 So you should all have a copy of my notes from last meeting to catch you up, Senator Cullinmore. I've just been taking notes of what the commission has been doing, not in official minutes form, but just so we all remember what was discussed. So the first thing that we did was just review from the notes from the previous meeting. You did have a discussion about the independent council independent school statute. And you had a discussion in the previous meeting about how perhaps one of their rules is advocacy. That generated some discussion about whether it's appropriate for boards and commissions to advocate or whether this commission should look at any advocacy rules of boards and commissions. And I had just discussed with you that the Commission on Women's Statute has an advocacy prohibition, and that you have discussed that you want to review that at a later date. So perhaps you could discuss that, the issue of advocacy at a later time as well. And then also the council of independent schools did have informational purposes as well, we discussed that. Then we moved on to the AHS spores that were related to the central office. There was just a misunderstanding about providing answers to the questionnaire. So AHS said that they would follow up. One of the things that the commission did want to know about is why the parole board chair gets a salary of $20,500. And AHS advised they would address that and follow up testimony. I believe they submitted some written responses to your questions, but I don't believe they'll be here today. But that perhaps is addressed in there. So they discussed generally the parole board, the human services board, the Vermont tobacco and evaluation review board has already been repealed. And then there's also this interagency coordinating council for families, infants, and toddlers. And it sounded as if that this was perhaps related to the agency of education. So you all discussed that you would ask AOE to address that council at this meeting. And AHS said it would coordinate with the agency of education on that council. It was just brought up that this commission really wants to have the answers to your questions before it can make a final decision. And AHS said it would follow up on the boards attached to the central office. At the bottom of page one, you can see that there was a suggestion that perhaps when AHS is reviewing the boards attached to their central office, they might recommend changes to their enabling laws. But it's my understanding from getting feedback from them that they're not suggesting any changes for those central office boards at this time. If you turn to page two, the commission did start to have a discussion about per diem compensation for members. And Commissioner Kronos brought up that there's at least four different levels of payment. You've got the legislative member pay, the standard $50 public member pay. When state employees are members on boards, they get their standard salary because it's part of their job. And then there's also some one-off per diems that are not the standard 50, for example, more than 50. And then also, there are some members that are prohibited from getting any per diem. So you had a discussion about whether that creates an inequity among members on boards and commissions when the members are getting different pay. You had a discussion about whether legislative pay should be changed, for example, and whether the legislature should discuss this issue in general. Commissioner Krauss said he was not advocating for higher per diems. I'm sure to note that, but just have a conversation about this in general. OK. Also, one part of the discussion was that some of these boards don't meet all day, whereas other ones do. So it was discussed that perhaps pay should be hourly based. So you started to have a discussion about per diems at that part of the day. But you then moved into the Dale Boards and Commissions. Overall, you can see that you have chosen to maintain those boards and commissions. Your spreadsheet is updated accordingly. You turn to the AHS sections. You reviewed the Dale Advisory Board. At the top of page three, one of the things you discussed about this advisory board was that, like other Dale Boards, it has a lot of members. And so the witnesses talked about how they're able to handle their large boards. And generally, their boards tend to have people with expertise in certain areas. And so when different topics get discussed, their members with expertise in that area discuss that topic. I'm not sure that with your size paper, what line number is that? OK. So Dale begins. I don't know how to do page numbers on the spreadsheet, but this is starting. Call me. I'll show you. Dale Advisory Board is number 47. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Call me, I'll show you. Oh, yeah. You just got to pull it out. OK. Sorry, John Brick. So Dale Advisory Board, your overall recommendation was to maintain it. That's reflected on your spreadsheet. You also discussed the advisory board on the status of needs of people with developmental disabilities in their family. That now is number 43. You voted to keep that one. So that's a maintain on your spreadsheet. There's also the commission on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, which is number 45 on your spreadsheet. Your recommendation was to keep it. So it's a maintain on the spreadsheet. And there's the newer deaf, hard of hearing, deaf, blind, and advisory council, which is number 46 on the spreadsheet. And that was also a maintain. There is also the Governor's Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities. And that was also a maintain. That's number 48 on your spreadsheet, and that's marked. One thing that you did ask Dale to follow up with is data regarding how Vermont has approved the employment of people with disabilities. I'm not sure if that has come over yet. I'll double check to see that. I don't believe I did the mail. It's one of our indicators in the Outcomes Report, which just came out. So it's probably, actually, you look it up and see. Great. What's on your screensaver? What's on your screensaver? Oh, that's my deceased puppy. No, I thought it looked like a spider. No, it's right here. So when Dale was testifying, you did have a conversation about whether its members do get per diems, and you had asked whether Dale has any recommended statutory changes or specific recommendations regarding per diems. And the response was that AHS would follow up with its policy. I believe AHS did follow up with the document on that. I'm not sure if you had gotten a copy of that. And if not, we can hold it up. You then took a lunch break, and you reviewed Bill Draft, version 2.1. In regard to the Racing Commission statute, you requested that Agency of Ag make recommendations regarding what provisions are necessary to maintain regarding horse and dog racing, because that previous draft not only amended the Racing Commission statute, but also potentially could amend provisions of Title 13, which is crimes regarding racing. And so the Agency of Ag has reviewed the revised draft and has provided feedback on that. And we can review that this afternoon. At the top of page 6, you then reviewed boards and commissions related to the Department of Mental Health. The first one was the Board of Mental Health. And the recommendation from the department was to repeal, and you agreed to repeal. That Board of Mental Health, it's not being used. Statute doesn't reflect what its duties are, and other entities are handling what statute describes are the board's duties. So you can see on line 58 of your spreadsheet, the recommendation is to repeal for visions. In the since the last meeting, I did work with DMH's general counsel on potential revisions, and those are set forth in today's draft that we can review this afternoon. But for the remaining DMH boards, the state interagency team, the local interagency team, the advisory board on children and adolescents with severe emotional disturbance in their families, all three of those were heaps. And you should be able to see those starting on line 54 of your spreadsheet to maintain those three. You then moved into a discussion about per diems, continuing that discussion that you had earlier in the day, and Commissioner Leclerc suggested that perhaps your department should be responsible for determining the amount of per diem its board members should get and request that amount during an annual budget request. So that was an alternative to the current per diem structure of statute setting the exact amount. So that's another topic to consider for per diems. And I believe you're going to talk more generally about per diems at a later date. Is that correct that you're going to just kind of, part of your charge is to review per diems? So at some point, perhaps we could circle back and have a greater conversation about per diem. Do we have time this afternoon at all to do that? Because I would love to, I really have to admit that I like Representative Leclerc's proposal here. Whoa, look at that. His heart. He's still lying. Because, well, I can't, I won't say anything more about it now that way. All right, at the bottom of page six, you moved into boards associated with the Department of Corrections. The first was the Offender Work Program Board. And DOC's recommendation was to repeal. It has a bet for the past 12 years. And your recommendation also was to repeal. So that is in. 61. Thank you, line 61. And that's reflected in today's draft that you can review. You then discussed the Community High School Vermont Board. It was interesting testimony about the different things that this board does for overseeing the Community High School Vermont, which touches on DOC, but it's also education, but it's for adults with criminal history. So it was interesting discussion there. The recommendation was to maintain it, although the witness discussed that they may be able to recommend changes to the enabling law. So your overall vote was to keep this Community High School Vermont Board, number 59 on your spreadsheet, but perhaps make revisions to its enabling law if there are needed updates. But I did get follow-up from Mr. McAllister who advised that they're not recommending any statutory changes at this time to that board. So no changes are in today's draft. Top of page eight, you also discussed the Vermont State Council for Interstate Adult Offender Supervision. And that recommendation was to keep. And that's number 60 on your spreadsheet. And then you had a testimony on the reparative boards. And the testimony essentially was that the restorative justice program touches on a lot of entities. And it's grown in a way that statute doesn't completely reflect what is actually happening in practice. So you did vote to form a working group to address restorative justice and how to update the law, to bring it in line with what is current practice. And so I did work with Mr. Medautnik to who made suggestions on that working group, pursuant to your request. So those are set forth in today's draft. And also, I got further feedback after I sent the initial draft to Derek. And he gave further feedback from his office. And so I have those in a revised draft 3.1 that we can review today about the working group. OK. And those are that's online number 62 on your spreadsheet. Maintain it, but create a working group to propose revisions to the Nathan Law. And then you discuss what you want to do today to hear from AOE, Council of Independent Schools, and the State Board of Education, and then also boards associated with the Department of Children and Families, and Diva. So I've been thinking a lot about, I know that when this legislation was first passed, that there was thinking that we're going to get rid of a whole bunch of boards. And we have way too many boards and commissions and stuff. And I was thinking about that the other day. And I was thinking that we should get rid of ones that aren't functionals and don't have any purpose. But I'm less concerned about the number. And most of the boards and commissions involve people from outside either the executive branch or the legislative branch. And that, in my mind, is a good thing that more people in the state are involved in doing the foundations for some of the policy that we work on and that the administration implements. Or oversight. Or oversight. Yeah. Yeah. I just was thinking about that the other day, that all these boards and commissions represent citizens. So anyway. One of the issues I thought was originally, there are so many boards and panels. And the administration, whoever the administration is, has to recruit for all of those slots and positions. They really want to make sure that these boards and commissions are functioning, they're up and running. And I don't have to recruit for 2,000 or 2,500 positions. I thought that was one of the pitches that they were making was to limit that. So that's one of the reasons it's not just how we get rid of them. But we don't care if there are fewer and fewer positions we have to recruit for, because it's harder to find people and so on. Yeah, I agree with that. But on the other hand, it is a job of the administration to recruit for those boards and commissions. And if it's 200 or 2,000, if we think that it's necessary to have 2,000 positions, then that's what, and I'm sorry to make it harder for the administration to recruit. But I mean, there are ways now, I think, of improving the way we recruit people and the way people can participate. Because in the past, you had to drive to Montpelier for every blessed meeting. And people from the Northeast Kingdom and Bennington and Brattleboro don't do that. But now you can participate by Zoom or Skype or whatever those things are. And so I think that it's anyway. I mean, that's an interesting point. And we really haven't discussed it too much in years. Are we using technology to make it more easy for people from the Northeast Kingdom and Southern Vermont to participate in boards and commissions? Because I look at a lot of boards and commissions. And I'll have to say, there are very few Southern Vermonters on any of them. And that means people I represent don't really have a voice. And that does trouble me. And just knowing, and I can only speak for how the legislature works, I mean, we usually track up here for meetings like today. So I mean, I'm just wondering if state agencies that have commissions in boards are making it and educating people to the fact that you don't have to come to Montpelier or Waterbury, but you can participate actively by phone. But that only works if you have a lot of people participating by phone. If you have one person on the phone, it's horrible. It's really hard. You miss a lot. Actually, the phone is not the ideal thing. It'd be better on Skype. Or one of those things. Go to meeting the name. Whatever technology you choose to use. And then I guess it's the question of also, how would that impact per diem? That's another question that we'd have to think about with per diem. Well, it would cut travel expenses. It would cut travel. But I don't know that it would affect per diem if you're giving up your day. But it would travel. Yeah, the travel expense. I remember my first couple of years in the Senate, we have to confirm all the appointments. And every time we would confirm a group of appointments, Senator Sears would stand up and say, you will notice that there is no one that we confirmed from south of Route 4. He would, every single time, he would stand up and say that. And I started looking at it, and it was absolutely true. Yeah? Yeah. Well, that's because I think people from Southern Vermont feel that they'll have to come up here, and that's tough to do. Yeah, yeah. But maybe we should put something in here just, and I don't know that it's something we can make them do, but to encourage agencies to look at how they can better use technology to encourage people from a wider geographic area to participate. In our next meeting, we are having the technology folks in, right? I mean, perhaps they could provide some guidance about how to address this. They might. Good. I'm good with that. Remember, technology works from both sides. It works from the commission. And OK, this is how we'd like to set it up, and then you have the participants. And all I can think of is my foremother who couldn't figure out any technology to beat the ban, even if it was set up right in front of her. Operating and running should manage to somehow delete or drop out or whatever else. So the technology piece is not only from the participation of the administration or the technology people or the commission. We have to take into consideration all the people. Please, folks, if you want to participate. Some are technologically steel, and some are not. I mean, they're just not able to do that. So to say, well, we'll allow them to participate by Skype, well, that means they have to have Skype on their own. Or your local library. Yeah. OK, all right. I mean, but you're right. We do need to take that into account. There are people out there who couldn't participate by technology. My library opens up in noontime on certain days. So if I want to participate here, it couldn't be a noontime to attend to noon. And I'd not be able to physically do that. Your library doesn't open until noon? On certain days. And so no, it doesn't open up until noon to 7 on certain days. And then other days, it's 10 to 3 or 10 to 4 or something. So I mean, I'm just an example of just the technology, the use of technology, a little bit more complicated. But I'm happy that when they're coming in next time, let's fully handle them and ask what their opinion is. Oh, I mean, do agencies have access to Zoom? Most agencies have. Sure, we all have access to that part of our standard setup. But to really do it, you need a big screen. Either a portable one that rolls around or one that's in a confidential. Because it's difficult. I find it more difficult when everybody's on their own computer. And so you're not actually looking at the room. But I mean, it works that way, too. It works very well that way. And you don't have to be looking at each other. And if people who are running it know how to use it, you can share the documents on the screen and all of that. So there's certainly some advantages you wouldn't have to send out packages of stuff. So there's definitely advantages to it. But even if you sew Bennington, a group that has people from Bennington, when we do this and some of our continuous improvement training is we go to Waterbury. We're pretty saturated in Vermont. So we take the training to Waterbury. Because it's harder to get Waterbury people to come to Montpelier. So we take it to there. We took it down to Rutland. We take it up to St. John'sburg. So there's the ability. The meeting doesn't have to be always in the Ethan Allen room, you know. And we are striving, as you can see, by this to go paperless. Right. Oh my god. I'm firmly convinced it will never happen in my lifetime. It'll never happen in our community, I can tell you. You guys have done a pretty good job of it. Health and welfare has done a pretty good job of it. But I don't think we'll. You have a lot of eye for a chair. OK. OK. Any? All right. Thank you, Betsy. Thank you. Thank you. As usually, your notes are. Brian, we decided not to call them minutes. Because they're not really on their notes. They're impeccable. And just, we are very happy to have Senator Coulomore with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There's a way to hear. Thank you so much. Thank you. Are you going to talk to us about the State Board of Education? For the record, Ted Fisher from the University of Education. I came a little bit early. I think I'm on the agenda a little bit later. You are. You are. But while we can have a discussion, we feel free to join us in. Join in with us. Did you get it? There's a copy of it laying here. Oh, yes. I have one. OK. Thanks. Well, we'll just wait. Or, yeah. We can have this discussion. Ted did provide written testimony about the State Board. John Carroll is not coming. Yeah. Right. Because we're meeting tonight. What are you scheduled next time? No. I thought he said it. I think we're going to, I think that the technology is going to take most of the day next time. I really think that that's a huge issue that is going to take a lot of time. Well, OK. So I just want to make sure I'm clear here. So we've got the Agency of Education perspective on the State Board of Education. And we've got Mr. Carroll sent some material along. But we're not going to have him actually testify on the material that he sent. Well, I guess we could. I'm not sure when or if we just make a recommendation to the education committees and have them continue the discussion. I mean, I think perhaps it's best to have the discussion first and then we can determine whether we need testimony. OK. Good. Well, I don't feel uncomfortable about making a recommendation without hearing from them. I didn't say that. I said let's have a discussion. Right. Let's determine whether we need to testify or not. Or whether we make any kind of recommendation or whether we just sit on this for another year. OK. Yeah. Those are our choices, I think. OK. So do you want Ted to go now? Well, has everybody read what was sent out to us? Very comprehensive, by the way. Just start the discussion. What do we want to do? Well, I'll ask the obvious question at least to me and kind of find here if it's under, I guess, it would be three as far as the purpose. And they recite the statute and then all the different roles and responsibilities that are within that statute. So for me, the question would be is if the board didn't exist, as it does currently, who would do this work and does it require a statute change to re-delegate that work or reassign that work? Well, it probably would. I mean, obviously the place you would move it to is the agency itself. I mean, some of this stuff I think they talked about like review and comment on the agency's budget. I don't believe they do that. So there's a question of whether there needs to be, at least with respect to that one item, statutory change. And number one, establish such advisory commissions as the judgment board will be of assistance in carrying out its duties. Perhaps that should be with the agency of education. I mean, establishing other commissions. I mean, I think you could go through these. Well, you could. And I'm just, for me, it would be the large overarching question of does the state board, does it continue to exist or not? Because I don't know that we're necessarily looking to go through, are we, and dissect this and say this should go there, this should go there, this should go there, this should go there, and this should stay here. It's kind of an all or nothing question. I found his answer to question six pretty interesting. If the purpose is still needed, can it be done more effectively and efficiently someplace else? And he said yes. But most of those things should be done by the agency of education and that they should then be able to respond to special assignments from the legislature. Have we ever given them a special assignment? Well, at 46. Yeah. Yes, but is that something that should be done by a state board of education or again by the agency of education? Would be picture demographic changes and policy choices? I don't know. Well, the agency is certainly having to deal with all of that right now. Yeah. And they must be the ones that have the information that feeds it to the board. They have all the data for that. I mean, the way boards usually operate is that the agency or the staff people are the ones that have the information and that give it to them and then the board wrestles with what to do with it. But they have the information. So they have the information. The agency have the information that they would be making, you know, if there were no board, they would be making the proposals, the policy proposals to the governor. And that would come to the legislature in the form of a bill. Yeah. And you would do your committee work. That's the way most agencies work is that the agency wrestles with it because they have the information and then they give it to the governor. Right. And it goes through the legislative process. So Rob's question, Mr. Carroll, a kind answer to number four, what would happen if the board no longer fulfilled? And it appears to me that the main reason is that there's partisanship involved if it doesn't exist. Now, maybe that's true and maybe it isn't. I don't know. But to me, if that's the only reason. There's partisanship if it doesn't exist. Well, it says it appears that the General Assembly assigns these high priority duties to the state board because the board is nonpartisan. So I'm assuming that it means if they weren't in existence, somehow it would turn more partisan. I have to tell you, I don't think of the state board of education as being nonpartisan. Neither do I. There are some independent school types on this. There are, they are, I mean, they're appointed by governors and the way their terms are is it's supposed to be so that there's no one governor that has all the appointees. There's overlap. Yeah, there's overlap. But there's still partisan appointee. Well, I guess not, maybe not partisan because we don't, normal people out there don't say what political party they are. But there are certainly philosophical differences and appointees that promote one philosophy and then another philosophy and another one. And I would think that the agency of education is probably less partisan because they're, pardon my word here, but they are appointees and bureaucrats. I mean, the top people are appointees but the other people are people who, they're career people who work in that field because that's the field they're good in and they love. So they don't answer to... So he makes a point here in the middle of the first, middle to the end of the first paragraph. Moreover, as mentioned above, in recent years, the General Assembly has assigned new high-profile duties and responsibilities to the board, e.g. overseeing the state plan for which ZAK-406, devising new criteria for response to grants, graphing new rules for the reform of special education. So are those things we could see the, essentially the administration doing? I certainly think so. Yes. And also, I mean, the amount of happiness in the state with respect to those things is