 Yes. So, I've asked Betsy and Betsy and you, you did 233, right? Okay, sorry. You did 233. So what the house has passed 233. And so what I like is for Betsy and to go through. They had second reading yesterday and I assume they're doing third reading yesterday. Actually, I think they've had, they've done third already in a past third was yesterday. So what I'd like is Betsy and for you to go through any of the changes that they made for us. And then Brian, if you're ready whenever it appears on our calendar, when it comes over on the floor. Ready to give our report. I would be delighted. Okay. Thanks. And Betsy and did send us. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. On our, on our page now. Actually, I think I don't, I don't think I sent it to the whole committee, but I will do that right now. Okay. Let's see. Make sure you send it to me so I can put it on the. And to Mr. Ferrant. Yes. Oh, while you're doing that. I see Tucker's on the line. Tucker, thank you for answering me so quickly. She's not watching you. He gave the thumbs up. I am watching you. Did you wave it? Well, it's always nice when you email somebody at lunchtime. Before you get your peanut butter and jam sandwich. Desperately about your last committee meeting and he answers already. Very exciting. What I don't like is when I'm thinking of something and I send Betsy Ann or Tucker. A, an email at six o'clock on Sunday morning, because I happened to be doing it then and they answer. That is not okay. Yes. I'm sorry. Last night I was corresponding with people after 11 o'clock and I, so that's just too late. We all should be doing other things by 11pm. Yes. Email it to us or did you put it on our webpage? I emailed it and I included Mike. Since I can't post to your webpage, but you'll have it. You should see it show up. In your email. Okay. I'm going to send it to you. I'm going to send it to you as a reminder. And it seems like my internet's running slow. So if I. End up freezing, you can just let me know. And I'll pause. Okay. But S233 was the uniform licensing. Act that applied to. OPR's professions. Agency of education. Well drillers and electricians and plumbers. I'm going to send it to you as a reminder. I'm going to send it to you as a reminder for those professions. And the house proposed. A strike all, but the amendments were. More clarification. I would. Consider them except for the last part. That we'll get to. So the first change. If you want to look at this. Document that I provided. Sadly haven't gotten it yet. I haven't. No, I haven't. I haven't. I haven't gotten it yet. I haven't gotten it yet. I haven't gotten it yet. You guys, you got it. Well, you're closer. I'm closer to water. Yeah. Waterbury. Which you're bringing it to Woodstock. They're going bevel. I am in the statehouse and have not gotten it. Washington County. Come on. Well, I'll just start to describe it just. amendment in the strike all form. And then you can compare it to S233 as past Senate, I provided hyperlinks. And then I also, at the top of the dock, provided what I put together for House GovOps was, which was an annotated strike all amendment to show exactly what was changing from the Senate version. And I will show a summary of those changes. And that covers all of the House's proposed amendments, except for the new section 23, in regard to electricians and plumbers, and a revision to effective dates. Here, I will start with the changes that were the House proposed to the professional educators section, and to confirm the agency of education had requested some changes to those sections. And I provided also a hyperlink to the agency of education's written testimony requesting these changes. In regard to education. The first issue was in relation to S233's provisions that would require licensure by endorsement for a person who has three years of practice in another US jurisdiction. You recall that part of S233. Yes. And the one clarification that the agency of education wanted for their section was to make it explicit that it's endorsement based on licensed practice in another US jurisdiction. So that a person could become licensed as a professional educator here in Vermont, based on three years of license practice and another US jurisdiction. The rationale being that there may be other states that allow people to practice as professional educators in private schools, for example, that don't require a license to do so. And I'm not sure that it was based on licensed practice. So the first change was just to add that word licensed preceding practice in the section about licensure here in Vermont by endorsement. The first change that the agency of education requested was just correcting the duties of the secretary of education versus the standards board in regard to reviewing licensure and I think it was in perhaps also in regard to the criminal background of the agency of education determination. Just at the follow up testimony was that, as past the Senate, the bill had some duties that were stated that the standards board had to perform. And that the secretary of education had to perform. And their follow up testimony was that actually in a few cases, it just need to be reversed to fit in with their normal statutory structure about who exercises what authority. And then the secretary of education had to question as to who exercises what authority for professional educators, and those are reflected in that annotated strike all. Thank you to Mike I see he's posted this information online. Oh, great. But your email did come through but just this, the summary, correct. But then the summary provides hyperlinks to the docs I'm referencing here. You can learn about hyperlinks. Now you put them in. They're so convenient. Then the third change that the agency of education requested was just making clear that that authority to get licensed by endorsement that s233 provides is in addition to the current law authority for a person to get licensed by reciprocity. There exists in law for people coming from other states wanting to get licensed here there's a system within agency of education where they have, they're able to have reciprocity between states. And so a tweak was made proposed to be made to the bill, just to clarify that now this is adding a new ability to get licensed by endorsement. So it's just more of a clarification. Yes, I'll say. Thank you, that's Ian. So I'm trying to distinguish the difference between licensure by endorsement and reciprocity I don't see the difference I guess. Thank you. Thank you. Same question. I'm going to pull up the house prop. I'm looking at it now and so you can see the current law language in regard to licensure by reciprocity on page 15 of the House proposal of amendment in section nine. This was a section that was added. So it says that in regard to licensure by reciprocity that the standards board has rulemaking authority to establish standards for an applicant who meets licensing standards of another state that has standards substantially similar to Vermont's. They can get licensed here in Vermont provided the other state recognizes by substantially reciprocal regulations or laws licenses issued in this state. I have a couple professions that do this that'll say here in Vermont I think electricians and plumbers have a similar provision. You're coming from state X. Okay, we'll license you because we have a reciprocity agreement with state X it says will license your license folks if you license our license folks if they go to your state X. So it's an agreement between a couple states. So the other state has to agree to license Vermont licensees who go to that state to try to get licensed separately the S233 licensure by endorsement provides that you get you can get licensed here in Vermont, just based on at least three years of practice in another US state, regardless of whether there's such a reciprocity agreement. Thank you. So what are the changes for the education professions. So I'd say they're mostly clarification. And this they came from agency of education directly, exactly directly from AOE AOE submitted that written testimony that I hyperlinked AOE testified and house ed in regard to those requested changes and then again and house gov ops. Ultimately included those requested changes in the strike all. Okay. And if you want to if you want to look. If you want to delve deeper into that annotated strike I hyperlinked to you'll see exactly where all those agency of education changes were made. So that takes us out of professional educators. The other change that the house proposes to this bill is in regard to electricians and plumbers and it specifically involves their criminal backgrounds. Do you remember that S233 had for all of these professions, a pre application determination of a potential license applicants criminal background. And the purpose of that was for someone with a criminal background a criminal conviction in their history to say to do a pre application to the licensing entity to say, I have XYZ convictions. $25 fee. Will my convictions be a disqualifier for licensure under your regulatory structure. And it was designed through the testimony indicated it was designed so that a person with criminal convictions would be able to do this pre application determination to understand whether their criminal convictions would be a barrier to licensure just the convictions alone. And if the answer is yes, then they would know they wouldn't have to spend the time money and energy pursuing the education or experience requirements that are necessary to get as a qualifier qualification for licensure. So it was like a pre screen as to whether it's worth putting that time money and energy into pursuing licensure. Well follow up testimony from the electricians and plumbers professions, which are under the umbrella of Department of Public Safety, indicated that their statutory framework right now would not say that a criminal conviction would be could be a disqualifier for licensure. For example, a person might have whatever felony convictions in their record, but statute doesn't provide that that could be a basis to deny licensure. And so the testimony from Department of Public Safety was, it doesn't make sense to have those pre application determinations in the electrician and plumbers chapters, because the answer is going to be no it's not a disqualifier every time so it's not worth it for a person to even have that in there, because the answer is going to always be the same your criminal convictions aren't disqualifier for licensure. Well, and changes in those two professions statutory provisions was to remove the pre application determination from the electrician and plumbers chapter. But this also generated discussion in house gov ups as to whether some criminal convictions should potentially be a disqualifier for licensure or a reason to discipline a licensee for unprofessional conduct. And so the house proposed to add a report back, it's in section 23 of the bill as past the Senate, it requires a report back from the electrician and plumbers licensing boards as to whether some criminal convictions could constitute unprofessional conduct and therefore maybe grounds to deny licensure or discipline a licensee for unprofessional conduct. And secondly, whether those boards should be conducting criminal background checks on their license applicants because they're not doing that now. And so that's right. Okay. Allison. You're muted. You're too proud of me. Every time I mute myself, I dedicate that to Brian. Thank you. So I have a lot of problems with this. First of all, why are we only looking at criminal background checks with electricians and plumbers and second, which I kind of always bothered. So the second thing is, we want to reduce barriers for people with, with, with, you know, we want, we don't people have hopefully corrected their behavior they leave corrections, hopefully with new skills and new incentives to get their lives back on track. We want these people to have jobs. Why would we put more