 We have members of the Ethics Commission with us. Why don't we go around the room to find out for sure? Who else is here? Oh, and Orca is contacting us on this one. Also, OK. Sure. All right. Please back up to the Monty City. I'm Tom Waldman. I'm the general counsel for the Department of Human Resources. Jenny Crosser, Secretary of State's Office. Mr. Sandler with the Ethics Commission. Sarah Vangel, Ethics Commission. Touring over at Ethics Commission. I'm with the Hanras Legislative Council. Now I'm the modern chair of the Ethics Commission. OK. I'm out of hours. I'm in the shelter. She's shadowing me, looking at her. Brian Levin, Executive Director of the Ethics Commission. And Denise. Denise Dill, Committee Association. OK. And the committee, Dennis. So I'm represented as Dennis Debra from Mount Holly, representing Ludlow, Mount Holly, and Shrewsbury. And this is represented by Patty Lewis, who will be back in a minute. And that's Berlin and Northfield. And you're Jim Harrison. Oh, go ahead. Last I knew I was Jim Harrison. Go ahead. And I chitin' in Mendon, Killington, and Bridgewater. And it's my birthday. It's my birthday. Happy birthday. We'll do lunch. I'm Jessica Brimstead and I'm from Shelburne in St. George. And Ella is here with me today. She's from Shelburne, as well. And goes to Maddox Christy and is hoping to be a page next year. So she's shadowing me. Representative March Garner from Richmond. And welcome, everyone. I'm Ada Townsend from South Burlington. Robert Clarke from Berrytown. I'm not participating in a German pool, because it just wouldn't be fair. Cindy Weed, representing Enosburg and Montgomery. And John Gannon from Wilmington and Halifax. Whitingham and Halifax. Right, Whitingham and Halifax. Yes, and he's over in appropriations, having to give testimony on one of our own bills. And I'm Warren Kitzler, representing my failure. And this empty chair is Tristan Tolino from Brattleboro. He was part of the leadership. Yeah, he's almost never here because he's in leadership. Building and off the leadership type stuff. Just as well. Oh, sure. All right, so the state code of ethics. Who is it that we should be having talk to us first? I think Brian. Brian? And do we have this electronically on our web page now? Yes. Look. Yes? Dennis? That's the handout. And I brought it up, so everybody would be ready. Oh, our IT specialist did this presentation very much. I think it was 10 minutes to five by the lunch. So Brian, if you wouldn't mind. And Madeleine as well. Well, together, sure. If you would use Tristan's chair and the chair at the end together. If you just move that, or do use it a little bit so it doesn't go black. Thank you. Identify yourselves. So I'm Brian Levin. I'm the Executive Director of the State Ethics Commission. Madeleine Modern, Chair of the State Ethics Commission. I submitted to the committee yesterday a draft of the State Code of Ethics setting forth general principles of governmental conduct. We're here today to walk through that with you, talk it over with you, answer any questions. We also are very fortunate to have four of the five commission members here. And we're glad we could work that out. We're scheduled this afternoon to meet with the Senate committee, and so from all over the state, so we're fortunate to have most of the commission here. I'm going to let Madeleine, you want to jump in and give them some opening remarks? Oh, thank you. I just want to thank the committee for having us and the purpose of our meetings, as you know, to review this draft of general principles of the Ethics Code. And we'd like to just limit the discussion to this draft, if possible, because this is the draft that we are presenting today. And I just want to say that the draft itself, we relied on the federal five CFR general federal principles that they have, the federal government has on ethics, to primarily to draft this general principles document. And now, if you could, Betsy, would you remind the committee what serves as the context for us? Sure. So Betsy Andrews, legislative counsel. Last year, the General Assembly enacted what became 2017 Act Number 79, which was your ethics bill, established the Ethics Commission, and it's one of the duties. In Act Number 79 was to create a state code of ethics. It's codified in 3DSA 1202, that the Ethics Commission has this duty. And I'll just read it. It's a one-sentence statute. It's entitled State Code of Ethics. It provides that the Ethics Commission, in consultation with the Department of Human Resources, shall create and maintain a state code of ethics that sets forth general principles of governmental ethical conduct. So along those lines, too, I'd like to add that we did receive some good comments from Tom Waldman at the Department of Human Resources. I think many of which make a lot of sense and we'll look to incorporate in the next draft. Is it the committee's pleasure to walk through this section by section? And it's not a lengthy document. Why don't you walk this through then? OK. So again, this is the state code of ethics. These are the general principles of governmental ethical conduct. There's really two sections to what we presented to you that's preceded by what we thought it would be important and helpful to have a mission statement, some explanation of what the Ethics Commission's responsible for as sort of a preamble to this. And then we get into section one, which is the general principles. It's the heart of what the commission is charged to come up with here. As Madeline indicated, we did look at a number of state ethics codes. The structure here largely models that, which you see in the Code of Federal Regulations. They have a specific section that's