 million and they come in and do the work, all of a sudden when you start making deductions on that, you're not getting dollar for dollar deductions on that either. So that's why construction management makes a lot of sense for these because you can realize and mitigate that risk going forward. Thank you. Matt, I just wanted to ask you, do you think $2 million is the appropriate number for the high threshold? So meaning when I think it's too low or do I think it's too high? So this is a policy decision. I think what happens, why? So while you get into these discussions, you start looking at what the cost of doing this building is. I just, a lot of people may have been over to, we had an open house recently at the AGC building where we had to recover from the flood and we did a pretty significant amount of work. I mean, we had about $400,000 worth of drywall flooring, painting, systems reinstalled. We built another training facility and it was just the framing of the actual room itself. So as studs, walls, minimal insulation and the HVAC on top, that was around $200,000. That's just one room. So when you start getting into that conversation of, I think the question we're trying to answer here really is not whether we go out to bed, it's do we go to the prequel process? And I would dare say that I would probably keep that number of lower than higher because millions of dollars, it's easy to make mistakes if the wrong contractor has decided and it's a lot harder to pull out and go back in. And I firmly don't believe that the process for prequel is what's chilling the bidders. I had a phone call with one of my members, Pete Cowley, before I came here and he suggested this. So if they are offering this, if this is an option, the market's not seeing it because Pete Cowley is one of the few in the marketplace. So maybe it's a question of do you look at that $2 million threshold and you start marketing them more effectively as a construction management process? Would that attract more bidders? Or do you statutorily require that you go through that process? I don't know the, I mean, that's really something, that's a policy assessment. You live with the language as is? I've got no problem with this. I think it's logical. It's appropriate. My suggestions certainly weren't intended to, that was the word. Throw a wrench. Throw a wrench. But I thought I would maybe offer another idea for another tool if it's not being, we're not getting the bids that we're looking for. Maybe we look at the bidding system a little better. Okay. Want to give us some of that now on full say? That would be great. We do appreciate this. You and I started working together when you were with the real estate folks because I remember there was some natural resource and energy stuck and having to do with certifying houses. Remember this? Certifying houses, when you went to buy a house, there was an idea for the ABCD or app around energy efficiency. Yeah, and I'm still, you know, I'm still working on that. It's still out there. I'm working alongside a number of other cohorts to get more contractors educated in the building and the standards. We all need support and pass a bill to register those contractors. And now I'm working with the Secretary of State's office to try to improve those systems. And yeah, it was an honor to meet you early on, Senator Campion. I'm taking water. We worked on the training. We used a little property transfer tax. So now I'm in the building side of it. It's great to see you, Matt. It really is. Ms. Ryan. Great job. Thanks, Billy. It was great testimony. Really helpful. And if we need anything else, we'll let you know. But I think we're pretty good with this section. Thank you, Chair Campion and everyone. And yeah, please do reach out, any of you reach out, want to talk more about construction, construction management. I'm always available. Thank you. I appreciate that a lot. I think I'm going to just hang out in the background, right? Because we're going to move on to post-secondary sometime today or is that what you'd like me to do or? I don't see you on post-secondary. Okay. Well, that's what I was told, but if that's not the case, that's okay, too. Okay. If we need to come back at some point, we certainly will. I think, just so I know, are you thinking about the section having to do with colleges and universities? Yes. Want me to eliminate certain ones? Yes, exactly. You do want to just say a few words now on that? I mean, what we basically have done in this document was any school that was no longer alive and well, thank you. We wanted to sort of pin up statute and I don't know if you had any, I mean, we I think are in agreement with the list. Did you want to add anything? The only thing I would add is a bit of urgency to it, meaning that while it may seem like a simple administrative task of just cleaning up the language, there's actually sort of this phenomenon that's occurring that's definitely not what is what anyone would have expected or hoped for. But the way the statute is written, the name alone is pretty important. And what we've seen in at least one case is an entity absorb the name. So take over the name of one of those closed colleges, become accredited with a creditor overseas and start an online activity that makes this look like a Vermont College, which can be very confusing for consumers. So there is sort of a consequence towards leaving those names in law. There's an authority that belongs to the name. And accrediting is not that hard to get from a qualified accreditor, like a regional accreditor, it's an intensive process. What I meant by that is you can easily also seek accreditation from a less robust accreditor. So you know, you could technically meet the law and be operating. And it's very confusing to students or prospective students. Thank you for that. We will move as quickly as possible. I mean, the bill will likely be in the house in a couple of weeks. Frankly, it's not going to probably be signed until June. But I do appreciate knowing the urgency. I really do. Some more context. I think it's context. Yes, just some context around something that most people wouldn't expect, right? Absolutely. Great. Great. Thanks, Ms. Ryan. Thank you. Really great to see you. Take care. You too. Bye-bye. Great. Thanks. Okay.