 I would hope not okay we are we are live so this government operations senate government operations friday may 22nd and we're looking at a couple different things we're going to have some general discussion but we are also looking at for right now we're going to take up h793 which relates to the um powers and duties of the auditor so um auditor of accounts to be specific um so betsey do you want to um walk us through the bill and then we'll hear from andrew is that okay okay thank you hello and it is we do have it here great and i did email to you a section by section summary of the bill also is it up is it on should we go to your our emails or to our the website let's see it's an email should we look at should we look at the summary or look at the bill i would prefer if the if it also went to the so it's posted so that if it's hard to move between that and the email for me but it's easier for me to move between documents uh as posted senator i'm working on it i okay go to a remote desktop so it takes a little bit longer okay thank you charlie i only sent to gail right before the meeting so she didn't have time to get this posted thank you as as passed by the house is up on our website correct yes so for the record betsey and rask legislative council this bill as passed house h793 relates to the powers and duties of the auditors of accounts and you'll find that um many of these amendments are clarifying in nature or just reorganizing statute um but also eliminates some of the duties that the auditor has in regard to entities outside of his office so the first thing that would be amended in section one is the main statute that describes the duties of our auditor of accounts and the first thing that's going on here in subdivision one you'll see it's adding a new subdivision one b that says that the auditor of accounts has the duty to annually perform or contract for the financial and compliance audits of the state of ramon federal programs as required by federal law except that the audit requirement doesn't apply to uvm or vermont state colleges but what is going on here is really just moving language to one b that currently exists in subdivision nine of this statute so if you are happen if you happen to be looking at the bill itself if you scroll down to page four you'll see subdivision nine is being repealed and that's the same language that's talking about the duty of the auditor to either perform or contract with an public accountant to perform uh financial and compliance audits as required by federal law and specifically saying this doesn't apply to uvm or vermont state colleges so this is an example of an organizational change just so it placed the auditor's main annual audit duties all in this first subdivision one so it's laid out at the top what the auditor's main duties are and also just note that there's a clarification here in the subdivision nine in the current law it refers to the federal single audit act you'll see when this language gets moved from current subdivision nine up to this one b it refers more generally to this requirement to audit as required by federal law without citing the federal single audit act and that's because i'm in speaking with andrew hello andrew andrew the federal single the reference to the federal single single audit act is not entirely accurate because now federal law requires these audits of federal programs by the states pursuant to a uniform guidance that's set forth in the code of federal regulations so it seemed to just be a better site to say as required by federal law rather than a federal act that's really not the accurate description at this point so mainly for organizational purposes that amendment to subdivision one so that's all in that's all in one a and b yes that the move from there's a lot of words for that well i just want to make it clear what's going on here i thought you were really clarification and organization for that subdivision one um subdivision three i'm still in section one and if you're looking at the bill itself we're now on page two but subdivision three revises how the auditor of account audit reports recommendations and corrective actions are posted on the auditor of account auditor of accounts website and when the auditor of account has to follow up on recommendations that the auditor of accounts made so right now if you look at the current law it's saying that the auditor has to uh post things uh the audit reports on his or her website by july 1st and it describes what these reports um have to contain and um when the the auditor current law says the auditor has to follow up on these uh that recommendations that he made in the auditor's um reports at least bi-annually and this new language would say follow up um for up to three years rather than um follow up at least bi-annually and this is just pursuant to this as i understand it some feedback from auditor of accounts about how the auditor conducts these audits and um i believe the auditor of accounts would just like some more flexibility on how these audit reports are actually have to be uh posted what makes sense from the auditor of accounts perspective um and more auditor of accounts control over what an audit actually contains i can clarify a little bit if you'd like would that be helpful betian find my me okay with the chair i think i think we should walk through the whole bill first and then you can so that we have a sense of what it is because we've never we've never seen the bill before perfect sounds great and andrew i i should apologize to you i when we meet in the statehouse in person i'm so used to if there's a person who hasn't been in there before we always introduce ourselves and i just have been neglecting to do that here so because you haven't been with us before i'm janette white from windham county and i would ask the committee to introduce themselves sorry i'm anthony from washington county bryan colin more roughly coming allison clarkson winsor county it's good to see you andrew good to see you too allison chris bray from the addison senate district and i'm sorry i joined late i i got knocked out of the floor session uh zoom sort of crashed and burned i had to reinstall restart my computer so i'm a little tardy getting back here it's okay but you your tie is perfectly tied so it's fine and you have a new background okay thank you and i i do apologize for not introducing ourselves right at the beginning but okay that's the end okay i'm at the bottom of page two of the bill uh in regard actually travel on to the top of page three in regard to this subdivision four this would be eliminating the requirement that auditor of account audit reports be furnished to and kept in the state library um i don't if i'm recalling correctly the auditor of accounts didn't propose this it was a correction that house covops was pursuing anyhow i think it's in regard to what has to be posted or given to the state library especially now that our state library is not in full force and also um the auditor of accounts audit reports are on the auditor's website so they are still available for public public use um if you're looking at page four of the bill you can see that deletion of subdivision nine but we already discussed that that's just moving those provisions up to subdivision one and then if you look at page five of the bill there's an amendment to subdivision 12 um this is in regard to the current law uh duty of the auditor to make available to county municipal and school district officials with fiduciary responsibilities and education program right now this is a requirement for the auditor of accounts to provide this education program and it specifies what that program has to entail and who the auditor has to consult with to create it this proposal is to provide probably say that the auditor of accounts would provide these local fiduciary officials with an education program related to their responsibilities as resources permit so it's not a requirement no matter what but it's as the auditor of accounts resources permit to provide that education and it's more general language to say it's just in regard to their fiduciary responsibilities without specifying what it has to entail then we're moving on to section two all that is doing is correcting the cross-reference with section one's move of subdivision nine up to subdivision one so that's just a technical correction section three i would also classify as a technical correction on page six of the bill um current law has specific language requiring the auditor of accounts to audit the accounts of the board and liquor and lottery but this language was deemed by the auditor of account is unnecessary since the auditor already has the duty at the top of section six one to annually perform or contract for the performance of an audit of the basic financial statements of the state so it was unnecessary to repeat that specifically for the board of liquor and lottery since the auditor already has the general duty to do this for the state's financial statements generally uh section four and five are similar if you are on page where are we on page four or section four starts at the bottom of page six um this is an elimination of the requirement for the auditor of accounts to serve as the state's non-voting representative to an audit committee of the vermont state colleges and similarly um in section five eliminating the requirement for the auditor of accounts to serve as the state's non-voting representative to an audit committee established by visac then section six um on page nine eliminates the requirement for the auditor of accounts to prescribe the form of county budgets and that's it finally section seven is the effective date of july one all right are there any uh technical corrections for betsey about the way the bill is written no all right if not then um oh i'm sorry anthony no i said no did you have oh oh okay i'm sorry um so i was responding i know you were i know okay so andrew would you like to then give us the rationale for why these changes and i would ask also if there was um any opposition to any of the sections and if so where that came from sure yeah so andrew stein deputy state auditor i'm in washington county right now and uh there there we have not received any opposition to anything in here whatsoever and this bill was drafted in a way anything that might be controversial we had some a proposal related to our appropriations and that was actually introduced by the governor in his big bill and that's not in here there was another proposal from our office um related to tiff that's not in here this was intentionally meant to modernize and clean up the state auditor's office's statutes um in a way that has really been it's really needed this cleanup now for about four or five years and every year we conduct a quality assurance review for our office and that's to ensure that we're following our laws and our policies and when we're peer reviewed on a three-year basis they review that work too and they review our laws and policies and this this represents corrections and cleanups that will help us come into compliance with those laws and policies primarily and anywhere where we can streamline things as well we've tried to do that so i'll just go if anybody has any questions along the way or any questions at the beginning please let me know it's it's pretty routine stuff but it doesn't mean that you know you might not have important questions and considerations for this so um i'll go i'll go through this and try to keep it as brief as possible so shifting as betty as betty and mentioned shifting the financial and compliance audit statement up under b and saying federal law rather than the single audit act that recognizes that the single audit act has has been replaced by newer legislation and also on a nearly annual basis the office of management and budget at the federal level issues a compliance supplement which is an additional set of rules that we need to follow so just by saying by federal law it it encompasses everything there um in our statute uh also the the the the requirement is actually to have a financial and compliance audit of federal programs so we included uh that financial language as well i'm just going down through here we post every all all reports any public public documents um that that we produce any reports related to the sheriff's performance audits annual financial audits compliance audits they all go on our website and we keep them there in perpetuity at least under this auditor and under the former auditor we and and prior auditors really we have a lot of that information and