just the general principles. Those are the overarching principles that then the rest of their code flows from. So this is essentially that. Many of those principles are embodied here. So if you'd like, we can just start walking through each of those. There's an explanation to begin with about how public service is a public trust. Public officials are required to uphold the Constitution, the law, the state code of ethics, and also the governmental codes of conduct. The other codes that are out there, whether it's personnel policies or attorney code of conduct, judicial code of conduct, these are codes of conduct that have ethical components to them. And by public official here, we're talking about every elected or appointed officer or employee of the state. This, again, would only be state government. So we have 13 enumerated, more specific, general principles. The first is the basic prohibition on having any personal or financial interest, whether it's direct or indirect, public official should not engage in any business, employment, transaction or professional activity or incur any obligation that's in conflict with the performance of their duty. And as we have explored in going through this, the conflict of interest is a lot of what we're talking about when we're talking about ethical governmental conduct. So there's a reason, I think, why this is the first principle enumerated here. Sorry. Number two, a public official should not engage in financial transactions using information that they obtained in the course of the performance of their duties. They might create an unfair advantage. Number three is a prohibition on the soliciting or receipt of any gift or anything of monetary value. This is from any person or entity seeking official action or doing business with or conducting activities that are regulated by a state agency or whose interest may be substantially affected by their performance or non-performance of their duties. Brian, Rob and Cindy have a question at this point. Sure. I'm sorry if I missed this. Does this apply to just state officials or this is to elected folks as well? Elected, appointed, and employees. So I have a question on number three then. Let's say when I had this actually happen with the exception of the money. I had a business call me in that was concerned about peace legislation. I said, hey, listen, this is going to have a real major impact on us on our new business. And so we had the discussion. And they said, when that time comes along, we're certainly going to work to encourage you to vote against that. And let's say that I do, because they're my constituent and they're trying to make some sense. And then they make a contribution to my campaigning later on. Is there an issue here potentially, an issue? I guess I'm not, you know, that this is written I think to address someone's doing business for the state agency. So in the way it reads, it's, you know, the prohibitions on soliciting, in this case, the official soliciting or accepting a gift, if that person's in front of your state agency, let's say you're on the Public Utilities Commission. So we do have specific statutes. There's prohibition on legislators receiving gifts while they're in session or receiving campaign contributions. And any gifts, you know, you have to report disclose. So there's nothing in these general principles that expands upon or restricts the law anyway. I think the way this is written, and maybe we'll look at that when we consider how this might affect the legislators is this creating a different scenario than what we're talking about here. Or I know this language really, the Code of Federal Regulations doesn't apply to Congress. So they're just talking about executive branch state agencies. So I understand your concern. I think it would be worth our while to just look at that again and make sure that we're not saying something that goes beyond what the law already requires or prohibits. Thank you very much. That's Cindy and then just along the same lines. I mean, we have a steady stream of receptions in here that we participate in from organizations that are basically law being passed. And it looks like it shouldn't happen by line number three. Just reading those. You mind? Yes, if you would identify yourself for the record. Yes, Sarah and Angela, I'm a member of the ethics commission. I think these are all great points. I think, like, Brian's, I agree with what Brian's saying, that this is a first draft and this certainly gives us thought about how this may be to apply to legislators. I think as it's written now, the timing of the gift makes a difference. I think the way that's written about solicit or accept, I would think with the situation that you presented, if you had the meeting with the constituents and they say, if you vote this way, we will make the contribution. That might be more problematic then. We'd love it if you would not push this through. And then as a result they end up making a gift. But certainly, I mean, I would say it's good to vote. Three points first to consider going forward. To be safe, Beth, if I didn't know the way that they were looking for me to, I wouldn't get a contribution. Not that Beth would be sweating my head. I just want to say, too, here's an example of how you need to flesh out these principles. And definitions do a little bit of that. But that's what the real ethics code does in terms of confidentiality. Fleshes out these issues for the different people that it applies to. And also, that's a perfect ethics advisory question that you would call our office about. And we have to take the time to look up the laws that are applicable to your question and respond accordingly. And then Jessica, I