incredible. Right. And it's all got to go through the legislative process, so... Well, I'm a little... So I'm a little uncomfortable, sort of, how this is unfolding here for a few reasons. Number one, I don't want to get into the membership, necessarily, of any of these boards and panels. I mean, I don't think we picked on the boards and panels and as we've gone through and said, well, there's Chewagy Jones, or this person who is, he's not partisan or he's sheep partisan or whatever. So that, I'm a little uncomfortable with that straggling something in that we haven't, you know, that's one of the criteria we've used as we've conducted our business. I look at number five here and it says, Mr. Carroll says, the board will propose to the General Assembly in the upcoming legislative session to eliminate outdated administrative functions so that the board may better focus on its central purpose and then it describes its central purpose. I assume that means that they will be proposing or having somebody propose some legislation to remedy some of the issues that they see that are preventing them from doing, functioning in a full purpose, okay? And I think we would like to have that opportunity either in person or with a telephone or certainly in the legislature to make that pitch. Me personally, I'd like to hear the individual Mr. Carroll make that pitch. They're looking at it, we've had some problems, we've had some issues. We're perceived in a certain way. Yes, I get that, et cetera. And here's what we intend to do to rectify it. Here's the modifications that we intend to do. Here's the changes that we're going to be proposing, et cetera. I mean, that's sort of mighty on this one. Yeah, I actually must admit that I'm not ready to recommend that it be repealed. I would say that I am ready to tell the education committees that they need to look more closely at the, not just at the functions that maybe administrative functions that you're talking about here, but at the need for the board as a whole just to the education committee should look at that because I still think that they, that it was a compromise when we went from a commissioner who was hired by the board to a secretary that was appointed by the governor. I think it was a compromise because you needed people who didn't think it should just be appointed by the governor to get on board and pass that piece of legislation. So I think it was a compromise that was there. And I think that we have, I mean, established an advanced education policy for the state of Vermont. The agency of natural resources establishes policy and advancement for the environment of the state of Vermont. That's what they do. They don't have an independent body out there that is doing that. And I, so I'm a little, but I'm not ready to say they should be repealed, even though I think they should. Well, one of the things we haven't discussed is the resources from the agency of education that goes into staffing and the state board of education. As Rod knows, house Govabs and house education had an oversight hearing with the agency of education. I think one of the things that we heard during the testimony that is provided by the various parties was how understaffed the agency of education is. And that's one of my concerns. Is the state board of education taking important resources away from the agency that's not allowing it to do its job as best as it could. And that's why, you know, I would like to hear from Ted about the resources that are dedicated to the state board of education because I think that's important to understand in assessing whether the state board of education should continue. Ted, did you want to weigh in on that? Sorry. It's at the commission's pleasure. I can join you now or I'm scheduled to go after. John had a very specific question about the resources that the agency devotes to the functioning of the board. And is that taking resources that could better be spent within the agency than supporting the board. Is that clear? Yes, that's basically it. Yes, for the record, Ted Fisher from my agency of education and my director of communications and legislative affairs, specific to your question representative, thank you for being here, for inviting me today. Specific to your question, the second part of the question is harder to answer than the first, at least today, in terms of my preparation. But in terms of how the cost breakdown goes, we noted, and I think Mr. Carroll noted in his testimony or his written testimony today, the specific line items is a small chunk of the support. The administrative support that we provide, legal support, and I kind of have another category that I like to think about in my head, isn't really easily broken out. So, but yeah, I tend to, it naturally breaks down for me, at least in my understanding, personal understanding of it, into three categories. We provide administrative support, warning meetings, taking minutes, providing all of the support for the board itself in producing its meetings. Today, the reason why Mr. Carroll isn't here today is because the state board is meeting in Manchester today. So we have one of our members of our secretary's office and the secretary himself is down on the capacity as a member of the, an ex-officio member of the board. So they're down there. We also regularly provide legal support in terms to the administrative functions that Mr. Carroll references in his testimony. We often provide legal support in preparing resolutions, drafts. We call them green sheets, which is a legal analysis for the board for decisions that they're making if they're receiving applications from independent schools or waiver requests or things of that nature. And then there's sort of a third category, which is the things that don't fall into the other two categories. So we might be on a sort of like, ad hoc is maybe not quite the right term, but on a sort of one-off basis, we might be asked through the secretary to provide support from other divisions in terms of expertise. And I'm categorizing that still as support. We do, for example, at the last meeting at the September meeting, our director of data management and analysis, Wendy Geller, Dr. Geller, and Kevin Viani, who is actually our ADS IT director, went and made a joint presentation to the board about AOE's data strategy. I would assume that if the board had their own support structure in place separately appropriated by the legislature, we'd still be going and making those sort of presentations to the board. So there's a kind of, we send people to make presentations for the board's information request or at the direction of the secretary, but then we are also asked to lend technical expertise. And I can't easily categorize that. It's dependent on what the board is considering or what work they're doing. I don't have a couple of guesses for some clarification. One, so it would be a fair assumption on my part that like the whole Act 46 discussion and implementation, the legal support that your agency had to give was probably extensive and long lasting, I wouldn't just like. That is actually one of the exceptions where that's not correct. The board contracted for outside council in preparation of there. Now there was some legal support and also as an entity of the state board and I cannot speak with detail because of ongoing legislation. But as you're probably aware, there is continuing legal action involving Act 46 in the courts. The state board as a state of Vermont entity is defended by the attorney general's office. So that kind of, we see some of that work. We have an assistant attorney general as most agencies do. So the contracted legal help though that would probably fall underneath that bucket. It's not in the breakdown of Mr. Carols as far as the expenses associated with the board currently. Sorry, let me flip back. If they only paid $14,000 for all of the Act 46, they're getting a pretty cheap. And I just have one other quick question and I'm still, so as the board is currently being viewed in, I guess for one better question, is it considered more advisory or do they actually help set policy? They have, they have rulemaking authority and have been in recent years been given by the legislature rulemaking authority as part of individual acts. So for example, the Act 173, the rulemaking will be done by the state board of education. So I'm going back to the money part if I could for a second. The $90,000 which is outlined here on number nine, to me, and I think to most of us doesn't appear as an extraordinarily large number, 25,000 of that's going to disappear when they leave the National Association. And I know it's hard for you Ted to come up with a number, but would you characterize the amount of support that the agency gives the board as substantial or what sort of word would you use to describe the resources that you're giving them if you could? Staff time, labor time. I think that the administrative resources that we provide might be, substantial is maybe a little bit too great a word, but we do provide on the monthly ongoing basis, we do provide a high level of administrative support in terms of preparing both attending meetings and preparing minutes and preparing the agendas. That is a chunk of work. It's much harder to characterize what the legal support is. It depends on what their requests are and their requirements. And frankly, I'm not an attorney, I don't know exactly how much time it takes. That was the one thing I forgot to ask is how long it takes our legal office. They're very good at what they do though, so they're quick. I would say that it's variable otherwise. And I don't know, I know that the legislature when it wrote, I believe Act 98 of 2012, is the bill that made the agency, the agency from the DOE. And that's the same act, I believe it refers to staff support for the board. Mr. Carroll may have mentioned that in his testimony. To my understanding, that was never appropriated for. There's kind of a provision in law for the board to have independent staff. I don't know what that would look like. I'm not prepared to make a recommendation as far as that. So one of the things you said is that you prepare these green sheets and then just like for the approval of independent schools. And I'm just very curious about how, have you ever prepared a green sheet and then they decided either to roll you? I mean, I don't know. For lack of a better answer. Of course, if I get this wrong, I apologize and my general counsel will kill me. But the green sheet, the top, and as a follow-up we could provide an example. There also are examples on the state board's minutes part of the AOE website. They do not look green. They're called green sheets because they're printed on green paper and given to the state board, but they're actually normal colored documents on the e-copy. But the top will have a little box and in the box is a motion that's been written out for the state board to properly make a motion. And that motion is based on the AOE's recommendation. So the secretary does make a recommendation in the green sheet. But usually there's a background and any legal analysis that might be needed to help the state board consider the case. If it is in a, if, for example, let's use an example, snow days. There's a certain number of instructional days that schools are required to have. I believe it's 175, but I might be wrong. If you, for whatever reason, snow, water main break, whatever reason, you have to close school for longer, you can apply to the state board for a waiver of your instructional days. And the AOE will make a recommendation based on that. If you do not get waived, then you have to continue into what we would consider to be the summer. Usually you extend out your school year. So oftentimes we'll provide a legal analysis and the background and a recommended motion from the secretary's recommendation for what the state board should do. Oftentimes the local district will come and make their case as to what they would like to see happen. Or if it's a independent school, the independent school will make a presentation for independent school approvals, et cetera. And then the state board will act based on, and they do. I don't know if they roll less exactly, but they often will modify the motion or they will take a counter motion. I can't say it happens often. I don't know what percentage of the time it happens. I don't know if we have tracked that, but it does happen when they'll decide for whatever reason that our recommendations. Maybe I missed it in here. I'm curious to know how things work and have worked since the creation of the secretary's position going forward in that, say for instance, the staff, do they feel that they sort of have two that they need to report to and do work for? Has there been, is there overlap? Has there been, or like some tension between, I believe that there was something as recent as the Act 46 and the secretary felt one way and made some recommendations, but the board went another direction. Is that indicative of how the relationship is or has it been? And if we were to leave the state board as is, would we expect that going forward? Pretty broad question. I don't know to what extent I can answer this. My tenure at the agency correlates with Secretary French's tenure and a little bit forward where I was hired at the very end of the Holcomb's, Secretary Holcomb's tenure. I know that our secretary, Secretary French, is clear that we are AOE staff who work for the secretary and so he prefers that requests for things come through him. There are some functions that are sort of as a result of us providing support to the state board. So those requests might come through the chair. I haven't experienced any tension personally. I can't speak to others. I have a slight proposal here. I understand where you are as far as not looking to. My initial reaction would be I would like to start down the process or the path of what would it take to dissolve this board and move the areas of responsibility to where they need to. I'd like to personally approach it from that perspective. However, I realize my friend in my right here has got some concerns about making sure that all those that need to weigh in do. But what I've read and what I've heard, I think the status quo is not necessarily the best inches of Vermont. Well, I think that whatever recommendation we make will be the education committees will look at it. So in my opinion, it's just a matter of how we word that because I really want them to look this next year. And they also have a bill on the Senate side anyway. There is a bill, I don't know if you signed on to it. I did, to eliminate the board. As a cosponsor or sponsor? Cosponsor. I was thinking you were the sponsor. No, no. Randy Brock was the main sponsor. I don't know who else is on it. And so I'm sure that, however we word something asking the education committees to continue to look at the role and necessity of the State Board of Education and is that better, are those functions better handled? The handled is the right word. Assigned. In some place out. I think that it's the wording in my opinion, it's the wording so that we're taking a position that they should look more closely at it, but we're not taking a position that they should necessarily be eliminated. Or we could do that also. It's just up to the groups. More discussion for sure. Two recommendations. One, if that's the way the commission wishes to go, I would choose more neutral language than perhaps you proposed. And I would do it slightly different. And the second thing is I live in still, and I can tell you right now if you were to announce that you're a member of the State Board of Education I would make it out of the line. So I trust me when I say their reputation is probably not the finest in the State. But they've also been given or were signed a challenging rule. We can all argue well I think they should have done it this way or I agree that one was right but this one was wrong. But they did what we asked and that they were asked to do. And they did it the best they could possibly do when they get shot at from all sides and everything else. And now they're saying listen we want to make them give them a new State Board Chair who proposes to the Board is going to look at how it functions and make some recommendations and come back to the legislature. And I think that's fair. I'm not doing cartwheels because of this organization but it's fair. Like any other Board or commission we ask them to do things that sometimes you don't like. I mean I serve on the District 5 Environmental Commission and periodically people don't like the decisions that are made. Unless you've appointed people on this Board you've given us the responsibility we make it. So that's one thing gentlemen from independent schools to weigh in on his Board or panel that he's participating in the past. I really think that we should Mr. Carroll a heads up or a chance to make a pitch before we formally say here's what we're going to do. I mean that I think that's an all fairness to him even if it's over the telephone he doesn't, I mean those are my two to each other right now. So and again I don't personally I don't have any one way or another for them I just think that I think we should hand over slightly different ways. So as a commission our practice so far has been to recommend either maintaining or recommend this solution. So doing something different in this case is not something we've done before saying not quite sure what you should do but but I do think that there's a larger discussion here and even if regardless of whether the Board goes or stays there a lot of consideration about the statutory language and which ones are no longer relevant because of the changes and which ones have to go here there or the other thing. So I think we want the education committees to really look at this and as we have looked at does it stay or does it go? You know if it stays then you have to there may be many things within there statutory language now that ought to go to the agency anyway so you may be recasting the Board of Education in a much more of an advisory role on the only certain issues rather than sort of this broader charter that they've had since before the change from commissioner to an agency secretary. But I think we should be firm in what we say and say this one is one of the more difficult ones because it's big it's been around for a long time it had the ultimate authority so to speak and now it doesn't so what are you going to do with it? But I do think somehow we have to make the education committees and I don't think we can make them but make a recommendation that they absolutely consider all the alternatives not just rewrite the language does it stay, does it go if it stays rewrite, if it goes rewrite. So is that best done and I don't know this is that best done in the bill or is it best done in a letter to the education committees that could be more specific and letters to the education committee and the agency and the board I mean saying this is what we would like well as committee chair what how do you react you know what you were committees posture when you get a letter from another committee versus just sort of a report that recommends or I'm just trying to add some emphasis to what we say which is what we've done up till now is we say yay or no. Chair I guess if we got a letter from justice oversight for example that we should I'm not sure what we should do but I guess I would take it pretty seriously if and I know that sometimes in the other direction we have sent letters to administrative administration people in the blue of legislation because it was better the solution came about in a much better way and it was a much better solution by doing it that way actually putting it into a piece of legislation so I guess we would take it very seriously I don't know what you guys would do it depends no it depends I mean I have concerns about the state board of education they've been tasked with two huge projects act 46 and from the testimony we heard from Secretary French is that act 173 is even a larger project than act 46 and potentially more controversial and they do that without any dedicated that is I think problematic that these things are being handed off to a board that doesn't have support it does have support there's no dedicated support regardless of where it is no independent support and you know that concerns me and you know I look at the scope of their duties under the statute I mean it's huge and I would really want to take a hard look at what should be eliminated I mean the 21 report annually to the somebody on the progress the board is made on the development of education policy for the state is that even what they do anymore no I think the agency does the agency does it all so I mean how do we our job is supposed to either repeal or maintain boards and commissions and you know I understand this is a high profile board or commission like Green Mountain Care Board but should we why are we stepping back from doing what our task is I think I can answer that from my perspective just because of what you said is a good reason for us to send a letter as opposed to make a cut or dry decision about whether the State Board of Education should exist or not exist there's so many different aspects that are listed here for us to go and then have so much to say the agency of education we and us have an opportunity to speak I think it's not that we shouldn't do it or couldn't do it but we don't have the capacity ourselves to do that that would take a whole meeting just to do that I do understand what you're saying that there is an issue here that really needs to be addressed and I think a letter not committing ourselves one way or another so I'm looking get rid of it and then finally we'll keep them and do this I don't think we should be doing that I think we should take it to committees of jurisdiction send them a a letter from us that says look at who we are with Sunset Advisory Commission we normally quickly make decisions not quickly definitively make decisions about boards and panels but most of them that we make decisions on organizations come to us and say hey we didn't even know this organization existed anymore it's a very simple decision here I think that's not the case and you know they're a controversial organization I guess but that may be something committees of jurisdiction education committee should take a long hard look at and then they can make the decision of we don't want them around anymore or we want them around and here's here's the stipulations here, the changes that we think we need to make I think based on the amount of time that we've got and how much time we've spent so far and that's not a great deal but we have a large commission a large committee etc that I don't think we should be doing that and I'm not one to pass off anything but I just think that in this particular case whether from us to the two committees of jurisdiction saying board of education needs a really hard look and we would encourage you strongly encourage you and then hand it to them they're the these issues are already out there they're all over the state etc I doubt very much they're going to say I don't think so so I have a question, sorry what would you propose then under the column recommended status that's where I'm struggling Sue's point is well taken that we for the most part maintain or repeal under the maintain at some time with potential recommend changes to exist are you suggesting that we put review under this particular one? I wouldn't put anything under there we have a lot of them that we haven't reviewed yet at all and we have nothing under them and I would just put nothing in that column I would just say we had the discussion we were we didn't have enough time to look at all the everything and so we're we're punting it off to the committees and if they can if they can't deal with it during from January to May we'll deal with it next summer that's that's what I would say is because there's a lot of these that we're going to deal with next summer I don't think we're going to come up with some final solutions on technology either this this time I okay that's my suggestion great you've done that I guess I'm going to come at it from a little different perspective as well as much as I appreciate my friend here I to me it is a yes or no answer for us and because of the legislative process the committees of jurisdiction are going to have more than an opportunity to win anyway and appropriately sold but by doing sort of nothing or punting I'm not sure anything will get done and I do think that because of our structure we're always going to have a high level look at anything and as with anything the devil's always into details we're not going to dive into this enough that we're going to go through and have input into the different roles and responsibilities where they go and who gets that but I do feel that it is our job to yes or no or maintain and that's certainly the point I was trying to make is that's our instructions is do something you know say it has it still has purpose and it continues we maintain it or we recommend repeal and regardless of what we recommend that's not the final that's not the final stage anyway so some amendments could be put on this bill but some of us don't feel any relevance if we just leave maintained then nothing will happen nothing will happen if we put repeal in here you can bet that education committees and the board of education and the agency are going to be in those committees they have nothing to do this year because they've passed the two big things 73 and 46 you are tough what are they going to do this year I mean the board we're talking the board no I'm talking about the committee the education ooh that's funny so I was sort of thinking that myself if we say repeal you know it'll get discussed along with that bill and decisions will be made across the board and even if it stays it will certainly prompt full review of every single item that is true and we just put in repeal and then Betsy just takes out all the statute that refers to it and then it goes to the two GovOps committees it'll start in your committee again I would assume this year the bill I heard of all the care there the bill last year was so successful so discussion of amendments to the bill I tried it's for Harvison okay so I'm going to just put everybody know I won't be voting for repeal and I'm really uncomfortable that