 We get our meeting started. It's going to be relatively short. I thought that we'd have Michael run through any changes that he'd done to our our firemaid bill and then switch over to H656 that we should have in our committee this next week to start processing and going over but give you something to think about and review over the weekend when you have time mom so anyways welcome Michael and if you'd like to get started that'd be great sure could I ask Linda to put the the assistance bill up on the screen or would you just want to go through it at what's what's in front of you well if Linda has it there that might help out because I I was gonna copy that off and this morning I just went in to do it and I ran out of printer ink so yeah if she could put that up have you got that Linda yes yeah so so great so just at the top and the heading you'll see that the y'all highlighting shows changes and the blue highlighting is some of the issues that you wanted to review so Linda if you could scroll down so I I just renamed the the the assistance program just slightly it's a dairy farmer assistance program it had previously been farmer assistance program and now you've got section one being for dairy and section three being for other I wanted to be clear that this was the dairy farmer program moving on to the next page that's actually probably the hold on one second I think page three is probably this was the criteria for qualification for assistance previously the on line six there had been a provision that that the farmer was actively producing milk and then was going to keep producing milk for up to 12 months there's a question about how that would affect seasonal dairies how it would affect potentially how did to determine that they were going to be milking in 12 months so I cut that down so it's now that they're just actively producing milk and then on line eight this is the issue that I think created some some questions from the community about agreeing to allow the future farming response team to do a feasibility assessment within 18 months you have been talking about replacing this with a survey or or some other similar requirement and so I blued it out as an issue to come back to I think senator Hardy said put a pin in it and so that's that's what you have there Brian had a question on that Michael Michael can we go back to line seven as far as I remember we asked how many farms were not in good standing in the state and I think the answer came back three that's correct I thought three all right yep and just with reference to subsection C I just wanted to lead it but well that's what I'd suggest I I think we heard we had a good report from Ella the other day in regards to what they've been doing and could do and would do in the future we had some reference to that maybe it wouldn't be you know so demanding or anything Anthony you had a question well I was actually gonna say what you just said we had talked about the possibility of developing just like a survey or questionnaire not requiring them to do anything but for us he had a better picture of who we're dealing with so we haven't decided on what it is but we had talked about some kind of questionnaire maybe based on what Ella had sent us but if you look back online if you look back online for it says in order to qualify for assistance that's why I want it deleted because I don't want that to be part of yeah I yeah I so maybe that period should should stop after emergency and in that that line four most of line four and five would be deleted and and then right I think it just depends on what you want to do I mean if you want the survey to be something that they have to fill out then then you would you could keep four and five if it's something that you just want to be included with material the application material and it's it's voluntary then we would probably just get rid of see and work in the survey provision somewhere else and so what you want to do yeah Ruth you got an opinion on any of this I always have an opinion Bobby um yeah I will let you share it with us one more time I I mean I agree with Brian that I don't like this language so I think that the survey is a fine compromise and saying something like shall complete a brief survey related to their technical assistance and sustainability financial sustainability needs or something like that based on what I'm hearing from farmers they're fine with us you know a short survey just the and that would allow the state that would enable the state to get information about what farmers needs are related to technical assistance and sustainability without being being over the land yeah are you saying would it be a requirement the way you're talking about it say they have to do it but I'm okay with I'm just wondering if that's what you're saying yeah I mean I think as long as it's it's it's not too long you know if we give them six questions about something you know that they can fill out and either send it back in or do it online it's like a survey monkey thing that's not that's not too hard to do um and then it would give us us like the state the agency of ag or vhcb or farm to plate or whomever all of us um information on what the needs are out there for the longer term without requiring farmers to do something that they either don't need or wouldn't be helpful right thank you why don't we highlight in blue the words in order to qualify and that way we're thinking about both of them together as we maneuver through this so in order to qualify for assistance we would appreciate you filling out this short survey something like that of farm need I'm just saying the two sections are linked together so make them linked in blue so that we know that as we resolve it we have to be mindful of right now it's it's a requirement to me I've got a it should be a requirement this is going to be thousands of dollars I don't think asking a few questions is too onerous yeah I'm fine with the survey being a requirement um as long as it's not that they don't have to then get technical assistance that they don't need and I think that was the issue with this current language yeah um so you want to rewrite that so it's a survey Michael and sure and get that in there and then you know that agree to allow you know she could be rewritten um as well because uh well well said senator hardy had some some good language that they would complete a brief survey addressing the financial financial assistance or sustainability is that what you said I think I said technical assistance and financial sustainability or something like that okay some combo of those four words okay you know if I might if I might say I would also wonder about asking them about the impact of the pandemic on their on their operation in other words we're assuming they all lost you know huge amounts of money but it might be interesting to get a clear idea of how it really impacted them okay yeah is that okay with everybody yeah very good well I had okay so uh linda if you just scroll down just a few more lines on that page I may remember in the in the first draft there was the whole provision about calculating per cow the number for 50 cows on a large farm 50 dollars per cow on a large farm 50 on a medium etc uh and first senator hardy pointed out