wondered about, well, first, wondering about what's needs at the steady stream. They're all billed as meeting. So they're more of an opportunity to say hello. I think that's a good point. I don't know. But number one, a public official shall not have any personal or financial interest, director, indirect, or engage in any business. I just want to put a number? Number one. I was just curious. We have a lot of members that have other jobs as well, because we can't afford often to do the whole thing. And some of those, for example, I'm on a board, and my executive director of the board is a member of the legislature. Would he or she be in violation of the law? She definitely has a public, a personal, and financial interest in that not-for-profit, but is indirect. And conflict then. And so I just wonder, because there's so much of that here, that that one is hard. Again, it's a general principle. That's why we need definitions and to define it and make it more of a specific instances and activities. But I know in the federal government, they have a waiver process, and they also have excuse yourself from any decision-making capacity. That would be the general way to handle that. And that would, if we had more of a code, we could get that in the code. We have rules set in the back. Right. And I've only seen it used once, and I've asked a lot about it to myself, is should I be using them in this or that? So I don't think in the past, it's been used very often. So this is going to be a incredibly important education process and understanding whether or not we need to take it. And again, this is just establishing the principle, that you shouldn't have any conflict. And if you do, and what you do about it, then it's left to rule 75 or whatever other enforcement may be out there. Number four, this one is fairly simple. Public officials should not knowingly make unauthorized commitments of any kind that obligate state government in any manner. So this is, again, unauthorized. Number five, prohibition on using the public office for personal gain. And also, the official can't have a potential or substantial interest, which is in conflict with the proper discharge of their fiduciary duties. Sorry, I noticed those little grammatical things that go along with it. Some lead draft law. The next draft will be even better. Number six, this is a requirement that public officials act impartially and not allowed to give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual in the course of state business. There is a caveat here that if it's not possible that the public official must recuse him or herself. But again, this is just a general principle. So how the nuts and bolts of how it plays out is left to those policies and procedures that are in place. Again, I guess I'll go back to number three. My job down here isn't always to be impartial. In fact, quite often, as was expected of me, it's to advocate and to take a position. And I'm just curious to know, again, would that apply to us here, whether you want to talk or act in the lobbyist or constituents or whatever? We don't always, we never have the chance of saying maybe it's either yes or no. Is that? It's a great point. These principles are intended to be aspirational. So I think there's a distinction, even as a legislator, that you make between having a personal stake in something and not being able to neutrally make a decision versus your position on a public policy matter. OK. So this sort of falls under the purview of personal gain as opposed to just being more general. I believe so, yeah. And I appreciate your point. And I think we can pay a little more attention to this. Maybe there's a way to explain that even a little better. Great, sorry. I would think on this point, the way I would read that, if you act impartially, that means you come into a discussion with an open mind. You can listen to both sides fairly. And then we have to come down on one side or the other. We have to vote yes or no on a particular question. And at that moment, you are making a decision and acting in favor of one side or the other. But you come into it with an open mind. That's the way I view it. Is that reasonable? I think that's reasonable. It's just a standard behavior. Yeah. OK, absolutely. I think in this, I see it as you're giving or not supposed to get preferential treatment to any private organization or individual. That would mean you were doing a lot more for somebody else. So I think that's pretty clear. Yeah, we all have ideas and meanings. But if I'm just doing that for an individual or for some private organization, to set up for the betterment of the whole, I think that's what this says, that's how I view it. Well, I'm extremely open minded about just everything. OK. We'll note that. Actually, if I may, I'd also point your attention to the definition section where conflict of interest is defined, which does offer a little bit more towards explaining this. And at the end of that, I don't know what's behind me here, but what appears on the top of page three, which is kind of the end of this definition of conflict of interest. Conflict of interest does not arise in the case of votes or decisions on matters in which the public official has a personal or pecuniary interest in the outcome, such as an establishment of a tax rate. There's no greater than that of other persons generally affected by the decision. I'm thankful if that's first, the definition. So when you start reading the info, you are going to get the definitions. OK. Yeah, I see what you're saying, yeah. That's how it is, and that's how we do it, set it up. And that definition tracks with what we used to with regard to rule 75. And it also tracks