as a commission we've done taken that we decided to take this step I don't think if we are asked each one of us is asked why we did this I think we're going to get five or six different answers to why we did it when they say well how much did you investigate or what did you look into we're going to how much time did we spend at Sarah and furthermore I think we're going to step into a mine field and put ourselves as a commission on the hot seat for taking a step yet that the legislature hasn't decided one way or another and as far as I'm aware the governor hasn't taken his position on this either so I mean if you wish sir but Matt the legislature won't take a position until we tell them to because that's the way the legislation works is they introduce a bill and it repeals or maintains these and then the ones that are repealed the legislature and we could do full but the other way we could say maintain it and then they could say well wait a minute hold on they won't do anything if we say just say maintain unless we said no last year except the the pesticide one and that was a misunderstanding but I do think that we need to take Mr. Carroll's testimony if we're going to recommend repeal because I mean we discussed that we can do that can he do it next the only time is at our next meeting we'll set aside the first half hour for him well and like you had said that the technologies are pretty big issues we'll set aside the rest of the day for the technology sure but that made the models work on that one I think that we're going to have there might be some easy ones but it's a huge so this will be this is a minefield that one is going to be TBD until we hear from Mr. Carroll for the right here again my name is Ted Fischer I'm the director of communications and legislative affairs for the red lot agency of education chair white chair it's wonderful to be here senator representative I appreciate the opportunity we're pleased to submit follow up testimony to the sense of advisory commission on the general assembly I have from the commission the request to provide follow up testimony on the state board of education and I believe we've answered some of the questions that I was going to touch on in my testimony earlier in terms of just the order of operations you already discussed Mr. Carroll's testimony he provided that to us in writing as well through Secretary French who is an ex-officio member of the state board the agency doesn't have much further to add aside to know when Mr. Carroll makes recommendations about legislative cleanup in terms of clarifying the responsibilities of the state board or moving some of the boards I see in terms of administrative responsibilities the agency has the capacity capability and willingness to undertake that work if such a legislative change were made as we sort of went into more detail earlier with regard to the green sheets that much of that work we already provide some sort of either legal or administrative support in providing that work so it would not be a significant burden to the agency to take that on and I'm happy to answer any further questions so has the agency had discussions with Mr. Carroll or the board about what he considers administrative functions that should be moved to the agency so as Mr. Carroll notes in his testimony the board is undertaking its sort of process of finding and I believe that is continuing not to speak for the board but I believe he indicated either in his testimony or subsequently actually no, I apologize he indicated that it's on the agenda today for their meeting down in Manchester they're interestingly enough at BBA where Mr. Carroll is so they are considering they're continuing that conversation and bringing their own legislative recommendations presumably dead committees with the beginning of the new session or continuation of the session so the secretary has participated in those in his capacity as a member of course and the AOE has provided some support of information to the board mostly in terms of breaking out what their roles and responsibilities are noted in your testimony as I note in my last the last sentence of my or the last paragraph of my written testimony there was at the time that Act 90 was passed there was sort of there's some discrepancies of existing statute that were at the time we have some historical, not historical institutional memory about sort of how that transition happened I was not present for it but my understanding is that there was intention to sort of clear up some things that weren't covered in Act 98 and these are really sometimes in some cases really technical things that it says SBE but the AOE does it that did not occur in future sessions my understanding is that I don't want to speak to legislative intent but my understanding is that there was some intention at the time and some documentation was prepared to be for use either in a future session or for additional cleanup and that did not occur to clean up technical changes there's a few reference just to give an example there's one reference where it says the SBE shall collect data we have the infrastructure to do that and there's a few cases where there are reports made that we make and there's a lot of other things that we sort of continuation of the DOE we do sort of in the name of the same board do you know whether it's the intent of the SBE is part of their recommendations I guess that will be made in January to include these technical changes I do not know I would assume that I don't want to speak to the board at all particularly if Mr. Carroll is going to come and follow up with you I would assume that many of the higher level changes that he makes references to his testimony might correct some of those things I was just thinking I'm going to change the subject here in just a minute but I was just thinking if we do have a state board of education education is so bizarre in our state because we have all these local that maybe the state board of education should be made up not of governor appointees people elected from local school districts I don't know anyway did you were you going to I have to admit I can't remember here if you took a position on the council of independent schools about whether did you take a position on that and how do you use that we did we did not specifically take a position on whether or not it should be eliminated or not my understanding is that the council and I would have to refer back I have it on my phone of course that's the one I didn't print but I have to refer back to my testimony from last I'm just going to work and you have my written words in front of me you can correct me based on what I wrote before that seems like the council has met infrequently in the past few years and it exists as far as I understand aside from a point that I believe Ms. Zeller picked up on in terms of the advocacy question aside from that which is written into statute it really has existed in an advisory role to the secretary the secretary's position and I don't know if you'll hear this from Mr. Tashen the secretary's position is that he doesn't support or not support its removal he supports the role of this commission as an attempt to I'm going to say this in an art fully and these are my words but to sort of whittle down the number of taking a hard look at the number of boards and commissions that exist so he does support that but to my understanding he hasn't worked with them very much because they have not been active well I guess the question is thank you very much the relationship then that the secretary sees between the council and the association of independent schools which is an association as opposed to a statutory council right and what we have in the in the you know bill changes Becky Ann's draft it's on page three of 39 after the three at the bottom we're repealing that right the council because of the advocacy and because there's the association which in the membership is like almost the same and the same people and I think what we've heard is it's the association that comes in here correct to deal with the legislature not the not the council so okay I just want I couldn't remember again I don't know if this was pointed out or not but I don't believe that the association represents all independent schools necessarily as a council you think well by its membership and there are six vacancies it doesn't represent everyone but I suppose in theory I think we looked this up and there was membership crossover and a lot of that that's not to say that the association couldn't there's nothing preventing the association from representing right I think there are 271 or 250 or something independent schools in Burma yeah it's a lot yeah I when we were I can't even remember what we were doing but I got a list of them and there's approved independent schools and there's non-approved independent schools and the total is something like 275 sorry isn't that right there are 295 public schools there are 430 total I've become much more knowledgeable about this since the passage of act 66 which is the LEN testing law which requires all schools to be tested so there are two big categories recognized independent schools which are the ones the senator referred to that are not approved and then there are approved independent schools and what that designation means is that approved independent schools can accept public tuition in dollars they have gone through a process with the state board of education to have their curriculum examined and to get approval there then there are also several other sort of smaller categories the there are teen parent education centers there are tutorials which generally don't consider themselves to be schools but they sort of fit into the regulations that way there's Woodside which is a state managed facility and there are also two state managed programs that are a program managed by Vermont state colleges Vermont I believe the Vermont arts high school and also the community high school Vermont which is a program in the corrective that are regulated as approved independent schools so there's some complexity there so according to the website for the association of independent schools they represent a community of 130 independent schools and they have a whole list here that sounds like close to the count from my understanding yeah well it does include religious general education religious schools and special education schools but I think those are the approved schools they probably are probably most of them yes I think we have almost I'm not sure I don't have the number on hand yes approved they're approved and that includes there are several religious schools there's a school that represents the Amish community in Brownington there's three variants in the structure and format yeah it's surprising how many if you think state the size of Vermont all the schools we have I wonder what the total of actual public schools plus independent schools well you said 430 total schools park of total that's total schools including independent and public schools is 430 I remember correctly there's 626,000 people so can I ask you a question slightly off this subject but it just was in the news the other day the teacher of the year was chosen from the Montpelier and somebody told me that none of the independent schools are allowed to participate in our teacher of the year program is that true I don't want to say yes or no because I don't know the process for selecting teacher of the year is that is that you must be an outstanding teacher in year one outstanding teachers are nominated and this is where I don't this is where my lack of knowledge is I don't know if independent schools nominate for outstanding teacher or not but I know that the nomination is made by superintendents and that's a program that we run with UVM and so you become an outstanding teacher for your school district and then you may apply for the national for the Vermont teacher okay so let me just give you a theoretical advice I have to I have to be certified to teach a subject just like a public school teacher the same certification, same requirements not correct okay that might be the requirement might be that you be a licensed educator but independent schools are not required except for CTE to hire licensed educators okay so so if I'm teaching in a school other than a public school I don't have to be I don't have to be a licensed you are not required to but you could be and the school could have a requirement the school could there's no requirement in statutes okay so if a school requires them to be a licensed then they are exactly the same as a public school uh no the school would not be a public school just by didn't have that recommendation right I don't care about that I'm saying teacher, teacher to teacher my teacher Rice I'm using Rice and I teach at Montpelier High School let's just say Rice requires licensed teachers the teachers must have the same qualifications as every other teacher in the school in this state apples to apples assuming that they said that the I'm getting a little bit out of my assuming that they said assuming that they said you know we require that the state licensing requirements for a public school teacher be like if they had it written into their policies of their school I don't know how that would look in practice but most of them don't I don't know of an example that does require that I know that in the state instructors independent schools must be licensed hello hello mr. this is John Hannon co-chair of the Sunset Advisory Commission how are you good how are you John good we're here discussing the council of independent schools very you know our task is to determine whether that council as well as other boards and commissions throughout the state government should be maintained or repealed and so we wanted to get your testimony with respect to the council of independent schools and some of the things that we've discussed in our commission up until this point is that there is an association that seems to have a similar membership as the council and whether that association could handle the job of the council okay good do you want me to share thoughts yes please we would like to hear your thoughts about the council and just so I can have the right picture in my head how many people do you have in the room thousands they're all here to hear your testimony well and I want to know who I testify to so so why don't I just go around the room and the members of the commission can introduce themselves as I already said my name is John Gannon I'm the co-chair and I'm a state rep for Halifax Whitingham and Wilmington I'm Jeanette White I'm senator from Wyndham County and I'm the co-chair with John I'm Sue Zeller I'm the governor's appointee to the commission I'm the stage two performance officer Brian Collamore State Senator from Rutland County Robert Claire state rep from Berry Town okay I'm Matt Crouse I'm one of the governor's appointees and then we have some we have a couple staff people and some somebody from the agency of agriculture education your head that one that one and other people sitting in lobbyists media media and media good so I guess you guys seem to be I will observe that you seem to be in an awfully good mood for a commission named the Sunset Commission but we'll just roll with your good spirit and I will also say this I mean and I'm not just trying to be complimentary but this sounds like a pretty high power group of people thinking about these things so I commend you for that and if I understand correctly what I should do is just share some overall thoughts on the council of independent schools with paying particular attention to this notion that there also exists an organization VISA which stands for Vermont Independent Schools Association and I think what I'm hearing from you is whether there is overlap to what extent is the overlap so I'll start with the obvious overlap between VISA and the CIS which is that they are both they both involve independent schools however I think their purposes are very very different and the difference is that the Vermont Independent Schools Association exists as a as an advocacy group as a way to bring together independent schools and you know I think support them and to the lobbying to protect the interests of independent schools the council of independent schools exists as as you well know it's a statutory body and its role is to be advisory and to it's not pure advocacy it's to help ensure that there is broader understanding of the many ways that independent schools throughout Vermont play a unique and important role in serving students you know the independent school community independent schools are not one size fifth it's all by any stretch of the imagination we have a tremendous number of independent schools that are solely devoted to providing special special education services for example and as we speak and the reason I'm not able to be up there in person the state board of education here on campus at Burnt Burton Academy today and so right before I got on the phone with you I was observing testimony about Act 173 and its complexity some of the complexities related not only to general education independent schools such as Burnt Burton Academy but in particular to the many independent schools that solely serve special education students so helping the rulemaking committee on the state board of education and helping legislators understand the complexities of independent schools becomes really important for appropriate legislations to be developed and appropriate rules to be developed that will do what we all want to do which is to serve kids so I would encourage you to think of visa and the council of independent schools as complementary bodies not as as overlapping and redundant bodies another important role of the council of independent schools has been to to provide a vehicle for appointments to various advisory committees such as the Act 146 to be able to talk about the implementation of Act 146 around the state with Act 173 special ed legislation this is a particularly complex issue as it relates to independent schools and so there's the Act 173 advisory commission and the council of independent schools has appointed a member to that commission another role of the council of independent schools is to provide people for various teams either a state board of education team or an agency of education team when it's important to have an independent school perspective and I can give you three specific examples there one is most recently the state board of education put the compass school under review for some financial difficulties they failed to file 990 forms three years in a row as a result their nonprofit status was revoked as a result the state board of education review and the state board of education put together a review team to meet with and visit campus school, meet with their board meet with their head of school and review their policies and procedures financial and otherwise I served on that committee and that was work that we did this summer it was led by John Charles who is now the state board of education the chair of the state board of education and the team went in and spent a day there and we spent a day in advance preparing and we spent a day debriefing and reaching our conclusions and recommendations which we then presented to the full state board of education so I was a member of that committee in my role on the council of independent school years ago there was a review of the Vermont school for girls down in Bennington and that was triggered by agency oversight and so Rebecca Holcomb who was then the secretary of education who came to the CIS to request that somebody serve on that committee and she specifically requested that I serve on it and I did and again it was a review to investigate whether their policies and oversight were at the appropriate level given some issues that had taken place at the school in that case it was formed by the agency of education it was staffed by two AOE representatives plus me, plus somebody from some other organization that I can't remember but again it was a place where we're investigating an independent school and in the interest of kids in the interest of the state they wanted somebody who really understood independent school governance and operation in order to provide a perspective you know on that school in both those instances I will tell you and I'm proud to tell you that I was working in as a member of a team not as an advocate for independent schools not as a protector of that independent school but rather as somebody who has a lot of experience in independent schools who can look at the schools and I think be credible in discussing what's going right and be credible in making recommendations for how things could be improved or even to be blunt to identify issues that are going wrong I'm not afraid to do that and I would say that if anything it's important that independent schools like I don't want for running independent schools to continue to operate poorly I either want them to improve or I like anyone else would want them to be shut down so those are two examples of ways that the council of independent schools serves as a resource to the state in providing people who can I think bring a different expertise than may exist or than does exist right now within the AOE or within some of these other areas you know I think there's an underlying question since I'm talking to the sunset commission you're trying to determine what do we do and I think do we still need it I think the existence of the CIS is important not so much as a day-to-day entity but to be available when called upon either in these special circumstances such as to review a school or in to provide input and perspective on legislation such as Act 173 I think the complexities of Act 173 are only starting to rear their head and it's going to be more complex before it becomes simpler and becomes the law of the land and the way things are done so if anything I would say the next few years with Act 173 it's crucial that there be expert input on the vast array of independent schools that are out there who could be impacted because especially in the special ed area so many students and so many of the highest need students in this state are served by independent school and to inadvertently create rules or pass legislation that damages their ability to serve these kids means they have no other place to go so I think to me the most compelling thing I can tell you in terms of the importance of the council of independent schools is that the very legislation that we're talking about implementing in the next few years is going to demand expert input if it's going to be successful so there's my testimony there were my preliminary thoughts and I'm happy to answer the questions that you may have right when you're making recommendations how are you determining in your head whether it's coming from the council or the association because I think you're chair of both oh I'm not chair of the of the Vermont independent schools association but I am on the executive I'm on the executive committee when I'm serving on a team and I actually I will tell you that I urge the state board when they consider composing a team I urge them to emphasize in the future how important it is that we serve the team first they were not representing I'm appointed because I'm a member of the council of independent schools but I'm not representing independent schools on that team instead I believe very deeply that when you serve on a team and you know and so I don't separate the two because I don't really care that I'm on the council of independent I don't think I'm taking a council of independent schools perspective nor do I think I'm taking a Vermont independent schools association perspective in both the cases I cited one with the compass school and the other with the Vermont school for girls I was an educator serving serving the state and providing to the best of my ability my expertise in this area and my perspective and I think you could talk to John Carroll and I think you could talk to Rebecca Haltzum and other members of the committee to recognize that my role was absolutely committed to figuring out what was best for kids who are going to those schools questioning your role here but I'm trying to figure out the two of them and in the council's mission statement it clearly says it shall serve as an advocate for independent schools so well it says advocate as an advisory group for the commission no it says as an advocate for independent schools and serve as an advisory group so it has the role of being an advocate and even if we were to say this council should remain I think we have to take that out because my feeling is we're not in the position to legislate advocacy groups and you know what I've never paid any attention to the advocacy so you could take it out and it wouldn't bother me at the least the advisory part is the important part is that the CIS will we're going to be meeting in a couple of weeks and I know statutorily I've read this in preparation for this conversation as well we meet three times per year and it's been one to two times per year over the past few years and so I guess we could argue that it should be meeting it should meet that statutory that's the right term for it but the meetings tend to have somewhere between 30 and 40 people representing schools from all over the state and it's a vehicle for developing understanding so that we are in a capacity to provide a perspective and advice and you know advocacy sounds like taking out in favor of independent schools and advice is really saying look you know we're getting a room and the secretary of education is coming he was at the last meeting and he'll be at this meeting the idea is for all of us to share a perspective and develop an appreciation for the complexity kind of the complexity of independent schools and I think that's all too often overly simplified and it's really not as simple as too many people think association operate what do they do sir yeah I mean again they are a pure advocacy organization they're advocating for lobbying they're overseeing legislation that you know paying attention to legislation but that's what the council does well I think I just explained how it doesn't do that so I don't want to get in arguments with you but the people in Vermont nobody's going to the Vermont independent schools association and saying hey we have to