then we follow the public records law and uh any public documents or archives so after we talked with government operations on the house side about some of this stuff and the language here in the language that's already in law we all felt like accomplished um some of the changes that they were hoping to make this year related to that um let me just move along here so the language that shifts how we follow up on the auditor's recommendations that changed years ago so in law it says follow up every two to four years and we began following up every one to three years and the thinking there is if after a year you follow back up you're more likely to have um um success in working with an audit t if you follow up a year later rather than two years later if there are some issues that need to be addressed if there are conversations that need to be had following up a year later rather than two years later was found to be a more effective timeline for this so we're still following up as much as we would under a two to four year cycle we're just shifting that cycle up by a year and so that has been the practice of the auditor's office and every year for the past five or six years now uh in the quality assurance review we've had to note that we're out of compliance with that law and why we're out of compliance with it so Andrew just sort of no brainer kind of question but yep you would normally not you would normally do make it do an audit make some recommendations then you wait two years before you follow it up to see if the recommendation would be in follows so now we follow up one year later right it's going to happen in two years that seems that doesn't like a long time to follow up to see if somebody's been following your recommendations that yeah that's that that was the general thinking we've seen an increase the office has seen an increase in uh adherence to audit recommendations since that practice went into place sure so so let's see here I'm just scrolling through so the annual audit requirement for liquor and lottery as Betsy Ann mentioned the financial audit which we had the capper right the comparative annual financial reports for the state which those are the states audited financial statements and our office is responsible for the audit component of that and now that liquor and lottery are together it's kind of interesting but liquor is part of our offices and we contract out this work our office's annual financial audit lottery has its own annual financial audit and that is accounted for in the capper so this work is being done on an annual basis so we don't do this because it would be redundant to the work that's already happening and so that's another example of something that we note every year we're not following this law but here's the reason why we're not following this law it's already essentially being accomplished by you know this other section of law the let's see here the the the recommendation the proposal to remove ourselves as non-voting members from the audit committees of v-sac and state colleges that doesn't mean that we can't audit the state colleges in v-sac and actually those are component units of the state of vermont and they are part of the annual financial audit what happened was under tom salmon it's my understanding under tom salmon our chief auditor and director of performance audits flagged an independence issue and that was if we're voting members on the internal audit committees of these organizations it was also uvm at the time as well that presented independence issues because we're an arms-length independent office going in and either contracting or using our fte's to conduct these audits and oftentimes the internal audit committees are helping on that organization side coordinate the audit so we couldn't really be assisting with the audit that we're conducting for that organization so that change was made and then once that change was made we didn't really have much of a role on those committees auditor hopper wanted to maintain the non-voting role for uvm simply because it's such a large budget and if they ever did want want our advice or want to work with our office to improve audit processes he thought we should still extend that extend ourselves in that direction so that's the one exception to this and I did talk with him yesterday and I brought up that exception because I thought you might ask about it and he said if you really felt otherwise he would be fine removing us from that from that audit committee as well but he just thought because of the amount of money there and because they're a more complex organization that there might be a need at some point in time the the truth of the matter is the state auditor's office can provide what are called non-audit services to to state organizations to assist with projects and programs we actually at the beginning of covid-19 reached out to the department of labor this was literally the first week that everything was shutting down to offer our services non-audit services they didn't take us up on that but that's an example of how we can extend ourselves to entities that we would normally audit to assist so let me see if there's anything else here that I'm missing I think that I think that just about covers it do any of you have any questions for me any committee members have any questions I mean this seems pretty straightforward and in many cases getting codifying that what's actually happening here and catching the catching up the statutes to the reality Anthony did you have a question or yeah yeah it's just kind of a dumb one I should know the answer to this but we talk about you talking before you know or whether or not to audit the board of liquor and lottery etc when you do the what's called the general audit I guess when somebody does that you are auditing like all the different state agencies so they what they do they take a sample of expenditures and revenues so it is possible that in some years some entities they're they look across funds they don't look by department and agency so much they they take a sample of expenditures and revenues and so the the annual financial statements are prepared across the state of Vermont and then the auditors take take a sample and they go down through a checklist really scrutinizing certain expenditures and and certain revenues that's what the financial audit really is and ensuring that from that sample you know there's there's compliance with the state's financial laws that there aren't any major accounting errors and there have been some accounting errors in the past that these audits have flagged and it can just be simple stuff like you know a couple of zeros in the in the wrong place for the beginning net position of a department or agency's internal service fund or something you know very nitty gritty like that and then and and so that's the financial audit for the state and then there's these annual what what's called the federal single audit where the the auditors go into federal programs that are above a certain threshold so everything from snap benefit programs to education programs medicaid is an annual program because it's there's so much money there it's a high risk program it's classified as a high risk program because of the amount of money and so that's audited on an annual basis just to ensure that those those really high value federal programs and the state's expenditure of those federal awards is done in compliance not only with federal law but also with state law so and ensuring that the laws that you all have worked so hard to create are also followed in the in the expense of those funds but that's that big general audit that's done by someone you contract with right that's right yeah clifton larson allen is who we contract with now previously it was kpm g bmz right sure thank you yeah allison uh andrew if i could just call up on anthony's question so the agencies and departments know when to expect and what line items you're going to expect or is it sort of a a spot inspection and in you know a spot audit that they will surprise people so they aren't necessarily fully prepared for them so it definitely depends on the agency and department so before i worked for the tax department as the research economist there on the policy outreach and legislative affairs team but one of the internal services that i provided was to our revenue accounting and processing team and when we were shifting to this new it system for all of our taxes which was a successful transition which is why most people haven't heard about it um the the um you know the the annual um accounting process of shifting those cash-based uh revenue numbers to accrual which the caffers accrual based accounting which is what what are our accounts receivable not what cash was actually received in that fiscal year um that whole process was very very involved and i assisted with that in designing those reports and it's because the tax department knew every single year the auditors were going to be in there scrutinizing revenue numbers and finance and management knows every single year you know those folks who work on this they're going to be dealing with these issues deba for example they're accounting people ahs for example they know every single year they're going to be dealing with these folks but some of the smaller guys some of the some of the smaller departments and agencies with regard to the financial audit even in the legislature this this past year there there were um because it's it's for all of state government there were some questions that were directed to um the sergeant at arms that i don't think she had encountered those types of questions before so she was pretty surprised for example um so there are some there there are some business units uh as as they're classified in our accounting system which are different departments agencies divisions that won't receive these auditing services as regularly as other departments and agencies but the the federal the ones the federal audit that is more routine that is more annual yeah it's it's annual for high dollar programs or for those programs that have shown material weaknesses but otherwise it's generally on like a three-year cycle sort of like the the fee bill used to be brian thank you madam chair so andrew the last section all county budget shall and it used to say be presented on the form prescribed after consultation with the aside judges why why is that going away again i know i think that's a try to explain i don't know she did explain it but i didn't yeah oh sure sure so you know or the the state auditor's office hasn't actually provided this service in a in a long time and we are in regular contact or at least i'm in pretty regular contact with a number of the county administrators and with the the sheriffs and i think this is kind of some antiquated language from a long time ago when budgets were submitted on paper and and now um you know the the counties really handle their own budgets and you know we haven't for years nobody in our office can remember a time when we've provided the counties with a form that they had to use for their budgeting purposes yeah yeah any more questions for andrew so yes i just have to make a comment it just seems like a long time andrew since i saw you taking that exam in the basement of tax it just seems like ages ago doesn't it with years and years ago um so are we it since there was no opposition to this bill at all from any place and anything that might have generated opposition has been is not in here um are we we have permission anthony am i right to vote on this bill correct so although they're they're they're still you know they're they're in awe of how many bills we actually move out of this committee so i know they would like us to slow down but that's okay i'm not going to slow down right we put it on the calendar they can take it up when they want to but it'll be ready and they need to catch up i know those some of those committees are very slow i tell them it's because of the chair and the staff we just can't keep moving forward so brian i will make the motion then madam chair that we vote out h seven nine three as passed by the other body with no amendments all right is the clerk ready to call the roll she is although her package was just sealed for kail karakin with all the other vote sheets and now i have to reopen it uh i bet you can figure that one out yes senator clarkson yes senator colmore yes senator polina yes senator right yes right would anybody like to report this bill brian sure all right thank you very much and i also just want to thank all of you for