what's in state law, what conflict of interest is defined, I think as it pertains to municipalities, even in state government as well. All set votes to proceed. Number seven is that a public official shall avoid any action to create the perception of a potential or actual conflict of interest with their official duties, or that they're violating the law or a state code of conduct. You obviously see a lot of overlap here, but there's. Number eight, yes. Public official is required to protect and conserve government property and resources and use their time and property only for official business. I hope this one's not controversial. No taking of pencils home. We're doing unneeded studies. A public official shall not seek or negotiate in any manner employment that potentially or actually conflicts with her official government duties and responsibilities while in state service. Number 10, a public official shall be free to disclose to the ethics commission or other authorities, this is essentially whistleblower. And in fact, this language mirrors the statutory language that the legislature enacted, which expresses the intent of the whistleblower chapter. Number 11, requires a good faith compliance with the public officials duties as a citizen, including tax obligations. That's just by way of example, there are many others. Number 12, this is anti-discrimination requirement. Public officials shall adhere to all laws and regulations that mandate equal opportunity for all these protected classes. And number 13, we've struggled with the best way to present this one. I'll read it, a conflict of interest of any public official shall be imputed to any public official appointee or employee who serves at the direction and control of that first public official. What the idea we're trying to capture here is that if someone has the ability to hire and fire someone underneath them, and that person, I'm sorry, the fire might have a conflict, the person below them has a conflict too, because they really are serving at the direction and control of that superior that has a conflict. So you don't get out of having a conflict just because you have somebody working underneath you, signing the contract or, you know. So it wouldn't work to say, I was just following orders. If the person giving the directive to do whatever. Well, in fact, I think that would have the opposite. I mean, it wouldn't work to say, I don't have a conflict. Because, which may be true, but the fact that your boss has a conflict, we're saying as a matter of a general principle here that you now have a conflict also. So, for instance, the governor has a code of governmental ethics code for conduct for their appointees, for his appointees and employees. And that flows down, but it's not flowing up right now. And so this would be making sure that he's also is captured by that code that he says verbally is. I mean, that he's captured by his own code, for instance, or his own conduct policies. So we're just making sure that it's a two-way street. Jim has a question. Yeah, I'm not sure if this is really a question. I just, it's hard to draw that line. You know, let's suppose Rob is my supervisor. And I have an employee that happens to be his ex-spouse. And it wasn't a friendly divorce. So I'm just using you as an example. I understand that. I love gentlemen, and I know it was. And they still get along. But anyhow, I've said I'm going down the wrong path here and getting myself in trouble, but how do you handle situations like that when I know my boss would probably love it if, but she's not a good employee or he's not a good employee. I mean, whatever the case is, how do I defend myself? They're not doing their job without appearing that there's a conflict because my boss had a conflict, potentially a personal conflict. I just, I don't know, it's hard to put it all down and writing and then have it solve every situation. Right. I sincerely agree with your last statement there. I'm trying to figure out your example here and how I could respond to it. But it certainly is a challenge drafting these general overarching principles and to stay general, we can't get into the weeds too much. But I'll have to think about your example a little more because I'm not a employee. You can't fix everything, otherwise you would do nothing. So I'm cognizant of that, too. So I think as a matter of a general principle, we're saying you've got a conflict if your boss has a conflict. And I agree with you, but there could be other situations where you don't know your boss has a conflict and you're just going on doing your job and maybe you entered in, let's forget the employee situation. Let's say you entered in a contract that unbeknownst to you is in conflict, you know, your boss might have a conflict and you don't know that. You don't know that he's got an investment in that company you just signed a contract with. Now am I guilty for doing that? Maybe I should have known, but I don't. It's not my business to ask my boss, you know, what have you invested in lately? Right. Well, I won't deny that this maybe will encourage more diligence on the part of some public officials to know what conflicts their bosses might have. Again, we have no, the legislature has not given us authority to investigate or enforce, so these are aspirational. You know, they're not even detailed enough to be a standard conduct, but they're just right now a general principle. Okay, Jim? Yeah, I'm good. Well, I have a couple structural questions. Would anyone know the piece of legislation that you folks have used as an example? How often do you meet? Moreno, once a month, scheduled. Once a month. And have you found it that you needed to meet more