review this school which you know could we get a member from the independent schools you know independent school community on the team so Mark can I how many belong to each group and how many belong to both and which one was first and is the other one resistance because the first one wasn't doing what the other people thought it should be doing that's what I'm trying to well I can't really comment I mean I don't know the answer to how many are in both it was 11 on the council and there are six vacancies so there's five members okay no but I'm just saying so so the council meeting just like we have 30 to 40 people have to meet so it's it's because they're an inclusive discussion oriented meeting it's not like the council is meeting in a circle and there's an audience it's much more about it's a group meeting so I guess you know being in both places I don't see them as they're not one of the same by any imagination I think that the Vermont Independent Schools Association as a group meets very infrequently you know there's been an annual meeting coming up and there might be 10 or 12 people who show up for that but I think the independent schools widely view the the role of the Vermont Independent Schools Association to support an executive director and who's paying attention to legislative affairs and you know he publishes a newsletter and communicates I think very well what's going on in Montpelier and the council of independent schools doesn't do that doesn't have an executive director in fact you know if there's a budget I don't know what it is because I don't I don't get paid nobody I don't get paid anything for it you know in our meeting Pat Alex Gray attends and takes notes and puts together a minute but it's a very low cost I think maybe you know the budget better than I do but I'm not I haven't charged the nickel of my time and I haven't charged the nickel of gas mileage to it in however many years so I don't think it costs much of anything and I guess I'm telling you that it plays a very important role in providing that advisory and providing a resource for expert input on an as needed basis like any other advisory group in a way dependent on the willingness of the of the secretary of education to be open to input but that's what advisory groups are Rob has a question yes thank you when you're dealing in your advisory capacity who are you dealing with primarily is it the agency or the board generally it's been primarily the agency you know I would meet regularly with Rebecca Holcomb she was the one who asked me on to it and I meet regularly with Dan French you know I'll meet with them privately and informed by my many years in the Vermont independent school world to talk about particularly lately it's been the challenges back 173 with Rebecca Holcomb about F-146 and also there were rulemaking issues with the board of education I was trying to help convey an independent school perspective there on the advocacy part anybody from CSI do you spend any time as a legislature yeah I mean I've testified as have others testified before the Senate and House Ed committee but you know I guess when you talk about advocacy no one's paying it's not like this is where Visa has dues and a budget and resources and an executive director who whose job it is to be running around Mach-Pillier my gate job is to run a pretty substantial school in Manchester, Vermont and everyone else on that committee is full time doing their work so we have neither the time nor the resources to do what might be considered lobbying or advocacy work what we do have is the desire to serve kids really well and that's universal I'm not trying to say public schools don't do that public schools do that as well but that's what we're about and so I think that's the biggest difference between Visa and CIS Visa has a certain level of resources because of dues and it's very specifically charged with this notion of advocacy I think we're more viewed as I like to think we're viewed as a as a resource for developing understanding with whether it's at the state board of education or in the agency of education so Mark this is Sue Zeller could you tell me how long have you participated or how long have you been on each of these organizations you know I don't know exactly Rebecca Holcomb appointed me so sometimes during her tenure I think she was Secretary of Education for four years and I think she's been gone for two so I don't think I've been on CIS longer than six years and something like that and then Visa is really a school membership and Byrne Byrne Academy's been a member of Visa since before I arrived and I've been at Byrne Byrne now for 12 years okay thank you you're welcome any other questions okay alright thank you good luck with your delivery thank you okay so I found something interesting I found that for CIS we'll use this terminology each member of the council shall assure for two years and may be reappointed for up to an additional two terms which means six years which technically means he's done so that's one which he doesn't seem to be aware of so and he also said he did not want us to look at these two groups and I wrote this down here as overlapping and redundant they're overlapping and redundant in my opinion that's my two cents well it's interesting because the council sounds like it's supposed to really just be advisory and the other one is a lobbyist organization they have an executive director so I'm just curious as to when if the executive committees are very similar when you're coming in and you're giving testimony or giving advice to the secretary who are you yeah and for hearings that may involve independent schools it seems to me that the secretary could ask what difference does it make for organization or whether you're asking the headmaster at Byrne Burton specifically 173 committee so I mean it doesn't there doesn't seem to be any reason for that to exist which he made a great deal of saying that it was important to be on any of those agency reviews of independent schools that are being challenged for their accreditation or whatever I did find it interesting that he said that they have 30 or 40 people attend their meetings there are only five people on the council itself but that they have 30 or 40 people I would be curious if the association has the same kind of conversations and meetings and if it's the same people okay now we're the council after lunch we'll be the association I don't know that sometimes happens I sort of get where it's coming from and that it does seem that and I'm saying this out loud here is that the CIS is weighing in on the issues more in the front end of the process or the legislation where the other seems to sort of come in from a lobbying advocating standpoint further along and I'm just wondering which voice gets heard initially or appropriately yeah that's interesting I think the CIS it sounds to me like their role is to advise the agency and the other one their role is to advocate with the legislature on legislation but that the CIS their role is to work with the agency I assume the state border shouldn't make the state board does not have someone representing the independent schools in its composition well I do right now but that's by appointment it doesn't say I don't think it it does but I don't think it says that they have to they're just appointees eight adult and two students but I don't think it says where they have to come from I just mentioned one process kind of thing it sounded to me like he was a little unsure or guessing as to why we were contacting him he said he started in as well I guess based on your title you know this is what you're sort of looking for and I'm not clear when we contact people this severity or the that's not the word I want seriousness thank you that's the word we don't want people guessing why they're being to me that's not what we shouldn't be doing you should know where this organization is being reviewed with the power to sunset you so at least I would like to at least recommend actually I don't I less concerned about repealing them now but I do think that if we leave I mean it I suppose is good for the agency to have an official body that they can go to not for advice not a lobbyist body and but I do think we need to take out that term advocacy because they should I mean by giving advice they are advocating but I don't think we need it should be in the and that isn't I don't believe in the legislation it's just in their mission statement and the three years does the three or three times a year meeting does that say they must meet three times a year or three times a year you can check out their enabling lots on page three of the draft so I don't see advocacy in their mission statement and I'm wondering their minimum of three meetings a year that's also not in statute but I wonder if it's in their rules because they are required to adopt rules for their own operation so I wonder if that was part of their rulemaking procedure well if they're not meeting three times their rule should say up to three times and not meet three times if they're only meeting once or twice so so at least be consistent should we put a cap on that because when I hear like it's 173 I mean it sounds like there's an awful lot of heavy work to be done on that I'm not sure that I would say anything about their meetings at all and we can recommend that they take it out of their mission statement but that isn't in the legislation but the agency has some oversight over that yeah okay okay so I feel less concerned about mm-hmm see we do have it in there as repeal yes we can repeal the repeal sunset sunset the repeal yeah should we break for lunch so we're now covering the department of health access and we have I hope I don't miss a James and Jenny Samuelson come on up to the table and we apologize for being a little late we didn't break until 1215 we appreciate that you had time to take lunch though I thought we probably should have skipped it yeah would you like us to introduce ourselves I'm Jeanette White I'm Senator I'm John Gannon state rep for Halifax I'm Robert clear state rep I'm Robert clear state rep Brian Collin I'm Sue Zeller I'm also governor's rep and I'm the state's chief performance officer Jenny Samuelson yeah so we have several boards and commissions for you to discuss we'll just how do you start going through each one we're actually the first two I think to start okay so I'm Jenny Samuelson I'm the deputy commissioner of the department and I'm going to cover specifically the blueprint committees and my colleague Missa will cover the other advisory committees so I'll start with the blueprint executive committee and the design and evaluation committees these two committees have been functionally merged together over the last few years and while their membership is distinct they are meeting they have joint meetings together they meet every other month and the participants receive no approval so there's no cost for this particular committee there is both a phone-in option and an in-person option for this committee the makeup of the committee includes providers and provider organizations, insurers state agencies or departments and members at large and the executive committee portion of it is clearly defined in statute and the current membership follows that statute the design and evaluation group is broader and in addition to the executive committee members it includes members of the community who participate in actually implementing the blueprint strategies at the local level the state is divided into 14 health service areas and every one of those health service areas has representation on the board the purpose of the board is to advise the blueprint director on the strategic and operational decisions for example they brought to light the need to address opiates and hence the reason that the hub and spoke program emerged and they also advise on operational things like changes to the payment methodology such as adding performance measures to the payments that go to primary care providers the all-payer model and the accountable care organization has been emerging and while it may seem that the blueprint has created gotten to a steady state these committees will need to continue to set the strategy and look at the both the alignment and potential integration of the efforts that the blueprint undertakes with the ACO and some of the alignment with the green mountain care board and reporting that they currently do the current board has demonstrated that it's effective at helping the blueprint executive director both identify needs and make decisions they have achieved some efficiencies by both combining the boards and by instead of having everyone travel as they originally did offering a phone-in option it should be noted that as the blueprint and the all-payer model continue to evolve the disc that these committees should be looked at and the continuation of them should be looked at in context of that evolution and the boards that currently primary care and clinical boards that currently exist under the accountable care organization and under the green mountain care board the other effectiveness attribute that we should look at is their ability to set the strategic direction and the strategic plan in context of the emerging healthcare reform so that we can ensure that there isn't duplication between the blueprint and other entities while there are no reports that this committee is responsible for producing the blueprint does produce an annual legislative report that looks at the overall outcomes of the blueprint and that can be a reflection of the way that this committee advises in terms of the operations and strategy of the blueprint so I'm going to pause there and see if there are any questions about these two committees and the direction they've gone in terms of merging one thing that I should say before I go forward is that this committee the voting members of this committee the design and the evaluation are more of the advising members so for practicality purposes these two committees have joined themselves together that is correct is there any reason why they shouldn't be statutorily have statutory changes made to group them together to prevent duplication and to look at it in a holistic way going forward at this point in the evolution of the program I would not oppose combining them statutorily two questions we sometimes run into commissioners committee boards panels that are a little bit large this one seems to be the largest I think I've ever seen the 34 individuals on the expansion the evaluation committee that's a lot of people so have you thought about sort of trimming that down or is that so because of the two functions that this assists with one which is gathering information about what the landscape is across Vermont and advising the blueprint director on that that function needs the opportunity for a broad set of broad set of stakeholders so in that advisory function I believe that that larger stakeholder group is necessary for the decision making function that executive committee or a smaller version of that executive committee we believe is potentially necessary so if you were going to statutorily change these two and meld them together to one considering at the same time any changes to the membership or not if I were statutorily looking at it I would maybe slim down the decision making portion of it and then leave it up to the discretion of the blueprint director to pull in the ad hoc members as the statute is currently written the statute currently requires the blueprint director to engage a broad set of stakeholders in terms of gathering the feedback and I would just potentially look at strengthening that language and reducing the size of the board and then just one other question we've been having a little debate this morning about often there are ways of participating in meetings and especially for folks in the southern part of the state who find it a challenge to travel etc there are phoning options and then I read this and it says it's also via Skype so we would like to consider perhaps promoting those options for a couple reasons one participation by people who wouldn't normally serve you know it's too far for me to travel from Brattleboro to Bennington etc how do you so how do these people know that Skype and phone options exist do you tell them you tell each one of them look at it if you can't make the meeting we can do it via Skype or you can call us in we've got a bad phone or something so I want to clarify the Skype option allows us to do a screen share so I want to make sure that it's clear that it's not sharing that people visually share the slides and it is primarily used as a phone in option for a conference call for each of the agendas and which are posted publicly the Skype information is included in it so that individuals can choose I would say at this point for this particular committee the majority of members are participating via Skype and phone is there any interaction between these boards and the Green Mountain Air Board the Green Mountain Air Board is represented on the Executive Committee as one of the one of the voting members that's primarily yet there's not much other interaction between the two entities other than that this board advises a program and its operational functions and there is interaction at the direction of the board between the program staff and the Green Mountain Air Board an example of that would be around analytics and as an example in the hospital budgeting process the analytics that the blueprint produces for the community profiles are used by the communities and by the Green Mountain Air Board in that hospital budgeting process that while there may not be interaction between the board itself and this committee the board is represented they are always welcome to come and join and the program itself is interacting with the Green Mountain Air Board Robin Alinges one of the members of the Executive yes, yes I am not sure do the statutes say who is going to be on the Executive Committee the statute lists the representation that should be on the Executive Committee for example Robin Alinges's representation as it is there because on the Executive Committee it requires a member of the Green Mountain Air Board it also further states a list of providers including health providers providers of complementary medicine primary care providers so there is a broad set of providers and stakeholders that are required by statute commissioners and deputy commissioners from state agencies so if you said that if you were going to change the statutes you would reduce the who would you cut out I would leave that to the legislature to make those decisions I think the legislature did a good job in ensuring that there was appropriate and adequate representation of the providers that the blueprint represents in remark to is it a large committee it is a large committee in its decision making function yet it has been effective to date it has you know having been a part of the process when they changed the way that the payment mechanisms went into place and provided some additional funding it was important to have the broad membership at the table to make those decisions so you don't have any great thank you so looking at the expansion design and evaluation committee membership these are what you consider the broad stakeholder community would there be a way that the executive committee would stay the committee but have authority to bring in these people for different assignments rather than them all being sort of permanent members but they would be brought in for work groups or assignments or things like that I think that's at the discretion of the legislature what I can say is that for many of the folks who are included in that broader group advising the blueprint and this is on a regular basis for program operations what you see the individuals you see at the table are those who actually have a significant stake in the blueprint so it would be having to choose between what regions of the state you want represented because that broader stakeholder group includes individuals who administer the program in each one of the 14 health service areas administer the community health team in each one of those areas and the providers so I wouldn't I think that's one direction you could go I'm not sure that I would advise them so the health service areas do those correspond with the counties? they do not the health service areas correspond more closely with the hospital service areas based on a study of the patterns of health care utilization yeah okay Relas Falls for example is in the Springfield hospital area probably I just have one other question so we're preparing a bill of course for the legislature to consider with all the recommended changes on the boards and commissions do you have specific language that you would want us to put into that bill to make the changes or I do not have specific language at this point in time like this these two particular committees are effective the one thing that I acknowledged was at the beginning which is we had made a decision for efficiency to merge the two that's that so no specific language our only recommendation for efficiency would be a merger so the only reason I mention that is of course our staff member is the person that's drafting up the bill and if you had specific language make it easier for her to say to be able to add that to the legislation if following the committee we have specific language I'm happy to or specific recommendations from the committee we're happy to provide support I just have to say that I think the grant is a great one oh yeah I don't want to look around with it no no but I think at a minimum we should reflect what they've actually operationalized what you said the two groups are merged so yeah I'm looking at the statute 18 BSA 702 and I see in 702 B1A that creates the executive committee then right under that in subsection B1B capital B the executive committee can engage a broad range of health care professionals who provide health services and blah blah blah can't that encompass what the expansion design and evaluation committee is potentially yes so there might not need to be a huge shift in legislation right yeah okay so it might be easier just to like then 2A creates the design and evaluation committee right we could perhaps repeal that section mm-hmm I would leave it up to the committee to think about that okay okay I was just quickly reading the statute but potentially that could be an option and I think would operationally represent what the committee currently exists as right okay thank you so there is a second there is a third committee of the blueprint that we can walk through pretty and I think that because we kind of level set the other two committees this one will be much breeder the blueprint payment implementation workgroup which is also by statute is a workgroup that is specifically designed to look at the operations and the design of the payments that the blueprint makes the blueprint currently makes payments in two realms one to the community health teams and one to practices under three different programs the hub and spoke program which for opiate the primary care patient centered medical home program and the women's health program for women's health practices and the primary care practices the purpose of this group has been over time when new new initiatives emerge to both design those payments and when they are not in designing function or mode this particular committee oversees the mechanisms of the payments get to the providers there are often times that operational changes that happen at the insurer level or a practice level prevent the payments from actually operationally working well and it's through this committee that those things are identified and it brings together three specific groups the individuals who are in the practices who receive the payment the community health team which receives payments and the administrative entity who administers the community health team along with the insurers and so it allows them to work through in problems and problem solve I think the effectiveness of this committee is demonstrated in the fact that the payments are made on a regular basis and we haven't had any major issues in those or problems in either the payment design or in the administration of the payments this committee does because it's more operational meet once a month and it's only by phone okay and when there is a smaller agenda for a shorter amount of time it only meets for one hour so this is essentially sort of a process improvement type of very focused very much on task oriented operations of the payment system it has two functions it has a design function and it has that operational function for the majority of the time it is that that operational or performance improvement function so they don't get involved in or do they get involved in anything like payment errors or adjudication of differences in payments or any of that only when it relates to the blueprint okay and so any of the three any of the two forms of payment the practice payments or the CHT it does not look at the broader Medicaid payments that's a good question there's no term limit excuse me no term length or expiration for the members who serve on that why is that why do you not have a set you serve for three years you serve for whatever why do you leave it open and just like that because it's based on the specific functions of the individuals who are on the committee within the organization so it turns over when people change jobs so let's take an insurer for an example the person who is on the payment implementation committee is the person who actually puts the payments out the door so it's the position that's the member correct and then whichever human being fills it for however long they fill it that's the name correct so it's not the person it's the position within the organization another example would be a project manager for the blueprint who receives the payments for the community health teams that position stays on the committee and it turns over when the position turns over thank you for clarifying do you have do you foresee a day when this would not be necessary this committee would not be necessary when there went if and when the blueprint payments either are terminated or happened through another entity so as an example the current payments for the Medicare portion of the blueprint come through the accountable