your diligence and resiliency in the face of really unprecedented times and also thank you to betsy and for your hard work on this you did a great job as always so appreciate all of your efforts we're lucky told us about the staff and the chair and apparently the house committee did a good job on it too because we don't have any amendments yeah we don't have to cite that every every once in a while we need to we need to you know yeah all right so we're done with that one thank you andrew thank you all i'll i'll leave now thank you you're welcome to stay thank you we always love to have people i can watch on youtube oh i hope you have other things to do take care yeah me too so um we are not scheduled until 145 but if damien and the adjutant general are with us we might move there but i don't see them they are not here we have a few minutes here and i so i'm going to apologize for not getting out the um the um law enforcement the um share what came from the sheriffs i haven't even had a chance to look at what they've sent me um about their their uh last revenues so i apologize for not getting that out yet um brian do you did you have any uh conversations about the um um chair executive director of the academy i did madam chair um and i did make a point that it had nothing to do with the current emergency although i think tangentially tangentially it does um the governor promised that that would be taken up as quickly as possible let me just refer to my notes yeah i asked him if there could be an interim director appointed asap and that the training council be allowed to go ahead with the search or some some group go ahead with uh a search and i was assured by both the governor and by secretary young um that that would be forthcoming in the next few days um that they had it on their radar they were well aware of it and perhaps michael shirling actually if he is going to join us later today might be able to comment on it as well thank you thank you for doing that um would it be helpful for us to send a follow-up letter to them um just saying that the committee um supports the um sentiments that were offered by senator colomor yes i think that'd be great okay i will do that this afternoon ah you don't have to waste the rest of the day doing that madam chair it's if i it'll take me less than five minutes and i can do it and then it's done okay and then i don't have to wake up in the night and say oh my god did you do that or didn't you do that you do that too huh there's that yeah i do that yep i think i think this is a period in our lives for lots of us are doing it which is i don't usually do it but may i ask a may i ask a question madam chair yes so i was look on the floor today as i was cruising through to get to the bills we were discussing uh i i was reminded that there are a lot a couple of our bills still amendments of things that are still on the calendar of second reading okay um hold can you hold on one second sure did anybody else notice the f-35s when they went by no yeah pretty impressive they roared through waterberry above waterberry and they roared through Rutland and what are they doing they're saluting the essential workers at all the hospitals in the state oh really yeah and is that supposed to be something people like all that noise that's supposed to be a thank you i had a feeling that might be lost on you senator Clarkson but yes i thought it was great absolutely great top-notch i am i have no worry there how many were there like four four yeah did they do some fancy things you know a flyby means they just fly by okay and it wasn't like an air show and and i hope the essential workers were actually able to appreciate you know take time to enjoy that they were well informed ahead of time and they came down here oh yeah they did almost every hospital in the state actually we had any we all got an email with it with a map yeah we did yeah we did oh yes we did oh i heard a lot of noise that would be that was it oh okay anyway i was just sort of wasting time while you did what you needed to do mandatory okay so i'll say one more thing here did you find them okay um i was lost lost car keys um i was asking you a question when you went to deal with the lost car keys oh okay i'm sorry no no my question is about the the things we have amendments to and we have an amendment we have a strike all amendment actually to the restructuring of the agency of human services that is not you have not talked about that with rules on my understanding is that is a low priority i mean not to you but to me and so i i just need to know it when i just for those of us who have amendments who are because we do have a few amendments i think other than mine for agency of human services just i need a heads up as to when we're going to be doing it what i would what i would say is first of all that particular bill i think is not um we're not going to work i i i don't think so because i don't think the house even has any interest in doing it but what i would say is that we if there's anything on the calendar that we have and brian you for 233 and me for 220 that we should be prepared at any moment to to do it just like the other day when tim asked me on wednesday night if i would or tuesday night if i would do s99 we need to be prepared to to do them if he calls them up okay and so it betsy and are you still there oh yes if you put your um thing on all seeing everybody then you would be able to see us and you would be able to see when brian raises his hand i know but i'm focusing on who's speaking i'm trying to focus on who's i know but that isn't helpful if you were in the committee and you had on blinders it wouldn't be helpful sometimes it would be no only if we had on blinders um bety and to that end um i would love to have a conversation with you about 297 so i am prepped so i will we'll be in touch later i believe that was jennifer carby's bill oh it was that's right okay okay so i will um i see where we've been joined by the adjutant general but and just before we jump there um i would um i had a conversation this morning or between the floor and now with um the elections officials yes and um we are going to on schedule on tuesday elections issue the issue of the elections and the potential bill that we have which would not be um the bill that bety and originally gave to us because that actually put us in control of determining what would happen but instead just removing with agreement so from the original bill so that it would still be there with consultation but not with agreement and i believe that the governor has actually given us invited us to do that in his press conferences chris so i think our second draft still is it's not quite as simple as withdrawing the with agreement so i was when the time is right it'd be good to look at it as a committee again okay i did i didn't see a second draft but or i haven't seen it yet i didn't send i didn't send the committee a second draft yet but we talked about it yes okay well then i'm sorry i think i saw uh i thought i saw us a follow-up anyway when we get there um i i just want us trying to have us be ahead of the game so that we have a draft to look at again and in case there were yet another change but i i think we all agreed where we're going it's really it was as simple and narrow as possible getting rid of the phrase right yes and i would ask betsey if you would have that done with just removing with agreement so in consultation you want to maintain you want to maintain the consultation yeah i mean there's already been a lot of consultation so we don't want to necessarily remove that and think that the governor isn't involved at all but just remove the with agreement and i i'm not going to try to read anybody's mind but it seems to me that in the press conference is that the governor has actually invited us to do so to do that so um and then we can post that so that on tuesday we can have any discussion and anybody who supports that or opposes that change could come in and testify because i want we want to make sure that we hear from everybody about that change chris um the other thing too was the phrase that we started to try to use to get it out there that is the distribution of ballots by mail yes i don't know if that might go into a heading or reader aids or if it even gets into the language but if there's an opportunity to use that i think it's almost it's clarifying and de-escalate de-escalatory okay i'm not sure how we would do that because i think i think well that's not a bad idea that would be us prescribing in the bill more what we want to see happen and i think yeah like what you're talking about chris is what the is what secretary states should announce that this is the path they're going down you know the ability to vote by mail if you want to do it as opposed to us putting it in the bill yep you're right thanks i have to admit that i corrected the secretary of state about three or four times today in the meeting because he used vote by mail and i said never used that phrase again and and they also talked about using voter choice but it isn't that either because voters currently have a choice of how to how to vote this is just ballot delivery by mail right that's that is what it is so um anyway we will do that and um we will hear from whoever wants to testify town clerks um advocacy groups um political parties anybody who wants to testify on tuesday brian thank you madam chair even though i probably won't support the new legislation in the spirit of trying to still be a good committee member and participate i don't want to wait until tuesday to bring this up but someone asked me whether since we had already passed the bill regarding this topic earlier this session is it possible to open up the same topic and introduce us another bill and i admitted i didn't know the answer to that so i thought i'd bring it up today in case it becomes an issue rather than bring it up tuesday and then everybody said well why didn't you mention that right no good good that's that's very good so we should we should run that by um secretary bloomer chris well i think brian's saying the same thing you know it's like are we negating an action of the legislature by removing that phrase right it's a question of substantial negation we get secretary is definitely the ultimate authority but i don't think it is substantial negation because it's not the opposite of what you already enacted which is what i understand substantial negation to be i didn't know there was a term thank you yes lawyers have a term for everything and jeannette while we're talking about agenda one thing i would really like to discuss is what we can do as a committee to further boost the awareness that the that we that people have to be responding to the census uh i think we're we're i i think we want to do that but we have the adjutant general on with us right now and it is time to go to move to that i don't want to hold him up while we have committee discussion so we will return to that conversation right and and may i make a request before the adjutant general um uh talks uh that we have brian thank the adjutant general on behalf of all of us for what happened today well maybe brian would want to do that anyway even without asking him yeah we're uh we're talking about the flyover today which i greeted with much enthusiasm and i appreciate the efforts of the uh the guard it was it was really well done okay are you there with us greg perhaps that fell on deaf ears no various various how's everybody doing good did you just hear brian i i did at sir thank you um that was absolutely an honor for us to be able to do that and i have to give credit where where credit is due um so chronal shevchick and his team over at the 158th fighter wing really facilitated this happening we were on the back side of the authorization window for that so um he pulled some strings back channel and i was kind of uh waiting in the wings to provide some leverage if needed but he got all of the right folks and and they just did an amazing job getting this thing done and i figured it's at least we can do to kind of tip our hat those folks out there doing great work for us thank you well thank you thank you very much we do not have damien with us yet but let's just uh jump to the edge in general here and if you would like to tell us first of all why you want a provost marshal and what a provost marshal even is for the first thing first thing i would tell you is this was something that i said i would do when i campaigned for this job and i don't want to get into the business of not doing something i said i was going