that it should be about dairy animals not cows because it was always intended to apply to goats and sheep as well so that reference to cows is removed and then you asked me to try to clarify that language and so I moved the the average numbers down into the payment so now the program shall award a direct payment to producers for large farms shall receive $50,000 based on an average of a thousand dairy animals per farm at 50 per animal same kind of change for medium same kind of change for certified since small farm is not based on an average there's no language there and so those were the changes but then you were in the last meeting talking about whether this is going to be a one-time award if it was going to be a monthly payment so I blew that out I'm not I'm not sure I got a great and I didn't I didn't have clarity on whether it was one time or or a monthly payment um I you know talking with with what Brian sent and and what the farmers have been say have been have been saying about their losses I I don't know what the rest of you think but it should be this eight point some million should be monthly so for three months and and then it's really light compared to the projections that we saw the other day but you know I don't I don't think our covert money that we have is set up to to make anybody hold and those losses that were reported to to Brian I think were what 75 or 80 percent Brian that's what Wendy indicated yes but I don't what do you what do you folks think in terms of making it one time or three months well they would receive this payment for the next three months um you know it'd be for uh may uh April May and June but of course we're already by April and halfway through May but uh those are the or for any given three months uh you know starting in and we could even start it in May the question I have is I think we should ask for that but I I guess I wonder you know what do we what happens in August who knows and who knows how much more money the feds are going to throw into all this can I ask Michael a question sure Michael um there there's a dramatic decrease between certified small farms and small farms and I wonder if you can just help us understand uh any justification for that uh well when senator star and I were were developing the language we one of the things that that's difficult with the small farms is you you don't have that that number that lower number right you know you don't know if they have 100 cows or if they have five cows well you know they have less than 50 Michael well right but but then what what what do you have in that range and so and there's a substantial number of them so let me let me let me ask this a certified I've never understand the difference between a certified small farm and a small farm so can you start by just explaining that again sure and when you go to the the Vermont RAPs there's a requirement for farms to be certified and I'm trying to go there now so I can give it to you directly and it's uh right that they have to house at least the following numbers and types of livestock and as senator star just mentioned they have to have 50 mature dairy cows and and so that that this is to be certified just to just to go through the certification yes and certification it's not um it's not a value added provision it's it's they had to certify that they're meeting the RAPs um so a certified small farm has between 50 and 200 cows 50 and 199 okay yeah and and then uh if you're not certified small farm so you're just a small farm you can't have you have one to 49 uh I think you have five to 49 hold on five five three oh I have to go to another section to get that threshold yeah while Michael's looking for that UK the small five you got them yeah it's five it's five to 49 and the averages that you're writing here are they just the midpoint of the range or is there some data that says that is actually the average it's the midpoint of the range and so for small farms is 5000 that's that's that's more than the 50 bucks per midpoint right yes right it's a hundred dollars right but it's very uh what we did is we took in the three upper classes we added those numbers up and at the ag department they add the total number of dairy farms and that included sheep and goats and we subtracted out the upper three classes and then that left us that number for the lower that lower class that we don't really know and we don't really know how many animals they they had so we said well we just I mean when you think of the grand scheme of things five grand is is not that much money and we just pay them each uh five thousand dollars yeah okay no this is helpful I just wanted to understand the the methodology so that I'm comfortable with that I think it should be I think we should start by asking for three months I guess is that agreeable Brian I think Ruth's hand was up first I go ahead Brian I would be more inclined to have one payment I don't run a farm but I think those that do are well aware of what they need and how they need it and when they need it and as long as the total amount is going to be the same I would rather just give it to them and say hey you're smart enough to figure out how best to use this I mean maybe the feed costs are more up front uh you know in terms of fertilizer I don't know are you saying to triple the amounts Brian no is that I I'd understood that to be the discussion do these amounts three times or or only once well line four on that page says the assistant shall be paid as a one-time award or in three month in three monthly payments I'm saying make it all as a one-time award right but but the and that my my highlighting or the bracket of language could have been clear the discussion that you had at your last meeting was whether or not to provide this payment say 50 000 to a large farm in June and then another 50 000 payment in July and then another 50 000 in August see in that you know the letter that you sent me Brian was even much higher much higher than that but I think we talked about adding in you know the the difference we would we would supplement some of the loss the feds are going to supplement some of the loss and uh I don't know if um FSA figured in some farmers being in the PPP program in the UPA program and a host of other programs where they were getting money from the feds and our money was was supposed to be to help supplement their overall loss not fully make it a hundred percent because we aren't I don't think we're going to make anybody's a hundred percent um so I thought if we did three payments of what amounts we have here it would just be more equitable than than one one payment of this amount okay I understand how and of course if it goes through the supplemental you know they've got to agree to it and that's going to be a probably a hard sell but hey uh you know we ought to ask for what we I mean I think we're being very fair by asking for three monthly payments uh that's going to cost eight point some million each month Bobby yes uh sorry I can't tell if you can see my hand no I can't I can't see yours or Chris we're all in little tiny boxes um well I uh thank Chris thanks for asking the question about the LFO versus just or small farm versus certified small firm I had the same question um uh and then Brian I