 Welcome to the Vermont house government operations committee meeting. This morning we will be meeting with some municipal and school board folks in order to understand some of the challenges that they may be experiencing due to the switch from in person meetings and in person contact to to more remote settings in order to keep socially distance. So I'm going to go ahead and run right through the list of folks in the order that I have them. So that would be Carol does first and then we can talk off and then we can go through from the school board's perspective. So we have Sue Sue you have to unmute yourself and tell me how to say your last name. Good morning it Sue seglowski seglowski. Okay, thank you so much. So Sue seglowski can can share some thoughts with us we have Martha Heath and we also have Tim Smith so thank you all for being with us this morning we appreciate you being here to share your perspective and your and the challenges that you're facing so that we can hopefully find ways to help you continue to do your important work while we remain socially distant. Carol does I'm going to have you go ahead and speak first and then committee members if you want to raise your hand to ask a question of Carol, please do that and I'll let her get through, you know, kind of her, her thoughts and and perspective first and then we'll go to questions but you can go ahead and get yourself in the queue. If you'd like to ask her a question and then after we've asked Carol questions we will go on to to hear if Gwyn has anything to add to that will do the same with her. So go ahead Carol good morning. Good morning. For the record Carol does legislative chair Vermont municipal clerk and Treasurer's Association. And, and I like the mud season picture. It seems more appropriate than the beach. I did want to just share with you a number of different topics that are sort of working their way through out in clerk and treasurer land. And one of the things that is most relevant I'm sure to this committee has to do with land records. You'll recall we spent a lot of time last year working together on some increases associated with the recording of land records and other bits and pieces and what came out of that was a consortium of stakeholders that has continued to work and starting two, three weeks ago before the stay home order. Clerk's offices were starting to close close to the public offer limited access to their land records and there were concerns voiced by the, the bar association, the attorney title corporation the bankers Association, who have been attempting to maintain business as usual. And they reached out to me about, could we find a way to at least have a database of what sort of hours or restrictions clerk's offices were working under at that point in time and in the secretary of state's office because they have a master email list. We created a survey which was sent out on and the majority of towns responded and a spreadsheet was created and housed on the secretary of states website they've been very good about keeping it updated as new data has come through. So I, as always I want to thank all those different stakeholders who participated in providing this service for, for all of us on with the issuance of the governor's order. I do believe that all clerks offices are now closed to the public on most of the offices have also closed their vaults. They are working to find alternative ways to provide research opportunities for, for people who are working on land records or or closings refinancing on one of the things that clerks are are sort of taught right from day one is to be cautious about doing services in our vaults for other people that there might be liability issues, if we were to provide incorrect information or incomplete information. And so, in the past we have not provided those services, our vaults were open for people to come in and do it. But under the current circumstances, I think a lot of clerks have eased those restrictions. But researchers are now emailing me lists of documents, which I'm able to scan and email to them, along with an invoice. And they, because a lot of our documents are online they can access documents themselves, or they can at least look at the index and then send me a list that says please send me book 312 page 14. And we're able to do that. We're all very careful about putting a disclaimer in our responses, letting them know that, you know, we bear no responsibility or liability associated with any missing or incomplete or or incorrect information but but I think that it's just one example. And I'll give others of ways that clerks are looking for creative workarounds ways to continue as much business as usual as possible. The documents of course continue to be received for recording and depending on how closed down a clerk's office is. They are at the minimum, making sure to receive mail on a regular basis and date and timestamp the documents so as to maintain a clear timeline for for title purposes. And you'll recall that one of the things that we worked on last year and the fee bill was language about making sure that documents were date and timestamped at a minimum so on that that is certainly moving forward. Any questions on land records. Okay. And dog licenses. As you probably know the state statute requires that all dogs in the state of Vermont be licensed by April 1. Towns don't have the authority to to extend or didn't before the governor signed the 681 didn't have the authority to extend the deadline for dog licenses, but I do believe that most towns did allow licenses to be issued after the first of April with no late penalty. The late penalty is kept by the municipality it's not state revenues so towns and clerk certainly felt comfortable offering that extension to our our citizens. With vital records, we're doing when we're receiving requests for birth certificates death certificates marriage license certified copies. We're doing all of that by mail, or by email, and that seems to be working well there don't seem to be any hiccups with that. Liquor licenses liquor licenses in the state of Vermont all expire the end of this month the end of April. The Department of liquor and lottery is they have in their statutes, the authority to create a category that allows them to consider a license still in effect after the date has passed as long as the application has been submitted. They, they're continuing to allow people to stop is obviously, but they've also created. So I think what's happening is I think you're looking under the wrong more menu. I'm sorry. Okay, good morning Tony you are unmuted are you are you trying to get a message to the more button at the bottom of that. I'm going to go ahead and mute him. Okay. Good Carol. So the Department of liquor and lottery has also put an online application process in place where people can license holders can log into their website and file the required information without needing to file the fees immediately. And because that application will have been quote unquote received, they will continue to be licensed after the end of this month, and once the emergency is lifted. They'll go back to the sort of normal process and they'll reach out to license holders to collect the fees, the municipal portion of the fees will be remitted to us. And that seems to me the notice just went out yesterday about that. I haven't heard any negative comments or feedback yet from either license holders or fellow clerks. So I think that that's going to be a great way to move forward with that particular deadline. John, just a second, John Ganon has his hand up. Okay, go ahead, John. Unmute yourself. Oh, sorry. Thank you Carol. I had a question about land records. Yeah. You said there's liability issues. Is there anything we can do to help clerks with those liability issues. Not that I'm aware of and that might be a better question for Gwen when we get to her. And I'm not even sure that how much liability there might be. It's just something we've, we've always been concerned about, you know, not wanting to have any potential liability come down on clerks or the towns, and in some way we're not going to have a title on a property. So. Does there need to be education of clerks on this? I mean, or clerks, not helping because they assume there's some liability. There, there may be some of that going on. We certainly have on have tried to put stuff out on the list, sir, but Gwen may have an answer. So go ahead and introduce yourself. And when Zach from the Vermont league of cities and towns municipal policy advocate. Really it boils down to job description so under a town clerk's job description, but you know what they can do is clearly defined so doing anything beyond that creates sort of the liability but how much exposure that is is really, you know, it's who knows. Thank you. One of the other things that that has changed under the current situation is notarial services notarial services. Most if not all city clerks are notaries and traditionally offer services because that notaries. One of the things that requires face to face in person interactions clerks have been working to be creative in their ways to provide such services. I've been meeting out in parking lots or passing papers through the front door of their town hall to and we're asking people to bring their own clipboards and pens to try to minimize any possibilities for contact. My guess is that there's probably less notarization going on, because I do know that that clerks are concerned about the possibility of being handed a document or handing documents are back and forth. But to my knowledge there hasn't been a considerable downturn in the amount of notarizations that are being provided, we certainly see that there are a lot less being requested. And I'm sure that that's just that the kind of work that requires notarization of documents is suppressed at the time being. There was recently the the legislature passed the remote notarization emergency legislation. However, that doesn't affect clerks as a general rule because there are very strict guidelines and requirements for technology. And that's not something that most clerks are prepared to do so. I think it's primarily for conducting legal and real estate transactions, marriage licenses are another we've seen an uptick and marriage licenses. I'm not sure whether it's the COVID-19 and the fact that we're moving into the marriage season as it were. Marriages is another one of those interactions that requires face to face because statute says that clerks must witness at least one of the parties signing the document at the time that it is issued. And so we're able to do everything else electronically, they can download the application and fill it out electronically, email it to us we can create the license, but then at that point we do have to actually meet with them. We've had people come to the front door again similar to notarization people are meeting out in parking lots or at their front door and passing documents through and requiring they bring their own clipboards and pens. But that seems to be moving forward I haven't heard of any clerks denying issuance of a marriage license. We're all just looking for creative ways to get around that. One of the things that I didn't include on the written testimony that I submitted has to do with elections. As I'm sure you all know H 