care organization if this committee advised that that happened with all of the payments and they were no longer involved in the payment functionality that may be a time to terminate them I have no more questions thank you thank you Mr. James director of communication from legislative affairs for the department of remote health access we're going to start with a drug utilization review board so the drug utilization review board is established to provide recommendations for the preferred drug list when you refer to as the PDL based on a review of clinical efficacy safety and net cost to the state of Vermont so this PDL is updated approximately 7 times per year as a result of the activities of the drug utilization review board the committee in the last state fiscal year met a total of 7 times these meetings do occur in the evening from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. so you will see per diem compensation and also compensation for travel expenses the term limits are staggered 3 year terms for the members the composition of this board is a mix of physicians pharmacists and an allied health professional for a total of 11 members in terms of the purpose and effectiveness of the board this board is one of the most efficient boards in the state government because of its charge to not only review all therapeutic classes of medication and mentoring the market but also to look at drug utilization and make recommendations for the rebate contracts that are executed in order to manage net pharmaceutical costs to the state of Vermont for the Medicaid program so as an example of that in state fiscal year 2019 our department invoiced $127 million in federal and supplemental rebates which represents 63.8% total gross drug spend $198.8 million in helpers do they get to see all the contracts and everything for the pbms they are allowed through statute to enter into an executive session so that they are able to review the net cost to the state which is not something that can be disclosed per federal law outside of our department okay yeah great thank you so analogous to the drug utilization review board we'll move on to the clinical utilization review board this board is established can I ask one question go ahead last page under 9 it says the dinner cost between $2,000 and $50,000 so the $1,750,000 so can you just so they're meeting in the evening they meet up in the evening from 6.30 to 8.30pm at the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and dinner is provided dinner is provided by the state somebody is paying for it it is provided by our department so I just have a quick question so do we allow I mean we've I'm trying to think back to all the ones that we've gone through do we allow that for these other organizations to have on this one $1,750 for meals agencies could I suppose the discretion although there's a state policy about the preference not to unless it's deemed necessary by the appointing authority I would not ask these people to come to this board and then make the paper dinner I would actually I would actually say that he would pay because let me just make the picture so I work for the department of human resources and we couldn't we were not supposed to provide food for anybody for any reason I was presenting nobody to say anything so $1,750 is not a lot of money and I grant you these are powerful individuals and you know well credentialed individuals but $1,750 and I don't think we allow for any other organization or haven't allowed it in general for any other organization so I'll just put it out there that you know if you're a physician I don't see any reason why you can't pay for your own punch I mean you're not poor people so but if you're bringing in a dinner it means they can conduct their meeting in a much more efficient thing and every one of those people having to go find a meal to eat or not eat at all during a meeting after they've probably put in a full work day well if this is the correct board my wife actually served on this for a while and because it's an evening meeting I understand where you're coming from on this but because it's an evening meeting and it was after they had a full day of seeing patients that they ended up going um I get it there's that slipper-slope feel to it but yeah I don't see anybody here that would be considered a state employee necessarily on this either of it or it would apply to UVM when UVM and probably the state colleges have their board meetings they provide meals because you're not going to ask people to come to a board meeting for three days or three hours at night I raise the issue because it sticks in my car just on general principle so I don't want you to tell these physicians that I I don't want to use the word provider it's more provide thank you so the clinical utilization review board analogous to the drug utilization review board is established in state statute with the intention to review and examine medical services emerging technologies best practices recommended for clinical guidelines and also even face-up service for a Mount Medicaid program so this committee again meets from 6.30 to 8.30 in the evenings at the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Services it has a composition of 10 members and it's intended in state statute to have a broad representation so you'll see both of them until medicine in addition to naturopathic doctor in addition to medical doctors and other health care professionals represented the term limits are again staggered three-year term limits the appointing authority is the governor of Vermont and this board is required in state statute to meet at least quarterly in terms of overall effectiveness and how performance would be measured this particular board has a number of recommendations that the participating members have provided to the commissioner over the years a couple of those that I would like to highlight particularly one from recent work of the clinical utilization review board is related to best practices for urine drug testing for those for monitors who have substance use disorders in terms of viewing utilization this entity realized that the utilization was quite high for urine drug testing and so they wanted to look at utilization and also cost and so when they assessed the physical impact to the program for 2018 it was determined that urine drug testing was approximately $15 million as a result they brought together a number of key stakeholders much as you made a reference to bringing in professionals with specific expertise to advise the board or committee in relation to the blueprint to discuss what the best practice guidelines should be for urine drug testing and this board is currently in the process of moving that quality improvement work forward to make sure that established best practice guidelines are used within our provider network so we spend $15 million year on urine drug testing based on this analysis I would paper a lot of treatments wouldn't it? Yes it would well, yeah so with two questions one did he get food too? I'm looking at this and it says so pretty mileage facility cost $34.57 it is my understanding that these providers are also offering dinner they're not giving them a very substantial meal log so it's like $18, $15 a person so they're getting old sandwich and I have to be drug tested first for a bodyshock so what's the alternative just briefly for urine testing if it's too expensive at $15 million what are the options? the options need establishing a clinical guideline that is tailored to the clinical complexity of the case of an example so in other words if so it's limiting when I start using something else we may limit the number and who gets them maybe lower risk you go once every 18 months once every two years and higher risk they also now have an ankle bracelet is that people wear I know somebody who's wearing it right now that they go in once a week and just have it tested and if they've consumed any alcohol it shows up I don't know what it does it doesn't it doesn't do anything when you consume the alcohol apparently but it registers on the I mean they have to be very careful also about using like alcohol hand wipes or something something like that rubbing alcohol on your big toe or something if it can get into the thing but yeah I mean that's they're using it and I think that would fall under the emerging technology I've never heard of it before and as the work moves forward my expectation would be that the board is focused on appropriate use yeah thank you yeah that's great we just kind of keep doing the same old things because that's what we've always done anyway requires out for technology different types of use of technology so we covered the drunk utilization review board the clinical utilization review board on the final presentation that we have is the Medicaid and exchange advisory committee this committee is established both on federal law and state law and is intended to advise the commissioner of the department of Vermont health access on policy development and program administration so this particular statutory language directs that the commissioner of health which is separate from the commissioner of the department of Vermont health access be included as a member of the committee and then it creates categories for composition representative of providers of Medicaid members or beneficiaries and then also those individuals, small businesses who would participate in the exchange for Vermont health connect so the state statute and the way that it requires membership is actually more prescriptive than what the federal requirement is for membership so there are opportunities when we look at this particular committee where we may look to revise the statutory language and particularly because our department has focused a lot in the recent years and some of you may have heard testimony under the integrated eligibility and enrollment program on really featuring the user experience as part of policy development and program administration and so I do think within this committee there is room to look at how Vermont Medicaid members and providers advise the commissioner of the department of Vermont health access for both policy development and program administration Is this committee federally required? It is Okay, with our own extra attached, right So you were allocated you got number nine You were allocated approximately twenty six about twenty nine thousand dollars of staff time to this particular commission, is that fair? Approximately twenty nine thousand three hundred and fifty three thousand dollars seventeen cents for ten meetings a year but I will caveat it as being approximate because clearly the requirement for every meeting is different and this excludes any staff presentation, preparation and free time for the meetings So this is just their attendance? No, this is overall structuring the meetings and ensuring that the meetings through the statute we are required to provide staffing support for this committee I'm not questioning that we had a debate about another organization the amount of staffing that they require so I'm just trying to get a dapple dapple here so it's let's say it's thirty thousand dollars plus, right? That would be an accurate estimate Okay, and that plus could be thousands of bucks or Yes So you've essentially got a half an FDE who's just supporting one board one committee, yeah That's not to you which is You might have some language about truing up the state requirement Do you have that language or do you have suggestions for what that might look like? We do have suggestions and we would follow federal laws which would open it up to be more inclusive Right now the way the state statute is that it requires a quarter of the membership which is currently at least twenty-two members to fall into those four different categories of composition that I reference but the federal requirement doesn't have that same requirement Okay Do you know if that statute to our language is going through you know Kendall Smith in the governor's office for part of the recommended statute It is not So we should Well why is it not? So part of what we have been working with this particular committee on right now is recruitment We have a couple of positions that are currently open In statute we're required to have at least twenty-two members of this committee We have been struggling in our current recruitment efforts and so as a result of those recruitment efforts and those challenges that we have encountered to date we thought it best to determine how we could incorporate more Medicaid members and providers Okay So you're not ready? Okay Anybody else? Thank you very much Thank you Excellent question You know, you're very informative You got stars We had a little star sticker So we're back on schedule So that is one more reason actually why I support Representative LeClaire's proposal on previous Each agency should figure out how they're going to support them and some might say if we only have a two-hour meeting we're only going to get eight dollars I mean whatever or they may say we'll feed you lunch but we won't pay your meal I really like that idea We could set up a dynamite That's it, right? We get some number Yeah Anyway, okay although we have to think about the difficulty that would cause difficulty for those people tracking and reversing Yeah, sometimes it's more Right They may not their policies may be Well, they may That's correct Well, we are talking with DCS Lots to do lots going on ever The big LeClaire Yeah All right So You want us to introduce ourselves? Sure Okay, good afternoon I'm Dalvin, Director of Operations for the Department of Children and Families and I do apologize I'm a kind of stand-in for Commissioner Schatz today because he's having an AHS budget as we speak So I probably Well, not with financing management because with AHS today our financing management is going to speak So if I can't answer your questions Just for you So we're going to introduce ourselves John Gannon State Rep from Halifax Whitehand Management I'm Jeanette White Senator from William County I'm Sue Zeller, CFO and Governor's Rep Brian Collomore, State Senator from Rotland County We're from Berrytown I'm Matt Crowson one of the gubernatorial appointees of the State So which piece of paper should we start with? Well, I do not know Maybe we should Did you get the summary? Yep, we got the summary So you see on there that there are two boards on there that are not currently active that are either one-time committees or were repealed The committee just studied the effectiveness of the general justice system and there was a one-time committee to produce a report and that has been done So we can And the next one is Commission on Juvenile Justice and that was is not currently active it was repealed effective 7-1 So that one can go away So it was repealed 10 years ago Well, I know It was repealed. Why is it still on our list? The one down here 57 Well, it must have been That people have to repealed that out Okay It was just repealed in people's minds But we did have a functional merger Right, stop meeting Okay, so do you want to start with the interagency coordinating council for families? Okay Also known as BICC which is Vermont Interagency Coordinating Council But if you look on the government's website it says Coordinating Council for Families and Toddlers So which name are you? Well, I believe technically it's the BICC Interagency Coordinating Council Thank you It's a requirement from the Federal Disabilities Education Act which is idea part C which requires that all children get public education and idea part C is early intervention services for children with disabilities The governor appoints the board Okay, what's CDD? Oh, I'm sorry, Child Development Division in the Department for Children and Families That's one of the things we're very, very glad is speaking in after months Yeah, well I was going to go with commerce and community development So I'm sorry, yes So please ask, yes Advice is the state on programs related to children and families with disabilities They're responsible for facilitating and collecting the annual data between nations and quality improvements and meeting with the field They sign off on annual performance reports to the federal government and just do general advising and assistance duties and we could find a duplicate effort with any other board It should be maintained, they need five times a year and they report to the federal government Sure, okay The next one is heat forward That is still actually an active committee I guess you can call it an active committee It advises the state in particular and the federal partners on local issues with home energy assistance programs and make recommendations It's in the Vermont statute 33VSA 2602AC Again, no duplicate effort They used to meet in person I used to actually be the like-heat director and we met in person But now they hold a monthly conference for the state to make it more efficient So, do we think that should definitely be maintained? So, let me ask you a question about that Pam Sure So the people that work on lucky Okay So what kind of advice are they providing to the program because the program is generating a lot of information and data about how much money and the price of fuel when we went and I can only speak from past experience, but for example we used to play market price for fuel and then they went to margin over rack There was a big decision, should we go to margin over rack or what should we do how should we get the best prices so they would provide advice on that if we were contemplating a rule change we would bring that up to the enforcement There's your opinions on that The next one is Children and Family Council for Prevention Programs This is a requirement of the Federal Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act that's the JJDP Act and it's in Vermont Statute again at 33 BSA 3302 The governor appoints the board members to this This is literally required? Yes, and it's 21 members of the board I believe It's a state advisory board for Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention They monitor compliance with the JJDP Act the Federal JJDP Act They report to the federal government annually and they also administer the Vermont Children's Trust Fund Again, we couldn't find any duplicative effort with this board Obviously we should be maintained and they meet monthly and they report to the federal government Building Bright Futures Advisory Council It's listed on the sheet as DCF on your summary sheet as DCF but we think it really should be listed as AHS, CDD which is Child Development Division AOE, the University of Education DCF and DMH Department for Mental Health We participate but we don't actually coordinate this particular coordinate That's a good question, let's see Let's see if I can find it I don't know, let's find it I have to get back to you on that I don't know, I don't want to guess So how does this council work with or is it the same as the actual Building Bright Futures organization that has, you know they put their own scorecard up and you know that kind of job Yes, and I think that they are I think they work in tandem with that organization This is what I believe to be the case But they're not the same They meet eight times a year They're federally mandated Governor appointed They report to the federal government I think it's pretty amazing that they have to have at least 22 members but no more than 23 I usually when you do that Right, there's only five of them So again we didn't find any replicative effort and obviously we recommend maintaining this State Council for Interstate Juvenile Supervision This is in fact us Again, it's another council It's a requirement of the Interstate Commission on Juveniles and is in Vermont Statue at 33VSA 5729 It actually advises and advocates and also oversees the state's participation in the Interstate Commission on Juvenile activities So they help in developing policy and without this council the state would face negative fiscal implications and sanctions from the federal government which we obviously don't want So again, we didn't find any replicative effort We would suggest that this be maintained any annually and they also report out to the federal government And then there was one that we do find on the list that we added which was the Vermont Children's Advocacy Board the BCAB It's referred to as BCAB BCAB It's a requirement of CAPTA Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act Okay It gives federal Everyone knows what CAPTA is No CAPTA provides funds to the states in support of prevention assessment investigation, prosecution, and treatment activities for children Okay Again, it's federally mandated through the Child Abuse Prevention Act and we made it in order to reach through federal funds It's in favor of the Child Abuse Prevention Team that we accept the policies, the procedures, the practices of the Family Services Division within DCF It reviews traumatic cases of child abuse and neglect It works with welfare professionals and organizations throughout Vermont It shares some case review overlap with the Child Fatality Board However, the Child Fatality Board reviews all child fatalities where as the Vermont Children's Advisory Board only reviews cases within the Child Welfare System to provide oversight recommendations So we feel that this Board should be maintained, it needs quarterly and is required to receive funding from the federal government and provides a necessary space for collaboration around the Child Welfare System I think that's it for DCF So this might be an inappropriate question That's okay Who can you judge with that? I think they have little So which of, there are a couple different ones here that deal with juvenile Do they have justice? Which of the, do any of these boards or commissions specifically address the issue of Woodside? Not the juvenile Not these councils So they don't weigh in on Woodside or the kids that are there I will double check that to make sure and get back to you Do you know who does? Is that a DOC? Not DOC Because it is a correction facility and the treatment facility Is there an oversight committee for Woodside? A litigation there I'm not exactly sure What the oversight committee would be Put that down as a question Because I guess the one that commissioned on juvenile justice juvenile supervision they both I would think that they would at least bring it up Maybe they do Maybe I'm just not Well the juvenile justice one is not currently active Right I mean maybe that was in their charter but I have to look at that I'm looking at the statute it's still active in the law Right It has a duty to develop a comprehensive system of juvenile justice for people under 21 who commit delinquent or criminal acts including utilizing probation services, community-based treatment training and rehabilitation programs secured attention and treatment programs when necessary Public safety Like Woodside That is not effective as effectively been repealed but it's still on the books Who is taking on that role Of the oversight Of what that's just read For us Of planning the Woodside The DCF, the commissioner of the Family Services Division Who Woodside is in the Family Services Division Within Department of Children and Families So they would be taking on that oversight But there's no commissioner board that Not that I know of but I'll find that out And we only have to if I could have an email address before I know where I'm sending these answers Great I'll write it down for you So this commission has been met in a decade It appears that way And Woodside by a statute is operated by DCF Right Can I ask one quick question So this unit was print out of Vermont Citizens Advisory Board That's right here Are those our personal addresses or our addresses Probably yes Or Of their business Of their organization Which ever they wanted to provide I just mentioned personal addresses They want to give it I guess it's okay but that's I'm not sure what the policy is on that If I ask for a public document Providing somebody's home address Is that okay Yes That's not home address Only for state employees is safe at home We don't provide that for state Employees but People that provide Information I think it's restricted in some stuff But it's not your social security number It depends on whether it's considered Protected information And I believe some of these Members of this advisory Are citizens Not necessarily attached to Right, an organization Or like judge cash Retired This is Email address too Okay I guess if it's alright Well, I mean I don't know all the circumstances I guess it depends on whether You would provide it or you would provide it To them and say it's not to be You know, posted online or whatever Well as I'm Mentioning, so If this is a public document The citizen has access to it I now have the home address Telephone numbers and Email addresses of all these people Right I don't know if I'd like that I mean, so I serve on this Commission I don't know that they have You guys asked me for my Home address, right Telephone number, my email address No, that would be up to the governor He's still on an appointment I'm taking it up with him Well, it's not on the website And so if someone were to ask For the membership of this commission Or whatever They would give your name and town They don't publish On the publicly available website You know, if someone would ask For a list I don't know, I would think Probably redact that information But Because if you look at this patient Johnson, for example Is a community member and she gives no Home address or telephone number Yeah, I think that's probably A choice I want to give you a personal Information You could use your social security on a credit card Hold on just a second I'll make that appeal With all of you I'm really good cautious on that Kind of stuff with people that act Just that personal Information is public document And you know, there's all sorts of stuff That goes on and that kind of stuff That's a long term appeal But we all know that privacy Is an illusion there There is no such thing Well, it's I just, I'm A little area of telephone number My email address I think that's true I don't know how to get it I'm very not I don't want the rest of the members Of the commission showing up at my house The house You've stopped putting home addresses And home telephone numbers on On the web On the On the legislative side Yeah, I