agree that I don't think we should do three payments I do think we should think about doing more money but the administrative burden of sending out three checks um is I don't think is necessary we give it to them in one check and at this point it'll probably be before they would get it so if you had been thinking about April May and June it's really going to be June before this gets passed signed and checks get out the door so I would be in favor of just giving them one check maybe for a larger amount not spreading it out I agree with Brian that they'll be able to figure out how to spend it and use it wisely um my question about the amount and just just thinking about it if if we did do three times the amount um for example the small the large farms would get $150,000 um which is more than what they're going to get from the federal relief package because that I believe Michael has capped at 125,000 per commodity per commodity so I don't know what we think of that it just occurred to me that then you know maybe we want to be more generous than the feds but maybe I don't know so I just wanted to bring that up and I did want to ask Michael when you did these numbers and you calculated the total amount um being 8.8 million dollars in total did that include the non cow dairies in in the total in your math yes I believe it did yes okay I just want to make sure that we've the 8.8 is a solid number to include all the farms and then if we did three times that you know then we're looking at you know 20 almost 27 million dollars um for for this program plus I really want to include that non dairy farm portion of this in this package I think it's really important that we we take care of all the farmers um in our farm relief package so those are my thoughts yeah um any comments on Ruth's thoughts yeah I do this is Pearson but I've been chatting a bunch so if anyone else wants to talk um hearing none um I I actually think there's I think a bill that suggests $150,000 to large dairy is uh maybe not the best strategy considering that we're at the front end of this in terms of businesses broadly in Vermont that are going to be walking in and saying holy smokes I've been losing a lot of cash um and so for that reason I think we might be smarter to do it in three installments I also think there's some chance that not everyone will jump in on the first installment for whatever reason and it might be advisable to give them give some folks the chance to come in down the road as opposed to all or nothing on the on the day one the other question I have is around including of non cow dairy which you know I think makes some sense but I guess I'd like to understand the principle here and one question I have is are we talking about people who have lost money I mean that's we have to be um hello everyone we have to be reacting um the COVID money needs to have a connection and presumably either a lot a connection of cost if I understand it Michael help me out here so if for example um goat dairy has not experienced a loss and I just have no idea we should be careful of of how we're thinking about that because uh you know the federal money has a lot of strings attached and so I I just want to make sure I'm hoping we can apply it more broadly to as all of our farmers but I want to make sure we're articulating a clear principle that applies as broadly as we're trying to direct this assistance I'm not feeling very articulate but does that make sense and Michael maybe you could help me out right so it that goes back to the whole question of necessary expenditure and I I think this package or this this section is really fitting in underneath the secondary tier the second order effect that Treasury has approved which is providing economic support to those suffering from employment or business interruptions and I think I think it's fairly obvious that the that the Cal Dairy is suffering a business interruption the the market demand has gone down it has significantly shifted the federal market order and you there's an obvious business interruption and an obvious need for economic support uh for the non Cal Dairy I I expect that there is a very similar business interruption I mean their their markets have changed as well um restaurants etc and so I I feel very confident that they've also suffered a business interruption can you quantify it in the same way that you can with a Cal Dairy with no you can't because you don't have that same projected price and and and that USDA has done it so I I still think there's a business business interruption have they suffered as much or will they suffer as much as a Cal Dairy I I can't quantify that for you right now all right thank you the the only ones that I think are kind of still unknown to us are the vegetable growers and you know because they're just getting seeds in the ground and you know they they haven't grown the crop yet to and so they haven't had the opportunity to you know try their sales out but um you know they've had to buy special things to wear and and uh so I don't know you think we could we'd be safe on with everybody Michael with fruits and vegetables as well um um I yeah I do think that that well it's your bill is is structured a different way for for fruits and vegetables right for the it's it's about them uh applying for an expense um that they incurred due to COVID and and that that's that's that's right within in my opinion the scheme it's a necessary expenditure incurred during the time period due to COVID and and it may have led to a business interruption or not it's it's still a necessary expenditure so I I think that the way the the non-dairy is set up right now I think it qualifies yeah are there other questions or concerns uh in that regard uh Ruth I just wanted to ask the question you know Chris mentioned the maybe not everybody would apply for the first round if we did multiple rounds but Michael the way that I read this grant is it's not an application it's more of a formula that the agency of ag or whoever we put in charge of this would just send out but yeah that's correct but but they still have to qualify and now part of the qualification is filling out the survey and so now they're probably I'm probably gonna work in some sort of it won't be called an application it will be called you know a participation form or something like that okay I just want to keep the burden low but I think we should just figure out what amount we are are comfortable with and do one payment because doing three payments is going to just be administratively a headache and I hear you with $150,000 going out really early when we have so many other business expenses and businesses that are suffering in this state so I feel like as a committee we need to figure out what are we comfortable with what do we what do we think is the right amount set up the formula and then do it in one payment that's that's my thought I didn't mean to jump in front of Anthony because I know his hand is up too but I I was thinking the same lines as Ruth and Michael so if you have the survey in the envelope with the check they haven't filled it out it just seems to add another hurdle for the farmer to go through in order to get the money I that's why I wanted to keep it separate so why don't we give them