681 which the governor signed earlier this, this week, had some emergency language in there around elections, like both local and state elections. And there are a lot of clerks right now who are dealing with local elections, whether it's budget revotes or reconsiderations of other articles that were voted at town meeting or as an example Barry town which holds their town meeting election. Additionally, the second Tuesday of May, you know so they're deep in preparation for for their annual meeting on Barry town has postponed to the first Tuesday in June. And because of the, the language in 681, which gives the Secretary of State's office in conjunction with the administration the authority to work with communities to find solutions. We had a wonderful email out from will sending from the Secretary of State's office election division. Yesterday or the day before with a lot of great information about, you know how to make adjustments on the local level. And I know clerks found that very helpful. We're likely to see additional changes as we move into the season for the August primary and perhaps even the November General Election. A lot of people don't they think the August primary sounds like it's a long ways away but actually the deadlines as all of you know for nominating petitions are not that far away they're coming up next month. And then immediately after that the ballots have to be printed and if the intention is to go to all mail votes that has an impact on how many ballots are printed and so there's a lot of moving parts that are coming up in the not too distant future. And there will likely need to be changes and clerks are being kept informed about that through the Secretary of State's office. What I want to mention is the that there's been a lot of discussion by your fellow committees around lodging the grand list and tax bills on. Yesterday's Senate Finance took testimony the day before House Ways and Means took testimony and talking about extensions, the impact of the extension of the filing deadline for income taxes and Homestead property tax adjustment claim forms and that impact on lodging grand lists on issuing property tax bills. It looks like what will likely happen is that particularly for communities like Berry City where we issue our tax bills traditionally the middle of July with our first payment due the middle of August. We may be a month later than usual. That does of course have potential cash flow issues and municipalities are concerned about that and looking at ways to address that. But one of the things that I really appreciate is that everybody from from the legislature to the to property valuation and review and the Department of Taxes and Secretary of State's office and the administration. Everybody is looking for different tools that they can provide. The more tools we have the more options the different municipalities will have in figuring out what time frames will work best for them, what procedures will work best. And, you know, while while none of it is is perfect or optimal it it certainly will help us get through what is, you know, trying times. Any questions from anybody. John Gannon go right ahead. Carol. With respect to the grand list I mean there, there's going to start to be people appealing their property valuations, which means the board of civil authority will have to meet. After there's Lister grievances. Part of the BC a process is actually doing home inspections, which doesn't seem very appropriate in this environment. Do do you think we need to do anything to assist with with that appeal process. I think that first of all, if we back up a step and look at the grievance process, because that too requires face to face public meetings. And the property valuation and review has put out some really wonderful tips on how to do grievance hearings virtually, or other different ways to do it. And Listers and assessors who are currently working on updates to the grand list they can't do interior inspections, or, or look at construction. PVR has also put out tips about ways to gather information from property owners. Also valid from an association of Listers and assessors has put out some guidance about ways to do that so I think that that step of grievance there are options out there. With regards to the appeals to the board of civil authority. One of the things that would be helpful would be confirmation as to whether the open meeting law changes also would apply to what are considered quasi judicial hearings, development review boards, board of abatement board of civil authority. And if in fact that the the new changes do apply to that then then we would need to just educate the the public and the the boards of civil authority, as to what that would mean, how to hold your meetings and conduct your, your, your taking of testimony your hearings that way, obviously at least under the current situation will not going to be able to make internal inspections of the property, and then so I would hope that the guidance that's being given by VALA and PVR could be modified for BCA hearings and inspections also. Well, I think the statute actually requires inspections of homes. Yeah, that concerns me because it specifically says if you don't follow the process. Right, then the town loses the grievance. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there may need to be a legislative fix there, at least temporary one. Do you think, do you agree or No, I, I, it's certainly, it certainly is you. So, okay. Thank you. Yeah. Jim Harrison. Yeah, good morning Carol on a separate issue thank you for getting back to me on the my inquiry on the very city charter proposed changes. On these issues. You mentioned marriage licenses. Do you need a statutory change to get at that issue that we're facing now with you know in person signing and then somewhat related the whole topic of vital records. What happens now with death certificates in other things or getting that information back from the town. With regards to marriage licenses, I I guess that we could we could look at a temporary easing of the requirement to have a document signed in front of us. But as I said, I haven't heard of anybody denying a marriage license or not being able to figure out how to make it work. But we are moving into the marriage season not sure whether we'll see a bit of a downturn in the number of marriages, considering people can't have weddings, you know, wedding parties. But, but it might be something worth looking at on as a possible emergency situation that that we could mail the unsigned license out to people with instructions that they, you know that part of both parties have to sign and and of course they also have to have their officiant sign. So, with regards to vital records, since the system is predominantly electronic now with clerks receiving birth and death certificates from the Department of Health, or notice of them in the the new statewide system. We're not handling documents and because we now require the application process anyway for certified copies. That is relatively easily done through the mail or through email and online payments. Haven't seen that as any kind of a problem at this stage of the game. Okay, thank you. All right, how Colston has a question. Hi Carol. Hi. So, could an electronic signature suffice the application process for for marriage license. But I don't know because I don't know what what restrictions there might be. I know that electronic signatures are acceptable for a number of Vermont documents. And I don't know whether it would be just a question of expanding that to include marriage licenses. But, but I would think that it's something that that could be done. I think part of the reason that the law exists the way it is right now is the, the city or the marriage licenses don't have any other ID requirement. When the person signs the license when they sign the application and then sign the license, they are signing a testing to the veracity of the information on the application and on the license under the pains and penalties of perjury. And so I think that that having that signature witnessed by the clerk is there to provide a layer of of attestation. And I'm not sure if, if having all of it done remotely would satisfy that. Thank you. Bob Hooper, unmute yourself. Thank you for having the last 15 seconds of my time here. Carol is somebody who does weddings every now and then, particularly here in Burlington with a lot of immigrant. I just got a really sort of strange reaction to nobody actually seeing people who are signing for these things. I did a wedding last year, almost did a wedding last year where the bride had just come into the country could not speak English so the parents were interpreting for her and it was just really uncomfortable that she was even knowing what was going on. Throwing up a flag and saying goodbye for a while. Thanks. I have a similar reaction. We've had some issues here in Berry City, where there was a woman who was performing marriages for inmates. She turned out that she was working with quote unquote brides, who actually were forging documents on, and there, there weren't actually weddings occurring. I don't know what the, what the reasoning behind any of that would be but, but we, you know, I reached out to the Attorney General's office and reported a number of these weddings. But, but yes, having the having one of the two parties sign in front of us, I think is, is helpful. Any other questions for Carol. All right. Thank you Carol for for doing such a good job of collecting many different perspectives on how things are working. Thank you. Appreciate you. So, Gwen, let's go ahead and, and have you take it away for a few moments. Hi everybody, I'm Zach off for the record Vermont leg of cities and towns. I believe I haven't been able to check your committee website but I believe you should have my testimony in front of you. Let me know if you don't yes you do okay. So I'm, I won't read it through some of the highlights and additional information at the end if there's any questions. And so, over the last three weeks or so about cities and towns across Vermont. And are things to do just to new world that everybody's living in trying to work home on trying to raise children. And Yeah. Can can you hold on just a second folks are you having trouble hearing Gwen she's kind of breaking up. Yeah. I think it's on your end and I wonder if you try shutting off video if maybe we can just catch your audio while you're doing your presentation. Let's try that for a moment and if it doesn't get clearer maybe we'll have you call me. So go ahead and say a few senses here and we'll see if we can hear you. Well your video is gone but your audio is not getting much better. Helpful for me calling. Let's. Well, we could certainly try that. But the meeting may be locked at the moment so let me just, I'm going to ask it. Why don't you go ahead and continue for a moment and we'll see if that is see if it is cleared up. Okay. Stop me again. If it's not work I apologize. We're seeing increase. Some of our office of that absenteeism. Obviously since we have stay at home orders, some of the absenteeism is created on purpose to ensure that folks that are working, let's say in wastewater treatment or working on town road crews are keeping in touch with social distancing from each other. So you're seeing towns, putting