barriers in their way? I just, I don't understand this direction. Do you want to answer that? Yes. I will, Madam chair. Thank you for the opportunity. I think you're 180 degrees wrong, Allison. I don't know how else to say it. We're removing because current statute does not require that. So I think that by putting the $25 fee and the attendant investigation in, we were actually increasing it. So they're saying to take that out. But something, perhaps, and I'm only suggesting for manslaughter or second degree murder or something that there be a follow up report that would say, Hey, look, do we really want to, you know, look into this further? Do we just want to let things go? Right now, according to what Betsy and it's just said, any felony would not make any difference about getting a plumber or electrician's license. Right. Right. And I appreciate it on the first I understood the first piece that we actually had added a barrier. I agree. I get that. Well, I guess, I mean, if they don't have it now, have they, is it a problem that needs to be fixed? I mean, are the electricians and plumbers coming to us and saying, we have too many people who are former felons with serious felonies. I mean, that's what the report will be. I would, what I would say is that given the time constraints that we're under, this is only a report that's coming back. And it might be something like if you are, if you're felony as an electric applying to be an electrician and if your felony was that you wired the house wrong in cause it to burn down, if that was your purpose, maybe you shouldn't get an electron electricians license here. Or, but I think that since it's just a, just a study, I, I don't see any harm in it. Who's calling for the study. I mean, are the electricians and plumbers. The house government operations called for the study. I get it, but were the electricians and plumbers supportive of this. Mike Derocious supported the bill. I mean, he didn't not support it. I was not aware that this was already a statute that, that they didn't have to go through a background check. I'm kind of surprised in a way, but that's current law. So that's the way it is. I can tell you some of the conversation in house gov ups was, you know, after there was a after DPS requested the removal of the pre application determination because criminal convictions are not a basis to deny a licensure discipline. The committee did discuss that in other professions. A criminal conviction could constitute unprofessional conduct. For example, for all 50 of OPR's professions, conviction of a crime relating to the practice of the profession or conviction of a felony, or they're not related to the practice of oppression, could constitute unprofessional conduct. The same is true for well drillers because they use OPR is unprofessional conduct statute. And the same is true for professional educators. And I believe that they also some of them have to do background checks also. Right. As far as OPR's professions while they regulate 50 professions. OPR only has authority and statute to conduct criminal background checks on four of them. So there's two separate issues, whether convictions should or could constitute unprofessional conduct and then whether there should be a criminal background check. The conversation was that for some of our plumbers and electricians, they are working, hanging out at their own shingle and might not work for an overall employer who might conduct a background check. And so there could be people who work solo and are going into people's houses, and they potentially could have serious convictions. So this is just a question as to whether there should be more oversight of professionals convictions. So it is it is just a report back though there is no change to the underlying law proposed as past the house. To say the last change was the effective dates because it was a July one 20 effective date and it was changed to April one 2021, except for the report back would take effect on passage but the report back actually doesn't have to come back to the gov ups committees and to the general committees until January 15 of 2021. Thank you madam chair. I'm just curious why they picked may or April 1. Why not upon passage, since it already would have been if July had been the date would already be passing. I think I think probably it was due to some ramp up for example they have to get the pre application determination applications ready. That's probably and and also the foreign credential verification process I think they just needed some time to ramp up for the implementation. Thank you. Any more questions or comments or so we don't actually have this bill yet, but it'll, what will happen is, as with the usual sessions it'll just once it comes over from the house it'll just appear on the senate calendar. And I'd like us to be ready to to accept it or not. So, where are we with this. I'm fine with it. I think they did good work actually and found a couple of things that we weren't aware of them fixed them and I vote that we concur. Okay. Me too. Yep. Okay, Chris. Me three. Allison. Or. So then Brian, whenever it appears on the, on our calendar you'll just be ready for the report. Yeah, I'm just going to say we looked at all I mean if people want details about it. I'll make sure I have Betsy summary, but I'll just say that the Senate government operations committee met went over the changes and I voted to concur with the house. I find it interesting they needed a strike all though, but I think once you start to look at the annotated version you'll see they're just especially with the education changes it was just here they're here they're here they're and, and then striking out the electrician and calm plumbers criminal background language. It just they had requested a strike all that was a request for that. Thank you. Okay, so thank you Betsy and. So we're done with that. And now we had on our agenda. We were going to have a report from Anthony about the transitions group and a report from Allison and Brian about the lessons learned about about that. Right. I've got an Allison don't worry I've got it. And then we have. And then we have the bill that Betsy and and Tucker have sent to us with kind of all the stuff put in there so far. So, let me see where did I see that in Tucker, I guess. Here is lessons learned Brian. Okay, so take it away you two guys have PowerPoint so how are we doing this. I want to clearly understood if you look at the top, and Mike front, and I talked about this already. If you look at the top of the lessons learned group, I don't appear my name is not on there as being a part of that committee, because I remember, I was on the player to be named later when there was a swap between I think it was Senator parent myself. I originally was on Anthony's group, but then I got traded in the off season to the other team. So I never got picked up on it so I technically didn't have any input into it, but I'm glad to report. You're a free agent, I think that I am free. So, if you want, I can start Madam chair. Yes, please. We basically put our report into four different categories, right pluses in terms of what both the Senate did and state government did in terms of responding to the pandemic and we can go over every single one of them. The minuses the things that we struggled with and we probably didn't perform as well as we showed up. Then what changes would we make to make sure that those minuses turn into pluses. And then finally what can we do to be better prepared for the next crisis should that eventually which I'm sure it will regardless of whether it's health related or just a crisis of any kind. So those are the four overall categories that we put our work into when certainly I can go over in more detail each of them if the folks want. I mean you can read it to and just see. And a lot of it was probably the same that each of the groups. I'm going to slip myself and Senator Pearson that formed one group. And if I'm remembering correctly, we each had sort of different government entities like government operations was our valley with and the bills that we passed here and how we, you know, how we did with them so people can read those I think. And it's, it's we organize it in a and in four good sort of silos, but be it's all bullet pointed so it's very accessible and easy to easy to address and we use quite a and gov ops was a good template for a lot of our work there's lots of gov ops stuff in here. Really, I didn't. And good things for us for our bill that we're working on with Tucker about what are the things in future that we should just have at the ready to go into instant emergency operational mode. So what do we do with this report that you had here how well. Good question I think we ought to go through look at some point, which is what should we do to be better prepared for the next crisis which is in some ways what we've asked you've asked Tucker to do in creating a bill for what we might pass in January what we would do in January for the, that we would have in place, what would trigger our moving into and being able to use statutory changes to allow us to meet differently and vote differently and conduct election elections differently I mean we have. I think that's fodder for the for Tucker's bill that he's drafted that fair. So, you know, I was a huge issue huge. Which one broadband. Oh yeah. So just to cruise through this you know what should we do to be better prepared for the X crisis, Mike Brian's just talked about the first one we need better broadband access and high, higher speed internet for more people so they can conduct business with people and life remotely. We need better isolation and testing protocols for long, long term facilities we found that as a big issue with our assisted living and nursing homes. We, we need to be more careful planning for our homeless population our inmates and migrant workers. We need to fill our reserves. We need to conduct a risk assessment of our critical it systems such as the Department of Labor system this is a huge. We have kicked the can down the road on updating AHS is it system and dol and we're we paid the price man big time in UI. Think of the time every one of us would have saved if our UI system had been up and running. Telehealth, you know we need a better telehealth and telephone triage plan. We need an analysis of contingency planning and emergency management systems across the state. We need an improved plan for continuity of government leadership and operation, the protocol in the event of you know with the loss of the governor but also with, you know all the things are that that implies. Yeah, how's it going. Anyway, a lot of good stuff here. You know how are we going to meet. Consider how the general assembly would meet if, if we weren't able to meet in person, if a joint session were required and social distancing was needed or if we had no place to meet better, you know better and more, you know, better portals are needed. I guess my what I have what I'm thinking about this is that a lot of this is stuff that the gen we as a, a Senate and a general assembly need to address this government operations necessarily. There were other areas I'm sorry that there were other areas that were more government operations base like how much more of our, you know, the whole digitizing land records and things is in here somewhere. Which section changes that could be made going forward in that section maybe there are some more gov ops things because I think in that section I think that we had more gov ops things I'm sorry I thought there were more in that final one. I actually didn't see very many things in here that I think related to gov ops, but I may be wrong. My question about that is that are we going to week we can focus on what Tucker and Betsy and put together for us I believe is a the issues about government operations how we the things within our jurisdiction. We can come up with that. On the shelf bill. Yeah, I think we can do that pretty carefully, then