to do in my view that there's a need for this position here we would benefit by establishing the position as described in the h750 i researched with some other states who had the provost marshal position and inclusive in that was national guard bureau a majority of those are used more in line with anti-terrorism and force protection you know security inspections and large part domestic operations what i'm proposing is also inclusive of level three law enforcement certification what that does is it addresses in my view a shortcoming in our organization to have a consistent liaison capability with civil law enforcement both positions that i proposed in the bill are it's a traditional guard position so it would be a drilling member of the guard so they would work someplace else during the month and have drill weekends and annual training with us but those positions both the field grade officer and the senior nco can be air or army so for us that means it's a joint bill so it has some ancillary benefits of a career opportunity for two or three years for for soldiers and airmen serving in the organization um sounds pretty straightforward to me um does anybody have any questions about what first of all let me ask you before people ask questions was there any opposition from anywhere to this proposal uh no me i'm not that i know of i i did know there are a number of cosponsors on the bill and it came out of the house general um pretty quickly when i spoke with um tom stevens about it so i believe the support is there but i think it's something that we can certainly benefit from so okay allison so greg can you give us an illustration of how you think having had this position in place would have helped us solve x problem in the last in the last year or so since you've been adjutant general how would you have seen this person this position having been a benefit to you well there's there's a degree of compliance that comes with this job and if it's an organizational law enforcement function and again i'll come back to the liaison piece with civil law enforcement so one area i went through the language in the bill so it serves as a primary liaison between the guard and federal state and local law enforcement agencies and part of this i spoke with our judge advocate general it's the reporting and documenting criminal criminal activity that's identified even though we have a duty to report um that it doesn't always happen and with a duty to report that means if a soldier or airman any member of the organization um has dealings with law enforcement their duty is to report that well sometimes we won't find out about it until it comes time for mobilization and then it's too late and it comes up in a background check and we lose that person as a resource rather than being notified of it and taking appropriate action earlier on um as in when it just happened and that ties into the NCIC capability right now we have NCIC capability but i don't know that we have anybody qualified to use the system so that's another one of the benefits of the position um and providing assistance so if for instance i've got somebody who is uh accused of a crime or a suspect in a crime we're dependent wholly on civil law enforcement to come deal with them if they're in fact in the guard if we have this position that person the provost marshal or the assistant provost marshal would have the capability to assist you know providing a supplemental affidavit um issuing somebody a citation to court a notice of trespass uh or whatever it might be when it comes to dealing with with the criminal process and the other part of this that and this is you know folks don't know a lot of times how we work we do a lot of self policing and we have regulations that govern that so if somebody violates regulation here we're doing a a it's a dual process so if it's an army regulation or an air force regulation we would investigate that but if it is a parallel investigation for instance on on the civil side civil law enforcement a violation of state law this person would have the capability or both positions would have the capability to assist in investigating that as well so when it comes to self policing if we're doing an investigation internal to the organization we would appoint an officer and that becomes basically an additional duty and you're taking them away from their primary duty for a period of 30 days or longer depending on the degree of complexity to complete um an administrative inquiry like a commander's inquiry or a command directed inquiry so if if it's not a straightforward case and there's a degree of complexity we'd be able to turn this over to the provost marshal team to do a more in-depth investigation and it's in the process is determined that there is a criminal violation under state law they would have the capability to be that liaison with civil law enforcement and then proceed for prosecution thank you that that helps but um that seems like a position that is working uh both with it with individuals in the guard that are accused of crimes and liaison being a liaison with municipal and state law enforcement also helping with self policing is there a degree of proactively coordinating and being a liaison on um on on more general actions that that where the national guard and state or municipal law enforcement would be in a proactive working to solve a problem like sandbagging and Montpelier or something I mean yes ma'am so that that's the tie-in with the their director of military support and that's a very small shop so we have one director of military support so for instance if we look at our current crisis that's ongoing we have colonel gates who does that and he's embedded with the the state EOC and works with director Bournemouth but anybody else that we sent down there is an augmentee and they're kind of thrown into the fray this provides us an additional resource who has that linkage and can help us with in a number of areas as an additional liaison with civil authority augments colonel gates and anybody else we put in that team and then let me see we go back to the bill here one moment it's in here the other part of that would be the the force protection and threat mitigation and I think it's on page or page three of four line six c cooperating with the director of military support and other relevant federal agencies and anti-terrorism efforts and critical infrastructure protection and related to domestic emergencies and then D providing information to the director of military support in that relation to addressing criminal threats handling of sensitive information and information sharing with civilian law enforcement agencies so there's also a direct a direct linkage there and we have armories across the state and again that directive military support and our folks that do force protection um in my view are understaffed and would benefit by having somebody who's able to come in on a drill weekend and do those inspections and make sure that we're doing everything weekend to protect the force so this this is a full-time job uh no i'm not initially it's a traditional drilling two traditional drilling members of the guard either air or army and um i think this is a great kind of a test for us to see how it fits into the organization i'm sure there's a need for it what i don't know at this juncture is how that need will grow so i talked with mr. greg our deputy adjutant general and i think our best approach to that is we'll evaluate it for a year see where the need takes us if there's enough demand i think the best approach is to pursue this as a state employee position because of the law enforcement aspect of it thanks ryan thank you madam chair general you anticipated my question at the moment then there would be no cost incurred to uh create this position but possibly down the road there might be sir and that we would that would work out of the military department budget um as to the training uh used to be in law enforcement it did that for 11 years here um there's certainly a cost of a few sending somebody who's not currently certified um to the Vermont criminal justice training council there'll be a cost there but i i i am i am certain we have sufficient a full-time certified law enforcement officers in in either the air army national guard to get this thing off the ground and kind of give us a sense of where we're going to go with it thank you thank you anthony do you have any questions well actually i had the same question brian had about the cost but this makes me realize sometimes how little i understand about the guard if i'm not sure why they have to ask us for permission to do this maybe it's a question for damien i'm not sure i just i mean i have no problem with with what we're talking about it seems like it makes sense to do but if it's not going to cost anything why i'm just wondering why what power do we have to allow them to do it or not do it so before uh the adjunct general answers and damien answers i um remember the um i think the history that damien did for us when we were looking at the um whether to elect or not not elect the adjunct general and he did and it does seem to me that at one point there were some positions in there that no longer exist and they it was all legislative because it is um a state function but i might be wrong and the adjunct general and damien can um actually uh answer that and then we'll have damien walk us through the bill so that we understand the sections of the bill for whoever is going to report this so my question damien and greg is why is this a legislative question why is the legislature dealing with this do you want to start from your perspective first general or would you like me to answer it why don't you take it first i i want to talk about the the law enforcement aspect of it i'm having a certified law enforcement officer sure so um the i think uh the chair had it exactly right um that we the guard being a state and federal sort of dual entity a lot of the um guard structure is to some extent enabled under state law and so what this is doing is it's basically giving them the green light from the state to create this position um and importantly it's setting out guidelines for what the position does what its function is what the requirements are for it and i think general might want to talk about the certified law enforcement officer aspect of that which is very important this position but that's something that we can do as a state legislature um there are a number of other states who have uh this position that i'm aware of or at least have it mentioned in their statutes but i would say that this statute gives more detail and clarity about the position than any of the other state statutes that i'm aware of at this point um it clarifies the type of law enforcement officer uh and their role the other ones most often you'll see it mentioned in terms of uh making arrests and transporting prisoners um so and and i'm just speaking with respect to other states and i haven't read their regulations which may provide more detail but this this is kind of doing two things it's setting um sort of clear um standards for the position and it's also giving the legislative blessing to the creation of the position here um i think it's possible for the guard to potentially do this on their own but i think this gives them uh a lot more support for that position and also uh as general night is going to speak to it it provides clarity about the law enforcement aspect so i'll defer to the general on the rest of it thanks thanks davian so that's that's what's important in this is is that law enforcement aspect um and again i would come back to um having kind of a deterrent effect and have somebody within the organization who's answerable to the the adjunct general um work specifically for for me to get at some of those historic aberrant actions that we've seen um and and i think there's just inherent benefit with that um it sends a pretty clear message to the organization the other part of this is the other part of this and damien's correct it's it's it's a tandem approach so in order for me to authorize the position i have we have what we call a table of distribution and allowances so currently this position is not turned on so to speak so i would have to work with national guard bureau and our fourth integration readiness officer to authorize the position with national guard bureau both positions and once that's done i can implement it with the blessing of of the legislature thank you any other questions so damien why don't you um we uh jumped ahead here and heard from the general first