folks on different shifts in order to space on individuals. And you're seeing increases of towns and cities using mutual aid for things that they generally haven't used mutually for mutual is used for public safety purposes. So we're seeing it being used more widely for things in case needed for things like essential services, such as, again, we started doing plant operations. Just in case folks so down they're making sort of side agreements to make sure they have adequate people to staff in case things get worse. We are dealing with telecom broadband issues like everybody is dealing with. And it, it's everyone singing the same tune I guess we folks working from home. Some individuals don't have good internet or any internet. We have individually towns that are really trying to keep people on payroll and trying to keep doing their jobs but not, you know, and not every town has their employees with individual laptops or computers or items that are that are workable under these circumstances so they're dealing with those sorts of issues then when you're dealing with that you have towns that are obviously close to the public at this point are allowing sort of certain town employees their city employees to come into the office if it's if they're able to keep adequate social distancing. They open meeting law issues were thankful for those changes that you put into place. And that being said we're having the same sort of IT and tele and video conferencing issues everybody else is having a lot of towns are not really familiar with this technology so they're trying to get up to speed and trying to implement these, these tools for particularly now we're seeing for, you know, select board meetings and see council meetings but personally it could be for other types of meetings but I think a lot of towns have really pumped breaks on, like, for example, you know, DRD meetings or planning commission meetings or, you know, certainly smaller commissions or boards that don't meet as frequency frequently. Yeah so I think that we've had some surveys go out over the past few weeks everyone is very very busy so we have a decent amount of data but not a ton of it we are getting some surveys back hopefully by today to answer questions about you know what are the biggest problems to your town officials are facing. Just to sort of get an idea where their needs are, but that's the sort of it. So going back to the issue of finance. Carol Dodds had brought this up and representative Gannon as well. So towns are anticipating fewer tax revenues due to late payments or delinquencies and perhaps more requests for abatement and deferral of payment deadlines. And we're also in the survey we sent out earlier we are asking about liquidity and borrowing needs for towns because of those sorts of issues. We're also asking towns, and they're relatively familiar with doing things when it comes to sort of FEMA reimbursement but basically tracking all COVID-19 related costs, moving forward although sometimes those are sort of hard to splice you know what is coded and what isn't coded sometimes it's hard to die. We are also dealing with town meetings having had just happened right before this whole situation going down and a you have a lot of new select board members that were elected have been in town office and all of a sudden they're forced with dealing with this issue we haven't even had a chance to do our select board sort of boot camp that we have, we are have moved it our training to webinar based, and hopefully that will help but they're those I feel sorry for those new city councillors and select board members. It's a strange time to onboard to a board. But it's being passed and sort of the, the things that were approved at town meeting there they obviously towns have their marching orders right now for what they're supposed to be doing, but we're all printed down it did just three or four weeks ago. So, I think a big problem or a concern that we're seeing more of with towns town meeting is that they're being you know select boards are under statute, they are required to raise tax revenues at and set the tax rate at a level that's necessary to raise the amounts that are voted at town meeting, and towns really don't have the authority to go elsewhere or lower that threshold. I think towns we've heard we're hearing more and more from towns that they want to raise much less with and then additionally with that they have to in order to change that and have a re vote they have to hold a special town meeting. So obviously with the social distancing thing that recreate that creates a another layer of concern and problems. The other issue that I didn't write in the memo but I thought was worth mentioning is the, you know, waving, being able to wave penalty and interest for late tax payments. For example, we have seven, I think it's 71 or two or three, it's just over 70 municipalities that still have installments to pay for taxes. And so, and a lot of those towns are actually relatively larger communities on, I do have a list and I could, I'd be happy to send it forward to you just to see what the towns are it's actually quite interesting but on. But you know, for example, they, what would like the ability to wave penalty and interest but under statute they are not allowed to and it's, it, not only are towns wanting to do this. But you know, it really would impress upon taxpayers that you know the town's disease are sympathetic to their situation and they're trying their hard to work around that everyone is facing but under statutes. They don't have that ability to wave the penalty and interest they can only get that penalty and interest. If it is a beta during Bateman hearings if they look for abatements. The league and the state treasurer and the municipal bonding have been on conference calls every week sort of getting our heads around the issue of, you know liquidity and borrowing needs and we're still. I think maybe this week leading into next week and thereafter towns are finally sort of the dust is a little bit starting to settle so they're able to think a little bit further down the road about these needs right now. So we asked a question to towns and cities about a week ago, and didn't get nearly as many responses as we were hoping for because everyone so you know focus on sort of the here and now and not really looking too too far into the future but we're hoping that we'll be able to wrap our heads around what the borrowing needs are for communities. So that's my, that's my update and if there's any questions I'd be happy to answer them and I know the answer. Thank you again. Thank you, Gwen. I have a couple several questions. First of all, you know having recently spoken with two of the three hospitals in our area about the lack of PPE for for, you know, health care workers. Is that an issue for town first responders. Yes, it we have heard from this there was actually testimony I believe this week, some of the days are blurring this week and Senate government operations they were working on a CMS law enforcement bill so they had heard from Drew Hazelton who is the chair of the EMS advisory committee. And so, and they also had the Department of Health as well and shocking it's not shocking news that everyone is dealing with these PPE shortages, but this is a problem that's persistent throughout the states and the nation, not the world. And now, you know, this is actually a good thing to flag here is that we have a lot of towns that are have nonprofits that they contract out with for the services like a rescue Inc that drew Hazelton runs we have towns that have their own, you know, units that are running on their own and then me and they can be, you know, quote unquote more professionalized. And then some, they already can contract out with a neighboring community to provide those services so you know those costs whenever they become do will either be very explicit in town budgets against goes back to the whole tracking of cost for towns it'll either be very explicit because you can see hey this is the cost of a mask went from $1 to $3. Or they will be passed along, for example, like a contract out with the nonprofits or neighboring communities, it will be embedded in the actual increase of costs come the next cycle where they're, you know, redoing their contracts for services. Unless obviously those costs are absorbed somewhere else from the federal relief if there's a way that you know that sort of works out but the true cost directly won't be, we won't wrap our heads around with until, you know, months and months down the line but it's but it's definitely an issue and they're triaging at the state level and obviously your nurses and doctors and hospital facilities we've been told get it first and then a very close second is going to be those emergency responders, specifically the EMT EMS running ambulance services and then fire and then not in a more distant third is law enforcement. There's also another thing to mention the enforcement across the municipal sheriff and state we are are now, you know, just like towns are distancing road crew and now the Vermont local roads, for example, is working with our towns in terms of like how to clean out trucks how to clean out graders how to create, you know, sort of safe, quote unquote work environment, especially when towns are sharing equipment. But same thing for law enforcement is that they, you know, are not running calls where there's, you know, two people in a in a cruiser and they're responding to calls sort of in a more linear manner. So yeah, so that's a good question. Sorry, that was a little bit of a tangent, but thank you and sort of a follow up on that is for, you know, many of our towns rely on volunteers for fire and rescue. Are you concerned about the potential out of pocket cost to those volunteers who may, you know, contract coven 19. And is there something we can do about that. Um, it's a great question. We, this is, you know, you get the best of people in these circumstances on one thing at the bottom of your testimony is maybe a good chance to flag this hour. So we have a sort of link which is, you know, an FAQ sort of a springboard for our communities. So basically the last three weeks, you know, hundreds and hundreds of questions about these things and there's, there's communities asking very similar questions so we put, you know, sort of FAQs up about things like, you know, mutual aid, how to deal with financing questions, you know, cybersecurity for remote work, what are essential government functions what are not essential government functions. And one of the things we included is sort of working with our risk management who provides insurance for a vast majority of municipalities and sort of subdivisions of thereof. We have risk management for volunteers. We have a lot of individuals and communities are, you know, are furloughed or not working and have big hearts and are wanting to help so communities are trying really hard to, to help with those needs and give people the opportunity to give back to their communities. Now the costs incurred so we can, you know, towns can deal with a sort of risk or sort of minimizing the risk of, you know, bring people under the fold to help out as best as possible through just proper documentation and contracting. But the cost moved forward again we're asking towns to track