a period of time send it the survey with the check and give them a period of time to send it back you know I should think most of them would comply but I missed something what how did it become secondary you have to you have to put some paperwork in to get a check right in this scheme well the as the scheme was first set up it was a little unclear if you did or not it seems to me like surveys are online you can fill out an online survey do an online like form that says your name and address and fill out the survey and then then a check can be sent to you that's not hard right right then wherever you're putting in your name and address in order to get a check you're filling out some kind of brief survey I mean Ella was really clear yesterday they do that all the time for land conservation all there there it's it's an interaction this is not onerous this is this is uh you know do you have a succession plan you know would you enjoy would you would you be interested in talking to somebody about uh expanding market opportunity you know I mean whatever it is I hesitate to brainstorm out loud because we've gotten nipped here but it is to me the the survey is upfront and would enable future planning work so we would get a list at the end of this of where we send the Ella Chapens of the world to try to help folks out this is this is not onerous and it's not um insisting it is trying to facilitate some of these connections yeah it would be pretty simple if we had questions like you just asked or spoke about with a yes no or maybe answer you know or they could just check it off but I mean with their name and address is the big thing to get and so we can get it to the right place um uh well what do what do you others think Brian you had kind of strong feelings on how we did this what do you think about doing like a check survey but your check answers like a multiple choice thing instead of yeah well yes or maybe or whatever okay I just want to keep the burden as low as we possibly can we're leaving it up to the agency to a bag to figure out how to do it but I want to make sure they have the administrative capacity to do it and not overly burden them either while still getting the sort of information that you know we we are looking for but I also yeah the other thing that we might be able to do is um I don't know how we do it together but you know if those went directly to um the answers went directly to BHCB somehow uh you know they've got the boots on the ground to cover all these questions and the knowledge uh Ruth yeah I don't think that we do Anthony Anthony do you want to go ahead of me I've talked a lot so go ahead I've been mostly listening anyway I I think a couple things I don't think a survey is necessarily a burden I mean we're talking about sending somebody a pretty big check and it seems like asking them to answer a few questions it's not a bad thing not a hard thing and one of the questions could be would you like a visit from BHCB so they so I think sending in the answers to them might be make sense in that respect I also think doing one check would be better for the administrative side of things and I don't mind making the check bigger I don't mind increasing the amount of money we provide the farmers but I do think we have to prepare for the fact that there are a lot of other businesses that are going to wonder why their farm is getting you know a hundred thousand dollars when there's a restaurant in Montpelier that said it's costing them ten thousand dollars a month to stay closed and they're going on to cut more than a couple of months it's just not I'm not opposed to what we're doing I'm just saying we have to be prepared for the fact that there's a lot of businesses as I think Ruth has mentioned and others have mentioned that are expecting some kind of support as well so we want to do the best we can for the farmers but we want to also make sure that we're not appearing to be too one-sided about the whole thing and realizing that other businesses need help as well yeah I just remember Anthony there's a a lot of hundred thousand dollars in 1.25 billion yeah you know if they would let us spend that money the way we really want to spend it we'd be a lot better off tell you all the strings attached that money are kind of annoying go ahead Rose yeah I mean I agree with Anthony and you know the farmers want the restaurants to open up again so they can sell their product there so I think we we have to be cognizant of the full food chain food system you know and make sure we're not just taking care of one end of it but we're taking care of the whole the whole system so I I think having a survey is not burdensome at all especially if it's an online survey that they just fill out when they you know do a brief application for the the grant you know providing their name and address and all that and we don't have to as that as the legislature design that survey we can leave it to the agency of ag and their partners including BHCB and everything you can say this is the kind of information we want but they would figure out the the logistics of of setting that up and maybe we should have them in to talk to them so they know what we're what legislative intent is yeah other comment creche well just to that point it's not going to serve you well if the agency comes in to send an approach and says by the way we can't do this at all so do you think we're going to need to hear from them early next week so we can get this moving they well we can't get a an answer out of them on what their plan is it's supposed to be coming I believe Steve said midweek Wednesday or Thursday of this coming week yeah I think I can pull up his email I'm sorry I'm interrupting I'm sorry but it's about what you're about to say do you say they have a plan that relates to the dairy subsidy that we're talking about when you keep saying the ag department's plan I'm wondering what kind of plan are we talking about well that that's it but we have no idea it answers out of them for a month and and Steve their attorney sent us we wrote him a letter earlier this week I think it was and and asking him hey you know we we want to cooperate with you guys let us know what we can do and when are you going to be ready and what kind of numbers and and so we got Michael got a response back come yesterday or the I think it was yesterday the day before and did you want to say what he said Michael so the agency sent a letter signed by Anson that basically I think really their summary is that they're working on their own proposal and they would ask you to forebear work on your proposal and they will have their proposal available next week preferably by midweek that's really something so they they they want to do their own thing well you know I think maybe we ought to get ours ready just in case we don't like theirs and and you know so we'd have an a plan and a b plan because they they haven't been very cooperative I I must say um uh Chris along those lines I've been thinking and and maybe we want to blow through or move through the rest of the language but I've been thinking that after talking to Ella and Gus that uh you know they talked about the ability to ramp up some of their uh planning consultants um that it might be worth us flagging some