can't get you The Senate's still on We still do But the house members don't That was a decision that Was made by leadership It was the house leadership Okay We're off on it Okay, thank you Anything else? I would appreciate it I'm pretty sure I've seen There's a report That they're working on Justice oversight Justice oversight But it's There's a report about Options and stuff I just didn't know If there was Okay, thank you very much Is what side still open? Yeah Because I don't know what else to do Yeah Since this commission on juvenile justice Deal with that I've been there Somebody ought to deal with it I went to Woodside In that fashion So you're a home address I did a training up there one time But it's just a Government employee commission Yeah, it's a justice oversight It's a legislative deal Yeah, they're looking at it But I would think That there would be somebody That would be kind of constant Looking at it instead of just waiting until It blows up and then So the Building Bright Futures Question that I asked was because There's a very active Building Bright Futures organization Yes That I believe we give grant money to And then This council's Working Pan-correct Working with them It says the state grant Building Bright Futures funds $244,000 But I'm not sure if that's this board Or if that's the Building Bright Futures Yeah, so that's the question is Who draws down on that many And I know that we give grant To the I'm pretty sure we give grants to Building Bright Futures I think Cam included the Oh good A piece on that I haven't read the whole thing So what are you saying I don't know We have advisory boards and then We have outside nonprofits And we give them money and we get money The board has money So you're just thinking this might be An unnecessary I don't know it's kind of like The same question with the independent Schools The council and then you got the Organization except in this case I don't think we give any money to the organization But in Building Bright Futures case we do So Okay I'll read the question Well it's interesting Building Bright Futures Didn't it start with An executive order from Governor Douglas May have I think it did and then It was just An executive order for like Four or five years Then it Became statute Tori There's definitely nonprofits and Bright Futures Government program right Interesting I was looking to see here $44,000 Went to the It doesn't really address Any of the funding questions That's what I couldn't find There we go Building Bright Futures grew From an early childhood working group In 92 that included public School pre-kindergarten program Parent child centers, early head start Head start and private early Childhood providers trying to align services And programs in each of the 12 agency of human service district So the BBF State Advisory Council and 12 regional Council were established In 2006 through Executive order which is Governor Douglas To advise the governor on Early childhood well-being In Vermont Act 104 was passed In May 2010 The Governor Shumlin Establishing Building Bright Futures As the advisor to the governor and Legislature on the well-being of Family and children ages birth to 8. BBF was established as a nonprofit Public charity in 2011 By a board that includes government representatives From the state advisory council And representatives From the private sector To form a public-private partnership Oh well that is the board then That is this board That is this council Okay So this is the board That governs the nonprofit Yeah, that's what it sounds like That makes it a little clear Interest in structure It is Why do you have a board If you have a nonprofit Wasn't that your question That was my question And sent it back to you Because it's a question So we're funding this And we fund The nonprofit Are we funding both? I don't know we put them in that Building Bright Futures fund So I don't know the answer to that Well I can't imagine I can't imagine that the Council spends $636,000 So I would Guess that it's this That has a And that they provide the services Whatever the services are To like the designated agencies And stuff And that the council itself So Let's go back Why do you have the council The nonprofit Can accept money and express money An integrated system For planning, coordinating, and developing Early childhood programs For evidence-based recommendations Performance-based accountability And two-way public communication Between the regions and the state Yeah I was Confused with these kinds of things Because It's We seem to always have to have Somebody watching over somebody else We can't just have somebody That does the job We have to have other people watching over Those people to make sure they do their job And then who's watching over Just And it makes it even more Confusing in this case When they're named the same thing Well I don't know why we Don't just call this the state advisory council And the other one is the I mean that Isn't that the way it is Is that they're here like this and then Right So this council is made up of So Yeah, so the 12 regional council Were established in 2006 Through Decade 4 And then in 2010 They established Building Bright Futures As the advisor To the governor and the legislature And then it was made into a public Cherry which would So I don't Representatives from the state advisory council So that's the question Is this the state advisory council Well the ones that she's got listed right here Yeah The Human services, congress and community development Education All of these are the same ones That are listed here On the Building Bright Futures State advisory council members So this is the Sort of the executive board Yes Oh that's a good way of thinking About it That's a good way of thinking about it They're the nonprofit executive board Yeah They function as that But they're specific people Right Actually only Most of them Are positions So they aren't The governor appoints the 12 Yes here's the state advisory council 12 at large members appointed by the Governor And those represent the 12 Areas Right That's exactly correct So they actually call it On Building Bright Futures website They call it the state advisory council Well that's what she called it Building Bright Futures state advisory council Oh this just says Building Bright Futures Oh okay right That's what she called it here Right Alright I guess I understand I mean yes I Clear on the relationship We have the council Because it would affect Federal situation if we didn't Correct Okay So the state grant Is $636,000 I wonder how much federal money they got No the state Grant Is $244,000 Of their $636,000 Costs The budget is $636,000 And we give them $244,000 That's the way I read this The state grant to BFF I mean BPF funds $244,000 of their $636,000 Which are expended in the meeting Of activities identified So we give them Attached as a summary of the other sources Of funding You can donate to them Of course I would love to find A I think they give money from United Ways Right probably From foundations Terrell Foundation I think gives them Money and Annual report I can't Terrell What's the one that Is focusing now on Their annual report has The letter I do And then one from the executive director Right in the 12 Region I'm trying to see if they Show their You know this also makes me think I mean for example we know That we have Demographically we have fewer and fewer Children Than we have You know an organization that Gives us Fewer children than You know Well we have fewer kids in school I don't know if we have fewer kids Between zero and six Yeah I thought that those demographics Were going up Oh maybe they are They may be up going up now But they haven't for a while But I thought that they were I hope they are Well just for you Because we are putting up a wall You know and then we are saying Only people who are going to have Little children can come Just trying to see if they tell me Where they get their funding from They don't get any federal dollars I even find it hard to plead Well I think they are Organizations That are under them do Like if you look at the At-large members They represent the school district The Terrell Fund permanent fund That's the one I was thinking of Winston Prouty Winston Prouty has a huge budget That And the Building Bright Futures Gives them some They mainly do They do a lot of presentations for us Do they do a rough one too About the demographics Of kids You know I think they are They gather all that kind of stuff You know about saving all these pieces of paper You can see all the hate in the ones That we get updated Every meeting Madam Chair I am keeping the most current one It's just Stunning Along with being timely Fishing as well I'm sure you are going to have dinner Well you did For $18 Look at that Something to strive to become I always strive to become Whatever you are Don't strive to be a better person Right If I have to keep striving I'm just getting tired or Tired What else do we have to do Today Next meeting It's a different location So So that's the date is still the same The 13th right Yes and I believe it's going to be In Room 210 of the Dewey Building Which is Dewey At National Life Julie is going to send you guys She'll send that I'm not going to write it down She'll send it Of course And she had a question Other than Quinn, Seville, Young, Brock and Brugman Invited for the A.M. discussion Or just the afternoon November 13 Do they need to fill out commissioners or questionnaires They should fill out All those boards and Committees and stuff should fill out The questionnaires right But So how are we going to do this I'm feeling a little over my head here On this one Because I thought in the morning About When I talked to Laura Seville What we talked about Was that we're looking at governance And that's all we're looking at And it's hard to look at Governance of this Thing which is whatever IT and technology and all that Without knowing what it is So what they're doing Over the summer Is they've been looking at what it is And what we need to know And what we need to Constantly be aware of So in talking with Laura What seemed to make sense was Have them just join us in a discussion In the morning about what it is That we're even looking at here Before we can look at governance And then start looking at All of those different boards And committees and do they make sense In Response to what This other group, the oversight committee Is looking at in terms of what it is Does that make any sense at all? So we need to understand what it is Yeah Little IT, not big IT Okay Yeah Because I'm not sure that I wouldn't feel comfortable In eliminating Or maintaining any of those boards Without knowing how they fit together With whatever it is that The oversight committee Is coming up with I don't know if that makes Any sense or not but I What I know Is that when Things came up last year It was like this And everybody was pointing their fingers At somebody else And a different group Or a different committee or a different board And saying well we do this little Part of it but we don't do that So you can't talk to us about that Coordination at all And we did ask The secretary Of administration to look at the E-9 One board but that's the only thing I think that we Wanted to put that There was some move to put On the ADS Bill Asked them to Look at what might look like Governance of that whole field But we didn't On the oversight committee Well Laura Sebelia And Randy Brock are the co-chairs And we're all going to be here And I don't know who else is On there. Tim Brieglund is The chair of the house energy Committee And I don't remember who else is on That committee hopefully somebody That knows something about technology Which is why I'm not there I mean really this is an Area where I Feel totally Useless And I think We have to deal with it in the senate Yeah I'm with you I'm very un-John Quinn like They have Very limited They can hit the on button And return and enter That's about it That's impressive I'm sure your father had on that I don't even have a cell phone While I I had it in my coat pocket It was a foot phone And I smashed it in the car door In March And I haven't had one since You don't have a smart phone How do you function? How do I function? You guys wrap aisles like that Fairly well I don't carry this with me I leave this here in this day house You know I've always wanted to know Would there be any more software You know They don't need to be able to get a hold of me 24 hours a day They can leave a message They can leave a message on my home phone You have a home phone Or you are behind the time What do you want to Is it a landline? Yeah I want to tell you something Don't take it off that And nobody ever In my house nobody ever says Where's the phone Because it sits right there all the time You put a clapper on it You can't lose it Tell you where it is Okay I think we're off topic here But anyways Yes I believe That they should fill it And I believe that it would probably be To their benefit to be here in the morning In ours So you're saying the other IT folks I don't know who she's talking about But they should also fill in the questionnaire In the morning They are more than welcome to come In the morning to hear the discussion That might affect them in the future They should fill out the They should fill out the And they might want to know What we're up to Do we have Any time to have A conversation about the Review DM thing Or not We have time I also have The bill draft I told a few people that that was going to happen At 2.30 during your 2.30 agenda item Of commission discussion I know the State Veterinarian Is coming for the racing commission And maybe DOC for the reparative board So they'll be here at 2.30 15 minutes Is that Okay to start that discussion Yeah Are we going to have John Carroll No I mean right now I have the discussion now Right now in the next 15 minutes So Anybody want to have that discussion I will say again That I do I surprise myself When Rob first brought it up I thought The more I think about it We I think that There are Differences in Boards and committees And how along they meet What their workload is And I It just seems to me to make sense To let the agency Answering them Set their Redeems The only comment I would make about that Is there some Agencies in departments Think Diva That have A lot more money That's available to them For administrative work And other Agencies in departments like AG That don't So don't want It to be Based on The Diva's people get dinner And the AG people get nothing I mean So while I If we're going to do that though Then we would have to make sure That they're funded To be able to If we take Commissions Now committees that don't have Add per diem How will we ensure that the Departments Have the appropriate funds To do that without I know it's not a lot of money But you get somebody like AG And they're looking at every dime I'm not suggesting that we even Add per diems but that we let them Decide But the agency decide If AG says We can function very well without Per diems we don't need to Give per diems to people Because they're all paid by cabinet Or however Then let them Do that I mean currently we tell them We tell certain agencies that they have to Give them $50 So we are funding them But we're not saying that To everyone All of these commissions and boards on our list Don't have per diems That we're attempting to do through this commission Is have some sort of consistency To ensure That all boards and commissions Receive some per diem Because one of the reasons This bill started was because The women's commission Was receiving no per diem And there was a couple of other Commissions that were So I'd be concerned about just leaving it Up to agencies But I also agree that The $50 per diem is not good Because what if you're meeting all day Versus you're meeting for one hour I mean You get the same per diem And we're going to Make a distinction if they're Already getting paid By the state to work that Day They're off the table Just by the state if they're getting paid As part of their job To be there they don't get per diem And I think that's already Clear in the statutes I don't want to run down The roadside here Because he's my friend We're going to have to separate you two So here's a couple of just The things to put on the table I think there is a Question about money There are departments and agencies We used to do training people From that agency or department They never went because That's an issue of One issue, there's an issue of fairness You know John mentioned it right here But I look at it and I said What started this is my perspective Is Ford and Rampage for the same sort of Participation And then there's some that are So prohibited from getting it There is an issue about complexity I think So each department is going to handle Its own and so That's reported and they have to You know go to the finance people And stuff like that There is a certain complexity involved in that And we already have some Anomalies That we haven't addressed Which is the guy A parole board fellow Getting twenty thousand five hundred bucks And nobody knows what he's getting in So I think it's an idea Worthy of Discussion To use this study But I would want to see To sort of put on the table A little bit more thoroughly To hear all the sort of Pluses and minuses Why don't we do it that way What's the issues If we do that What's the issues if we don't do that If we go to a half a day You work a half a day You get half a per day If you work a full day And yet because administratively It's the agencies and departments That have to pay those And you know people fill out Their expense reports and whatever You don't want to make it You know a Chinese menu Of options that Is complicated for The departments to Administrator And plus I mean overall I don't know what the number is we spend But I know that I don't want To come out of this So that we're spending more than that On boards and commissions Across the board I mean that's one thing You know so So let's not forget as Matt said To look at all the pros and cons Maybe $50 is too much Maybe if you're 25 Or you know 25 Or you know so it's like Somebody came up with that number And I don't know what that Doesn't change in a long time You know but just because it hasn't changed In a long time doesn't mean Automatically that it's Too low I mean You know if we were to say Okay let's make it higher and let's give it to everybody Then I think we're increasing The total cost of the state which I don't think Is appropriate It's especially Not for this For the charge that we have in this commission We want to be fair but we also Don't want to increase the cost Of the state nor the administrative burden On the department So I would see that as I think it's a worthy idea To study To take a look at this in depth Or at least ask for some If the argument is We have a pool of money right now We're dispersing We don't want that to increase But it can stay the same Or go down So what are the Proposals that we're doing To say to somebody If you work six hours You can get 60 bucks If you work less than four You get 40 bucks In other words then you could do this Sort of well in total It's going to stay the same Just people are going to be compensated From however longer their meeting is Or for something of that nature I just I don't want to see that either I don't want to be proposing Bannals and commissions That one's not going to go And I'm really concerned about the complexity That People In the real world argue all the time If you're a state employee They argue about their pay Just using state employees Just today as an example I'm not picking on But if the guy is getting 40 cents more An hour than somebody else The whole department All of them So now take these panels and boards And the guy says Oh, people aren't buying, he's getting 60 bucks I'm getting 30 Why is that? That's not fair I mean you'd be You'd be fighting all the time And arguing all the time Oh man So, yep I'm trying to think back Part of my motivation Or at least the idea The reality is we're all over the board now Quite honestly I recall hearing One of the folks I think it was around Community justice program Whatever I can remember what it was And All the members Serve For nothing And I remember him saying Rather emphatically that Because they're Totally voluntarily They have more credibility With the offenders And then we're all the way to this person Getting to 20 That's the reparative board thing Yeah And the other part of it was I don't feel that all boards and commissions Are created equal And it just seems That Having this cookie cutter approach to everything Right There is a Lack of fairness I think But anyway, I hear I'm not looking to But it just seems to me That we can't solve every problem Legislatively And sometimes those that we hire to do the job Let them do it And if their budget For this particular land item And their budget's a little too high for this one Then you have that conversation Yeah, I'm not sure I'm not sure how to How you solve this because It's never going to be We're never People on a commission Are ever going to receive the same Compensation for being on that Board No matter what we do If we Some of them are out of control They provide dinner Some of them are out of control I mean There we go If we set the compensation for $50 Right That's what everybody has to get On there Does that mean that For this day that Sue is here Her paycheck is going to be Reduced For this day to $50 She's only going to get $50 for this day I don't get I'm exempt so I don't get I don't get overtime I don't get anything I just get what I get But it's never going to be No, that's true Those of us that work For the state in appointed Positions That's part of your job Is to go to these Boards and commissions that you're assigned to That's part of the deal when you accept the job If I don't know There doesn't seem to be any Boards and commissions That have classified employees on them Unless There are some I can't think of any But we would have to Pay them overtime for that We would have to state a federal law Requires You'd have to pay them overtime Or can't you leave them Of their duties for that day And have them go there We could We had one Of the governor's advisory groups We had They wanted in the union Wanted us to have a classified employee So we had one of the complication was Is that he was federally funded So we couldn't So this The administration had to pay him for those hours Because he couldn't have We had to reimburse them Because the federal funds Weren't allowed to be used for that It gets complicated with employees So pretty much It's mostly appointees Who are You know Testifying or members of the Once in a while they have to testify But it's not sort of every month or something And then I guess the question is You've got some of these Like the drug council Is a pretty complex Group looking at all drug Formularies and they meet every month So as opposed to one That meets for an hour Every quarter So how do you And that goes back to you You were talking about complexity And that not all Board and commissions are created You're talking about the one where That they met for The Drug utilization I mean I can speak to that one Because my wife was on that Where they went and they actually Had discussions about The different drugs and representatives There and providers To talk about What will the state cover And what will it not And You've got a lot of horsepower There in the room You need it And I don't disagree with that But that's an example Of people who will say Wait a minute for a second For supper and he gets You know and even though he's a doctor Or he's a provider Or some nature And he's a heavyweight individual And he's worth every penny at the table Did you get people to go I'm not getting one Dinner and he's getting there That's unfair I think that's part of the decision Making process when you are asked To be on a board commission That you understand That it's not going to be fair With every board and commission And if you don't want to be on it Then don't be on it And yeah it's unfair And Matt's going to get double But you can't get on that one Because you don't have the qualification Sorry do you want to do this one or not That's kind of the argument Most people you're not getting on the board For your own Right game in any way It's for the overall Distress to both the inequality I think that's part of it Just one other thing That I want to mention There's a possibility you could say You would like to try to pilot of some nature Where you might have two agencies You know try it If you will To see whether it actually works With functions in some fashion That's one alternative And then finally Jesus is really not working You might try it as an experiment Or pilot and say Let two departments How does it actually work out In the real world Does it work? Do they people like it And the second thing is I'm a big fan of If you're going to make a change Don't cause anything It's going to make it worse So if we can't come up with a really good idea I don't want to do any idea Just to do it So under Rob's idea Of letting the department decide Would they be able to decide That boards and commissions Who are already getting per diems Would not If they feel like they You know they could put better use to that money I think We have to set the minimum standard For per diems Just so that We don't run back into the problem Of certain boards and commissions Which may be Not liked anymore Or state board of education Wouldn't run you at all We'd take a lot of your game away No, for some reason We have a tight budget this year So it just eliminates per diems And it never comes back So that's why I think It has to be pinned to something Whether it's ours I'm a little concerned About the Discommission and I get it Discommission is more important In some fashion Then you get into the argument Why does they What makes them so important If you pin it to something It's tangible The number of hours they serve Or the number of meetings they have to attend Or something of that nature Then you can point to it and say We only meet for two hours And they meet for six Maybe you have something that's tangible So I was on the state community Development board for 13 years And we got $30 a day But before we went To those meetings I would get a box this big Of applications And it took me A week