often to sort of stand all this up and get all this worked out? Well, I can address that. We certainly did. I mean, our timelines were really tight initially. I mean, our appointments came through in October, but not September. And we had to get a financial disclosure form out by January 1st. We had to, I mean, our timelines are really tight. So we essentially, we had to hire an executive director, which we did pretty fast. So this was our next, you know, deliverable. And so we met, we met as much as we could meet, given that we're all over the state. And the committee has been a real working committee. I mean, everybody's taken pieces and done pieces like right now. Julie, as doing marketing, you know, we have to have a marketing plan. We're getting complaints and we haven't even marketed the program. And we're getting complaints. And once we're out there, we're probably getting a lot more complaints. It would make sense you have to meet more. Oh, we do. And once you get the infrastructure in place that you're looking for, the ones a month are going to continue is that enough too often? I think, I think once a month, we'll probably continue till the first year and until we get more funding. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I will be, I didn't know if you want to walk through each of the definitions. There. I'm happy to discuss them and answer any questions. Any questions? Marcia. So did you take the definitions from the federal language or? We didn't for the definitions section. Okay. Where did you take the definitions? I think we identified certain terms that are in the general principles that we thought could use a little bit more explanation. And there are some terms that I think naturally fit in a code of ethics that need to be there even as we move forward. So it's sort of a combination of those two things. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Are there questions regarding the definitions? At some point here, it would be helpful for us to know what suggestions have come from HR to fold into this. I don't know how you're thinking of proceeding. Is there more that you wanted to tell us about this document at this very moment? Well, I have a few things to say. I think these are very broad principles. We're going to be, we're required by statute to do ethics trainings and ethics advisory opinions. And based on these, it's going to be, we don't want to guesstimate when we give an answer. It's pretty slim pickings right now, given that they're general principles. And again, so I think as we go forward, I see these general principles as almost like a preamble to further development of the state ethics code. And again, at the core of the state ethics code, at the core of any state ethics code in any state is conflict of interest issues, conflict of interest rules. And we'll be developing further the ethics code based on the queries we get about ethics concerns or ethics advisory questions. We'll be looking, when we design a training, ethics government ethics training curriculum, we're going to try to keep in mind what the subject can also questions about gifts, honorariums. I mean, we got to call the other day about a question from the office attorney general about an honorarium. So that will help us flesh out, as we go forward with building the ethics code, that'll help us flesh out the definitions and help us flesh out the code. And so that is more meaningful in terms of actual anticipating these questions. Because you can imagine, when we're doing a training, probably half of the session is going to be on questions. Like, well, how does that apply to this, to my situation? And so if we can have those down how those applications would occur, that would be, you know, I think that's where we're going. We see this as just a progression on, this isn't it, that we're moving forward to developing more specific, helpful, practical code. And we also remember the Code Gel, which is the Council on Government Ethics Laws. And that's every ethics commission in the state they get together. And also in Canada, their Canadian counterpart. And they have a meeting, and all they do is talk about this. All they do is work on ethics issues. Most of them have investigative authority. Most of them have enforcement. So they're already, they're in a whole other plane than we are at this point, where the youngsters in the group. But we, you know, they're a huge reference for us. And they've been very, I've reached out to probably about five different states, and they're very helpful in helping us, you know, giving us advice on what we're doing here. So it's like a lot of these, you know, working blind here. Any questions from Warren? Mine has to do with your view of, what's your scope? Are you really only after state employees and state officials? Or will this, at some time, filter down to municipal level things? Would you see yourself as offering these guidelines to municipalities perhaps? Since they're aspirational in nature, I came to that question with definition 13 of a public official means, any state officer, whether elected or appointed, and is an employee of the state. Well, that's, that was taken off the table, I think, when the bill was being drafted that municipalities wouldn't be folded into the state ethical, more than happy to assist them in developing conflict of interest rules or in terms of trainings. I mean, we're a resource. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Jim, another Jessica? Yeah, I mean, I totally agree that a lot of this is, as you get to questions, you develop the information, you respond to it, just like we're asking questions here. But having said that, there's a real value, I think 99% of public officials, it's not 100%, go into it, wanting to do the right thing and just have an information and trying to have an understanding. For example, we're all, for the first time, going to be faced with filling out a new disclosure form. And it's not necessarily black and white and easy to understand how certain things go. You know, Brian and I had a conversation about how to, and it's new to Brian. And so ultimately, I discussed it with a reporter of the bill and, you know, so I think together we, from my own particular situation, I feel comfortable on doing it correct. That's all any of us want to do, to do it correct. Sometimes it's a little bit more complicated for us folks that are, you know, perhaps not working full-time and we have other retirement sources of income. So I would just encourage you so that, you know, the candidate, you know, is filing this next month. You know, here's a Q&A on how to do it. Yeah, that's not a question. Yeah, it was asked yesterday by a House member. Do we have a list of FAQs? And I said this is the first one. You're developing. We haven't had any frequency yet. We're getting questions. To actually do the form by January 1st. So we were just getting the form out. And then the Secretary of State's office didn't leave enough space to actually, I mean, you can't even type in social security without running out of room on sources. So it's a learning. So, you know, we're doing the code, but some of our other deliverables are, we're doing internal policies. I mean, they don't exist in how we handle complaints and how we operate. And that's another thing. We're looking at complaint monitoring system that can then track the complaint and anonymously, and then, you know, provide some data so that when we do our annual report, we'll let you know that. I can say, I don't think I'm disclosing anything for the last month. Most of our complaints were about legislators. No problem. What did we create here? So the complaints are coming in, but like I said, we don't even have anything. We haven't done anything in the news. We now, you know, we have to get a website. We have to get a phone. We have to get all of those. So we have those in place and we're working on that. So what happens when you get a complaint? If you get a complaint, I'm required to give it a preliminary review to see if it's alleged a violation of law or a code of conduct and the complainant's name's on it. And the only requirements are it's got to identify the complainant, it's got to be in writing, and it's got to alleged a violation of some sort. If it does that, then I refer it to the appropriate state agency if it's a complaint about you, I'm going to send it to the House ethics panel. If it's a complaint about a state attorney, send it to the professional conduct board. Do you do any investigation like... No, we've got to complain about you. What's your side of the story? No, we're not allowed to do that. That falls on the enforcing agency. We're prepared to do that. We've got a ton of attorneys. You know, he's an attorney. We're prepared to do that. He's prepared to do it, but we don't have that authority. So we do a quick preliminary review and send it on. So in the case of a House member, you would refer it to the House ethics committee, perhaps? Okay. Great. Thank you. And if you need, you can always look back to the statutes that we passed last session. All of this is... I'm not trying to be a smart out. It's all very clearly outlined as to what happens in this case in these statutes. Act...what...it became Act 1. 79. 79. I forward it to the committee now. Thank you. Well, Jessica. Now it was sort of my question of what June had asked about this process inside. Are you getting going with a website and all those things that's hard? Those are things with a lot on your plate to get going. And earlier we were talking about municipalities and, yes, that you don't have to do that, but I did think that the Secretary of State was sending you any of their municipal, right? Yes. That was part of the Act. And then my other question, we're working on another bill that we have the Attorney General here talking about complaints due to elections and the way things are happening and that those are going to be going over to you, too. So my question to get to the question is, are you going to have a way, even for minute one, to start collecting the type of concern so that we can see, oh, this group is much... it seems to be a big problem. This group seems tiny compared to the overall. So you're not losing sight of it as you're getting up to speak. Right. That was one of our priorities and I've been talking to different people about providers about what systems they have in place to track complaints. I'd like to get a good system in place now rather than put it in later. And there's a few. Congressman Welch uses an IQ system and they're pretty expensive. I'm looking at NAVAC. I'm an ethics consultant in Canada with federal government and they use this other... We're hoping to get something in place but in the meantime, we are tracking them. We're keeping them in place because we are facing this report down the road. So absolutely. The complaints and the types of complaints will drive our curriculum. It will drive how we proceed with building the ethics code further. That's what I sort of hoped. So that's really nice to hear. And one of the things that concerns me is that today, the attorney general's office staff came and told us that in 10 years, they've had these 10 complaints which is hard for me to believe. I'm sure that there are a whole bunch of complaints that have come in that just haven't thought were needed to be addressed. So hopefully in 10 