appropriation for them in this and also and for that matter to see if we could uh well to get more people out and about helping helping uh farmers think about their business planning in terms of this transition to try to minimize their loss also maybe working lands um you know another existing established entity that could help push money out uh related to food security and so I I just wonder to the extent we can push money through entities that are working have proven track record and are pretty darn close to the lanes that we're talking about I I think that would be smart for us as we try to craft this package uh I don't want to drag us down in a lot of time but it does seem to me that that's going to make a lot of sense well we we don't certainly don't need to create a new wheel I mean uh you know farmer help I mean I've never in all my years I've never given VHC be a task to do but what they haven't done it in an excellent fashion and uh you know for years um you give you give them a job to do it gets done somehow and you know it's like the ready program we give 75 grand to set up a grant writer and they they bring in that one 175 thousand for we paid it out now for three years brought in over four million dollars uh you know so it uh yeah that's that's a direction we we ought to um try to move in that's for sure but um well you want to run through the rest of the language you want why don't we settle the one payment versus three are you guys in agreement I've heard two or three of you talk about one payment um I just soon do one if you think we can achieve that are you suggesting we triple the amounts then well if there would be 20 Ruth said you did a number 28 thousand Ruth million if this is 8.8 if you round up to nine it's 20 you know times three is 27 million so I just I don't and I guess I want to be I want to be as generous as we're able to be and be really cognizant of the optics and the use of this money because you know there's a lot of hundred millions in that 1.25 billion I can tell you it's going really really fast so we just have to we have to be really careful about how we're balancing it and I know the approach is really going to have a tough job doing that but um I I think we should just settle on a number that we think sounds good and then back into the math yeah any any numbers floating to the top from anybody no it's Michael you want pick a number no um I'll pick a number you can give me the Michael O'Grady COVID relief fund I you want me to just blue the number and and I'll say it's a one-time award on or before July one and then you can you can each work on proposals for numbers yeah yeah that sure okay and but you know with my my simple way of keeping track of the money my $1,250 if if we took 27 million it'd be like taking 27 dollars of that $1,250 so you know we aren't we aren't asking for a great deal if you get the numbers broken down so you can really understand it uh our 27th million is not not out alone but go ahead let's get some of the rest of the language uh sure it's it's the Bobby Starr lessons of decimal points section section two is the future farming response team that's out now since you've you decided on the survey instead yeah uh then then you come to the appropriation section and that's really about that number that you're going to come up with yeah um and and you decided that you wanted the money to be to the agency of agriculture you want them to administer the program uh before it had been finance and management then you come to the the non-dairy the agricultural producer um and you had decided on how you wanted to define farmer as a person engaged in farming and subject to the required ag practices so it's not about them earning the 50 percent of their income from from farming under the IRS code that the one question that you kind of have for this section is whether you wanted it to cover losses um I can't remember who had a concern about that um well I think if we're going to put losses in there it would have to be a percentage of losses uh because somebody you know I don't think this is set up to cover 100 percent and that's what they might assume any thoughts on that well this is Ruth I I think um this is this is a more of a application program than the other one the other one is a fill out a survey and and get a check kind of program as long as you're in good standing and this they would have to apply for precisely because we don't know exactly what their expenses or their losses are so if someone had if a farm had you know $27,000 in losses but we had put a cap on what this grant amount is they might not be able to get the full 27 but if we cap it at 10 or whatever they could get 10 or if they have expenses and a combo of expenses and losses they could get they could apply to cover both of those so I think it's fine to include losses it doesn't I don't think it implies that we would cover their 100 percent of their losses no yeah I agree with that but if somebody sent me that when in the trucking industry I would have some terrible losses um and and I bet you I could justify them too so you know you have to be careful when you write this stuff to try to keep it you know to cover to cover something but it is there any way Michael we can known losses or proven losses or something like that well they have to they have to submit information regarding their losses so proof proof of it and I think Senator Hardy just proposed with a cap you can control yeah you can control people trying to be imaginary about their awful losses yeah yeah other comments but this is no can I make a comment yeah just know if no online law from joint fiscal the other thing you can do is you could leave the amount up to the agency to determine based on the amount of the appropriations available for them to disperse so you leave some of the authority to the agency because the amount of you being able to give them money back will depend on how much money there is to give back so you leave it open ended and let the agency decide you um you could say the amount is determined based on the appeal available appropriation and you know because you can't make everybody whole if there's not enough money in the fund to make everyone you know I mean so they have to come up with some way to make it equitable and fair yeah I mean it's okay we've done this in the past we've directed the agencies to we've been some of this up I do more healthcare but we there's times where we have said this is our intent but we give them the authority to sort of implement it without micromanaging it so that's up to you yeah maybe Michael you and uh all in could work on that sure and come back with something sure do we have any um we have no way of having a similar scale in the fruit and vegetable world is that right Michael like a giant the peach greens and the tiny charlotte farm are just in the same universe here is that correct yeah I don't know of any you know there's no regulatory structure no that breaks it down the way that it's done for for animals um I could ask the agency if they have some sort of internal or or maybe some of the the associations like the berry growers etc whether they have breakdowns but I'm not aware of any regulatory structure do these vegetable growers have to meet