so why don't you walk us through the details of the bill so that we um understand um it and are prepared to answer any questions sure so first let me apologize for being late no apologies gail sent gail sent me the updated time but i was juggling two kids when i saw the email and missed at the time of change so this is fine thank you yeah so uh gail is it possible to make me a co-host so i can share the bill we have it on our on our document page oh perfect it was okay so i don't need to share my screen on okay so um it's too hard to read anyway that way okay i agree i'm working on an ipad so the the print is always microscopic um but the so what this allows is it it allows the etched in general to appoint the provost marshal who would be a rank of major or below so um and then uh and requires them to be a certified level three law enforcement officer um and it also allows the etched in general to appoint an assistant provost marshal who would be a a non-commissioned officer so from the enlisted ranks of the rank of first sergeant or below who also has to be a certified law enforcement officer so it's basically allowing the etched into a point two positions one from the officer ranks one from the commissioned officer ranks and then one enlisted non-commissioned officer um and then they would serve at the pleasure of the etched in general meaning that uh you know the etched in general could hire or fire at at will there's um they answer directly to the etched in their their duties would be to serve as a primary liaison between the guard and federal state and local law enforcement agencies um so not only the first thing is reporting and documenting criminal activity within the guard and then providing assistance to the the federal state and local law enforcement and then overseeing the use of guard personnel and resources that during providing assistance to civil authorities for disasters special events and similar activities and also coordinating with state's attorneys and the attorney general and any uh criminal cases related to the national guard so uh like the general was talking about um they serve as a law enforcement liaison both in the um deterrence and prevention of crime and also in the prosecution of crime um they would supervise the guards utilization of the national and state crime information centers um and also oversee security related issues including monitoring uh local and state threats and anti-terrorism efforts coordinating with relevant agencies in relation to providing security for high-risk personnel cooperating with the director of military support um in anti-terrorism efforts and critical infrastructure protection related to domestic emergencies and then also providing information to that director of military support in relation to addressing criminal threats handling sensitive information and information sharing with civilian law enforcement agencies so and it's worth noting the director of military support is a federal uh position so this is basically providing a liaison through the guard between um the guard and then state and federal or providing a liaison for the guard with both state and federal law enforcement and military authorities um the powers here would be identical to the powers and immunities conferred on the state police um and could be exercised statewide so they're not limited um to exercising their powers on for example military installations so they they would be able to make arrests uh and carry out other law enforcement duties statewide which um just it was the same for all level three certified officers right that's right we're we're keeping them on the same basis as the other level three uh law enforcement officers here um and then section two is just adding them to the definition of law enforcement officer for purposes of title 20 and then section three is the effective date which would be July one so really really the major change is section one the rest of it is is one is a housekeeping change and the other's the effective date so I just do have one question the way I believe the way we um identify law enforcement agency or entity is if they employ a law enforcement officer so by adding this does that now designate the national guard as a law enforcement agency that is uh great question and I think let me just pull up that definition I think you're right that it would designate the national guard as a law enforcement agency and I uh unfortunately I see Betsy might be on the call so she might be able to she is help us out if she's listening in Betsy Ann are you listening she's there but I don't know that she's really there oh there she is I'm back sorry did you hear the question yeah and I'm just looking at the bill itself oh yes so I agree with Damien so this would actually amend the criminal justice training council definition of a law enforcement officer and then you can't see it in these definitions but if you actually go into the criminal justice training council statutes to that definition section you'll see that a law enforcement agency is defined as the employer of a law enforcement officer just as you are saying madam chair so does this do anything does this um oh now we're um joined by the commissioner also so maybe he wants to weigh in on this also I don't know if you heard what we're talking about here but we're looking at the bill that would allow the national guard to create a provost marshal and deputy provost marshal and they are to be level three law enforcement agencies so my question was by adding that person to the list of law enforcement officer does it now mean that the national guard is considered a law enforcement agency because the definition of law enforcement agency is anybody who um employs a law enforcement officer and that it seems that that would but does that have any impact on anything that is unintended so I will uh go to the four of you to help answer that question and I'm sorry commissioner you weren't part of this conversation but that came up and there you are uh this is the first I've heard of it senator so I'm going to defer to your legal counsel and uh we can we can effort that if you'd like but it'll take a little while I just want to make sure that it doesn't have any unintended consequences in terms of what law enforcement agency means well one of the things that would definitely require is for the new officer position to um have maintained his or her annual certification so having to go through basic excuse me annual in-service training in order to maintain certification it would also subject this officer to potentially the unprofessional conduct provisions of this chapter and um under those unprofessional conduct uh under that unprofessional conduct sub chapter a law enforcement agency would have the duty to investigate any allegations of unprofessional conduct committed by this new officer position is at least one um a couple of the uh um obligations that this would create so general just that brian did you have a question well I I can certainly wait because the folks here know a lot more about this than I do but I didn't know whether there would be any impact with union representation for this person I mean a lot of the law enforcement people are members of unions does it automatically mean anything well but a lot of them aren't okay it wouldn't automatically that's one I think I do know the answer to it wouldn't automatically create a connection to one of the okay all right so um general are you is the it means that you have to um abide by the national guard would have to abide by all the regulations put on by the training council on law enforcement agencies is that a problem uh no ma'am I I don't see that as a problem and as noted um I'm pretty sure at least for the initial um hire for this position should the bill pass um I've got sufficient resources uh folks within the organization both here and army that are already full-time certified officers uh working at that uh agencies throughout the state okay I I just wanted to make sure that by designating the national guard as a law enforcement agency it doesn't have any unintended consequences and it seems that vetsian thinks that it doesn't because they'd have to they would just have to um abide by the training council requirements of a law enforcement agency is that understood ma'am okay all right you be careful what you ask for yes ma'am I found that in this job actually are there any more questions from any committee members or anybody Allison? Greg I just love to I mean I uh I I understand the the need for this from your point of view I'm just curious what the scale of the need is how many uh how many incidents a year on average have you had uh that uh a what's what's the need for this I mean how many cases do you have a year that that uh where the national guard is uh having to deal with a a guardsman or guardswoman um having to deal with uh state or local law enforcement? Well ma'am we're like any other organization of our size and and we've got folks that uh sometimes don't do the right thing I don't have a number off the top of my head but it happens often enough uh to be of note um and I would also say that this it's I wouldn't keep it simply focused on that aspect of it there are other things that this position would do uh for the guard and for the state. I hear you I I hear that but I was just curious if there was you know if you were concerned with the growing number or if there if it was fairly steady state and you know trying to understand the need you know the volume of it. I understand ma'am but I can tell you um any given month any given quarter um there there's a handful of folks that that do some uh some pretty silly things and and and and one of the other things that I forgot to mention if if in fact when we're doing an investigation internally um either under army or air force regulations if at some point that investigation uncovers criminal activity on the part of the guard member our only answer is to defer it to civil law enforcement which is fine but having this position would allow that provost marshal to provide a supplementary affidavit. Yeah no I I can see how this would be very helpful. I hope that that we find that the need is is not there and we can keep this as a a part-time position um I really would I hate to get in a position where the need is so great um that it has to become full-time when it comes to criminal activity. But I think the liaison aspect of it also is important. Oh yeah yeah in a proactive as we talked about earlier in a proactive way with things where the guard would be helpful a helpful addition. So any other questions committee members are are we um ready to take this on? We have permission to vote on this right Anthony? Yes sorry my mute was not cooperating. Are you ready for a motion madam chair? Brian it looks like Brian is ready to get. I'll certainly yield to the senator from Windsor. Oh I was just going to make the motion that we move the bill as Pat move H 750 uh as passed by the House. I would move that we vote it out favorably. Any other comments questions concerns? Okay. All set? Yep. Okay put your voting hats on. Senator Gray. Yes. Senator Clarkson. Oh I have a hat here somewhere. Uh yes Senator Calamore. Yes. Senator Polina. Yes. Senator White. Yes. Great motion passes unanimously. So reporter Brian did I see your hand? No. No okay. I just did the one before this. Oh okay. I have two coming up. Anthony do you want to report this? I will. Sure. Okay. All right great. I would love it if Damian just gave me a little bit of back that sort of a some pros. In other words not necessarily the detail but just a little bit of the rationale of generally what we're talking about. Sure and I bet maybe the general would too. A couple of bullet points and I think the general can maybe give you a quick yeah um maybe able to provide you with a quick explanation of of uh why the guard is asking for this. Right. And I'll give you bullet points to summarize the bill. Thank you. All right. Can do. Thank you general. Thank you ma'am. Joining us. Have a great weekend. Thanks for all you do for us. You are welcome. Thank you for all you do for us. Thanks Damian. Thank you. Have a great weekend everyone. Thanks. Bye. See you Damian. Thanks. All right I believe we are now shifting um and uh commissioner you seem to join us right at the exact time so we could also pick your brain on that last one. So we are um I know you're here for a couple things. One of the things that we talked about was um each committee is being asked to suggest to the uh appropriations committees need for um funding that is