some of these other things. I don't. Could fall in for jurisdiction because they are government operations, the operation of the government. So they could. So we might want to look at a kind of a separate bill to address some of these issues I don't know and I don't know other committees are actually looking at these recommendations and coming up with similar kinds of potential bills. I don't know that. I think we in economic development don't sadly are just don't have time to do that but I think it's a great thing to do here. Okay Brian. Thank you manager I was going back to my notes. The group that I belong to in the end, which was Randy Brock and Becca balance group. We were asked to look at judicial information, including emergency services corrections and the court system, agriculture, natural resources transportation and infrastructure, including government operations. So it was a lot more than just the government operations committee. It was all that other stuff. And if I remember correctly, I think you helped me out, Senator white and maybe on Senator Sears with the corrections and court situations, because here's what we're looking at. What have you heard in your committee that we could put in our report. I took the agriculture and we talked about food insecurity and and some of that stuff. Chris Pearson did the natural resources part. Andy first like talked about the transportation issues. So that's how we came up with our part of that larger report. Yeah, it does. And, and Anthony, how was your committee organized and did you do similar kinds of Yeah, was that the transitions group do we does that on our website, but it's here somewhere. It's called transitions challenges I think is what it's called and we did break down into very small subgroups. We looked at four areas, having to do with economic development health care education and government is what we call them. I would say though that similar to what Brian just said, or Allison somebody said that a lot of it does not necessarily relate to government operations committee it's more the broader stuff we talked about things like broadband need for broadband the need for long term solutions versus short term solutions. The need to remove incentives this incentives for bringing people back to work, you know, the idea that unemployment was making people more money than going to work. Basically things that we needed to consider, as we tried to reopen our economy and our society, given the fact that we were mostly shut down. So we talked about the need to support small businesses more. We talked a lot about what we call hazard panel we're calling that at the time but the need for workers to get mental health support that they needed and ways to make people feel comfortable coming back to work. We had a lot of discussion around education system around childcare and K through 12 education which now stuff that we've all talked about all of us amongst ourselves and in the different committees that we're on you know the whole idea about reopening schools. So basically those kinds of conversations. I don't know whether it's anything whether is anything that I'm not honestly sure like what we what we as a committee here learn from that kind of conversation and feel like it's a lot of stuff that we've already churned over amongst ourselves or with our compatriots and other committees. When it came to government operations not government operations with government. You pointed out a few things but most of them are things that we were still working on at the time, since this committee was. So we talked about the note work we did around notaries and the elections, not reforms but the need to change the way we operate elections in order to get through the pandemic and support for local communities local governments who are maybe finding that they were having financial problems as well. I don't think I think that the stuff that we've been talking about coming forward with our own bill. It's more inclusive than what is actually in this transitions committee proposal. So I think we're better off looking at continuing to look at what we've been talking about here are off the shelf bill. I don't think we'll find most of it in the transitions. It was a good conversation we had but at the time it was almost not actually premature but it would seem redundant to what was talked about in committees at the time. Right. It includes a bunch of stuff we were working on like extending dates for municipalities, the budgets and the election stuff and. Yeah. We should just switch then to the what Tucker and Betsy and Tucker has put together, whoever put this together for us. I think there was a joint effort. And we have it it's 16 pages long. We have that on our page now. Where is it. Where is it. I can tell us. I don't have it. But if Tucker can send it to me I can post it to the committee's website. I got it on my email. Is it under Tucker. Yeah, where is it Tucker. Tucker did you email to us. I did email it to you yes. Yesterday at 335. Yes lessons learned draft. I do see it now my apologies Tucker on posting it. I think lessons learned is better than off the shelf. I mean, on the shelf or whatever. Over the counter. Generic. Adam and Eve on a raft record. Okay. That's an over the counter order. So Tucker, do you want to start going through this? Yeah, I will definitely start here. I think the first nine or so pages are all material that I worked on with all of you guys. Mike, is there a way that you can enable screen sharing so that I can put it up for everyone and work through it. Well, if he's posting it, then we can all see it on our closer even. Okay. I mean, I'm looking at it in an email. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So Tucker, you can share it while I'm almost done posting it to the committee's website. Excellent. All right. So should all be on the same document now. What I'll do is bring you back to the last few months as we work through each section and kind of give you an overview of the work that you have done and whether it will be useful moving forward. In case of a similar emergency. Hey, can I interrupt one second here? Just. If I don't know if there are people who are listening who want to come in. I know that Karen Hornhead sent me a note this morning about an. An article that was in governing. It was about making some of the changes that we've done more permanent. And so I don't know if she's there or when is there, or if there's anybody else there that wants to enter into the meeting, but I would say, Mike, if there is, you can let them in and we'll hear their comments if we have time. Okay. I hear you. And we'll do it. Thank you. Okay. Sorry, Tucker. So we'll start in a section one and the next few sections are going to deal with municipal proceedings. As you may recall, there were two bigger issues here. The first was that municipalities were not able to hold in person hearings for a lot of their municipal proceedings. And the second, which was a little more discreet, had to do with inspections that were related to those proceedings. So section one dealt with here, temporary suspensions of those in person hearing requirements. And as you may recall, as we move on, there were specific requirements around the inspection of properties that were subject to appeal for their grand list value. And this had to do with the boards of civil authority in various municipalities having to send a subcommittee out to perform in person inspections of the property. And during the COVID response, the committee and eventually the general assembly as a whole decided to temporarily lift those inspection requirements. And language was added. And the next section of the committee, which is the house. That held some of those. Inspection opportunities will say for the homeowner moving forward where the homeowner could request a more thorough. Inspection without in person contact. And that would be done through electronic means. And that would be done through electronic means. And that would be done through electronic means. Um, look at this. Do we want to walk through the whole thing? And then start going back and looking at what. Uh, suggestions we might make, or do we want to make the suggestions as we go? I'll leave that up to you. I would prefer to do it as we go. Cause if it's 16 pages, I'm probably not going to remember what was on page two. When we did the page 14. Yeah, me too. Um, I, when I'm looking at this. If we're looking at this in terms of preparation for a potential emergency. I think we could just say during a declared state of emergency and leave out under the. Where the citation. Uh, during a declared state of emergency in an a effect and affected municipality is authorized so that you might have an emergency that affects the entire state, but you might have an emergency. That only affects a huge ice storm that only affects the Northeast Kingdom. And they have the ability to, to do something. So if it's an affected community, does that make any sense to anybody? Yeah. Okay. Tucker, does that make sense? Yes, it makes sense. And I forgot to note something upfront, which is that Betsy and I highlighted, uh, each of those kind of COVID specific or timeline, specific clauses for all of you, because those will likely have to be swapped out in the case of a future emergency. Um, so that it can be applied to other types of emergencies, whether local or statewide. So if you put during a declared state of emergency and affected municipality is authorized. Yeah. May I ask you a question, Tucker, because I would hope this would become part of statute, not something we'd have to adopt again, because what you just said, I think that's one of the things that has been talked about. I mean, I think it's important to make sure that you, I know that you're concerned me that you were thinking, I was thinking we would actually pass these as legislation. So it would be there for it to be used immediately. If there was a problem. We could do that. Not waiting for anything. We could do that. Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the things we've learned. We've learned that there. You know, you know, and having place in legislation. Answers to function, you know, how we can function in emergencies more effectively. So we, I think we can, we can. Proceed on that assumption that we'll do it that way. Great. And then we'll talk to the rules committee about it. Okay. So I would say on page two, then the same thing you would just talk about. I think that's one of the things that we've learned. You know, we've learned that during a declared state of emergency. In an affected community, a board of civil authority. Something to keep in mind when we walk through some of these municipal sections as well. Is that these are the issues that were coming up during the time in the municipal calendar. That the state of emergency was declared. And when things were. Rather intense for municipal officials. You know, when the state of emergency arrives, you may have other issues. Similar to what you've dealt with in the spring, but different enough that you may have to. Adjust other municipal issues. They come up, for example, in the fall. Yeah. During the, you know, tax collection season. Yep. I'm sure Karen will help us with that. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. But I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. And I think that's a great question. You know, I'm not sure if you can, but I think that's a great question. And you know, I would encourage it. During a declared state of emergency in an affected community. It probably should say in the state or in an affected community, because if we had a statewide. Another statewide one, we'd want it to kick in statewide. Well, they, the communities would be affected then. Right. So, do you want to make sure that the state is included as well as, as affected communities. You're right. It would be craft, something where the language is going to cover the statewide emergencies, like what you experienced in the spring, but we'll also capture the regionalized or localization of the state. It could be, you know, the state emergency, but you know, you know, you know, the state emergency, the state emergency would be very, very, very difficult to say. Right. Right. It could be either or though is what I'm, but do we not want to say declared state of emergency in the or local issues that Senator White brought up earlier. Yeah. We'll definitely be able to make that work. Yeah. Should I move on to the next set of tax related issues? Actually, I have a question. I might just be missing something, but these first couple of things Tucker talks about quasi judicial proceedings, then they talked about the appeals. Where did just basically select board meetings come under this? Are they, they're not quasi judicial, are they? They're for later on. Are they going to just be in the bill later on? They'll be in the bill later on dealing with. Okay. That's what I thought. I just wanted to ask, okay. To bring us back to a few months ago, which feels like eons and centuries ago. And we can now buy your growth. Yeah. Yeah, we do. When I was barefaced, the issues kind of came up initially with broader meetings. So the first bill that you all worked on covered any municipal meeting that was subject to the open meeting law. And you need that general temporary suspension first. And then what happened is later, some of the municipalities raised the issue of, well, we have these more discrete proceedings that have specific requirements in law. So what you're looking at now is one of the more specific proceedings where the tax statutes require these proceedings and the inspections. And then there were other municipal panels sprinkled throughout the statutes that needed a general lift, let's say, or suspension of their proceeding requirements. So that's what this section does. It gave all of those more discrete municipal bodies the opportunity to temporarily suspend their in-person hearing requirements. And in particular, because it was the time of year where we were rapidly approaching the time when boards of civil authority would be hearing appeals, the BCA was the focus here. Are you okay, Anthony? Yeah, no, I just, I expected to see it first. I just expect to see it in a different order, but I hear what you're saying. Okay. So the next section that we'll look at is going to deal with some of the temporary tax provisions that you adopted. This first section deals with the authority for a municipality to extend the deadlines for property tax collection, to waive penalties or fees, and to adjust municipal tax rates. This section, you're now on. Yeah, section two. So again, this was, we've highlighted the language that's specific to COVID-19, that has a particular timeline. The authority that's being established here is first to extend or establish new times and methods of payment for the collection of municipal property taxes. Second to allow grace periods or a decrease or waiver of any penalty interest or fee imposed on taxpayers for late payment. And I'll pause here and say that this was related to the default statutory penalties and interest that are applied to late tax payments. So this gave the municipalities the opportunity to either waive or decrease that penalty without having to hold an annual meeting. And that was kind of the crux of the issue for all of these is that the towns couldn't meet to have a vote on whether they were gonna delay, waive, or decrease their property taxes during the COVID response. So in this, here maybe what we wanna do is we wanna tie it to the inability to have a town meeting instead of, that it's during some kind of a declared emergency, but it impacts the inability to have to hold a town meeting. Right. That makes it interesting that you can address in conjunction with some of the elections related provisions that you'll work on, because if there is the ability for the voters of a municipality to cast a vote on whether they want the taxes to go up or down, this may not be an issue. The crux of the issue here is that the power that the voters held at this specific time, they couldn't exercise, they couldn't convene. There wasn't necessarily a vehicle or method for them to cast a vote at that time. So it was temporarily delegated to the legislative body to make that decision for the voters. Right. There were some guardrails put in here that may not be necessary in more general language or if you make some other meeting or election changes. The first added an expiration for whatever these decisions are. As you may recall, you limited this to the year, the calendar year 2020. That is because you have varying fiscal years for municipalities throughout the state. So there wasn't a single fiscal year date that the committee could select. So the determination was made that all of these acts would lift on January 1st, 2021. And the last guardrail here in subsection C dealt specifically with the statewide education property tax. You made sure to set that aside as a different issue and to make clear that this dealt with only municipal taxes. In terms of the time, when it ends in the time and stuff, Karen might have some suggestions, Karen or Gwen might have some suggestions about how we word that so that it's clear that they can't, even if there's a declared emergency, if it doesn't impact their ability to have a meeting, then this doesn't go into effect. It has to have, and the timing, I don't know how we deal with that with different, whenever there's an issue that the voters have the ability to determine and there's some kind of an emergency that impacts their ability to meet and to have that vote, then it's temporarily shifted to the legislative body to make that decision. But I don't know how you do the time, if it's a year or during the fiscal year or just any time. Well, on that very issue, section three highlighted in purple here was a very specific tax provision that you adopted to solve a problem for two communities, maybe three communities, Brattleboro being the biggest example, the state of emergency and the stay at home orders fell just before their town meeting. So not only did they have problems with trying to set the tax rate to weigh penalties, they didn't adopt a budget because their annual meeting fell after the date when those meetings were effectively prohibited. So this section was tailored somewhat specifically to those few communities. I put it in here, even though it was somewhat specific, actually Betsy put it in here because she was far more thorough than I was. But I agree with that decision. And the reason is that this might be something that could be crafted more generally and that would state, for example, that again, any municipality that was not able to adopt a budget or a municipal tax rate for the coming fiscal year would be able to do so. If I may, Madam Chair. Oh, you are with us. Oh, good, okay. I am, it took me a few minutes to get organized. And thank you for letting me join the meeting. I'm playing catch up a little bit, but I just did want to mention that this provision actually pertained to a number of villages. You may recall we had that conversation as it was sort of going through the process because those villages had later meeting dates. Okay, do you want to, Tucker? Sure, so section four. Section four dealt with a very peculiar and discreet section of statute in Title 19 that prohibits the movement or mingling of highway funds and general funds in a town. And this statute was adopted when towns were compelled by state law to collect a road tax that is not required anymore. They do not have to collect a specific town road tax but it has persisted all the way up through today to require that when a town dedicates funds specifically to highway expenditures that there can be no co-mingling with the general fund. So this was adopted to allow again, temporarily during the COVID-19 response a town to borrow funds from their highway fund to the general fund or reverse from the general fund to the highway fund for the calendar year 2020. And it would require that those funds be repaid in one year to whatever fund they were borrowed from. May I make a suggestion on this one? I can't see for the life of me why we would care if the towns co-mingled their money at all as long as it's not the state money that they're getting. I would suggest that we just make this permanent not connected to a crisis, an emergency at all. If they wanna co-mingle their highway and their library and their town clerk's feet, I don't understand why we would care. Can somebody tell me why we would care? Because we don't like letting towns do what they wanna do, Janet. Oh, right, I forgot about that. We wanna exert our power as legislators. I do, I forgot. Okay, Tucker? There may be, and this was brought up during the Senate's debate on this issue, there may be one or two communities where they still do collect a road tax. And I think the issue that was raised was there are some villages that have a road tax for village roads that goes into a fund that is administered by the town's highway department. And there was some discussion about whether the village voters would essentially be paying a tax for their road maintenance that would then go to the town's general fund. But that is something that I would assume could get ironed out if you did determine to allow co-mingling or movement of funds. Then those municipalities would be on notice for the coming fiscal year. You could make this entire thing's perspective so that all the towns know that for the next fiscal year, this is an opportunity that's gonna come up. Yeah, that is where I would go. I don't, and those issues with the villages and that can be worked out. I mean, we do things between villages and towns all the time. Am I wrong about that? I seem to remember Senator, one of the senators from Bennington had an issue because there is a village and a town and a city. And I don't remember the particulars, but he seemed to be not 100% in favor of allowing this, but it did go through. Yeah, you're right. It was Senator Sears who had this problem with the villagers within his town. And we ended up explaining to him that they would have to all be approved by the people who had actually voted for that particular money or something along those lines. He ended up going along with it, but there was that issue down in Bennington. I think we can get language in there so that it makes it clear about the relationship between the villages and the towns. I just don't see any need for us to continue to do this and to connect it at all to an emergency. Okay. We would certainly support making that provision permanent and having some language in there that addressed villages but there was also a situation, I think, in Poltny and Poltny Village, so. Yeah. Okay. All right. Can we go on? The next few sections deal with the general open meeting law temporary provisions that you put together. Section five explains the intent of this section. It's still tied to COVID-19, but in general explains that the intent of these sections is to allow public access to meetings while protecting the health and safety of the public. So the temporary provisions that you all put in essentially allowed a public body to meet electronically without designating a physical meeting location and without having a staff or committee member be present at that physical location. So the open meeting law requires that if you are going to hold a meeting through electronic or other means that you designate a physical location where the public can attend and there are public accommodation requirements there and that you have either a member of the public body or a staff member be present at that location with the public. There were obvious issues there and the decision that you all made was to provide the temporary authority for public bodies to hold their electronic meetings without designating a physical meeting location. But you added in some guardrails for the public bodies and how they