these numbers just like they would for FEMA reimbursements. But we, you know, it's fabulous we're hearing from, you know, the Senate Finance Committee and the obviously both Appropriations committees and everyone wants to help and we're delighted. But we won't know the costs fully, you know, until we start moving further down the road for, you know, what the true costs are, be above and beyond with the normal costs are for things like volunteers and EMT and those rescue services so. But I guess what I'm trying to get to is not necessarily the direct cost to towns, but the cost to the volunteers themselves. I mean, you know, volunteers have other jobs that they do. And, you know, if they contract COVID-19, you know, saying, you know, being a rescue volunteer, how are we, is there a way to help them? Yeah, that's a really, you know, that's a really tough one because you have, again, you could do social distancing for things that, you know, I wouldn't say it's maybe a little bit easier to do things for, you know, police and their cruisers or for wastewater facility operators. But for an already stretched DMS system, we're already lacking thousands of adequate numbers of volunteers or employees or officials to basically provide those services, it's being further stretched. From anecdotally speaking, from what I've heard is that because, you know, because of the social distancing measures, because of the fast acting of, you know, our officials in the state, thank God, beyond, I think, you know, Washington County, maybe Windsor and certainly Chittenden County hasn't hit really hard, but thankfully they have really robust sort of services already. So, in one way that's, you know, really helpful, but so far so good. They, again, but we haven't reached the peak. So again, we're not going to really know what the true impacts are. The because there's no, and this is happening with law enforcement, the police academy not really running classes, they were seven weeks in and had to stop because of this whole, this whole COVID-19 crisis kicking in. Same thing is happening with training for onboarding EMS, EMTs, EMRs, paramedics, the whole line yards. So, you know, it's an added cost down the line in terms of like having enough manpower available. I will say that we had reached out to, you know, we had concerns from a lot of communities who have National Guard members on their EMS and basically their EMT crews, and there were concerns that if the National Guard was going to be called up, this would even further stretch the needs for these services. Thankfully, the National Guard is very, is acutely aware that that's a concern. And their overarching goal, anyways, is to provide, you know, adequate services and have assured these crews that they will not be calling up any of those folks to active duty for the National Guard duties to ensure that they are able to stick with their sort of nine to five job with their ambulance crews. So that's kind of the update I have, but I would perhaps recommend reaching out to, you know, Drew Hazelton, because, and actually today at 2pm, I think it's 2pm today, or no, sorry, 1pm today. The EMS Advisory Committee, which is a number of as a rep for monthly needs and talents, we're having a meeting at one. And so I guarantee this issue will come up more so I can report back or I'm sure somebody else can report back to on that. If there are any questions you also want me to ask them, I'd be more than happy to pass that along. Okay. Thank you. I have some more questions, but I'm going to let somebody else ask questions, because I've taken up a lot of time. We've got all the time in the world, John. We'll come back to you just pop your hand up when you're ready to ask another question. How's in line now so we'll go to Hal Colston. Good morning, Gwen. So what trends of frustrations are you hearing from cities and towns? Are there. Great question. And I again going back to that sort of FAQ that's on our website at the very top of it is sort of them us responding to questions about HR, sort of, you know, we have policies in place we have, you know, systems in place for how we deal with employees. And so, adjusting policies to deal with the world now I think like again most employers are, you know, these are not unique issues to municipalities we just happen to be providing governmental services, and we're also employers. So, how to maneuver HR issues, how to how to keep government services, no matter how, quote unquote, big or small they may be moving forward. You know, this moving target of knowing when this is going to be over is is it has a nobody knows when this is going to be over necessarily but not being able to plan for the future and not being able to have I think the biggest frustration and we're hearing from communities assembly, not knowing how to plan those required, you know, things statute or required, you know, meetings that you have to have and not knowing, you know, how to adjust accordingly because it becomes a domino effect you make a change in the beginning it has an impact on on things further down the line. You know, I think, again, I think in the next few weeks and it is going to be really critical I think we're going to get a better handle on moving from sort of true crisis, you know, responding to a crisis and sort of getting back to a level of normality. We'll have a better understanding of what the needs are but I think those FAQs are helpful and at least understand the questions that we've been getting through the league of cities and towns. Because we compile all of that information, surely in response to the questions we've been getting we didn't we didn't throw them on around we let the questions we were receiving sort of dictate the information we were putting out. Thank you. John, should we come back to you. Yeah, that'd be great. So, turning to open meetings and then finance. Do you think as Carol suggested that we need more guidance for towns with respect to quasi judicial meetings with respect to the new open meeting guidelines. Yeah, that's a great question I actually thought it doesn't mean that the other attorneys in the office hadn't thought about that. Yeah, I would be happy to bring that issue up to the rest of the attorneys in the office to sort of get feedback from them on the necessity to make those adjustments. I think that obviously you're going to have to make some type of adjustments. I'm not you'd have to get real creative with how you do these quasi judicial hearings without having folks physically present but I'm sure there has to be an answer to those questions that that being said we're already dealing with those issues. Not actually we're not dealing with them because a lot of towns have decided simply to put things off things like appeal hearings for you know zoning permits and so towns simply are not, they're just pushing the, those dates off into the future, and sort of crossing their fingers that they can get it done sooner rather than later. But that's, that's a great question that I'll circle back to you with any input that we might have. Okay, and you should probably take a look at the BCA appeal process for proper. Yeah, that's the thing is it's very specific and statue you brought that up is that it's very specific and statute so in order to, if even if it's on an emergency basis like we're you know dealing with right now, we want to make sure we get it right. You know we want to make sure that any adjustments we make really truly are helpful and are providing that balance of, you know, everyone having their constitutional rights being valued and. So yeah so that's a great, great point. So now turning to a similar question but related to finances. So as you, as you testified already we anticipate that statements are probably going to increase. I know at least in Wilmington most of the tax abatements we do are very unique situations where a home burned down or something similar, where there's a major property loss. But now we're probably going to be looking at more tax abatements that concern people's inability to pay, which the towns already have statutory authority to do. So my question is, you know, when it's town grants attacks abatement, they have to make up to the Education Fund, its share of any abated taxes. Have you discussed that or thought about how to address that problem for a municipality. So going back to what I think I mentioned was that Karen Horn, our director of advocacy. She had testified two or three times this week on that very issue and not just that very issue but you're absolutely correct towns will have to make the fund whole. So this topic of discussion I this is going to be obviously beyond what VLCT. How we feel about things but I know the Department of taxes and the money committees are keenly aware of this issue and I think they're still just trying to sort out. But you don't know how many, how big, how prolific, you know, putting a circle around this. This issue is really hard to do this point, but it's an issue everyone is very aware of, and that's not very helpful, but we know that it's going to have to be there's going to have to be some sort of legislative fix or some sort of legislative strategy working with you know the Department of taxes as well to to address this if there is a big onslaught of abatement requests coming through. And one last question, given the liquidity issues in the municipal bond market right now. Does the state have to look for alternatives for towns to get financing. We're in infancy stages, we're in infancy stages of having those discussions with back pierce, and the executive director of the municipal bond bank on. So, I, we have a call at 3pm or no it's either today or Monday but we've been doing at least weekly check ins on this very issue and everything's changing really quickly in terms of how banks are dealing with lending how the bond market looks like you brought that up earlier. It is scary on and we don't have an answer to that question just yet but do know that we are working with the bigger brains to figure out what the needs are and again we have that we have those questions going and again everyone is really trying to be parents trying to be you know working from home and you know it's it's there's a lot going on. So when we put these surveys out for you know questioning our members you know we always have trouble getting full data but even for things like this saying what are your needs are it's it's hard to get. It's hard to get clear feedback from our communities just when they're dealing with this sort of crisis management and they again don't know exactly what the, what the numbers are going to look like, going forward for what the, what the needs are for borrowing but you know again, looking at the 71 or 72 or 73 towns or cities that still have that last final installment for tax payments. There, we heard from Burlington I think they were borrowing you know a million or over a million I can't remember exactly the number but there, there could be large numbers, depending on the size of the grand list. So, I'd say to be determined and stay tuned. All right. Thank you very much. Sure. Hey, any other questions from committee members for Gwen. All right. Excellent. Thank you, Gwen. Thank you so much everyone stay safe and healthy. Thank you and and turning off your video helped us a bit to be able to to hear you