any certain standards for water quality or any of that Michael do you know yes they have to meet the required ag practices and and um Ryan patch sent me uh info about who's large and who's small uh and I am probably not going to find that readily so we do we do have some info then and we got that built into the bill right that uh it's it's not really built into the bill I thought they had to meet certain the ag uh require the for for dairy they have to be in good standing yes well but you said that Ryan sent you a list uh and what and how did he happen to acquire that list wasn't it to do with some require well it's it's about being an MFO or or an LFO so there's there is um the non-dairy's there are seven non-dairy MFOs and their chicken swine turkey beef and young stock there's one non-dairy LFO and it's a heifer young stock and then Ryan did send me stuff about the non-live stock farms which I am not finding right now um but there there's a another there's another 35 farms that that are kind of in that MFO range um this is Ruth and uh is there is there a way we could Michael if we could devise language that is is sort of uh along the lines of what Nolan was saying but saying that the the agency shall um determine the size of the grant relative to the size of the farm or something like that um so that uh you know we aren't overly prescriptive but we make it clear that you know we're not gonna that there has to be some kind of uh difference based on you know the peach greens versus the the tiny little veggie operations and the livestock um operations are going to have larger losses and just in my conversations with livestock operations you know the prices of beef and the way they the markets have swung for meat um they're experiencing pretty big losses compared to maybe the veggie people but the veggie people are have are trying to pivot their businesses so they're sort of in a different category and we want to be able to meet all their needs but well not all their needs but be fair to all of them so are any of these farms in bad stand not in good standing do you know or is that uh I don't believe that the three that are not in good standing I think they're all dairy okay I just got an email from Dr. Haas she's listening and she said that there is a regulatory framework for produce farms under the FSMA the Federal Food Safety Modernization Act and it depends on various criteria some farms are fully covered under the rule some are partially covered and some not at all uh they interact with those farms according to those letter those levels and if it helps they can provide more information on that oh good so that that may give us a you know quite a lot of help on setting this up okay Michael okay um so I'm gonna leave in losses I'm gonna build in some sort of regulatory framework depending on what I can work with the agency on and then I think working with Nolan come up with language about giving the agency the ability to set the the amount yeah is that is that good with you I think to start with that that's as good as it's gonna get okay so it is the can I just understand is the entire framework here that um it is uh sort of accounted accounted uh expenses or losses as opposed to in the dairy section where we're presuming losses and and or anticipating losses and sending checks that's correct yes is there any one else that wonders about a small baseline grant and then sort of expenses on top of that I guess I'm just wondering uh I mean there ought to be some equity I think in terms of the approach what are you thinking of for a small number Chris well if there is this strat stratification in sizes uh you know pinning it to that or or even pinning it to you know the front sheet of their last two tax returns or something you know I mean just just something we're we're gonna run into this being pretty onerous to administer this is what we round and round with the hazard pay bill and I just worry about that and I think in some ways with the dairy assistance we've simplified it by just making our own presumptions and setting limits that way and I'm struggling to see why we wouldn't do something more in parallel here but but I don't know I mean we're just I'm just off the top of my head well we will get those numbers from Dr. Haas in regards to uh some I mean we should know from those numbers how many like big ones there are small ones and you know shouldn't we shouldn't we be able to tell Michael from something on that like sales or something I you know without knowing how the numbers are structured it's hard for me to say but but uh I I think you could probably work with what what it is I believe that the FISMA criteria is based on sales but I'm not entirely sure uh and I'll I'll work with the with Dr. Haas and Nolan and try to come up with something yeah okay but can I I just I just want to go back to what Chris was talking about the idea of some across the board support I think that is worth thinking about I'm not sure how it would work but I think I would not want to take it off the table until we're sure we thought through yeah in there did you say something about a number of 35 of them Michael or right and that's that's the the number that I have to find from from Ryan those that are are non-dairy and and non-live stock I have to find that number I think it's 35 but I have to check yeah yeah okay uh so we'll we'll maybe have those numbers that are next uh get together yeah uh so you want to move on Michael sure uh so section five is the appropriation which is something that will depend on what you come up with uh then section six the farm worker assistance program um the changes here really are pretty minimal I think the real question here is just where do you want the money to come from and that's uh in section seven page 12 yeah and based on you know the advice that we've gotten from you or the information we've gotten from you about the use of federal dollars it doesn't seem like that's a wise thing to do um and our general fund dollars are pretty much non-existent so I haven't had a chance since we met on Wednesday to to explore the possibility of the public private funding stream that you suggested Michael so I guess to use my previous term maybe we should just put a pin in this whole thing and see if there's any creative way we could make it work I don't know if any of you have ideas but the the only I think we should put a pin in it I have wondered if um as I understand in California and Michael to the extent you've looked at New Jersey and California are the two that have advanced something I think it was detailed in New Jersey right to the extent that we could identify a non-profit who works in this sphere who was connected to this labor force and who we could contract with or or grant some money that we then had confidence would go there would would go out through them I wonder if that is a way to protect some of the concerns we've had and and would be workable um I guess I guess part of the question is how far down the food chain would uh would this data be open you know I'm trying to say if we if we um if we contract we award a grant to a non-profit that works in uh farm sustainability farm workforce sustainability and then they are granting money out to farms to help with