were conducting these meetings. The first, and this is in the open meeting law as well is that the technology that is used has to allow the attendance of the public through electronic or other means. And in the open meeting law, it also requires that all of the members of the public body can hear the meeting and can be heard. An additional piece that you added in here requires the public body to allow the public to access the meeting by telephone whenever that's feasible. It requires the public body to post information on how the public can access the meetings electronically and to include all of that information in their published agenda, making sure that people know how to actually access the meeting. And then this last piece has a contingency. The legislative body of each municipality and of each school board shall record its meetings that are held electronically pursuant to this section. And that opening clause says, unless unusual circumstances make it impossible for that public body to do so. So unless it is impossible to record the meetings, and the legislative bodies of each municipality and each school board shall record their meetings. So could we do the same thing here that we did it instead of tying it to that particular one habit? If it's in an affected community, affected community, for example, if there was an ice storm so that nobody could travel, could they actually have their meetings? It doesn't have to be during this emergency. Is it, can we do the same thing here? Yes, as we did at the beginning, I think that would be great. Karen, I don't know if you were with us at the beginning, but we thought that we would, instead of tying it to this particular emergency, just say that in the event of a declared state of emergency in an affected community, they could have these provisions. And we're talking about making this a permanent bill, not an off the shelf, just to pull when we need it, but to put it into statute. I was listening at that point. So I did hear that. I think that would be very helpful. Just on this particular section, it's been interesting that in the, as the summer came along and our cases sort of declined, a number of towns went back to trying to meet in person or a combination person, in person and electronically. And a number of select boards have been meeting outside. So, but I do think that's going to change again come the fall. I'm going. Sure. The last little piece in this section provided some temporary authority for the extension of time limits on the posting of minutes in the event of a staffing shortage. And you put a cap on that to not more than 10 days from the date of the meeting. Currently that is five days. What do you think about that? Just the same thing, just removing it if there's an affected community that where they need to, where they do have a shortage, it gets extended to them, but not to everybody in the state. No, thank you for that. Should I move on to the next open meeting piece? The next open meeting piece dealt with the posting of notices and agendas. This is under the open meeting law again, temporary related to COVID, but this is temporarily suspending the requirement that the municipality post at the clerk's office and in two designated physical locations within the municipality, all of the notices and agendas for these meetings. The temporary authority here was to allow the municipality to post it in electronic locations. They would provide notice of where those electronic locations would be. And then they could post there or if they determined it was still necessary in a combination of physical and electronic locations. May I ask a question about this piece? Cause if you read, is it, does it read that it's just notice of special meetings? Does it apply to regular meetings as well? It says that they may post any agenda, meeting agenda or notice of a special meeting. And I believe the reason that that was put together is that the regular meetings, the open meeting law requires that those dates and times be regular and would be posted either in the policies and procedures of the individual body or when you're dealing with those that are created in statute, it's typically set in statute. So the regular meetings of a body are usually decided early on and announced, the board shall meet on the first Tuesday of every month, something like that. The agendas still have to be posted in advance. And then whenever there's a special meeting that falls out of the public body's regular meetings, that's when they have to post the notices and publicly announce the special meeting. And that gets us to the last little piece here. And I actually think I've been neglecting to kind of highlight where we are. This last piece touched upon that kind of public announcement concern. And in addition to the public announcement of special meetings, during this temporary period, the municipal public bodies specifically were required to post notices and agendas near the clerk's office, that standard, and to also provide a copy of each notice or agenda to the newspapers of general circulation for the municipality. All right, the last meeting piece here is very specific. This dealt with the Department of Fish and Wildlife's meetings concerning the deer herd management and migratory bird and moose meetings. Under statute, they're required to hold a certain number of meetings and they are based on regions of the state. So depending on how many meetings you have, it was multiplied by the five regions of the state and the department testified that they were concerned about holding so many meetings during the COVID response. So this allowed them to lower the number of required meetings, allowed them to meet electronically, but required that they hold not less than five meetings by electronic means to ensure adequate public involvement. That I think we should probably hear from Lewis Porter about that. Yeah, it seems so specific. Yeah. It's to point them out. Yeah. It might be that they would want to say that they might wanna make some permanent changes to given the air experience with holding these meetings electronically. I don't know. But actually, I think Madam Chair, it calls to question all of state government and what each department would want to do in response. So I mean, I don't recall us discussing this. Yes, they are required by statute to have these meetings and because it was a meetings issue, they came to us and- I don't remember this. They didn't wanna have them. And in fact, one of the arguments was they'd probably have more attendance at the five meetings than at the local meetings because people from St. John'sbury could hook into a meeting that was, I mean, it didn't make any difference where you were from. You could go and have the opportunity to go to all of the meetings instead of just the one that was in your area. So they might wanna make some adjustments on this and make it permanent or a combination permanent somehow. Right. But I also think it does beg the question of asking all of state, I mean, it strikes me that every department and every agency may have something like this where they need a specific ability to respond in an emergency. And we might look at that for next session and do a shout out to the secretary of the administration to say, we're doing what has come to us and what we're aware of. But for next session, maybe there is stuff we should put in place permanently that their experience was also. Yeah, I think we can definitely do that in a lot of general areas, not just the meetings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So committee, I'm gonna make a suggestion here. I'm gonna suggest that we take about a six or seven minute break. That would be great, I just stand up. And then come back. So what time is it now? Two o'clock, three o'clock? Three o'clock one. Three o'clock one, we'll be back here at three 10. Does that work? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, so this is my front, everyone. I want to deal with the break. You just use and turn it off and I'll share my screen with the committee for a picture. Mike, I'm actually going to leave the meeting and then come back in because I'm going to a different piece of it. Or Betsy Ann, who's leading us now? We're in section eight on Fish and Wildlife. Mm-hmm. Oh, we just finished that. And mercifully, we are almost done with my sections. Would you like me to screen share? I don't care at all because I haven't printed out. Oh, to everybody else. We're on to extensions of licenses. I like this part. Wait, first of all, let's decide if we want Tucker to screen share. I guess he is going to. Okay. Thank you. Then he scrolls to write what he's talking about. Yeah. And I can see Chris. Okay. All right. The doom scrolling shall begin. So. I agree with you. Section nine deals with one of actually the very first issues that you tackled, which is the extension of deadlines, plans and licenses for municipalities. And there were two angles to this that were tackled in separate subsections. And subsection A, you dealt with how the state interacts with municipal corporations. In that section, you again had a temporary provision here where the governor first had the authority to authorize the state agencies in the executive branch to extend any deadline that was applicable to a municipal corporation or regional planning commission. So these are deadlines that state agencies are setting for municipal corporations, for example, to apply for grants or to provide plans through their regional planning commissions to ACCD. Those could be extended by the state agencies. However, a deadline that was established in statute could not be extended to more than 90 days after the date that the declared state of emergency ends. So as soon as the state of emergency was over, you had a 90-day window where that could be extended. So can we do the same thing there? Just take out the due to the COVID under 20 VSA. Yes. And this could end up being maybe more particular to those deadlines that are either established in statute or relate to programs that are established in statute. You could plug in a clause here or there throughout statute that says that in the event of a declared state of emergency that the governor has authority to extend these up to 90 days beyond a declared state of emergency. The last piece in subsection A is that any license permit program or plan and each of these was picked intentionally by the committee that is issued to a municipal corporation or an RPC that is due for renewal during this state of emergency is going to remain valid until 90 days after the state of emergency ends. And these 90-day windows were selected, I think mostly around some of the plans that are due to the state. So that there was a long enough window that the planning commissions or the planning committees at the local level would have enough time to hold meetings on their plans and then submit them to the state. So committee, do we, are we, can we do the same thing here? Is just remove the, yeah. Sure. Subsection B dealt with municipal authority. Before we get beyond this, may I just ask, could we not also have a section or maybe this is in Betsy Ann's sections where we also do the same thing with all licenses as we did with OPR during the emergency? Extend all. I think that's a different, I think that's a different section, but we can. Okay. I don't know if it's in here, but we, Tucker just seemed to imply that we could put it in the sections that deal with the specific permits. Isn't that what you said, Tucker? That might be one way to go about it is to kind of have a standardized clause that you use to provide this authority and then in the areas that it's necessary to provide it because I don't know if you recall after you passed this out of committee, there was some discussion about whether this was so broad in general that it kind of lost some of its efficacy because there were a lot of questions about, does this apply to this specific plan permit or a license that's called out in statute and