so I appreciate you doing that and you're welcome to turn it back on if you want to listen in on the rest of the meeting. So, welcome to Rob, who's just joined us from another meeting. Good morning Rob. We are running through municipal and school boards perspectives on how to continue operating in the COVID-19 world so let's go to Sue Siglowski now and and she's the executive director of the school boards Association where there you are so thank you for being with us this morning. Thank you for having me. And it's nice to meet all of you electronically and look forward to a day when we can all be back in the State House as normal I don't know when that will be but I look forward to that. I'm Sue Siglowski, and I'm the executive director of the Vermont school boards Association wanted to thank you for the opportunity to give you an update on COVID-19 response and what's happening with school boards. Before I get started on that I just wanted to applaud the entire Vermont education community for pulling together in response to this crisis that really has been a all hands on deck situation and everyone has been contributing in enormous ways. The first item I wanted to talk about involves the temporary elections provisions on Monday Governor Scott signed H 681, which, as you know, establishes temporary elections provisions that are intended to allow for monitors to continue to participate in elections so in a way that protects public health and safety. And I won't go over what those provisions are I'm sure you know what they are one of them that I wanted to highlight was that the legislation grants the Secretary of State Authority in conjunction with the governor to order or get appropriate procedures as necessary in light of the COVID-19 virus and that includes the possibility of mail balloting. The SBA has notified school boards about those temporary election provisions. We sent that out to them shortly after the governor signed them into law. That was direct relevance for the school boards who whose budgets have not been voted on yet, or whose budgets were defeated on Town Meeting Day. On Wednesday we received an elections bulletin from the elections division of the Vermont Secretary of State's office that's the bulletin that Carol does was referring to in her testimony. The Secretary of State's office asked us to distribute that widely to to school boards and their attorneys which we did. And just wanted to give you a brief summary of that bulletin because I think it might be helpful. I just stated that the Secretary of State had reached an agreement with the governor earlier this week to allow cancellation of municipal elections mandated to be held on or before a certain date. For those who have elections coming up in April or May the Secretary of State's guidance in that bulletin is to cancel all of those meetings, if at all possible. This is a one sentence quote from from the guidance whether they are votes from the floor or Australian ballot votes that require processing and counting. The processes required at this time to conduct the election put voters and election workers at too much risk from this highly contagious virus. That's the end of the quote. On the topic of budget revotes, the guidance states that there is no timeframe and in election law in which a budget revote must be held for votes that by charter article of agreement or by law are required to be held on or before a certain date. The governor has agreed under the authority granted to the Secretary of State in section three of H 681 to allow those elections to be canceled as well. The stated objective is to see if votes can be conducted safely in late spring or early summer. And if that is not possible to provide some time for the Secretary of State's office to devise and implement appropriate procedures to allow local elections to take place more safely. The SBA has communicated this guidance to school boards, and you will be hearing from two school board shares today about how their boards plan to proceed. Next just touch briefly on the temporary open meeting law changes those were also in H 681 removing the designated physical meeting location. And how the public needs to be able to access electronic meetings and requiring that school boards record their meetings during this time period. So we've communicated those changes as well to school boards and posted information on our website. We also prepared some guidance on organizing and conducting electronic school board meetings, which has been sent out and moving forward school boards will have a vital vital role to play by staying connected to their communities, although it will be remotely and working with their superintendents to provide calm and positive leadership through this crisis. We are sending out a survey today to all school board members asking for their input and ideas on what what they're having trouble with so that we can provide resources for them and have better information to inform you when we're asked to testify. I believe that is the conclusion of my testimony but I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Jim Harrison has a question. Yeah hi so thank you for the update. This is very helpful. I'm curious if, obviously, most school budgets have passed. A month ago under arguably a different set of scenarios and expectations. Do you know if any school boards, they made this may be really premature but as new economic circumstances. I look forward. If they wanted to revisit their budget, you know, this summer. What would the process for doing that. My second question is, are you aware of any layoffs in the school systems that have happened and if so, what is our role in terms of helping them with the UI fund experience for those school districts. I, to answer your second question I'm not aware of any layoffs. The teachers are still teaching and the the bus drivers are delivering meals to students. I know that people are working it maybe in some different ways than they had been, but I'm not aware of any layoffs. And I think it's a little premature to have information about whether boards are considering budgets. They are just getting started with this remote meeting. The law went into effect on Monday so they're just getting started this week with meeting remotely. That certainly is information that I could collect. I would note though that they, many of them have deadlines in right in this timeframe that we're in right now for getting contracts out. And those contracts are based on the budget, and most budgets are about 80% of the budget is salaries and benefits. I understand that, but if there are, are there provisions that we may need to look at that would give school districts flexibility. If come August, you're looking at an entirely different economic scenario with property tax base or, for example, sales tax revenues going into the Ed fund are not likely to be what was anticipated. So, unfortunately, we may have some very, very hard decisions in front of us and I'm just asking a hypothetical question to prepare for that while we're in session. Is there something we need to pass that would give the school board the authority to reopen their budget in spite of the fact that it had been duly adopted back in March. I could certainly try to gather some information for you about that. I would note that there's a lot of moving pieces to the situation because we yesterday. There was testimony to joint hearing of the House Education Committee and House Ways and Means Committee by Mark Peralt from JFO, having to do with the Federal Cares Act and the funds that are going to be coming into the state, specifically targeted to education from the Federal Cares Act and that was like 31.1 million dollars. So all of all of the moving pieces I think need to and the pieces of the puzzle need to be considered together to get a an accurate understanding of what's happening with education finance. So, committee, are there any other questions for Sue. Okay, I'm not seeing any raised hands so feel free to pop your hand up if you have a question for Sue but we have been at this for, for over an hour, and a half, and I've had a request for a five minute break so I'm going to invite you all to stop video and stand up and stretch or do a jumping jack or run to the restroom and we will aim to get back here at 1046. So I will see you all in five minutes. So that request did not come from me, Madam Chair. All right, see you all in five minutes. Okay, I see we've got plenty of folks back on with us. And I appreciate the excuse to take a break. When we do that in the building it's always at least a 10 minute break because anytime you go out the door you get, you get grabbed by somebody who wants to just quickly tell you something so there's less of a challenge in, in our current circumstance, unless the cat intercepted you and wanted to remind you that you haven't fed her yet. So, we have two school board chairs who would like to share some sort of on the ground perspective from us and so I think we'll go to Martha Heath first and welcome Martha it's nice to see your face. Thank you for having me. For the record, my name is Martha Heath and I chair of the Essex Westford School District Board. The district is comprised of the communities of Essex Town, Essex Junction, and Westford. We educated approximately 4000 students in 10 schools and were responsible for technical center. The district is one of the districts that has not yet voted on their school budget. And because of the traditions in a 6th Town and a 6th Junction of voting school budgets on the second Tuesday in April, and there are some connections to what happens with the municipality of the town of Essex as well for why it's that way. We haven't voted yet. Our meeting, our vote and annual meeting was scheduled to take place on April 13 and 14. We have canceled those meetings. But given the guidance we received yesterday, that not to try to hold any kind of meeting or vote in April or May, we are on hold at this point. One of the challenges that's facing my district and others who either haven't held their first vote or who have had their first vote defeated is that obviously the onset of the pandemic has been given the financial challenges of the general unease that our voters are experienced. Experiencing more concerned about the ramifications for our students that could be very different from the students in districts that already have a budget. Many of you may know by law, we are allowed to borrow 87% of our budget if we have our previous year's budget, if we do not have a proof budget by July 1, in order to operate. Obviously, we would prefer to have a budget before the fiscal year begins. I testified yesterday in front of based on means and education. There's two committees. Today I'll confirm testimony to issues that are related to specifically to your committee. So who because the Secretary of State's office is recommending not to hold meetings in April or May, and because of the uncertainty of our situation. We are wondering what you would think about changing the morning period of 30 to 40 days. In other words, what we do find the morning vote. It can't take place for 30 to 40 days after the day of that morning. So we're wondering if you would consider waving that period during this financial crisis and health crisis. The second issue is that we can move most of