workforce issues you know does that is that protective enough is that a way to try to get access to the care's money maybe um I think uh right if you go if that second order um effect and to try to find some need for assistance but there's also it also allows just for public health funding so if you were going to say it was about worker safety or money to farm workers to purchase safety equipment I think that that would probably qualify um let me are we smart to have an entity that we'd be granting to um in this line of thinking well that's how it's set up right now it would be it would be administered through a contractor and you haven't obviously picked a contractor but one of the concepts that Stephanie and I'm not sure if I talked to Nolan about it but um it's the community action agencies that are the non-profits that are already out there that already administer some funding programs for the state um and so they they're non-profits with the personally identifiable information protection in it they would be insulated from public records act request uh and I think you could do that they would still be subject to state oversight under these need to state grant criteria and administrative bulletin 5.0 um but that would only allow for state audit and the language is also very clear about how the state can't disseminate that information as well so I I think that would work Michael um you know one of the organizations that I was thinking of as a distributor of these funds or contractor whatever is the open door clinic and the migrant bridges to health migrant farm migrant health program um and they already work directly with a lot of migrant farm workers and maybe there's a health connection there that they're just you know that they're distributing these funds based on a connection to health during the pandemic do you think that could strengthen the connection to the crf without causing the concerns about clawback I think I need a little bit more detail when when you say connection to health what what do you mean like what was the expenditure that was connected to health yeah I mean that uh the the farm workers would be you know coming as patients to these um entities or coming as you know in need of public health or personal health assistance um and this may be a payment that would help cover that cost I don't know I'm just trying to figure out um and I know the open door clinic already has direct connections with many of the farm workers here in Addison County so I think if you wanted to say if there's medical expenses incurred or health expenses incurred because of COVID-19 I definitely think that that would qualify farm worker assistance of farm workers who either incurred expense buying safety equipment or incurred health expense or incurred medical expenses I think that that would definitely qualify that's a necessary expenditure but I don't think all of them had those expenses probably so that's that's the thing is that none of them qualified for the federal money some of them had medical expenses right you know what I mean I do I capture a larger pool right and and I there's obviously a larger pool because you if you just say farm worker well I think you could still define the farm worker as somebody that didn't qualify for CARESX funding yeah um but that's gonna knock the migrant workers out no they they don't qualify but it's gonna bring some other people in probably um you know there are people that didn't qualify for UI or stimulus like for example if you were a dependent you didn't qualify for stimulus but you could have been a farm worker and you might now qualify right so yeah well maybe that'd be the worst thing right maybe we should talk more about this offline and see if we can come up yeah because this is um I mean been brought up to me from in the props committee about you know it's pretty shaky ground but yeah if it isn't worded just right there could be um you know some clawback issues and we don't we'd best stay away from that well I don't think it's shaky ground if we use general fund it's just that there's no general fund to be oh no no to get it out of COVID uh money we we need to have it pretty clear no the general fund is uh Jane must have told you 400 odd million short um you know for coming into 21 uh but another half a million Bobby that's that's only 50 cents in the 400 dollars that you have in your box yeah that'd take 400 400 out that would now that's a hard left to take the 400 out of the the 1200 um so maybe uh you know Michael we talked to uh his folks and we can think about this and try to figure it out um you know with whoever you chat with okay yeah um we have some of them have other meetings I think at one so yeah me and I do okay well the the next section was about the the Spanish language farm worker safety uh and in the letter that uh in the letter that agency of accent last week they said that Bosia does produce um safety instructions that are translated I think they said into seven different languages so maybe you just change that to to somehow that the agency will um make available the Bosia materials and um to those persons farm workers that that need it including in the the language that may be requested something like that yeah that that would be fine Michael do they not already do that Michael uh you know I that that's that's a great question and and maybe um I can word the language so that uh it doesn't look necessarily like a new requirement but something like shall can shall initiate or continue to provide worker safety material to farm workers including in Spanish like something like that yeah I mean just that we got testimony you guys remember from the Dan Baker the UVM professor about this being a concern for migrant farm workers that they that safety was a concern yeah so you know they may have these programs but I'm just wondering if they're if they're you know widely executed on farms and I think it's based on what I'm hearing many farms do these but maybe not all of them do so is it a is it a an across the board program or if it's just an optional kind of hit or miss thing that that would be because if it's already happening I don't think we need to put any language in here but if it's not then maybe that's a question on our survey yes true this is this is Nolan can I make a quick comment um I looked into New York because they um Senator Hardy was mentioning there's a similar program or New York and they have a program but they do it through the Department of Labor not through their AG department and they were able to pay for it using existing federal dollars by just hopping on to an existing program so my my suggestion is our question is why why wouldn't it be Department of Labor or Secretary of AG in collaboration with Department of Labor or vice versa maybe Department of Labor in collaboration with the AG because its worker safety is labor's jurisdiction not AG's okay stop uh we move ahead and then the last section with language was the food uh system and food security future of it um strengthening the food production and distribution system in the state uh the agency's letter last week said don't put it with we lab the focus on the strategic plan that that they've been working on um and that that's essentially what they said yeah