has a very specific timeline? You know, or just questions of that nature arose pretty quickly. I think we would want to put in the statute that addresses the specific license or permit. Just put that clause in there for each of them. That's right. I mean, at the way Lauren did it for all the OPR licenses that just were extended, that were up for renewal in during the course of the state of emergency. And with subsection A, just to be clear that opening part, the agencies would be able to get into the minutiae and the detail. You gave the governor the authority there to say, go ahead state agencies, extend those deadlines that are necessary. The one thing that I'll note here is that what we're dealing with in this section relates specifically to the municipalities. So this isn't for any state license or program. This is just about in subsection A, the relationship between the state and the municipalities. You know, this is a very smooth jazz-like segue into subsection B. Subsection B deals with the municipality and all of the individuals and entities that it issues licenses to. So again, subsection A, state to municipalities, subsection B, municipalities to others. So subsection B provides the same temporary authority to extend deadlines and to allow those licenses, permits and plans to be valid up to 90 days beyond the state of emergency. And the language here is that a municipal corporation shall be permitted to extend any deadline applicable to municipal corporations, provided that the deadline does not relate to a state license permit program, et cetera, that is covered by subsection A. They can extend those or waive those deadlines applicable to licenses, permits, programs or plans that are issued by a municipal corporation and any expiring license permit, program or plan shall remain valid, even if they come up for a new review until 90 days after the end of the declared state of emergency. But that's a fairly limited group of licenses. That's like dog collars and municipal water permits and stuff. I mean, it's, that's not it. And local control permits for entities that are serving alcoholic beverages. But it's limited to the permits and only that the municipality issues, nothing more. Yeah. Yeah. It would also include potentially some of those zoning related permits. Oh, right, something in planning and marriage, marriage licenses. I think marriage licenses are issued by this. No, they're issued by the town. But I think it's a state license. Yeah. Do it at the town. Right, yeah, but it's a state license. Oh, but it's a state, okay. So actually once you get one, I think you're good to go. We don't have to renew ours. We have to do it every morning. But, right. So all the permits for assembly, that might be another one. So we're not dealing with all permits and licenses in the state in this section. If we want to do that, that's a different section. We're only dealing with in A, permits that the state issues to municipalities. And in B, permits that the municipalities issue to whoever. Right, yep. And if we want to address other kinds of licenses and permits that may need legislative ability to extend, that would be in a different section, but we're not dealing with that here right now. Right. Okay, section 10 here was the work that you did on temporary moratoria on water disconnects. So these sections dealt with both municipal and permitted or licensed drinking water and wastewater utilities. It put a temporary moratorium on shutoffs of those services. And Chris Bray, I'm gonna ask you to weigh in here on what you think we should do with this if you're with us. Did we lose Chris Bray? Did we lose Chris Bray? No, he's here, but his video and he's muted. Okay, because I think this came from agency of natural resources. Yeah. Okay, well, when he comes back to us, well, Karen, did you have comment on this section? Well, if I may, it is sort of a different area. You can't defer payment of utility bills forever. So I don't really have a good solution right at this moment, but it's an issue. Okay. Okay, we'll take more testimony on that one. Thank you, Tucker. Those are all of the municipal and open meeting sections that I worked on for all of you. And I think that we move into some of Betsy's sections from here. And Betsy, do you want to have me scroll? Would you like to scroll yourself? Would you like to just stop? Have me stop sharing in general? Yeah, actually, thank you. Thank you, Tucker. If you want to stop sharing, Mike has given me Coastal Host Authority. If the committee wants, do you want me to continue doing screen share? Sure. And before we jump into the elections to Betsy's part here, I think that there were a few other issues that we didn't address necessarily. And what I would like is for, we'll go through this and then subsequently ask Karen to, I think there are some things that we've learned that we didn't necessarily address and see if we can address some of those and maybe get these, them in here also. Okay. All right, thanks. I'm going to do screen share. But before I get into the text, I just want to say thank you to Senator Clarkson for reminding about the professional licensure issues because I was going back to the first COVID related bill that wasn't acted into law. What's now act number 91. And this, we didn't handle this specifically in GovOps but this language did amend a few of OPR and Board of Medical Practice statutes to allow them during a declared state of emergency to issue temporary licenses. If you can see that language amending their statutory law, this is for OPR. Also in this section 15 of the act, there was a permanent amendment to the Board of Medical Practices statute that similarly allowed the Board of Medical Practice to issue temporary licenses during a declared state of emergency. But then I saw that there were a few other session law provisions that were geared directly toward the COVID-19 health emergency which allowed them temporary a session law directed only for COVID to issue additional licenses. So I'll take a look at that and maybe that would be something to add to this bill on a permanent basis in addition to their current temporary licensure authority. For example, it also allowed retired licensees for COVID to be able to come get licensed here. And then there was also- That was great with the medical community in particular. But boy, we could use those now with teachers. We have such a dearth of teachers at the moment. This language was only for the, you know, geared toward health. I know. But let me take a look back at that. Okay. For example, another thing I see that it does is it allows the director of professional regulation and the executive director of the Board of Medical Practice to act on behalf of their boards in case it's not safe for the boards to meet. So that might be something you would want to consider to do on a permanent basis during a state of emergency. So I'll look back at that. That's not included in here since it wasn't a GovOps bill. Okay. Right, but it is a GovOps issue. Yeah. So let me switch over. Once I switch windows, can you still see it? Yep. Okay, great. So I'm back on the draft that Tucker was just reviewing with you. Thank you, Tucker. I'm gonna maximize if that makes it easier to read. So the provisions we worked on together involved elections and then plumbers and electricians and then sheriffs. So in regard to the elections provisions, similar to what Tucker reviewed with you about open meeting, there was an introductory language about why the General Assembly was enacting these temporary elections provisions. And then in section 12 of your draft, it gets into the authorized temporary elections provisions. And the first one in section 12 was that elimination of the primary petition an independent candidate's statement of nomination. So they didn't have to go out and collect signatures during COVID since it would be a risk to public health. And so you eliminated the signature gathering requirement. And so essentially to be able to get on the ballot, all a person needed to do was submit a candidate consent form. So this language just limited it to the year 2020 during this time and eliminated that signature requirement for all ballots, primary, general as an independent and any local election ballot. And because you eliminated that signature requirement related to this was shortening the deadline to file your candidate consent. If you didn't have to collect signatures, you ended up shortening the deadline. You shortened it to two weeks, I think is what it worked out to be instead of the longer time to go out and collect signatures. So I'll pause there. You want comments on that? I think that I'm not in favor of extending that particularly. I think it's an important thing for people to have to go out and ask people to support their candidacy. And I think in a health emergency as we had, it was appropriate. But I don't think for just like general emergencies, I mean, I think that's specific to a health emergency. And I would only be happy doing it if we did that, if we enabled it for a health emergency, but I'm not in favor of extending that. I think we can do that. We could extend it if it's an emergency that affects the health and safety of the candidates or the population. And I agree with you, we could do it that way. I'm not in favor of doing it generally. And the reason for, yeah, public health emergency and the reason for putting it in here now and leaving it here is because we may find that in March or February or January, whenever people are having to run for select board or county office or whatever, that we may be facing the same thing. So we might want to put it in here, but say it's related only to a public health emergency that would affect the health and safety. And maybe there'd have to be some sort of confirmation that it's limited to a health emergency. So I wonder if... Yeah, I thought that would be suggested. Yes, but I mean, who gets to... I'm trying to think of what kinds of emergencies might be presented to us in the future, hopefully none, but who would confirm? I would say it would be the administration, the governor. Yeah, the governor. I think it has to be a governor declared state of emergency, public health emergency for that to go into effect again. Yeah, I guess I would look back in the emergency management chapter. I mean, I think it was clear in this case that it's a public health related emergency. I'd just be concerned about ensuring that there was confirmation somehow that it's a health emergency, but it would likely come out in the declaration of the state of emergency. I'm wondering if this was all done right through an executive order declaring the emergency, right? Wasn't it through executive order that it was a declared emergency period and then including public health? I don't know that it ever said, though, to the question of what language do we use. I don't know if it ever declared a public health emergency, but just a more general declaration of a state of emergency for the state. So I don't know. If we ever had such a thing in the past and is there language around that we say, oh yeah, we know this is one of the ways we signal this, because there could be many other parts to the emergency, just like there was this time too. I don't know how we pin it to that alone. Well, I think that in the executive order, I might be wrong, but I think that they said a declared state of emergency due to COVID-19. Yes, so which is the implication that it is a public health emergency, but we should make sure that that language gets in there. Yes, for example, if we're a flood and somehow our waters were affected, our drinking water, would we know, for example, would that be considered a public health emergency in this case? Oh, it might be a public health emergency, but it wouldn't necessarily prohibit people from getting signatures, right? Because they don't have to drink the water when they go get a signature. Although people, they wonder about some candidates in what water they did drink. Well, and