our annual, I think we can move virtually all of our annual meeting questions to Australia and Berlin, but school ports are required to hold budget information. So who could there be a provision that would allow us to hold that hearing through some electronic means. And finally, I think the provision that allows for an election to be held entirely by a Australian ballot could be helpful. I think with our time clerks, they're quite concerned about the cost of ordering ballots for everyone. So we're wondering what you would think of holding an election, not only by Australian ballot, but still requiring voters to request about. Sorry. I think those are the issues that are on our minds right now. There's undoubtedly more will come up, but those are the ones that are related to issues that your committee would be talking about and thinking. So, thank you. All right, John Gannon has a question. I'm going to mute you for one second. Nice to have a dog participate doesn't happen very often. That's right. Apparently he had a question. This moment that he decided to wake up. Sorry. Martha, I have a question about the school boards having to have information sessions. Is it your belief that that's not covered by the changes we made to open meeting law. That's a good question. We could seek some guidance on that. All right, I was just trying to figure out if, you know, that was covered, I guess we can check with the Secretary of State's office. Thank you. Okay. So committee any other questions for Martha at this moment. All right, well feel free to toss up a hand if you have one and otherwise we will switch gears and go to Tim Smith of Slate Valley is that correct. That's correct. Can everyone hear me. Yes, we can. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you very much for, for having me Sarah. So I've got a few things I can cover here today I'll start quickly with just a personal introduction. Again, my name is Tim Smith. I'm the chair of the Slate Valley Unified School District. I'm a CPA I work for a public accounting firm in Rutland. My wife is a teacher. We have two boys ages 12 and nine and like everyone else we're adjusting to this new normal of both working and teaching from home. I recently consolidated correct 146 prior to that I served on my local town Castleton School Board for six years, two of which were in the capacity of chair. And this is my second year as a member of the Slate Valley Unified School Board. I'm located in Western Rutland County along the route for corridor, six towns, Castleton Hubbard and Fairhaven West Haven Benson and Orwell, and we service 1261 kids in our district. I had the privilege yesterday of testifying before the Vermont Ed and House Ways and Means Committees, and I spoke about a variety of concerns coven and otherwise. A lot of that is applicable for testimony today. A couple things. I was asked to come here today because our vote, our school budget did go down on town meeting day so we are in the position where we are going to have to hold a revote. We also had a very large bond vote on town meeting day. $59.5 million, which I think outside of South Burlington was the largest in the state. And the purpose of that $59.5 million bond was to address critical infrastructure repairs and then the construction of a district middle school for grades seven and eight on location of high school. To me that was a hot topic of debate amongst our six communities. Ultimately the bond vote went down 78 points to 22 points. I think a very similar vote total to that of South Burlington. However, our school budget went down by a very small margin 52 points no 48 points yes that's 95 votes. We had asked me two to three weeks ago whether I was confident our school budget would pass. Certainly I thought it was going to traditionally our towns have been very supportive of the schools. But now given the circumstances and how events have developed I don't really know how people are going to respond to a budget we vote of any sort. We did warn a revote that was scheduled to take place in mid April. And as mentioned by others per advice of the Secretary of State, we have rescinded that warning. And now we're in a holding pattern, like everyone else a wait and see. We have a reference to have a budget passed and in place by June 30. So whether we can do that with an in person vote, or it's going to be a mail in vote, I guess is going to be yet to be seen. So, quickly, you know, revenues and layoffs those, those have been brought up by other people thus far. I certainly don't want to say business as usual but I guess my point being we've not had any layoffs, you know, all staff, bus services, etc. Everyone is being paid. There are certainly under contract and a lot of cases through the end of the year. So it's status quo in that sense. And in terms of cash flows and revenues I think after discussing this with the finance or the business manager yesterday I think we're in pretty good shape outside of the last expected payment from the Education Fund, which for us approximates about $2.7 million I'm understanding that that is most likely directly related to the fact that we still have some towns in our district who have one more installment of property taxes due in May. So moving along now to more remote meeting budget revoked concerns. So certainly yes I've read the legislation signed by Governor Scott h681 which gives us a lot of flexibility gives him a lot of flexibility I should say to designate the Secretary of State to really make any changes they feel necessary given the covert issues at hand. I guess I'd like to know sooner or later whether or not we are going to move to a mail in voting system because if that. If it's deemed that we're not going to have the opportunity to have an in person vote which at this point seems not likely, then knowing that we're going to have a mail in vote if we had that information sooner or later that would be certainly most helpful. This is going to involve six towns and the town clerks and each of the six towns and, and the printing and the mailing of those ballots out to individuals giving them an appropriate amount of time to cast that ballot to mail it back to harvest collect and counts. So there's a lot of mechanisms that would need to happen over the next 60 days to make that a reality so if it is going to be mail in. I'd like to know sooner than later. Jim Harrison you brought up some points earlier about, you know, towns that had passed their school budget revisiting them over the summertime, given the circumstances. Certainly we don't have a school budget but just to put a few things in perspective. We had warmed a revoked. We had reduced what few expenditure increases we had in our original budget so our expenditure increases were zero. So that was spending per equalized people of $16,500, which was a 2.99% increase over prior year, and that compared favorably to other schools in our district. You know, if we were to think that okay we really need to take a bigger cut out of this apple and lower our budget even more to make it more palatable. But 350,000 approximately $350,000 per to realize 1% savings. So if we had a 2.99% increased equalized people and we wanted to bring that to zero or no increase we would have to cut approximately $1 million from a $26 million budget. Now again this is all in how things are worded on the warning as you know it was changed here in the last couple years. Again our expenditures are flat. We don't have any increases in expenditures but how things are written now on the warnings with a education spending per pupil and an increase compared to prior year. So everyone's struggling with a decline in equalized pupils and that's why those percentages keep going up. And of course the voters are going to see that percentage increase and that automatically causes alarm, despite the fact that our expenditures what we can control are flat. And then to Marcia's point earlier you know we can borrow what 87% if we don't from a prior year budget if we don't have a budget in place by July 1. I mean that would that would basically amount to a three and a half million dollar reduction in our budget. 80% of our costs are personnel and health care related. And another thing that I discussed yesterday is per terms of our master agreement with the NEA. We have to give reduction in force notices rift notices by March 15 that time has passed so we can't even cut personnel to even begin to realize the amount of cuts that we would have to take place. If we were only allowed to take 87% of prior year budget so in our hands are really tied there's really not not much we can cut unless unless the situation or the rules of the game change dramatically. What else could I say. You know, in terms of remote meetings you know our district has has made the adjustments. We had our first school board meeting two weeks ago remotely via a Google platform. I was physically in a space with the superintendent at the high school. Since that point in time the rules have been changed even more. We do not need to provide a physical space I do not need to be physically present with the superintendent so for our next meeting. We have scheduled for Monday. Everyone will be remote using a Google platform. And, you know, we will be advertising both through, you know, posting it on our school district website and through front porch forum. How the public can log on to that meeting virtually and participate. It is hard to get the public to participate under the old circumstances so I guess we'll just have to wait and see if people are more able or less able to participate in this virtual environment. But we're doing the best that we can. And I guess that's all I have to say I'll certainly take any questions. You know the landscape is changing so quickly for everybody and there's a lot of uncertainty so I guess as a school district we're really just trying to focus on those small steps that we can plan for and actions that we can take now given the known variables because there are still a lot of unknown variables. So any questions. Thank you Tim and and I just want to give a shout out to to you and Martha both I know that this has been an unprecedented time of change for you all and and figuring out how to adapt and adjust. One of these most fundamental services that we provide in a time of social distancing is challenging to say the least so I appreciate you taking some time to be with us this morning. I've got Jim Harrison and then John Gannon with questions go ahead Jim. Thank you. Thank you very much for for joining us and sharing some of your experience in the nearby Western Rutland County. I guess what I was asking before was not whether school budgets should change going forward. But certainly the landscape may change it may be for the better if we get a lot of federal funds. We just don't know that as Sue pointed out and all I'm asking and maybe you know the answer maybe you don't. But if you had adopted a budget last month, as you had hoped, put aside the bond issue for now. If your circumstances changed in three months four months six months. Do you have the ability as a school board to go back and change the current year budget. Do you have to go back to the voters or is that not even an option at that point I'm that's what I'm, I'm just trying to figure out, do we need to allow for that in our laws. And