years, even those complaints will know something about so that it will help us to think through next steps in legislation and be better prepared knowing history. So I appreciate all you're doing and you can only imagine how immense the project is. But we need more money and we need more to stay. We're on a $100,000 budget. It's very limited. But I know I think there was some discussion about an Ombudsman position placed in the I don't know where that a brief one. It was removed from the bill. I thought the Senate put it back. Well, the bill has not yet come back to us. I suspect that will be a major bone of discussion. I did the research on that and like 25% of ethics commission nationally have an Ombudsman just handled campaign finance complaints and information referral in the ethics commission and other bigger states have their own they have a whole division for it. So we will be as we gear up this part time we'll be taking complaints around campaign finance and going forward we thought it would be a good idea to include that. Just wanted to follow up on one thing Representative Brum says question. There's a requirement that the Attorney General's office regularly notify us on campaign finance violations and there's a requirement that the Secretary of State's office notify us about municipal complaints and forward those to us. When we receive a complaint if there's nowhere to refer it to we still track it. We still have a record of it. They don't tell us and we don't know about it. So there are those two requirements out there for the AG's office and Secretary of State's but I'm sure there are other complaints that come into state government and we may not know about them without an affirmative duty on behalf of all agencies to actually report that to us. So we suspect going forward that we may get sexual harassment complaints and making that connection I've already made that connection with the sexual harassment group about we're here we're going to be getting some so you should the worst case narrow would be for us to say we're sorry we can't take that complaint that we should be on the list that accept those complaints and I don't know if that got changed or not but I made that suggestion or also probably we'll be meeting with the Human Rights Commission because they may be getting complaints and I don't know what they do with them and directing them to us. Is it time for us to hear what HR has identified is needed to be considered? Are you folks okay with our shifting gears a little bit? Okay. If you would apply, sure. So if we know what's the time frame we're just also looking at for draft 2 July? July 1st is when we're supposed to have one in place. Understanding that if there's a need to make that note also but yeah draft 2 Yes. Good morning for the record I'm Tom Waldman on the general council of the Department of Human Resources the Act 79 requires the ethics commission to interface with the Department of Human Resources on a couple of matters one being the code of ethics, the state code of ethics and in that regard the executive director did send me the draft and I've given him comments and I think that based on what he said it looks as though the comments on behalf of the Department of Human Resources will be worked into the document I don't think they're reflected in the version that we have up on the screen many of them were stylistic a couple of them were substantive and I'm sure that that Brian and I will discuss it the other area where the department has a role under the statute that creates that creates the commission is in the training aspect the statute says that the ethics commission is to collaborate with the Department of Human Resources with respect to the ethics training and we look forward to working with the ethics commission when the time comes to do that really nothing else questions I guess we're booked then would any of the members of the ethics commission want to share any thoughts would you want to make sure since we have access to you right here in the room that if you have anything you want to tell us from your perspective please share this is just a minor thing Susanian Lowenson ethics commission member I just want to assure the members of the committee that all the questions that you have I think have occurred in other states and so that's why we've we've looked to neighboring states and states across the country to look at their codes of ethics they're frequently asked questions there their guidance their training and so we feel like we don't have to reinvent the wheel so I believe a lot of the questions can be answered already in other places we looked at something just from another state government that had a plain language code of ethics and so that was very nice in terms of some of the questions that people just asked minor questions have already been addressed and so those are things you can't do everything right now and so I think our first draft actually was more advanced in terms of having a lot of detail maybe too much and so it's just because I think detail is what helps people to interpret so we are using all the resources across the country that we can Can I ask you for one moment please? Okay, I'm new to this It's okay Committee, any questions? Thank you Anybody else want to Just frankly, Sarah, Angela again member of the commission just to echo what Suzanne said and to thank you all for having us and it's nice to be able to even just report to you about what we've been doing we have been very busy setting up the commission and trying to set it up in a way that we can provide good guidance and assistance to everyone moving forward and I think what we've sort of all said but just to say again