in other words, not who we were talking about it, maybe it also needs to include statewide. Yes, yes, I think that's important too, Chris, because yes, you might have somebody in some county. If East Overshoe has a public health emergency, I don't know that we want to change the statewide law. Right. Yeah, I think you'd be right. Would it be appropriate to have the Secretary of State confirm that it is a public health emergency that necessitates eliminating the signature requirement, or is that not, do you not want to cross over to that other office? That's a good question. I don't know, let's talk about that and let's have them come in and ask them what they think. Okay. Okay. Got it. Okay. So that was the signature requirement and then accompanying that the shortened time period to file candidate consents. Mr. Reminder, you didn't shorten the time period for local election candidate consents, you left those as is. Yeah, all dwellers. Section 13 here was the authority of the Secretary of State in consultation with the governor to order or permit as applicable appropriate elections procedures for the purpose of protecting the health, safety and welfare of voters, election workers and candidates in carrying out elections. And then it provided a non-exhaustive list of what that might include. And it began with the requirement to get the governor's agreement and then the subsequent act removed the requirement to get the governor's agreement but still required consultation. Well, I guess I have the same feeling about this is that if it really is an emergency that prohibits people from holding an election that we should have some emergency procedures in place just as we did on the municipal elections earlier, so I'm okay leaving this, but it has to be that it's a public health emergency because I don't know what other kind of an emergency would allow you to not do this. And then I think there is some appetite to have us look at some of the permanent election issues next year. Then we heard from Paul Burns about like maybe post-marks for sending them in or how do you confirm if somebody didn't sign the outside envelope? Can you have a cure for that? So there are some of those issues but for right now I'm okay leaving this in as long as it's a public health emergency. So we'd qualify it that a state of emergency, a public health state of emergency would have to have been declared. Yeah. I can see other types of emergencies not just public health interrupting an ability to vote smoothly. Thinking back to Irene. Yeah, I mean, Rhodes were looking back at, I think it's important that the state of emergency be declared but I'm not sure it just needs to be a public health one because you could have a physical, I mean, we could have a huge, we're on a big fault line that could actually go, there's that fault line that runs up the Connecticut River and the Hudson Valley through Lake Champlain and it's conceivable that could be the mammoth earthquake that would disrupt everything a week before elections. But you wouldn't have time to do any of this stuff the week before elections anyway, so I don't know. We might want to think about that. Maybe it would just be to have it broader and be a declared state of emergency. Anyway, I don't know, I'm just trying to. Yes, Brian. So I agree with what you're saying I think, I think as long as you're going to sort of pull back on the requirement to collect signatures, I see the connection with the election the same way that if the state of emergency because of health reasons has been declared, if we're going to not make people collect signatures then there has to be an intersection I think with the election itself. So I guess I'm okay leaving it for the moment but I do wonder this in March at town meeting. Now, assuming a group of us get back after the November election, I guess we could deal with it then, but I wonder whether anyone would be in favor of mail-in ballots for the school budgets in March if this is still going on. Well, didn't we do that? I don't believe we did. Didn't we do that someplace else? Yes, well, this language that we're reviewing now, it applied just in the year 2020 and so it wasn't limited to the primary or general, it could include local elections. So I don't, I know one of the first orders that the secretary of state issued was in regard to municipal elections, but I can't recall what it specifically did, but I would read this current language as applying to local elections also. So it's possible, I'm sorry. Madam Chair, I don't know if you can see, Karen Horne has her hand up. I can't. Even if she's breathing. Thank you. Karen. Thank you. So town meeting is one of our major concerns. We do think that there's a pretty good likelihood that we'll still be in this kind of situation, come town meeting, and we would, we think it would be really helpful to be able to pass legislation addressing town meeting before you leave now, versus trying to do it when you come back in January and then budgets have already been posted and everything's already in play, but that's what I was gonna talk about at the end of Betsy Ann's legislative piece. Okay. All right, so I think that there's interest in doing that. So let's keep going through this and then we'll figure out how we're gonna deal with the local elections. Thank you. Section 14 does address local elections, but it was about allowing the legislative body to provide that the municipalities elections will be held by Australian ballot. It not withstands the current statutory law that requires the voters in the municipality to actually get together to apply the provisions of the Australian ballot system to their meetings. So this would provide that instead, the legislative body can vote to apply the Australian ballot system to any or all of its municipal elections held here in the year 2020. And then it also relatedly allowed the Secretary of State to waive statutory deadlines or other provisions that could be in a municipal charter or school district's article of agreement as necessary to relate it to a municipal election, to allow the municipality to apply the Australian ballot system to its meeting. And I think this went to things, for example, when the ballot has to be prepared and local elections, it's, I think it's at least 20 days in advance of the meeting. So I think it was addressing those type of deadlines to waive those deadlines in order to allow the legislative body to vote to apply the Australian ballot to the next municipal meeting. Those are the questions provisions. Okay. Okay. On page 14 and section 15, this was specifically in regard to electrician and plumber license renewals. So this said that notwithstanding the provisions of law that will have the current electrician and plumber's licenses expire between March 30th and September 30th this year, they're all deemed to be valid and remain valid until September 30th and waived any late fees that would have otherwise applied. And I believe the issue there is that electricians and plumbers had to obtain continuing education in order to renew their licenses. But because of COVID, those continuing education courses, many of which were in person were not available. And so it was just giving DPS time to build out some, I think online courses that could satisfy the renewal requirement. And do we know if they've been addressed? I mean, do we know if they're available now? I haven't heard any follow-up on this. I recall them saying September 30th would give them enough time to do so, but I don't think either of the GovOps committees had follow-up testimony on this. Yeah, it's coming up fast. We could just have Mike Deroches come in and see, because this was so specific to that time frame that see if they need to do anything more. Okay. We'll be on this one as to whether you want to have a permanent provision. Okay. Yeah. But also, nobody said anything about the second before this on the Australian ballot. That may be a provision. We still have 2020 in there for everywhere. And actually there, that also was a good case of, there might be something, you know, a stated, if we're in a declared state of emergency, that giving towns that opportunity to move to Australian ballot if they choose, to me is something worth keeping beyond 20. Well, they can choose to do it. It's that their select board can't choose. This gave, this gave the select board the ability. The select board, that's what I mean. Well, if we qualify it, again, with a state of emergency, maybe that is worth keeping. I'm, anyway, I just was surprised we didn't talk about it. Well, I would like, I put this in my little scribblings here. I put this under the same category as what Karen's going to talk to us about and how we address municipal elections in general. Yeah. I would like to take some more testimony on that before we make a decision. Yeah, me too. Okay. So are we okay with that? It will take more testimony about kind of municipal elections in general. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that takes us to your last section, which was in regard to emergency sheriff funding. So this language allowed sheriffs subject to the approval of the assistant judges to use a county's operation reserve funds and capital reserve funds for the emergency needs of the sheriff because otherwise statue would not allow those reserve funds to go to the sheriff. Though it was emergency needs were defined as the needs the sheriff had to respond to COVID-19 and it included hiring deputies, dispatchers, another personnel and purchasing equipment and supplies. But again, subject to the assistant judge's approval. And then it went on to say that if a sheriff obtained those county reserve funds, the sheriff would be required to apply to FEMA or any other applicable resources for here COVID-19 relief. And then within after getting any allowable reimbursement the sheriff would need to provide those reimbursed funds back to the county to replenish the reserve funds. But the sheriff was only responsible for reimbursing the county and amount equal to what the sheriff was able to get in grants or other reimbursement. And there was a sunset on this provision of two weeks after the day the governor terminated the state of emergency. So we should hear, I don't know if they're gonna wanna extend that to a permanent ability to access funds. We should hear from the sheriffs and also from the side judges. And I think it would be good to hear if they had been used. I mean, if this, you know, we made this provision a possibility, I'd like to know if it was actually used. I think we heard the other day that the only one that's used it is Wyndham County. Oh, okay. I guess I missed that. I think it was when Annie was testifying, but I'm not, I don't remember exactly, but I think that's what we heard. So Karen, do you wanna talk to us about the municipal elections and what, and any other municipal issues that we learned need to be addressed? Thank you, and thank you very much for taking up this legislation. I think the first part of the bill is very important and those were the pieces that Tucker talked about were really what we had hoped would be discussed for the longer term. Our next biggest concern is really around town meeting. So I might bounce around a little bit, but generally speaking, if you adopt the Australian ballot system, you adopt it at town meeting one year and it takes effect the next year. So in this particular circumstance, you would have adopted Australian ballot at the March 2020 meeting and it would take effect at the March 2021 meeting, but that's not a possibility. So we do think it would be important to still allow the legislative body to say we're going to use Australian ballots. So town meeting in an awful lot of towns is a physical on location event, right? It's not Australian ballot and part of it's run from the floor. So I think towns will also need authority to change the date or the place of meeting or the manner of meeting of the town meeting. And that would probably happen in December