do we need that this section in there do you think did they did they say where to put it um let me find the letter did we all get this letter i i it was sent to myself in the chair yeah i don't think it went to all the members okay um i can would you like me to send it out to all the members yeah they sure i mean it's it's fine to me uh i don't i don't think any of you missed anything why not i mean i was not too impressed but at least we got a letter more to read hands on me yeah it just reminds me that we haven't done and the work we've done so far the bill we're putting together we have not added in any of the sort of nutrition programs to buy local programs the institutional buying programs and all that i think if we're going to put together a group that looks at the future of food security which is i'm not opposed to that it should be tied to our fund our proposing funding for the existing programs as they are right now and then have somebody group look at the longer term issues around food security but i'm a little afraid that we're getting caught up in this good stuff that we're working on but we're somehow not talking about the nutrition programs and the institutional buying programs which are where the demand is going to come from for the growth of some of the agricultural production well i think you know all these things are are good but we you know i think we're getting low in our build down with with some stuff that maybe should come in a separate bill um yeah i'll end of the future we we just have to understand as the senate some of the guard the the expectations and some guidelines because um you know if if we're going to do what we traditionally do which is sort of first people to come ask get a good leg up then we would be smart to pass this quickly if if we're going to have a little more orderly structure then you know we want to be as comprehensive as as possible within a budget but it's hard to do this with just guessing what kind of permissions we're going to have well what i heard this morning in the transitions work group that is working on these shorter term things like this bill is is that there are some that are allocated and authorized um uh early on the hundred and seventy million and then most of it is going to go out through the appropriations process and as part of the budget and you know i asked should we be putting money numbers on the transition things that our group is working on and jane said yes it would be helpful to have numbers attached to them it did also mention that there were some things that might go separate and this ag bill was one of those things that might go separate from the budget um so you know i think that my thought is that we put together as comprehensive of packages we want as we can and then we send it to a probes and they they take it from there we whittle from there right and so i i agree with anthony that we would want to put in you know maybe some money for the brahmantra speeding brahmantra's program for that ebt program i don't know what we do with school lunches i don't know if we can add something to that but you know those kinds of things i think make sense in this larger package and then a probes could take it from there protecting against hunger an option an acceptable expense michael uh well i uh new york just allocated 25 million for that um to to basically direct purchasing from vermont from new york farmers for nutrition programs hey um and so they believe they qualified and through their schools i i uh now it was i i'll have to get more information to you um i can ask i can ask the feed people i they'll find that for us i would okay and correction but this morning didn't jane tell you this morning that there's three avenues of of spending and you know the the short one was going through the joint physical committee real short one then we've got the supplemental budget which we want to get done maybe next the end of next week and then there's the 21 small budget that's coming and then there's even the fourth one which is the regular three quarter 21 budget and some of this stuff it's not it's not timely to fit into the short term the short term stuff is to get try to get the dairy stuff in that into the supplemental so that money could go out within the next two or three weeks if you get wrapped up in the in the uh you know beyond that it's going to be a while she did not say that this would go in the budget adjustment she said that there's a potential that that this ad bill would go as a separate bill well if we load it up that's where it's going to end up is on a separate bill that goes on and on and on and you know maybe dealing with it in july or in july or august or on the other hand we got a text this morning from a neighbor who saw about a thousand cars lined up at the nap airport in berlin waiting online for food and that's that's a pretty dire need so this idea that we have to we can put off nutrition and food programs i don't i don't buy that i think and in fact having said that i have to announce that i need really need to get some food before i go to my next meeting so i think michael's i've got enough work there to keep him busy until we meet again uh if i don't know if you're gonna want to meet tuesday uh or not chris if you do i'm i'm gonna have to be away tuesday sure what about monday bill that'd be fine what about monday well michael have you got anything forced uh or do you think you'll have anything for us on monday if we could stick to tuesday through friday i'd be really grateful we are supposed to be on the floor tuesday morning are you not there for that center star no i i may make the floor thing but i've got to be at the uh doctors that i think it's you loving or some somewhere's around you loving well could we plan to meet what did people think about wednesday thursday friday morning just you know kind of hoping we bang this out i don't know that we need to meet all morning but i i i mean i will meet with people monday if that's what folks want to do but i sure would be grateful for a little dependence on yeah when wednesday morning i've got to go back and get my patch off uh hopefully that i'm having a cataract removed and so wednesday morning i've got to go back but maybe well if that's the case then if we're not meeting wednesday then i can swap my life of monday morning for wednesday morning if that's what people want to do well we can do it that way or you can run the meeting wednesday if everybody could meet wednesday morning you know i i don't mind the four of you i mean you're capable of doing it okay either way i i don't know if like you've asked me to get this the produce framework from christin you've asked me to work i i don't know if i'll have i mean i obviously work over we can have something to you monday but i don't know if i'll get the information that i need to draft by monday morning yeah you may as well shoot for winstein michael and if you can take the weekend off thank you yeah yeah this zoom is very taxing oh it is yes uh crazy well uh we'll wrap up so you guys can eat and um have uh as good a weekend as you possibly have and we'll um we'll see you uh hopefully tuesday morning on at the meeting because i haven't got to go until 11 so we'll uh see y'all tuesday bye bye