and I think your questions representative Harrison we're very directed to that point or what we've presented with these general principles are just that general principles right to get everyone thinking about their conduct everyone in state government is doing that task is what I'm doing is it what is my motive here and that I think that having some ideally going down the road if we're able to develop more specific standards that address those specific situations that come up over time that's something that we would really look to do and be interested in being able to provide Maybe the members can talk a little bit about their background their jobs what they bring to the commission Sure, sure So I'm an attorney I practice in Southern Vermont Kramer and Vangels a small firm we do a lot of general practice work I do a lot of real estate transactions and I do a lot of criminal defense work so I think what I bring is a very varied perspective on a lot of different situations I was appointed by Chief Justice Riber to the commission and I think you know my background as an attorney and certainly dealing with ethics as an attorney is really what I bring What area in Southern Vermont Brattleboro, I practice in Brattleboro and I grew up in Vermont born and raised I was a page here when I was in eighth grade so it was a nice sort of close circle to be here And you came back Yeah, I did hear that I hope that she does it It was a great experience Thank you We could hear from the other members from the commission You can say right there if you don't have to get in the chair I don't think you can Okay Okay This chair is higher up actually I can Well, I meant to fix it yesterday Okay guys Carolyn was pretty tall I'm Julian from the town of Colchester I was appointed by the Vermont Human Resources Association I've been in human resources for about 18 years the last 10 of which were in municipalities So your comments and questions about municipalities I'm hearing from sort of two veins and I would thank the commission for their support and the questions that you ask the more questions that you ask the more we can sort of address that as we define things in code and I hope that you'll all encourage you all are encouraged and will encourage your peers to ask questions because that is a confidential process and that will help us further define training I would be remiss as an HR person if I didn't say we're looking forward to doing training and knowing what the questions are will help us define what that training will be Questions? Thank you I'm an accounting professor at UVM and my background I was on the Daniels ethics commission at Colorado State University before moving here I had done research and ethics education and I'm a prior auditor too so I guess that helps deliver the details Thank you And you want to hear the background of our chair and ED? Yeah, definitely Brian I'm such a stranger Well Madeline is so straight into this committee she lived in here when we were on the ethics committee I said we're fresh here unfortunately I actually went first I have a law degree and I have a PhD in B-Sherry Law I picked up from McGill and so I'm a real strong Canadian connection and I'm an ethics consultant I've worked for Health Canada on their ethics board and then working with the academic research university in Canada on developing their ethics program for their professors and for their staff and so I come from pretty strong ethics background academically and practically and helping what I do is help them set up infrastructures for ethics programs in universities and agencies I come from the notion that ethics informs the law and law doesn't inform the ethics and that we set a higher standard we set a higher bar to aspire to and we don't wait for the law to get us there because it will take forever so forward thinking in everything I think about when it comes to ethics and how I think about ethics I'm very happy, very pleased with our commission members that came forward and we had a great group we're missing one member Chris Davis he's an attorney he was on the judicial conduct board for a few years and he has a very he's the more voice of reason in our group I'm sorry he's not here today so it's a great group and it's great and so we're working getting the limitations we have I think we have a good ethics commission and Ryan not everybody on the committee knows talk about the music talk about the music and Chris Davis was appointed by the VBA the fifth commissioner so yeah I'm the executive director I also have a small private practice I grow I grow saffron I grow saffron I grow saffron but prior to going to private practice I was the deputy secretary of state under Jim Tondo his first two terms and before that I was 12 years I was Betsy that's legislative council yeah I shaved my beard and grew along here and Betsy took over for me so I was 12 years in this committee and the senate of ops committee and legislative committee on administrative rules and he knows a lot about municipal government helped us do a lot of charters and one of the ones that came here Brian is about setting July 1st the odor of marijuana in municipalities I'll do my best look into that a little bit someone coordinates us in place so you can complain about your neighbor still on the wall well it's high on my left but it's obviously not going very far Jenny had anything that we needed to hear from the secretary at this point and Betsy from your perspective our drafter par excellence anyway I guess we're good committee are we so you have an extra 15 minutes for lunch or however long is it what you said thank you all thanks very much we'll be here yes you may well be here to watch first