coming out of either COVID or also for what is being called the skinny budget. And um I know that uh the agencies are probably giving their requests to the governor so that's pretty well covered. We've been dealing with like the sheriff's offices and municipalities and EMS and stuff that aren't necessarily in an agency. But if you had infer requests that are not be you think are not being met elsewhere in other um pieces of legislation or budget suggestions and also um I think you had some comments on S-124. Yes thank you senator. I do have a number of observations on 124 uh but to address the first part uh to begin with um Department of Public Safety doesn't have any specific uh requests. We are administering uh an approved grant for law enforcement costs related to COVID-19. The bulk of those actually are going outside the Department of Public Safety to entities like the Criminal Justice Training Council that have incurred some um unusual operating expenses to maintain operations. Beyond that I would just encourage if there are funding requests coming to you from other first response agencies and they are related to the COVID crisis we should make an effort at deconflicting them with potential FEMA reimbursable costs um before they go for state funding. So we can make uh some recovery staff available to vet those um if we can get eyes on the universe of uh of need. If there isn't if there is anything else on that topic I'll pivot to uh to 124. We um did uh the Department of Health the only uh request that we've actually sent forth with um money attached to it and um very specific was the EMS and Dan Bestia and Shayla Livingston have been part of that conversation all along so they probably have it and um then I will forward to you the um when we get the it put together from the law enforcement I mean from the sheriff's offices I will make sure that you get that. I'm not sure they're eligible for FEMA because they're not a municipality but I'll forward that to you also and um the other one that we heard from was the academy and some things that they may be needing because of the way they've had to shift the doing their their training. Okay so I know I know that we've uh we're planning to fund the academy with uh I think it's the majority of the uh the inbound law enforcement grant uh on COVID that's coming from the federal government so. And while we're talking about the academy I will um reiterate um our support for um the quickly um a quick resolution to the fact that they have no executive director and naming an interim director quickly and um allowing the academy the training council or whatever portion of it is going forward with the the search because they need to have that well underway as they when they um when we hopefully come out of this they're they're really suffering right now by trying to uh make decisions by triumvirant triumvirant. I am aware senator uh unfortunately the uh the timing of the process uh I went back through my email it was March 31st that um the hiring committee which I'm part of I wasn't active on at the time was uh had launched an email indicating uh an effort to try to do interviews in the two weeks that followed that uh we were immersed in COVID um lockdown at that point with fast and furious uh emergency response which has abated a bit but I will observe that the pace continues both in the emergency response in restart and recovery all occurring at the same time so it is on the the radar to have the administration provide support to the council for that hiring effort I actually have a communication framed uh it was approved just in the last 24 hours by the governor's office and the secretary of administration but I will push back a little on anything you might have heard and just say it was not possible to run a hiring process under the circumstances effectively we would have made significant mistakes and potentially ended up with problems so that said we're hoping to get that moving absent any other curveballs that this virus throws us in the next few days thank you Brian did you want to weigh in on that no I uh had occasion yesterday commissioner to speak directly with the governor about that and he indicated that he was well aware of the situation as you've just described and uh that the interim director at least one of the names that came up was just recently appointed as one of the side judges in Ruffin County so that might present some challenges for him to try to do both jobs so as I understand it there are three people right now maybe he's one of them that are sort of trying to give direction to the to the academy and training council is that right yeah that was the uh those were the emergency measures put in place to enable the academy to pivot to an altered operating posture as uh you know face-to-face uh instruction became impossible I was not aware of that uh that that fragment about um an individual having a new assignment we are yeah I figured that um we are going to uh for the uh I guess the the council get a preview of the the email it's coming hopefully later today um that we're hoping to go directly to a hiring uh full hiring process rather than an interim process just because doing the effort twice presents challenges as well so that's encouraging news thank you very much for working thank you okay you want to shift to 124 certainly um it's a nice short bill um so I've been uh I've had uh some of our folks walk me through the the parts that are important unfortunately uh finding the requisite time to digest that all is still elusive we're still pretty well booked solid from uh 6 30 in the morning until uh well past that in the evening so it probably hasn't gotten as much attention as it would otherwise I'll start by saying uh there's a lot of innovative things in there and as you've heard from me in the beginning of the session um we really do think we're at an inflection point with policing in Vermont to accelerate the innovation that's been taking place over the last few years we've presented a modernization framework um I might refer to that a little bit in the testimony of the next few minutes so innovation is very much the way we we think we should be going uh there are I'm only going to address uh a few of the things I think there's two three four five six seven eight nine of the 30 or so sections um so if there's questions on the others I will have to get back to you because I'm not fully up to speed on all of them and one of the themes that will emerge over the next few minutes is I think some of these things may make sense but we may not be positioned well right now to take them on uh because of the circumstances and the pace of the operating environment that we anticipate uh continuing for the foreseeable future without really any way to know when uh our collective staff is going to come out from under uh the crisis that we're still facing so I'll take them one by one um in and I'll I'll go by section number so if you've been taking testimony in some other way I apologize uh but I have no that's fine a section numbers um section two under council membership um my observation is that uh again talking about that inflection point and the need to accelerate innovation and training there's potentially an opportunity to to modernize the council membership but I'm not sure we're at a point where we know exactly what those needs will be so rather than doing this once and then potentially coming back to you and revisiting it again I would suggest we put this piece on hold let's get a new executive director on board and um put a pin in this until we've got a robust uh plan that the council can develop with the new executive director and other stakeholders about where we think we should go and then that will inform uh the makeup of the council to allow us to modernize uh that structure once rather than doing it once now and then coming back with a whole bunch of new information in a matter of months or however long it takes to get that together um but not not a bad idea uh just the the timing we might want to do things in a different order um certification options sections four five six and seven um I would put sort of in that same category I will uh readily admit there may be some things that are needed right now that I'm not aware of and I haven't had a chance to to talk with anyone who's proposed specific certification um uh and training standards changes that might be time sensitive so if you set that aside for a second there may be something that does need to be addressed immediately but I would roll that into sort of the training modernization framework and the work that we're that I'm I guess I'm hoping that the council undertakes with a new director uh over the next you know six to 12 months once we get the new director on board um and then coming back with a more robust framework for what some of those modernization initiatives might look like uh I can take questions one at a time or I can go through the rest whichever is your preference I'm going to ask Betsy a question first I went to yesterday's and I can't get the document itself it just tells me there's no document such as s124 darn I was just um able to go by bill on the committee web page and just and do s124 search by bill yeah I did that and told me that there wasn't any such thing huh it's coming up perfectly for me if that's the case senator we can all free up some time no no no no I just um I just was able to access it myself because I just pulled up the draft reviewed yesterday the draft 5.1 annotated the summary okay did you do it by oh it says text search are you on the committee web page and then yeah I just want to make sure that I'm following the right sections yeah are you able to were you able so when you search by bill it didn't come up huh right are other members experiencing that issue because I'm able to access it for without how do you have it I have it open yep how did you get it I went to committees gov ops and then documents yes documents and handouts okay and it's on yesterday's there's two oh there it is okay I okay I went to the wrong place for the yesterday's meeting okay thank you I added to okay thank you all right sorry commissioner no problem I just wanted to know what was in sections four five was six and seven okay again if there's a if there's a time sensitive need for something uh you know I'm I'd be interested to take to to understand what that is and maybe provide some additional background on that but I'm just happy I haven't had a chance to reach out to folks to to figure that out I think that um on four and four anyway and then um five is five and six were brought to us by um the council that they felt that those were pretty important to keep in there right now for um as senator column or likes to say it has no deadline it's just a gentle nudge to make sure that you keep doing it it has no deadline I just to just to confirm that section four does require the council to adopt rules in regard to alternate certification and we did hear from the chief yesterday um and we talked about that rule making deadline because right now uh section six does require the council to adopt those rules by July 1 2021 but after discussing with the chief yesterday the committee tentatively agreed to extend that uh rule adoption deadline to be July 1 2023 okay so that is again I I think uh this level of of innovation is uh is where we're going yeah so you know which the order of operation is you know at your discretion whether it's uh you want to get a new director on board and have them craft some things or you want to direct some things ahead of time I'm not sure that makes a a big difference well I think that the the direction here is just telling you to keep on keep on trying to innovate and that's um senator column or gentle nudge I used a different phrase but um we won't go there understood so I won't I won't spend a whole lot more time talking about that uh I'll move on to section 10 but five and six did come from the uh no five oh no I'm thinking of the um never mind sorry okay section 10 um would make some changes to what gets reported to the council in terms of misconduct reports and would uh problematically expand to allegations that isn't going to work uh for a bunch of reasons um in the current operating environment allegations could be something that's posted on social media we chase a lot of red herrings in that regard and reporting them all to the council would create an inordinate amount of work and would uh I think would run a foul of uh potentially a foul of collective bargaining agreements and a bunch of other things that it's just