I hope to use it just, you know, we don't, we're not typically in session in August or September this year we may be who knows, but we can't help you when we're not in session. I guess I don't, I don't have authoritative guidance to just to answer your question I can just offer my opinion again which would be if we had a successful budget pass on town meeting day would we now be looking at revisiting that over the course of the summer. I don't know. I don't know. It all depends on how the situation unfolds. I mean you'd like to think that the fundamental mechanisms in place are going to remain in place and that once we get past this, you know next school year will will be operating under the same parameters. So I would not anticipate that we would be looking to revise our budget had it passed. But this year, finishing up fiscal year 20 is not the issue. It's next year 21 no one knows what that's going to look like with government funds coming in and people's ability to pay property taxes and the sales tax revenue and all the other sources that go into the education fund so. I don't know and I appreciate that and I'm just trying to and I don't know education law very well. So, I just want to know if there are as flexibility to revisit something given extraordinary circumstances that we may be faced and we don't even know what the budget implications are going to be and again they may be positive and we don't have to make any changes or you may be an opportunity to do something else with infrastructure I don't know. The other question I have for you and again this may be more of a question for the Ed committee, but if you're unable to take a vote or unable to get a budget has either way. In the next few months, other than the current 87% of last year, is there something that the state can do that would say allow the agency of Ed to impose a budget, you know that maybe is 100% of last year. Not more, not the 3% increase that you had hoped for, but at least keep you whole from last year's perspective, can ours, does our state law allow that, and if not, should we consider something like that. I can answer the question as to whether or not the state law allows for it but but certainly if if that logs this and it was changed to instead allow for 87% to allow for a 100% of prior year budget. I think that's certainly something that we could make work. So, you know, I'm an optimistic sort. I hope this passes like I'm sure everyone does. I'm also hopeful that if we are given the guidance as to the mail in balloting that ultimately, we will have a successful re vote and and we won't quite have to have a 7% number. So, for me, the most pressing issue is getting the go ahead to do the mail in vote, so we can work with our town clerks and make that happen. And I can communicate and others can communicate with our communities to get that vote out to express our, you know, our empathies for the situation at hand but ultimately to get a positive vote and I'm optimistic that we can still do that. We just need to know if it's going to be mail or in person. All right, I've got a couple committee members in the queue but Martha Heath has raised her hand and I just wanted to say Martha were you raising your hand to respond to Jim Harrison's question. All right, go ahead and unmute yourself. So, Jim, to answer parts of your question. I don't believe there's anything that allows us to borrow more than 87% of our previous chairs budget that also who doesn't. That's still not voted budget. So you have to keep going back to the voters until you get an approved budget and I've been on my local school board since 1985, and I have once been through a situation where we have to vote three times to get a voter approved budget. There are some laws about which I can't quote about what the towns have to raise. So they sent out an initial property tax bill so some money goes to the Ed fund. And when a budget is finally approved that there's an addendum to the tax bills that goes out. So, there isn't a ton of flexibility. I think school districts themselves have some opportunities for instance, if people don't sign contracts to look at the position and think carefully about whether it's position that's needed, or whether it could be covered in some other way. School districts sometimes put free free buying supplies and things like that. But as Tim pointed out, that's not a lot of money. Frankly, a huge portion of our increase in our budget this year came from the state. And so it is settlement the imposed agreement around healthcare for education workers and obviously those kinds of things are things we can't make adjustments to. Thanks. All right, I have John Gannon and then Rob LeClaire. Tim, thank you for testifying today. I actually had a question about the current situation in your school and I should have asked Martha this to or your school district, which is, you know, how is the distance learning and the non congregate meals and all the other things that have to be implemented, impacting your budget? Is it hurting you or helping you? And then second question is, are you getting enough guidance from the agency of education to implement those changes? Okay, thanks. I don't think we've experienced any additional costs because of the situation and the remote learning. To your point about the transportation and the meals. You know, we have a contract with our busing company. Certainly there are savings because there are no extracurricular activities. We are still paying them for our contracted student pickup and drop off. In this case, there's no students so they're doing meal deliveries at least for the time being. So there hasn't really been any added costs or savings really. We're kind of operating as normal in that sense. Yes, secondly, however, and I mentioned this yesterday to the Vermont Ed committee. We would have concerns in the future about the social and emotional impact of the situation and what it has on our children and we could anticipate that there being additional needs and costs going forward. There's a way of counselors, clinicians, guidance counselors, etc. to help the kids recover from this. You know, my wife, who is a teacher, I talked about this with her last night. And if it's safe to do so, like to get the kids back into the school at some point this year, even if it's just for a couple weeks, not to learn but to start, but to reconnect and to start that healing process. I think that, you know, we're going to show up to school next September 1, ready to start learning again like nothing ever happened. That's not realistic. There's definitely an impact on the kids. And it's going to take quite a bit of time, I think, to, to, for them to speak out, let their emotions come out, start that healing process before we can get back to actual learning. In regards to whether or not we've received enough guidance from the Vermont Department of Education. Certainly my superintendent would be better answer better able to answer that question I know she's constantly in contact with Secretary French and others. You know, they, they had released a template, maybe a week ago. And I think yesterday they received some more concrete guidance on what the continuity and education plan looks like. And I think to my satisfaction, it appears at least that the expectations educationally have been lowered, you know, we're not going to expect as much from our kids on educational progress, which I think is realistic. We need to prioritize the physical mental well being of the kids, I think more so than educational progress. You know, I asked at our last school board meeting, how many people were successfully able to access the internet and, and doing the remote learning via computer versus paper, because there is an equity issue, you know, some families in our community do not have access to internet. And to my surprise and delight, you know, the majority of our families and kids are participating via electronic media the Chromebooks that they have, and are able to do some something of the distance we have a very few amount of people who are still working on a paper only approach where there's designated times to pick up a new class material and then turn in completed class material. So, by and large, we are operating in a remote virtual environment and having some success with that. Thank you. Sure. Martha Heath in response to john Gannon's question. Yes, thanks. So, I certainly agree with everything that Tim has said. I spoke with our superintendent yesterday. Sorry about my dog. One of the things that she thinks it's coming is having to have an experience. Sorry, hold up. It's just like my kids used to be when I got out of the top. So she's thinking that we may have to have an expanded summer school operation because not very many but there are families who just aren't cooperating and aren't making sure that their kids are taking advantage of learning opportunities that are being provided. I think in terms of, aren't we saving money. I think our business folks have just started to think about that a little one area they identified is that we aren't paying substitutes right now. But that's not a whole lot of money. And yeah, it's just not a whole lot of money. Thank you. Great. Okay, I have Rob LaClaire and then Hal Colston. Go ahead Rob. Thank you. Actually, John had asked my question, but I will make a comment that based on what I heard on the call that I was on earlier this morning. We will be in session some way shape or form in August. I don't believe that we're going to be in session from now through to then, but there is discussions about us being in session and some official capacity in August. All right, Hal Colston. Thank you, Madam Chair. A question for Tim, Sue or Martha. So, how are you mitigating the equity issues that are presenting because of distance learning. I can speak first to that. How are we mitigating the equity issues. We're doing the best we can. It's impossible really to make it. I guess you could say a fair playing field as we would have the opportunity to do so if everyone was together in a common location at a school. I did mention that those who do not have internet access are still being given the opportunity to pick up paper, material, printouts, worksheets, assignments, etc. From the school and then having the ability to to return those assignments when completed I would foresee that that would continue. I guess it has to in the absence of an internet connection. I can speak specifically to the special education issues at hand certainly there are some kids who who are on APs and 504s and have other needs. I think we're doing the best we can I'm not sure how those needs are being met. I do know that we don't have anybody going physically to children's homes to provide services that's that's not allowed. To finish up. This is hard we're doing the best we can and ideally the best situation is to be in a school. So we all just hope that we can get back to that point as soon as possible. Thank you. Martha do you have anything you want to add on the question of equity. I was just saying that I think our administrative team is highly cognizant of those issues and talking and thinking about it all the time in the younger grades our teachers are calling families if they can't video conference with them. Talking to them at least once a week sometimes more about how