and a half to go through those And I went Because I was the chair I went to every community That put in an application Just so that I had a physical sense Of what that community was So I didn't get paid for any of that In any of that time Now I would have gotten paid $30 a day To be Whether I read those things Or not Or if I went to a Environment board meeting I would have gotten paid $30 a day It is hard To just Judge what's Yeah, it is very complicated And I just in terms of Setting it by the Amount of time you spend I'm not sure that That makes any sense At one point, since I've been In the Senate, somebody had suggested That instead of giving Legislators, not For boards, but instead of giving Legislators a per diem Not a per diem, but expenses During a set expense That we Turn in our actual expenses And get paid And I don't remember Who it was, if it was Jim Reardon Who looked at that And said it would cost the state Much more money To have somebody sit down And figure out all those expenses And pay everybody And it costs us to just give The standard expenses And then if you spend more, you spend more And you So it's a I don't know Yeah, it's a difficult It is One could make the case that some committees Or commissions Are efficient and get their work done Scram And there's others that sit around And talk about sports for five hours And they'll get more money I'm on a retirement Study committee It's an hour and a half, that's it The meeting, but we still get The full per diem But it takes me the full day Because it takes me two hours to get up there And then two hours to get back So that's six hours To take Matt's suggestion And I'll ask Sue, because you probably are You can put your finger on the pulse If that were To be advanced The two agencies or departments Even What two would you think Could do it most easily Because I'm assuming this is going to take A little more administrative time On the part of somebody to figure out And that's going to be a cost If Ag is The one that doesn't Get anything now I don't know, I'm just saying In the budget Conditions That we are facing You know Budgets are strained To the point where we don't Have the money to do the work That we're supposed to do You know And you have to That's my concern Even about The department's the option We either need to decide What the funding is going to be For these things and then make sure They have the appropriation But I'm here to say there's no money For that So And when agencies and departments As they have been last year And this year you're asked to cut This isn't a cuttable You know expense Of course it doesn't seem like a lot But some agencies and departments Or particularly some departments Would be happy to get $10,000 back And other agencies And departments, you know, can provide Dinner, so I just think it's I mean it's just it's a difficult Problem Because of how it's Evolved and so now here we are In this quagmire now You know it's not like we're designing A new policy That's never been in place before It's so do you dismantle What you have Is it like going from here forward All new boards and commissions You know with grandfather everything It exists and all new boards and commissions Will be blah blah blah Have $50 or whatever It makes it It's Difficult especially You're not talking about huge amounts of money I get that Individually depending upon the department And how many commissions and boards They have attached to them For them it could be a significant amount So Usually people buy over small amounts of money When you say Well it's a budget of a billion 350,000,000 But if they say Hey he's getting paid launch 18 bucks I don't understand And that I want to discuss So that's one thing Maybe there's another state that has I'm just curious if there are other states That have Municipalities that have something Similar and out of their competency I mean What are the states What do they say? Categorically no We don't give anybody any money We have several different Boards And I think The majority of them are Not compensated You know you get school boards Some are some are And some select boards But with us we have like a recreation board And others And some cemetery commission And I don't believe that any of them are Compensated How about state to state I mean I get it It's kind of cheap They won't be anybody for anything It doesn't make any difference I don't know There's some states have done Similar things To having sensitive advisory commissions And avoid the stuff So there's probably some information out there About what other states have done Maybe there's a state that's got it handled You know did something I don't want to say unique Smart They say here's how we handle it I mean if you said like Have a floor of $50 per DM And establish a process for what An agency has to do to justify a Higher per DM And just so people know We do have information on why The parole board chair gets $20,000 They meet 13 Times a month A monthly meeting People are asking For parole The chair The whole board The whole board Means 13 times a month And the chair goes to every hearing How much would he get If he got $50 I don't know I'm dead serious If he got $50 a meeting So he would get $500 and $650 a month $50 times 13 Times 12 Is $7,800 Pay him $50 What's changed Betsy Can I ask a question about this Column here The blue and green So The yellows say That it's a per DM higher than The $50 The green says That it's not It doesn't address it Or it just doesn't say The color coding is carried over From auto trials' previous spreadsheet That was him saying It's not perfect The blue says It gets the per DM According to the state It would be $50 The blue equals Per DM not authorized Not authorized So I think he shall To receive per DM Blue equals per DM not authorized So I think if it's white with an X in it It means that they're entitled to per DM And I'm assuming it's at the Standard 50 That's right Because if it's yellow it means higher Okay because I want to And the pool board members Aside of the chair They get $100 per DM One other complexity I might have before You know you could say You could say that per DM Will go up By the cost of living How great the state grows Or something of its nature Each year And that would allow additional money But based on something tangible So yeah, $50 is not very much We should change that We'd like to give more Unless the state Unless the GDP grows 2% you don't get that So that would allow some growth I'm just putting it out You don't like that idea? No, it's not that I don't like it I just I just Think In the budget situation We're in and we're likely to be in For the next several years Automatic escalators are You don't like them Alright, thank you I could see The legislature Doing a Notwithstanding Every year for the increases You know So I last year Worked with some house members To see if we could So you know how the state State employees I mean exempt employees get the Whatever is the contracted Increases, right? So it's a step Plus Constant living, it's a combination of that We don't get that We only get the Constant living We don't get the escalator And so I thought Let's give us that To it isn't very much money And I almost got eaten by My colleagues Because you were suggesting that In a very tight year It was an election year It wasn't an election year That I suggested It was this year I mean it was last year It was after the election But It didn't make any difference if it was a tight year Or not You know You're self-aggrandizing So anyway There are challenges There are a lot of things that go up every year It's the challenge that the administration The governor faces with this budget And has for the last 10 years Is things go up State salaries go up Cost of electricity goes up Cost of all kinds of things Goes up and yet Essentially our funding Remains flat where we have some sort of Minimal Growth cap And it's very difficult To you know You've got this much money So much of it is for fixed costs So much of it is for Discretionary items So where does it come from When you keep having those Non-discretionary cost Growth pressures keep going Where are you taking it from You know Where does it come in from I would suggest we have a state veterinarian With us right now Hi That we maybe Switch our gears a little bit And talk about the Horse racing commission So why don't the two of you Walk us through this We did think that maybe the Solution to the law The racing commission Was to actually Appoint only one member to it As the members apparently get boxed Seats at Saratoga And we thought we'd appoint you Oh my goodness I do enjoy Saratoga But I don't know That might be viewed as That prohibition on Accepting gifts of more than One dollar The rule is So would you like to Walk us through I'd like to thank you for This draft and to Diane Bothbell from the agency of AG They both of them have been looking at This draft language and let's just Get right to the racing commission Provision that started on page 16 Of your bill draft And so we had discussed this before But just to recap so we've got This racing commission There is not any horse Race betting occurring in the state There hasn't been for a long time But we still have this racing commission Whose real it's really only purpose Is to regulate horse race betting So you discussed that since This is not happening anymore The commission is essentially Not necessary you suggested To repeal the commission And to do two things First maintain This current racing chapter Is prohibition on dog race Betting because that was in that Chapter you wanted to keep that And you wanted To just retain any Necessary provisions That any provisions that need To regulate any other type of horse Racing so After taking a look at this chapter It seems like the whole racing Commission chapter is not necessary So the whole thing would be repealed That takes you through pages and pages Of text You just cut and paste The current dog racing Betting prohibition But one thing I also failed to mention Is that you decided that since You'd be repealing the racing commission You would also Prohibit horse race Betting so it's not happening And then if the legislature wanted to Regulate horse race betting at a Later time they could choose to do so And how so it seemed To make sense to have those two provisions The prohibition on dog race betting And horse race betting moved over To title 13 Which is our title Vermont Statutes annotated on crime So you can start to find those T13 provisions on page 33 Of the draft There is a chapter On betting And within that chapter A sub-chapter on animals And how they're used in that betting And so these would be the sections that would be amended On page 33 These are just some technical cleanup Changes Page 33 Line number 3 I am, nope, I got it right here On line 3 It says accept is provided under 31 BSA chapter 13 A person shall not do X, Y, Z In regard to betting That reference to 31 BSA chapter 13 Was the racing commission chapter So you just delete reference there And then another cleanup on line 7 And 8 to the definition of nonprofit Organizations The main changes get over to Page 34 Which are Section 11 starting on line 14 Is in regard to crimes In the use of animals In racing or betting So here on page 34 Line 17 and 18 Would just be the prohibition On dog and horse race betting A person shall not hold, conduct, operate Or simulcast a perinatural dog race Or perinatural horse race Or public exhibition That's just taking the language verbatim From the racing commission chapter And adding horse race betting to it But then I was talking with the state Veterinarian about what else is Necessary in this section To maintain about Horse races But just there's no betting there But what horse races are happening In the state And do they need any of these provisions Like doping Or using electric shock For the animal Or using the name of the animal that matches A jockey association Name that's registered with the jockey association And I'll turn it over to our state Veterinarian but as I understand it There's not much There's maybe one horse race that's going On in the state and otherwise We have horse pools And none of them are using Really any of these criminal Penalties Let's pick it up from there Yes, so the Entity or organization Or framework under which the remaining One horse race is happening In Vermont and just to be clear Because some of the statutory language Makes a distinction between Trotters, trotting races And thoroughbred races And they're nationally and In states that have those industries At the state level those are Regulated by two separate Frameworks so in Vermont The one remaining race That is or racing entity That is left is a trotting race And so that's the Standard breads that pull the The sulkeys That is taking place at the Tunbridge fair And it always has I was of the When we first started communicating I was of the misunderstanding That race at Tunbridge Was no longer happening But I was incorrect and I'm glad I see you have my email up there So you at least got it in the Not enough time to communicate to them So that race is still happening And Right now There is no That fair Or the horse racing superintendent At Tunbridge is not exercising His or her authority To get into the Realm of testing those horses Drug testing those horses Some of the horse pull competitions At various fairs and ag events Those animals are Subjective to testing again It's at the discretion of the entity That's overseeing the event as to whether They want to test There is A some consistency With regard to that decision making That is handled within the Vermont fairs and field days association So they as an entity have decided We want these horses tested Because we want to have a level playing field We want the events to have integrity And the statin the other So they are testing those horses The The event at Tunbridge Does not involve any drug testing Of those Horses that are racing there And hasn't involved bedding Before my time So there is no bedding And that was The conversation that we had gotten Into about the fact that if If The legislature or if Somebody with similar authority Decides that there should be A horse racing industry in Vermont again that is supported And expanded upon Whatever language Exists in statute now Would likely have to be updated To reflect the evolving National regulatory oversight Structure And therefore I at least could see little value In maintaining stagnant Language that would just have to be Updated anyway Should that Initiative be undertaken In the future With regard to the question about Whether any of the provisions That pertain to Or could be linked to Animal cruelty concerns Whether those should be retained The other language that I think Is pertinent to that discussion Already exists in title 13 And I'm not sure if it is Strong enough or acceptable But there is Reference made to The fact that nobody can I don't know where the term poison comes from Is that defined anywhere? I couldn't find a definition for that But basically it says That cruelty to animals Is defined by a person who commits the crime Of cruelty to animals Is a person who overworks, overloads Tortures, torments, abandons Administers poison to Cruely harms or mutilates an animal Or exposes a poison with intent That it be taken by the animal Which to me seems Very broad The kitchen sink into that If someone so chose to Pursue it in that regard So while that language That already exists is not as Specific and prescriptive to Horse racing or even to horses It covers a lot So that would be The decision that someone would need To make as to whether that is Sufficient enough in title 13 Already such that you don't Have to relocate Former racing commission language Into that animal cruelty Statute We were remissed You have to say what your name was For the records Kristen Haas Agency of Agriculture And director And that was her talking the whole time There will undoubtedly Be Bills To strengthen the animal cruelty There always are Every single year But I think the bunny case Was actually Covered by the language That you read was it not The bunny case Bunny, it was a horse Somewhere here In Montpelier or someplace here That was Got shot It wasn't very sick It was very Very city Not very town, very city Let it be known Anyway, there will be But I think that we Are going to deal with strengthening The animal cruelty loss But I think that's good to hear That you think that covers We don't need to put any of that language in I mean I don't think But for full disclosure I am not an attorney And I'm going to talk with our Attorney of the Handle Animal Cruelty But this does seem to cover For example the current T313 provisions saying That a person is prohibited from using any sort of Electrical device or equipment To try to manipulate a horse When racing Brad, thank you What you're saying, Chris, I think you're saying We don't need to do anything about the Tumbridge situation either in terms of the testing No That's what I thought you were saying The agency of agriculture Used to oversee and micromanage The drug testing of the horse Pull horses and our Involvement made it Actually, it didn't add anything Positive to the mix and it made it Way more cumbersome and complicated Thank you So I'm finding stuff to go Good, excellent Perfect The other provisions that don't seem Necessary both in the racing Chapter getting rid of it So other competitive things Barrel racing at fairs and any of that Kind of stuff is that not Considered racing It would be considered a competitive event But it's not so the things That are happening in that realm would be The fairs often have Concurrent like Champlain Valley Expo Does this, they have the Champlain Valley Expo Or show and that is run And managed by other people But it runs concurrently With the fair so there are Those events happening But there's no betting But there's no betting and there's No animal cruelty Would apply just as They would with a backyard Pony or bunny And we're essentially Regulated by the terms of Whatever private organization is putting it So, exactly I just think we're missing Big opportunity for Money making in the steel I would pay to see goats race Or bunny rabbits Or, well I'd bet on I mean it could be Well there is the pig racing There is the pig racing They get the pig racing Down there That's a big deal I would all do is I want a pig racing against the D See how fast they can go I'm joking Yeah, no I know The law just thinking about What cross the kitchen floor Well you can probably bet on them But it is a pair of mutual betting Right My guess is that there are probably People who bet Oh you bet there are But it's not a pair of mutual Yeah it's not odds And all that stuff Back in the old days Lobsters were junk In Maine the prisoners rioted Because it's already fed them Wow How kind of strange Any more questions for this one? No thank you Thank you Coming over but also for working with That's it It was a weird conversation via email Right But It was an interesting process I had never actually Looked at detail in the Horse Racing Commission Statute so it was an Interesting educational process for Me too Thank you Okay That's the draft And then make your decisions on The boards and commissions you reviewed today If you just want to turn to the front I can just review with you what are the New provisions Just the first page I can go through what you've already Decided or do you just want me to go To what you have decided at your last Meeting We'll start from the beginning Of this draft 3.1 Which is the 39 page Draft is our page one So you've got that Repeal of the 2012 Group and that's because It was just a one-time report And it's no longer operating I just didn't have it's own sunset You In section 2 This relates to the counter It's just a one-time report It this relates to the council Of independent schools so at your last Meeting you have voted to repeal The council and now are you Reconsidering that are we Unrepealing our recommendations To repeal Or are we repealing our recommendations To repeal Or do you want to Hold on this until we hear from John Cooper Carol No He's not going to weigh in on this one I would move that the Sunsets are repeal That we repeal our recommendations And I still think they're Overlapping and redundant I think they are overlapping and redundant But I do see the difference in the One Although it's hard for them to keep Them straight one really is An advice to the Agency and the secretary The other is An advocacy lobbyist group Lobby legislators That's the way I see this For the Council of independent schools To have 11 members Half of which are vacant They only have 5 people now And the last time Everybody went and got him Why did they need 11 members Maybe they should only have 11 members It seems that the need For it Maybe we should ask the Secretary of Education Why we have to have 11 members Half of whom are vacant If this actually has a purpose Could the purpose be served By having fewer members Mark's testimony was not that helpful First of all It was helpful in some ways A lot of the times he was testifying The point to this board or that board And I couldn't really understand The connection to this council I also think he's been in this position For 6 years now Which according to statute means He should be off now It seems like It seems like the secretary Of education should be able to identify The experts in independent schools To serve on these different Sort of advisory boards And commissions I agree And I think that We may have to look at Education rules For When there are Independent schools under review By the agency of education because They lose their nonprofit status Or they're losing their accreditation There may be information In those rules That may refer to getting Somebody from this council But could be changed to The secretary appointing An appropriate person From an independent school We wouldn't want One person to Well each case you couldn't Pick someone You wouldn't have to appoint Only one person forever No no no I know You only want one person to Actually sit on reviewing Or however many The secretary can Depends if you said that really Caught my ear was that And I hadn't thought about it but A lot of these independent schools Have to do with special needs For students And Having been on a school board Thinking back They have some very very challenging Kids And Was it at 173 173 Because I think I heard the same thing That I'm pretty clear that one is Policy Advisory and the other is Advocacy Lobby To me they are quite different But I'm Going John's side on this one That testimony wasn't Compelling to me And it didn't seem to meander In certain ways and then When he was confronted on certain things He switched He changed his opinion But it looks like we're going to Break down on this one Maybe we're going to end up in the middle And I wonder if it's just better To leave this as it is Our first impression was This commission should be Repeated And then as the bill is introduced The pitch I don't think it's The most important one We've ever encountered And what happens is when it's introduced The repeal will be on the table And We can have a discussion about it I mean this is not the state board Of education in my opinion Wasn't That's the one that had Advocacy We can take the advocacy out of It's in their mission statement Isn't in the legislation It's in their mission statement And we can recommend We can reach in there To their mission statement We can recommend that they Change that That seemed to cause a little discomfort For some initially Anyway We went that path The secretary Points nine members Of the independent schools And I can see that Just given the different kinds Of independent schools there are If you only had a few So you have one You have schools that Go with autistic children I can't remember What didn't he say Community high school Is one of the independent schools Of the specific Population I don't have any problem Having the nine Telling them that The secretary ought to Point five more people But I'm okay with this council now That I Think it's hard for them To separate themselves Sometimes probably But I do see The different The different roles here Is An employee of an independent school So that would Take care of that problem Of still having representation Of independent schools on that review team But that's Separate It's sort of a separate function That one individual on that council Serves right now I just didn't And yet That was one of the things that he Pointed out as the most important reason To have this so that You could be on these Review committees Of independent schools that are in In six years He identified two I think we're split three I think we should This is like when you take a test And you answer a question And you go back and you say Never go back because if you go back You'll change the answer To the wrong answer So for me, I think we did the right thing And If we leave it as is When the bill is introduced They'll have a chance to come in And pitch again I think this is a minor one I mean I don't mean to It's not minor And then if they Really want to advocate for it And want to give more examples Than the two that they gave Than fine and dandy But I don't think we're going to I think spending a ton of time On this particular one I think we're We're sort of locked here We're not going to get a unanimous vote On this one And I like it when we Are comfortable with unanimous votes So I would say that I would leave it as it is And you know if we've made a mistake It will be You mean leave it as it is By repealing or leave it as it is Without the repeal Because as it is Leave the repeal Leave the repeal for the legislature to deal with Right leave the repeal Recommendation for the legislature And you know we I mean we can say it's a split vote I mean if they want to hear testimony From if the education committee Want to hear testimony from us We can have a separate testimony Right you know but Yeah I think I understand your point And I do You know I just don't know that And maybe he didn't Take this seriously enough But I just don't think he made A case For why this Council needs to exist It is One of the drawbacks Of phone testimony because He had the disadvantage Of not being able to see our body language Where we wanted to start asking questions And he kept talking So we might have gotten more out Of him had he been here I think so I