there there isn't a constructive reason to report allegations I think the balance that the existing statute um has which is credible allegations uh makes sense it allows for an initial vetting and we're not chasing um ghosts for lack of a better description that's interesting because so we heard kind of the opposite yesterday from um the chief and from um a member of the council that these are there's no additional work for the training council here because they're not investigated they're just they're just um reported and it's setting up a situation where you're reporting rumors and innuendos and and potentially false accusations and trolls on the internet and there's no guardrails it's I'll I will be clear it's a it would be a bad piece of policy to further those kinds of reports well I think given that that what we should do is we should ask um because we heard different testimony from the council itself is um ask you to figure that went out um because clearly there's a difference of opinion there was am I right about that committee I because I I was sure that because we talked a lot about that and um so I will uh reach out but I doubt there's going to be anything that's going to change the position of the department of public safety um between my experience in public safety and and my prior job with the largest municipal agency probably have the most uh exposure to these kinds of uh events um and there is no constructive I cannot see anything constructive coming of passing along this kind of information it would be uh it would be a significant problem okay uh just um yeah um uh commissioner just so um you can you have access to the section by section summary I if I shut you off and go to that potentially no okay I just want to make sure that you have access to it um this was a proposal that was um recommended by the council and I'll just point uh just whenever you do have the chance to look at it this language is at the top of page three and part of the rationale um for the council making this recommendation was so that the council would be made more aware of the allegations the category be conduct because agencies would still maintain the authority to investigate these allegations but it's a way for the council to just be made more aware of these allegations and track to ensure that all the different agencies are actually conducting a valid investigation so just to get some background on where that language uh understood that's not a mechanism that actually achieves that that system this this creates a mechanism to report rumors and there's no constructive I cannot see a constructive use for that kind of information um constructing a uh a system by which um credible accounts or credible reports of misconduct or track makes perfect sense but um at the stage where it's just allegations there's a universe of those that is um there are a lot of different ways to describe it but there's that there are lots of of attempts to discredit um law enforcement folks in the wake of little things like traffic stops where people will call um they'll post something to social media we reach back out to them to to follow up on their complaint they never respond to us but the way this is worded we would have to report all of those things and I'm not actually concerned with the the the way the state police operate but I say we for law enforcement in general reporting each and every one of those fragments back to the council would just create a haze information that would be hard to cut through to see what was real so it would not be constructive okay thank you uh section 12 there's language around having vc-ic create a uniform list of of events and this is already in progress so yeah I just flagged that for you I don't know that it requires um legislation and and the legislation might inadvertently box in some creativity um around how that's being done and how it evolves so I my suggestion would be ask us to report back to you not necessarily a legislate to report back but ask us in in January and we'll tell you how it's going and what what it looks like and if it's not right then then take a look at potentially legislating it at that stage and that will weave into my next uh piece as well which is section 13 well again I think that section 12 just says come up with some definitions it doesn't tell you how to do it or anything and it's we know that many many of these things like the um the looking at different methods of doing it there there's nothing here that says how you have to do them but we we want to make sure that we keep um keep these issues alive and that they stay there and we uh or I anyway um trust that the training council and you will all work together to keep them going but we don't know who will be um a commissioner next year and we don't know who the training council members will be next year so I I think that this is our attempt to say these are things that are important to us and um we we just want you to keep them alive that's understood in 13 um there's a a framework created to have VCIC create quarterly reports for towns that don't have police departments um as you may recall one of our modernization strategies and one that is still alive and being reinvigorated right now I had a meeting on it over the last couple of days is a statewide computer a dispatch and records management system that is moving um that will obviate the need for this and create forward-facing records that uh any town can see uh not just for crime and I would I would note that VCIC excuse me tracks crime and that is just a fraction of what is actually happening in communities in terms of things that elected officials and community members may want to know so we keep turning back to VCIC as the um the mechanism to inform what's happening in communities when that it's really only showing you somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of what's happening in communities so uh I would offer that a uh the the new technology system and the mapping and dashboards that will go with it are the solution to that problem because they'll provide much more robust information and one of the side effects of um the COVID experience over the last few months has been a uh a swift learning curve on the part of executive agencies and uh the agency of digital services to really accelerate the construction of visualized dashboards and and data um as you hear on every Friday from commissioner P check um but there's many other layers to that data as well that there just isn't time to report on on the Fridays but suffice it to say we've got a lot more tools and experience in the toolbox um from a three-month exercise that has given us probably 10 years of experience in that 90-day framework so there's there's more to come on that so I I would ask that you set that piece aside um so that VCIC doesn't have to create something that'll be obsolete pretty quickly okay brian that's exactly the commissioner I think hit what I was going to say um you're suggesting that the municipality that doesn't happen to have a local police force would bear the responsibility somehow to be able to look at this dashboard and collect their own data and not create another job for the VCIC to do we would uh to clarify senator we would create the dashboard and the ability to very easily say I want to see for the uh village of uh Woodstock Woodstock Woodstock Village it's brian's favorite town to drive through although I dare say britchwater is a little more challenging at the moment I'm so I want to see all burglaries between november 1st and march 1st between the hours of 6 a.m and 10 p.m and it'll render that data for you and I want to see that said against how many there were last year for the same time period that kind of sort of simple intuitive but uh but informative dashboard is where we're headed so the town itself could do that if the if the dashboard was up it wouldn't necessarily be another chore for someone else to provide to the town correct and it would be nimble enough that you could you could check the boxes of the things you want to see you might want to see noise complaints that are not crime that are not something bci is going to be able to tell you about because it doesn't exist in their world but you might want to see the number of noise complaints that were responded to in that um in that villager town allison so uh michael that's great one of the things we're trying to accomplish here was actually uh educating the towns because we heard from several towns that had no idea anything happened in their town they thought their town was perfect and there were no problems at all and all of our towns are perfect despite the fact that there may be an occasional crime yeah right okay my point is here is that this is great to create a data-driven dashboard your idea of heaven I know I know you shirling I know you love this kind of thing but I would also say that they're only as good as the people who actually use them so what I would ask as we develop this exciting data-driven dashboard is educate a liaison with the vermont league of cities and towns to really promote and educate their select boards about its use so that they can actually use it and we'll go to it and learn to use it as a tool for their own self-education about the activities in their towns that sounds great to be clear that's probably well into 2021 before we can construct such a thing because we've got to build the front end of the system first yeah but I love Michael you're saying we've had 10 years of education in a 90 day framework or whatever you said it's you know you you have you've had education through the fire hose it's it's it's it's we've been living dog years it's uh it's odd that's a great idea seven years um there's some makeup changes in 14 through 17 to the leab I don't necessarily have a position I was just wondering if there's a um if there's a um if there's an issue or if there's something something that uh folks are trying to achieve that might inform a position we were asked by the um both uh law enforcement division of department of fish and wildlife and um motor vehicles to add them to the leab oh right understood okay so it's that simple all right yeah that makes perfect sense they are uh they are key uh partners in uh in all the work that happens in Vermont so that makes sense um yes Allison we may have other requests to to join this well we haven't yet so this is where we are okay okay uh section 18 uh has some dispatch language in it uh as you know in our modernization strategy we went out on the the limb to address dispatch which has been that the the can that's been kicked down the road the hanging chad that whichever analogy you would prefer um and um so we do have a plan for that uh I in this it's got some regulation of technical and operating standards and in section 19 uh adopting standard rules for communication centers I don't know that either one of those has been identified as a specific weakness can can I just um we decided yesterday after our hearing from the council and from various people we're removing that section then I will abbreviate my testimony and be okay and we will deal with it in January Betsy Ann but I believe the committee wanted to maintain the rulemaking on DPS rates for dispatch for the dispatch it performs yeah it's just the um the the one about the technical and operational um processes okay and we believe that uh you're already uh doing the um the rates you've you've been working on that for some time and we just um think that it would be a good idea to do it by rule so that there is time for public input and stuff but that's all that's fine um that will probably uh well obviously we'll follow whatever time frame that you set but in terms of implementation of the billing uh given the fiscal challenges that municipalities will have in the wake of the COVID epidemic we're probably looking at pushing that back beyond where we had originally um envisioned which I don't even remember the timeline but it was I think it was starting at 25 percent in July of next year and then going in at 20 and 25 percent increments thereafter so it'll uh it'll likely be delayed a bit and I don't think we have any time connected to that is there Betsy a time to have the rules done you're muted yeah I'm just getting to the correct section of the bill I believe there's still yeah so the the um at least you're removing the rules regarding standards but there would still be the rule adoption deadline of July 1 2021 in regard to the rates is that uh too early commissioner is that what you're saying no no I think adopting the rule by