or when you're filing your budget so that people understood what was going to be happening, and that you all had some time to plan for it. We do think that it may be that you're gonna have to hold town meeting remotely, which would be just a huge departure from history, but if we're still in a situation where there are lots of cases or increasing cases, that might be something that needs to happen. And then to Betsy Ann's point about the signature collection, we hadn't really thought of it before, but you do actually have to get signatures in order to get on the town meeting ballot to run for office. So that might be something to consider as well that you don't need to do that or that you could collect them virtually or I don't know, I think probably not needing to collect them would be the best approach. And then- Erin, would you extend that to signatures needed to get an article on the ballot? I mean, on the polling? Well, that's interesting. So it's only the local level of government that has initiative in Vermont and I would be a little concerned if we, if you didn't need to have any, like if one single individual could say you have to put this on the ballot. I think that the better approach for towns would be to give them a bit more discretion to either put items on the ballot or not, in as you framed this whole thing in an emergency and a public health type emergency. If it's just, if it's a snowstorm, there was a snowstorm a few years ago where town meetings were canceled. I don't know if you recall that, but you wouldn't need the same kind of flexibility if you're talking about a weather event like a snowstorm as you might if you have this continuing health kind of emergency, pandemic emergency. And then the other thing I would just note which is not related to town meeting is that the governor's executive orders provided for local officials to restrict the size of gatherings and restrict the hours of operation. And I don't know if that'll be, I imagine that'll be continued through the, however long the state of emergency lasts, but I'm not sure. And that really came up in the last few weeks around the reopening of schools as you're well aware. So that's sort of what we have right now. So could that be put in here that if there is a state of emergency that the local governments could restrict the size and location of gatherings without having to have it in the executive order? I think you're right, that didn't happen until late. No, it was just recently. And so I think it was just two weeks ago to tell the truth. So I think it would be very helpful. I think we need to phrase it carefully. You don't want to, I don't know, we have the whole issue of the protests going on right now. And you don't want to stiny that first minute rate, but there are concerns around, mostly inside the size of gatherings. Partens on campuses. So I actually experienced this town meeting with physical distancing because we had our Woodstock Village annual meeting two weeks into our declared emergency. I think it was on March 21st. I remember. It was interesting because they taped out six feet apart. I mean, they did a great job. Now the village is not very many people. It's many fewer people than the town meeting, obviously. But towns, I mean, there are only, I think six of us that have villages, I think, is that right? I mean, and we always... There are quite a few villages. Yeah, there are a lot of villages. There are villages in town? Oh, okay. I thought there were a few of us that had villages within towns. Anyway, that hadn't merged. But it worked actually surprisingly well. I mean, you're right, Karen. It would be hard to say no to people attending. On the other hand, people complain constantly about town meeting attendance and how low it is and how low it's gotten. A remote town meeting might actually be fabulous in terms of getting more people engaged. So, you know, I don't, you know, who knows. But they... That was sort of the point of, sorry to interrupt. That was sort of the point of the article that I sent from Governing Magazine today that we've actually gotten some real advantages from remote meetings in terms of people being able to participate. Yeah, I would agree. We've seen it legislatively. So... We also would have more attendance at town meetings if we actually gave towns some authority and power. Oh, a novel thought from our chair. I mean, it's hard to go to a meeting if you know that there are two decisions that you can make and the rest of them are gonna be made for you. So, anyway. So those are really our concerns right now are around town meeting and having some legislation in place so that towns can start to prepare for it at the end of the year when they're usually putting, you know, town meeting plans in place. And that would be before you came back. So could, would you work with Betsy Ann on... Or Tucker, I'm not sure which one here around the town meeting would do it but so that we could get that in here also? We'd be happy to. Okay. Okay. So I'm, I'm going to, it just reminded me of this little story about because Tucker bought his house in Starksboro and we were talking about town meeting and of course the guru of town meetings is Frank Bryan. So I'm going to tell you a little story about me and Frank Bryan and elections. So I was a fan of his, cause I worked for UVM and that my, when I first ran in 2002 was when Jim Douglas also ran and he, Frank Bryan sent me a note and it said that there was gonna be a, he was gonna be in Brattleboro talking about politics and humor and I should come. And I thought that'll be really fun. So I, he said he would be there at six o'clock and I said, okay, I'll arrive at like 615 because he hadn't invited me. So I got there at 615 and I walked into this place and I looked around and every Republican candidate from the state and our area was there. And I, and all I saw were all these people that I just thought were Republicans. And I said, where's Frank Bryan? And they said, oh, he's running late. And I said, oh my God, what am I doing here? And he came in, he came in and he gave me a big hug and people were going, what's she doing here? It turned out it was a Republican rally. And there, and there I was. And so he got up and he said, there is an interloper in our midst tonight. And I thought, oh my God, what is he doing? And he said, this is my gift to the Republican party. I'm keeping her off the streets from campaigning. And I said, okay. Then he goes on and he says, he started talking about public servants. And he said, those people in Washington, they're not public servants. You want a public servant? There she is, Jeanette White. She's been on the slack board. She's just dying. And these people, a couple of people afterwards came up to me and said, you should not have been there. That was a Republican rally. Anyway, that was my story with Frank Bryan. That's very funny. Who lives in Starsboro? Tucker. Yes, okay. Anyway, I just thought I would tell that little story about Frank Bryan and me and the Republican rally. Most of them were very polite to me, but a couple of people. My opponent was very angry and came up and confronted me. That's good. So where are we committee? Well, we walked through the bill. We're going to take some more testimony. I think we can. And if there's other things that we should put in here, like Betsy, when you talked about the medical, those deadlines and those, if there's other things that should go in here that people can think of that would be appropriate to put in here, let's see if we can do it. Yeah. Well, I think it would be great to get Lauren Hibbert's input. And Secretary of State, we already have a chat about their input. And the secretary of the administration in a way, I mean, Suzanne might have some interesting ideas to add. We can ask them similar to what we did for Fish and Wildlife, is that what you mean? Yeah, yeah. I mean, this makes me think of, that's just such a tiny little piece. And Suzanne may have some big picture notions of what we would want to be able to green light in a declared state of emergency, which we haven't to date. But we could have the governor testify and say, what a good job we did enabling all of these. Might be able to help with that. We like surprise witnesses, Brian. Wouldn't that be funny if these Zoom bomb dark gov ops meeting? That would be great. So if there are other things from other committees also that would appropriately be in here, we should. So Anthony and Brian and Allison and Chris, if you can. Okay. So we'll see maybe a new version of this at some point. Is it? I applaud Betsy Ann and our chair and Tucker for getting this launch. I think this is a terrific idea to get this done now. Yeah. While we're all thinking about it, while it's still reasonably fresh. Great. Okay. And so hopefully, okay, so we're ready with 233. I don't know what's happening with 220 yet. Betsy, do you know? Yes, how scovops they had another walk through today. They've got a running list of potential amendments, which it's revising the OPR's criminal background check language because, so Bill last past Senate contain the FBI's requested revisions, the CIC weighed in with a few other tweaks. So there's that in there. They are tentatively considering removing the street clothing qualification from the massage chapter. They are extending some of the effective dates. And those are the main things, not a whole lot of changes. Those are the, those are the substantive ones. So the street clothing one, how would they define the difference then between? So the, in the massage chapter, the requirement was to register. You had to register on the chapter. If you were providing massage or body work to clients in a manner in which the clients removed articles of street clothing and has had a reasonable expectation of privacy. And they are considering getting rid of the street clothing language. So it's, if you provide massage or body work to clients who have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. But those are, as far as you know, those are the only suggestions now. Yes. We, I have a draft amendment is already posted online. And then I can pull it up. And then today they just discussed one other technical tweak, which was in that massage chapter where it's, where it has a list of other professions who are exempted from registering. If massage is part of their standard scope of practice and nurses were in there and there was just a request from the APRN profession to specifically call out APRN. So that was just more of a technical change. So otherwise, if you want, do you want to do a screen share real quick? I don't. No problem. Their amendment is posted online and it is the background check. It's just extending the deadlines for the state protocol and the clinical pharmacy prescribing section and the street clothing that we talked about. And then moving when the massage professions get regulated from moving that effective data out. And then accordingly, OPRs report back on it. So it was really just effective dates and street clothing and just the tweak to the background check language. Okay. And where did 124 go? Did it go to GovOps or to House Judiciary? It went to GovOps and I'm supposed to call Sarah soon as we're done here. Sounds good. And they've done a walkthrough of that and then they have testimonies scheduled or they're gonna discuss it anyway in the next two days. So I'm supposed to call her as soon as we're done here. Good, thank you. You'll have a report for us tomorrow. I will. Okay. So can we perhaps look at this? Maybe do you have time between now and tomorrow to make the changes that we put in here and to get some language to us and then we can ask people to come in and testify. And even if we don't have the language completed, we'll ask people to come in and just testify on the concepts. Does that work? I could. How about, how are you doing, Tucker? Yeah, I can make that work. Okay. All right. Thank you. And so we will see you tomorrow afternoon after the floor. Great. Thank you.