things are going, what they can do. I think services like OT and PT and things like that are being provided online to the extent that they can be. But there's no question that special education is a challenge and families that are struggling just to put food on the table can really focus on their children's learning are an issue. It's, it's just hard. So I have a question for Tim and Martha. One of the things that I have struggled to understand is if we have buses that are being deployed to to help provide meals for kids. Why are school districts so far unable to use those buses to also deliver educational materials. So Tim you had mentioned that that, you know, people who don't have internet access can still, you know, pick up and drop off paper materials, but, you know, there are plenty of families around the state who who don't even have reliable transportation. And so I'm just wondering if we've got these buses heading out why aren't we using them to deliver. I guess I'll have to ask for some more specifics for my superintendent as to why that can or cannot happen. I mean keep in mind too that these are bus drivers, you know, they're they're, they're paid to pick up and deliver a child safely. Now they're being asked to handle food and deliver food I mean that's kind of outside their purview. So now we're going to ask them to identify which students on their route they're expected to collect homework from and deliver homework to it's it's a lot to ask of a bus driver. I'm not even sure we're allowed to do that. I'm going to have to get some more information on that. I'm not sure the staying power of deploying our buses, even to the extent of delivering meals so that's kind of a fluid situation at least as far as I know. Mike Marwicky do you have your hand up. Well that is happening in fact in our district here, and the buses are not going out alone they're going out with with school personnel. People that don't have access to the internet are getting packages from from from teachers and that's getting delivered right along with that option is there. I think that's an important way of achieving some some semblance of equity so I have been frustrated at my local district for saying that they cannot for some reason cannot put educational materials on those buses. Martha did you have any perspective on that. I was going to say the same thing Mike did we certainly have support staff who can be used for those kinds of functions so who in our district meals are being picked up at congregate sites but where except for whisper generally more urban type of district. I would say there's no reason you can't put support stuff on the bus with with the people distributing meals to get materials to and from students. Thank you. Committee any other questions for any of the folks who are with us here today. Alright I'm not seeing any hands raised go ahead and do a physical wave if you need to. If I is it okay if I excuse myself from the meeting if there are no further questions I got two kids are about to pound down this door. Oh wait we would love to see that. Thank you Tim for being with us and thank you for all the work you're doing in this unprecedented time. So thank you as well. Have a good day. Alright seeing no other hands raised from committee I think we are we are done with the official part of our meeting. And so thank you Martha for being with us thank you Gwen for being with us thank you Sue I appreciate you. Carol Dawes has already left the meeting and so we we will shift over to a few announcements and committee discussion here before we sign off for the day. So you're welcome to stay on if you like or you can say your goodbyes and go on to another virtual meeting. Appreciate it. Thank you. So committee we have a few things on our agenda for next week. We're also waiting for a new master committee schedule for next week. It wants to be able to give one more week of hands on support to committees as they are setting up zoom meetings so we may or may not get our morning time slots that we had talked about using for next week so I will apologize in advance if the agenda comes out and it's different than what we had discussed but it does need to give one more week of sort of gatekeeping and hands on support before they give us the green light to schedule our own committee meetings so as you probably can predict we're going to continue to stay on these issues of sort of cleanup and and midrange coven response questions. We've got a list of things that the senate committee on government operations has been working on and we will have Betsy Ann and Tucker present some of those issues to us at some point next week whenever we get scheduled. We will also have an ever bridge training with with a chief of police so that we can practice that that electronic format as well so if you could please before next Tuesday get ever bridge. And then also get it on your phone if you are inclined to do that and that way you'll have the ability to ask questions about how to use it, both on your iPad and on your phone. I think that's all that I have for announcements anybody else have a question or comment or announcement. Go ahead and unmute yourself and jump right in. Sarah, do we want to start working on the things around the board of civil authority. Like just ask, I think it would be Tucker, whether open meeting applies that process and quasi judicial process. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I think we do because, you know, there are, I've heard of a couple instances in my community where, you know, there, there may have been a change of use that was sort of on the verge of being approved and, and all of a sudden those meetings have been canceled. And, you know, if you are a business and you were 90% of the way through some expansion. Now is not the time to be sitting around and and waiting needlessly so I think if we can do a little more work on that and give some clarity that would be helpful. Sarah, can I ask a question. You sure can. And some of you probably know the answer and I don't but you know if you were to put your house on the market today, the value of that house may be very different than it was two, two months ago. Or maybe six months from now. And I'm not advocating this because I almost think you need to take a time out but can someone challenge the appraisal value of their house or business or whatever property right now. And what if they did. What's it based on is it based on the market today, or is it based on the normal market that we might have had two months ago. Yes, I just fear I mean if everybody jumped in on that. I mean we'd all be raising that question and all of a sudden, the value of the real estate for the town for the school for whatever would be dramatically different than it is today. Right. That's a great question. Rob. You know if you're talking about appealing your your tax appraisal. Usually what happens is, they don't necessarily take fair market value they go through and they have a matrix a computer program that the appraisers or listeners use to help come up with that value. They don't not like it's not like a regular appraisal through a bank or something that's going to go through, look at your property and then go out and take a look at comps. Now, they will take a look that model will come through and it can reflect changes in the fair market value and things like that but as far as immediately here they're just going to work off of that database as far as I recall and john jump in if it's if you think if you know differently. It is slightly different we just had a situation in Wilmington last year because you know with the hermitage bankruptcy. A number of people were appealing their valuations and you know the listeners were relying on sales comps and you know all the sales were pre bankruptcy. So, you know, they, we have lost some appeals based on that. And so, I mean Jim raises a good question about, you know, the liquidity of the real estate market right now and what prices would be I would think right now no one is buying or selling real estate. No, sorry. But so, so in your scenario there they did take into consideration the the comps and fair market value after. No, because you know once you had the bankruptcy, none of the properties around the hermitage club were selling. So the only rely on was pre bankruptcy sale comps which were, you know, which I think gave the property owners a basis for appeal, and some of those appeals are still pending but some of them, the property owner has won. Okay. Any other questions or issues to flag and, and I would also welcome you to the extent that you have questions to pop an email to, to legislative council whoever you think is most appropriate. And put those in the queue and give, give ledge council an opportunity to do a little research before we get on a zoom call with them next week. JP go ahead. Thank you I just had a quick question on this ever bridge program bridge talking cell phones and iPads does this work on a computer as well. I know that would be a question you could email chief Romeo I and ask him if he knows whether you can get the app on a, on a laptop. I know it's already been installed on your legislative iPad. Right. Okay, I'll ask JP if I may. iPads but thank you very much. Go ahead, Jim. I did the test a few tried it on the on a PC. And I guess it can work. I, I can't sign in on the same login information with the iPad. And he strongly discouraged trying to do it on a PC. So I would use the phone or your iPad. It's a lot, a lot easier than than trying to do it on the computer. I'm sure there's a way to do it. For some reason it won't accept the same log in information. Go into the app store and type it in for a. I'm acted doesn't show up at all. Okay. JP you got your hand up again. JP unmute yourself. No. Okay. Thanks for the time to falling took anyway. Yes. Okay. I understand that. So the other question that this ever bridge. Is this only going to be used. When we go to the. We're anticipating it. Um, Rob might be able to answer that question because he's been a part of the house rules committee meetings, but I had understood that we might use it for committee voting as well as for remote floor voting Rob. Do you have any clarity for us on that? Not any more than you had said there madam chair, I think that that is the intent. Okay. So at any rate, we're going to learn some new skills because, you know, it's what we, it's what we have to do at this point. So I would welcome you to again forward any questions that you have related to these mid range COVID-19 response needs to legislative council so that they can be prepared to help us understand and I will make sure that when we get our committee schedule for next week that we get Tucker and Betsy and in to not only talk to us about our, our questions that that we've raised but also to brief us on the issues that the senate government operations committee is looking at. And so if there are no other questions I think we will sign off for the day. Anybody else have any questions. I'm seeing no virtual hands and lots of waving goodbye. Alright, so thank you. Thank you all for being with us this morning and have a good weekend, try to get some exercise, stay sane, wash your hands and be attentive to your email so that you can get our schedule for next week because it's still a little bit up in the air.