just I look at it as Where are they being able to weigh in on the process And You know I think it could be It's a little bit of a larger philosophical question As well as far as You know there's been a fair amount Of debates about private schools And their roles And things like that And It'd be nice to have to know how often They weigh in or do how That happens I mean You've got someone from The independent schools on The education board right State Board of Education You do If the governor appoints somebody I mean there isn't it doesn't say That there is I was compelled When he said that when they have Although they have only five active members They have 30 to 40 people at their meetings Who all Weigh in on whatever the issue is And to give the advice To the An issue recently where What does it work like If you're a high school junior or senior You can get college credits Dual enrollment But the dual enrollment doesn't apply To Independent schools And Am I making it up or didn't they kind of Weigh in on that issue Somewhat I don't know what they Seems to me they were part of that discussion One of the groups said I don't know Whether it was the council or visa Yeah I don't know whether Brian could Well if it was in here in this building Then it was probably Yeah that's what I meant If it was in this building while we were in session Then it was probably the association Because that's what I don't know that Do we know who represents Who's in here representing the association Well it says they have an executive director He said that Right but is it I don't know who it is So it's an official organization That that's what they're here for As opposed to just some hired lobbyists That Oh you mean the visa Yeah I don't know who their executive director is So another way To tackle this one is Is to say At some point we're going to vote on the final bill And we might say If we vote on the final bill It was 6-0 0 I guess I might say that An official Record is that there was one That The commission was split on That we're really unsure about And we left it as is No but we're not leaving it as is Okay We are Making the recommendation to repeal We're not leaving it as is We're leaving it as is in Betsy's draft That we could then The differentiation would be there Everybody could have an opportunity to vote Yes I want it to stay No I don't know whatever And then we'd vote on the final bill Just like we do on any other Just like people do on the legislature all the time I like that amendment But I'm going to vote against the bill Well I mean if you Technically if you put it to a vote Right now Let's just say it's 3-3 It is So an answer to your question Mill Moore Is the executive director Mill Moore He's in the building quite a bit So he represents Visa, right And then the executive committee for them Is Michael Livingston is the president He's from the Sharon Academy Tamara Mount She's the treasurer from Piltop Montessori And our grandeur Is Kindle Farm School Lisa Lorenz, Rice Memorial Tom Lovett St. John'sbury Academy Mark Tatchin Byrne Burton Liz Shane The schoolhouse And JC Spurrito Rock Point School That's their executive committee That's their executive committee And Mill Moore Mill Moore Is Mill Mill Moore He's the executive director Mill Moore Mill Moore His actual name is Mill and Moore Mill Moore That's not any better He's from Ireland God That can help us His first name was Mill Moore How are we getting through Mill Moore See how Mr. Moore does Mill Moore Alright stop I know So Mill Moore Is Moore and Thompson paper mill Complex Oh come on he runs a mill Oh stop Mill Moore This is all being taken I know I think You're the governor's appointee I think it's incumbent upon The two co-chairs To move this issue Alright let's take a vote I have proposed Well I have proposed that we Review the appeal That we leave the council As it currently exists In statute Can we have a second here I don't think You need a second and a committee vote Right so are you asking For a vote I I Opposed Now Administrative rules If there's a tie The vote fails Right So the repeal stays repealed Okay I think it should be acknowledged Leader Ryan at some point It will In that way people can So in this draft Because the repeal is staying in Going on to what you said On page 3 lines 4 and 5 Did you want to maintain That ability for that financial Review team to include An employee of independent schools I think that would be a good idea Appointed by the secretary Here it says the state board May establish a review team So this is about the state board's review Of independent schools do you want to say So allow For now we can allow You would allow the state board To appoint an employee Of an independent school There's one state board still You might have to revisit that I'll make that change Page 4 Section 3 That's the state advisory panel On special education That came from two meetings ago I believe that Ted Fischer Advised that this panel Currently doesn't match federal law And so there had been a senate bill That would have updated this statute To better reflect federal law And make it more flexible So I had just taken that same bill It was H521 As-pass senate And I just included it here I gave Ted a heads up that this language was in here So he knows it best H521 Yes, H521 as-pass senate So it had to pass the house Right, it's an H Correct, when it went over to the senate It got sent back over with this change Of this special ed piano Fixed I think it didn't On the wall of house ed So that language is in there That takes you to Page 8 This is a new provision in Section 5 The repeal of the Board of Mental Health So the mental health board It's just Inactive, it's not performing the duties That are set forth in statute So this language would repeal the whole Entire Board chapter And the testimony From the department Was that there are these designated agencies Of functions and that there could be A reference to The designated agency oversight That DMH and Dale provide And so this language at the bottom of page 12 Came from the general Council of DMH Where this language at the bottom of page 12 Would say that DMH and Dale Have to adhere to these rules About agency designation And ensure that the standing Program standing committees that are described Regularly meet and fulfill their duties About basically Regulating the designated agencies And then similarly On page 13 starting on line for DMH is also Responsible for establishing designation Standards for designated Hospital oversight And so this was their proposal for that language To address the issues that are currently In the Board rule Or statute I ask whether these designation standards Are set forth in rule And the response was no that they're not They need more flexibility, they don't want them in rule So just to give you a heads up that It's not established by rule designation standards But they just want to have more flexibility In how they establish those standards And then section 7 On page 13 Is just a cross reference This is in a chapter On people involving people With developmental disabilities And it's just another reference to Dale Providing oversight of designated agencies As described in that New section 7260 at the bottom of page 12 When it uses the term department That means Dale Department is defined in chapter 204a As Dale, so just to be consistent That's the department that's referring to So those three new sections are meant to Essentially Provide in statutory language What's now happening with What used to be provided By the Board of Mental Health Fulfilling those rules So that language came from My work with DNH All right there Page 13 Based on testimony from DOC They suggested and you agreed to the Repeal of the Offender Work Programs Board No other revisions are necessary Just repealing that board as unnecessary Not accurate So just showing all the language In case anybody wants to know What is happening with that This functions work See how far along does that go Page 15 I think Thank you We already reviewed The repeal of the racing commission That starts on page 16 That's all that language That takes you Over to those T-13 provisions We just reviewed the state veterinarian So that takes you all the way To page 37 And the final issue Is this restorative justice working group This is a post to address issue That the reparative boards And statutes involving restorative justice Just haven't kept up with current practice And so you had suggested Establishing a working group of people To review the current law And how restorative justice Is working in practice In order to recommend legislation To the general assembly to update the law And bring it into conformance With current practice So draft 3.1 contains the first Version of that working group language And then I was able to have further Conversation with DOC They made a couple more recommendations And so those are set forth In this draft 3.2 None of the other provisions Of the draft have changed I just didn't want to print out This whole bill again So you're only seeing the 3.2 It provides this working group This place is page 37 Correct The only two changes were to add A few more members, proposed members Of the working group, I know you like this And also an appropriation But let's walk through this So on this draft 3.2 in this section 14 There would be created The restorative justice working group Overall to recommend Legislation that would conform The law to the current structure Of community and restorative justice And then DOC recommended The different stakeholders That they thought should be represented On this working group So here's who they would be Commissioner of corrections or designee Commissioner of DCF or designee Court administrator or designee Chief administrative judge or designee The executive director Of the Vermont association of court Or designee AG, defender general Executive director of the department Of state's attorneys and sheriffs There's a balanced and restorative justice Program and there are Service providers that get Appointed by DCF So there would be someone there Appointed by the commissioner Of DCF from that program Also the executive director Of the Vermont network against Domestic and sexual violence or designee President of Vermont association Chiefs of police or designee And then three individuals Representing community justice centers Appointed by the governor as follows There are three different types That DOC recommended be represented On this working group A town manager or chief of police Representing a municipal host site A board of directors chair Representing a non-profit host site And an individual representing a DOC and AG joint funded So it grew from 12 to 15 people Yes I I hate to show my Biases here But I would add If we're going to have The chiefs of police I would add Representing the sheriffs association Because the Department of state's attorneys And sheriffs does not represent the Sheriffs they only The only thing they have to do with The funding flows through them But they're a Major player I think the only The only place they have the chief of police Is a town manager Line 11 Oh right, okay So I was just going to say Like Montpelier we're Line 15 We're a town that does our own We have our own restorative justice center And Yeah So I'm sorry I missed 11 I think he said there are like 13 of them That have there under 27 or 42 or something Would you want to substitute A representative of the sheriffs association For the current representation from By the chiefs of police association No I would just add I just I know that More rural areas Than the chiefs of police So those were the Recommended members I have that In there to add the sheriffs And page 39 just Generally discusses their powers and duties Is really one Conduct a comprehensive review Of the current structure Of community and restorative justice For youth and adults In criminal justice context And determine what provisions of law Including provisions that are set forth In titles 13, 24, 28, and 33 Need to be amended In order to bring the law online Of that current structure Does that capture what you wanted this working group to do I think so So can I ask a question on Line 15 A page 38 Yeah if we had We're saying that it has to be a town manager Or a chief of police But what if the town In Montpelier or Browber They wanted to have the person Who actually runs Their restorative justice Center be the representative There I think that it should say or designee Or just a designee From a town that Has their own A municipal host A municipal host I don't think it needs to be the Town manager Because they might The person that runs our Speaking of names The person that runs our community Justice center is Mel Montel Right So a representative Representative of A municipal host site That makes sense Got it And I also And not sure that I would say a board of directors chair Because it might be It might be a member Okay somebody who Somebody members In a nonprofit host site Right nonprofit host site And same thing with CRA An individual Just a representative for each Of the three types Yeah sounds good Rather than us telling What they're going to do And I'm sure judiciary will Change all of this anyway Okay Sounds good to do that On page 39 on line 7 Because this seems to be a DoC focused Working group The working group under this draft would have The administrative technical and legal Assistance of DoC There'd be a report I have the report date of January 1, 2021 Reporting to The judiciary committees The SAC With their findings and recommendations for legislative Action and the report may be In the form of recommended legislation Do you agree that those are the appropriate recipients? Do you want to see that Report The commissioner of corrections Or designee would call the first meeting Which would I just put in there need to happen By September 1 And they would select a chair Do you agree with those provisions Majority is a quorum That's standard I have ceased to exist on July 1, 2021 In case General assembly just had some follow-up questions They would still be an official entity Even after the report was submitted But they would sunset at the end On July 1, 2021 They would Be able to get Perneums and reimbursement of expenses As permitted under 32 BSA 1010 For not more than five meetings It seems to be standard the legislature Have been capping the number of meetings to five And then just Once a month And then As permitted under 32 BSA 1010 Remind that just means that If you're getting paid to be there by somebody else You don't get the per diem Anybody can get their reimbursement of expenses And that these monies would be appropriated From DOC And then DOC requested on page 40 Start in line for an appropriation To fund these Duties And so I said I would put in That recommendation with an amount TBD Normally when bills are introduced If you're not ready to recommend a specific amount now We've normally put in a dollar And then the legislature could Figure out whatever amount one I recommend taking that out Entirely? Because they don't want Another unfunded mandate But that's If they want to put this Into their 2021 budget Then they can do that They can request that From the governor And this is for their administrative time All of these people None of them My guess is that probably none of these people are going to Have a per diem They'll just have mileage Whatever That would be mine That would be dinner And let them If this passes Then they can put in a request For an increase in their 21-22 budget In the normal budget process Or if it passes And they come to the judiciary Committees they can put it in here They can But that house Approach is going to have to deal with it anyway So I would say I'll be willing to Put this into their budget Request not have Us putting it in for them They can ask the governor themselves I agree with you I just want to make sure I put on the record Is that the feedback was In relation to the costs incurred by the DOC Quote In order for us to comply With the language as written DOC will need a specific FY21 appropriation Consistent with the anticipated cost Providing the administrative, technical, and legal Assistance that will be required of us And they can testify to that fact That I may testify on the bill So am I hearing you want To strike the appropriation? Yes We agree they need the money to strike the bill No, and I could not go back to the fifth floor Having a loud list So those are the changes Up to And through the last meeting And so the last thing I think is just to go through If you want to go through today And review the ones that you reviewed today The first one was state board Of education And my notes indicate it's to be determined You're going to take the chair's testimony And make a decision, is that accurate? Yes You've already made your vote On the council of independent schools Right Then we go into the diva boards And I have Let's see I don't think you recommend it If there was any discussion about repealing Any of the diva boards, is that accurate? That is And then for the DCF boards There are at least two that I understood Should be eliminated Well, wait Blueprint Oh pardon, yes, the merger Merger, sorry And how do we do that? Just Well, don't we just recommend To the I don't know whether blueprints is under Human services or House health care, whatever But we recommend that They Merge these Two separate pieces of legislation Do we, should we put That in? Or should In this case, going through Would sort of be like the state board Because there are so many specific Doodies That it probably would be better For The legislative committee to So our recommendation would just be To not repeal or maintain But to merge Since, I mean, functionally They've already done it So we may as well have the statute Left, although she did say Provide They'll consider whether to Recommend statutory changes for your draft So if you wanted me to, I could Reach out to them to ask Whether they have recommendations on how To merge the two That's probably a good idea We recommend that they come up with Recommendations Which we can then recommend Yeah My old millstone Mill, mill, millstone Millmore, millmore That was it Okay, so yes That's correct on the rest of the Deva The rest of Deva, right And for DCF There's that committee to study Effectiveness of juvenile justice That's a one-time report And the testimony was they can be eliminated Right You want to repeal that one? And then there was also The Commission on Juvenile Justice Which the testimony indicated It's been inactive But it still does exist in statute Okay, so, yeah Although they seem to think that it went away In 2009, right? The statute doesn't indicate that Okay, so it would be interesting To find out why they Maybe there was a bill that it never got passed It's interesting because That statute has been amended since Okay Yeah, it was I don't know, it doesn't show Online, it doesn't show what the amendments are But it was amended in Maybe it's another boo-boo bet you in 2014 And 2015 and 2016 Okay So it depends on what those acts were That could have been technical amendments Like respectful language Or could have actually been substantive Did you read this? I did, I found a whole paragraph Left out of the Statutes Really? That's terrifying what happened Wow, what was it? It was, I knew that we had language That talked about That we're supposed to do our best To put performance measures in grants And contracts, and I could not Find it, and so I E-mailed Betsy Ann and she goes Out there and I'm like, damn it But I've been doing this long enough So I went back and back and back through all my records And I found a reference to it And so then I looked it up Betsy Ann, what happened to D? D is no longer there Whoa, so we said Lexis, why didn't the statute go Because that's our publisher And they accidentally dropped it So that's scary Because if it hadn't Been me, not that I'm that smart But I've been in this long enough If it had been the next person They wouldn't have done It would have disappeared It would have just disappeared They need some better Proofreader Lexis So, did you want to repeal The Commission on Juvenile Justice? Well, I think that we should Yeah, but this is the one Well, this is The Woodside one, and so I guess my question is, does it Not do anything because They think it got repealed? You know, I don't know But probably does But you're, I mean So we know that the commissioners Are just handling planning For what to do after Woodside And blah blah blah So that may have been part of the reason Why it was supposed to be Repealed But actually would like some more Oversight over the planning For Woodside So I guess the first question is Sure What happened on, supposedly On July 1st, 2009, that Didn't happen You know, was there a bill Or not, or You know, who knows, you know how those things go And then somebody meant to put that Phrase in some bill at the Finance Committee and never come in But everybody thinks it's Yeah, yeah, yeah I don't know, but if this is The one that's supposed to oversee And do planning for Woodside We shouldn't repeal it Yeah, but if they think it's been repealed If they think it's been repealed It seems to me there must have been a bill And there must have been reasons for that bill Maybe this is Since it still exists on the statutes It's there Maybe this is a place where we Actually do write a letter To the Judiciary Committees And Justice Oversight And say, what happened here And why Do they think it's repealed And why aren't they using it And should they be using it And you should look at this more closely Do you know what might have happened So there was a 2009 act That did amend this commission Statute It was a repeal Of a report requirement Which is probably G Do you know that that happened exactly The same thing happened when we The legislature repealed The public Records report And we had some departments That thought that We repealed the requirement to record The public record Yeah Oh, thank you That's good Got it So the repeal was not It was just for a report But we should definitely Alert the two judiciary And DCF And DOC about that Yep Wow The statute will have to be modified Because one of the members of the judiciary Is the juvenile justice director To appeal I think Juvenile justice Where are we going now Unless that's a different position That we should study if I can I don't know I take that back I wonder if that's somebody Oh, this is the commission to study The effectiveness of it That was a one time That was a one time report That was just a report The justice director is within DCF That would make sense Wouldn't it? Yeah Yeah, I think this deserves some You know Some investigation for sure And if that's If the report got repealed But the commission Didn't necessarily get repealed And then subsequent Amendments I haven't looked up What the 2015-2016 Amendments were yet Why would it be a mending thing Years later So clearly the legislature Didn't think that it was repealed Because they were continuing to amend it But the departments Thought that it had been Wasn't somebody monitoring the bill Those are amending it Who found first So the 2015 act that amended it Was the RBA Act And then That was just technical In 2016-97 Thank you, Madam Chair You're joking And then the 2016 act was just the Technical Corrections Bill So I'm inferring that They thought when the report Appealed as an act It was a repeal of the whole board Okay That's almost what happened with the pesticide Thing, wasn't it? So what did you What is your recommendation on this? Not to repeal it Not to repeal, but to Recommend to the Judiciary And DOC, DCF, and the Judiciary Committee That they need to get Their Wires uncrossed about The existence of this Commission, does it exist? Does it not exist? If it does exist And I don't know if we put that In a bill, or if we What do you think? I don't know, I don't know the best way to Do that I think it's informing The Policy committees and DOC That this commission still exists Yeah, okay And put it in the bill Yeah, that's fine Or we could just do something quick And just shoot an email To the DOC, the people that Testified and just say, listen, Looking at this The bill's still there Well, it was DCF that testified Or DCF And I wonder if it was partly Because the commissioner was going to come And then we had to have somebody fill in Okay, so first do you want Just the email to the DCF? Well, it's not on the Governor's list I think they think it was repeal I think they think it was repeal And I think that Because I think this was prepared Probably with The commissioner, the lists So that he And it's on Otto's list So he knew That was just the report that was repealed Wow, that's 10 years So I think we should inform The two judiciary committees, DCF DOC and Justice Yeah Or does it say that It's been AWOL for 10 years And nothing disastrous has happened Oh, one side has happened That's disastrous Yeah, it's not On the Governor's list, so that's Clearly they I'm sure We're informed by I don't need to be rude because I've got a Child Who is texting me And wants his father home Probably for money and some other things No Money in the car If we want to start there with this Vermont Citizens Advisory Board She said we missed it Yeah, not on spreadsheet I have that in my notes I will have to do a statutory search for it I wonder if it's just in federal law And not our state law I'll do a search for it They said to report I've got to be there At least what they said In the handout Do you need anything from me before I depart? Yeah, just running Just running for dinner Don't buy us dinner I'll say it I'll see everybody on the search And remember we're going to a different place Yep Julie will send us Thank you folks, see you later Madam Chair My understanding is the administration's got some interest In somebody coming in And testifying about the Public Utilities Commission Have you Heard or Well that's probably as part of the technology Oh yeah, maybe Is that one? Jason Malucci So we're That will be in that Perfect Alright So are we officially done? Are we? Then we'll adjourn In that letter Just a quick Letter to the Judiciary Committees and DCF Did you want to mention Woodside or I don't know that we need to I think we just need to That's one of the things it does It doesn't say Woodside In particular It says juvenile detention How do I just draft it And I'll bring that letter next time Thank you