July of 21 is fine uh it's it's the implementation of the the schedule I think that we originally thought would begin in July of 21 that depending on how the finances shake out for municipalities we may have to delay a bit and Brian does that address your your concerns that yeah I believe so and the person that that I talked to was from a fire department and they wanted to at least have two or three more years before the actual rate goes into effect so commissioner's right and that was before the virus even hit so uh this is a process for sure okay uh the last section I have a comment on is 28 which is uh town public safety plans um and actually and I think there's a section after that about accd grants um which is unusual since that used to be my job but the I am channeling information from our emergency management director who would be here today but is moving after working 20 hour days for the last three months um these this uh neither one of these has been vetted through emergency management and may present a variety of challenges with statewide emergency planning and our existing statewide emergency operations plans so uh essentially uh our feedback is neither one is ready for prime time at this point so the I'm what page are we it's on page seven and eight of the uh section by section and commissioner the date on that is 2023 right understood but the the language just the language and the the the what's framed itself really needs to be vetted by uh our emergency management professionals and uh cross-checked against all the FEMA overlays and what the standard practice is for state emergency management how does it weave into the state's emergency management plan how's it going to weave into the state's emergency management plan that will likely receive uh notable updates in the wake of COVID-19 um it just hasn't been vetted by the folks that do this work on a statewide basis and we really need them to be able to focus on this before we venture even into something that isn't going to be galvanized until 2023 what what section is that I'm showing you my yeah I'm showing you my notes is 28 and then grants and I think it's 29 or yeah some section thereafter okay that's where I am okay um so committee we uh I guess we should run this by them but we we felt that it's really really important for towns to look at this issue um those towns who uh we started actually by at one point having a bill that said they had to have their they had to provide all their own law enforcement um and then we went to having them include emergency planning in their town plan which didn't seem to work and now we're asking them to do some kind of an emergency plan um but so these are if I could just editorialize for a second these are not uncomplicated documents that need to be created and 251 times over is going to create a lot of technical assistance requests for the division of emergency management which is pretty well underwater your term and I think they would be they would I would very much prefer that they be involved in trying to help you uh one uh get a full understanding and maybe it exists already but I just don't know that of of what the each town's uh emergency manager does now what reports and what plans are required already and try to weave together the current state of process with whatever uh potential ideal state of process exists in the future so it's a it's a mindfully constructed roadmap to what you want to see um so I think that's just going to take a little bit of time um so don't disagree with the goal uh but we really we we need Erica and her her team involved to help frame it I think okay um so that's section 28 um any questions on that committee that make that makes some sense to me Anthony I'm just not sure from the prisoner's comments whether we're saying we're not going to do it or whether we're just putting it off I what here's what I would suggest is um when the uh emergency management division is not stuck in a tree by COVID-19 um that we find a work session where they can walk you through um what's the state plan what does uh how does that interact with the federal government how does it interact with this the the various um first response agencies how does it interact with each town and what they already submit to emergency management in terms of plans and um and then then have you walk them through where are you trying to go what's the what is the ideal state that you're looking for right and have them help uh bridge whatever gap there may be uh to an end so I think it requires some work are you also saying that we might have a better idea what the plans would include when we're on the other side of the pandemic we're definitely going to have some some new ideas on what the plans need to account for uh I don't think ventilators will be on that list but things like personal protective equipment regionally locally because we can't rely on the federal government uh to do that field hospitals uh how to keep medical practices and things running in in in a future pandemic uh you know the unfortunate reality is this is the third novel virus in 18 years so there will be another I it makes that makes some sense to me to just take this out and for whoever happens to be here in January to really sit down with emergency management and have this discussion and do it then I agree okay are you saying the same thing about the planning grants because those are just for regional planning not for emergency management not for emergency services yeah the director also had some concerns about that crashing into the existing work and creating a parallel track um and given the the budget challenges that we're facing now um I'll just add that it would seem to make sense to hold on on those and save that little fragment of money for all the other needs that are coming but Allison um Michael I I understand you but I also understand that this is going to be a long-term process of the encouraging and we really want to begin the encouragement of regional public safety coordination and and management and you know if is there something that would be appropriate to add and you know to have in this well I mean I I'm reluctant to give that up I mean I understand the other pieces because I think our um anyway I understand the other pieces but I'm reluctant to give up this because we this is important to us to move this conversation along the regional the regional conversation got it so we were focused in the review on on sort of the the planning for public safety slash emergency management versus the long-standing conversation about the advantages to regionalization and I won't hesitate to say that because as we've discussed previously the I forgot the number of reports because we've been immersed in other things but the dozens that exist all do say that regionalized safety services do make perfect sense um I don't know that we've got the the exact um the correct policy nuances to that yet as they've been elusive for 50 years or so I will sort of say off and this is more off the cuff don't take it as a policy position but as a sort of a long-standing thought that if there were a way to um begin to think about public safety in the same way we do high the federal government does highways where if you adopt best practice you get access to certain resources um that that model versus the the that carrot model versus a stick model may be the way to go um the challenge we have is that the state doesn't invest a lot in uh and statewide emergency services in general so we don't have a lot of carrots to play with um but it as a construct it's it's always struck me coming from the municipal side and now being on the state side that if we could think about that as the the way to go um that that that may have some value and and that is the the thought around this uh the computerated dispatch and records management system that we're talking about then being able to also report out robust data to towns and policy makers to make good decisions that construct is in play if you recall in the modernization strategy it says that our hope is that if we uh can thread the needle that that system will be available for free to all municipalities so they don't have to pay for it and the quid pro quo to use the the uh the the more commonly used 2020 vernacular i guess that's 2019 at this point uh is that in exchange for that the that we all collectively get to use the the data anonymized data not people's personal identifying information to make decisions to make statewide policy decisions to inform uh you know bias um bias free policing policy to inform use of force policy on a statewide basis rather than having things fragmented so i just use that as an example of how we may um look at incentivizing folks to share services uh in the future and i'll also note that we're we're accelerating our plans um for shared facilities in the wake of COVID-19 as well they were on the drawing board but the need to be more efficient and to save money is now right at the doorstep maybe leaking across the threshold and uh so we're we're accelerating those plans as well yeah i you know i have um i really want to see this go forward but i also understand that even if we even if we put it forward it may not make it through appropriations when they start dealing with so we're just i just going to have to make that decision whether we're going to because we don't have the final say on whether the money is allocated or not yeah and i should be clear i i know i testified to this back in i think january um the department of public safety is not in a position to say to police departments and fire departments hey you should regionalize because it is an individual town by town decision but they do have a variety of options and there may be better ways to deliver efficient services by collaborating creating regional entities or in some cases just contracting for service with existing entities whether that's a sheriff's department or a municipal department that does exist in their their region there are options um i don't think it's a bridge too far to say it it's very difficult in the 21st century for small municipalities to stand up law enforcement organizations and be successful they're very expensive they're very complicated to run today much more complicated than 20 years ago so for those reasons that it does make sense to look at creative approaches yeah yes uh madame chair i apologize but i uh just on the timing front i thought we were going to be done at three today and so i am personally have a 315 and i apologize but i'm okay all right well what i would like to do is um look at this again on tuesday and um we're going to have to make some decisions because it hasn't passed the floria so if we wanted to get to the house and i would ask the um commissioner to work with the council around those um suggestions that came from the council about the um the reporting of allegations so that we can have some um some uh cooperation there and some some kind of a a resolution because otherwise if there's a difference of opinion here it's going to rest to us to make that that decision and um i don't know that we're in the best position to do we'll do it but um i would ask that you work together to try to come up with some kind of a resolution and i will call the chair as soon as i get a free moment this afternoon okay any yes betzian i just one thing i don't know if the commissioner has time or has looked at it yet but one of the provisions that we haven't discussed yet with the commissioner is sections eight and nine which is the requirement for a potential hiring agency to contact the officer's current agency to obtain an analysis of the officer's performance at the agency i don't know if the commissioner has time to address this now or looked at that but just to put that on your radar that's just something that we didn't discuss this afternoon well that actually also came from the council so that when you talk to them about the the reporting if you could make sure that you're in agreement on that i think we are uh that a three word answer makes perfect sense okay perfect we like that um okay committee um tuesday we will do um the what did i say we're going to do elections and we'll do finish hopefully finish this up betzian if you can um i think we've agreed to take out section 13 um we have we should have the conversation about section one and then four five six and seven and ten we'll have that discussion does that make sense committee okay thank you thank you commissioner for taking time to have a good weekend thank you you too take care betzie bye everybody bye bye