 Hello. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs on this lovely Wednesday, March 29th. We are here this morning to hear some introductory testimony on S9. And I want to welcome Senator Gubbas Chair, Senator Ruth Harvey. So thanks for being here this morning. Thank you, Representative McCarthy. Thanks for having me. See everybody. So S9 is a bill about the authority of the state auditor to examine the books and records of state contractors. The impetus of this bill was, as you might know, a Vermont Supreme Court case last year, Hoffa D1 care that was brought because the auditor was trying to audit the books and records of one care of Vermont, the state's accountable care organization. And they refused to provide the information that the auditor requested and it ended up in a legal battle that went to the Vermont Supreme Court. So I highly recommend reading the case. And I actually am on the Judicial Retention Committee and we had the US or at the Vermont Supreme Court in this year for retention. So I talked to the justice who wrote the decision about it so you can also watch that. But Becky will also take you through the case if you request it so you can understand sort of the nuances of why we ended up here. And basically the court found that for the purposes of auditing state contracts with the state, the auditor was not determined to be an agent of the state, which is a little curious because he's the state auditor and a statewide elected official. So the, but the court found that if the, if the legislature wants to provide this authority to the auditor, we know how to do that. And that the, that the legislature knows how to provide authority to state officials and to do so through legislation. So that's what this bill is us exercising our legislative power. So, as nine adds to the auditor's authority that the ability to to request the records accounts books papers reports and returns. And that is language that is equivalent to the language that is used for the auditor's authority to audit other entities, state agencies, etc. So that's the same language that is already in the statutes for the auditor's authority. And we that so that the auditor could audit the records accounts books papers reports and returns acquired from contractors and the specific thing that's really important is that it's for the performance of the contract only. So this is if there's a contract with the state to, you know, build a table, it's only the stuff that's relevant to the contract to build that table. It's not all the other stuff about the contract from the contractor. So we were really we got in testimony that language suggested it wasn't in the original bill and we added performance of the contract. That makes it very clear that it's, you know, relevant to what the state is paying the contractor to do that that the auditor would be able to do an audit. So you'll see that repeated in the bill several times. The other thing I would suggest is that you get some testimony on bulletin 3.5. Because this also requires the secretary of administration to include in bulletin 3.5, which is the states parameters, rules, etc. And they'll explain it better than I can about contracting. So you'll get into the weeds of how the state does contracting so I and this requires that the auditor be included in that so already anybody who contracts with the state in the in bulletin 3.5 says that they can be audited. But it's audited by the state agency apparently not by the auditor, it's kind of weird. So this is saying in bulletin 3.5 be specific to add that the audit, the auditing means that the auditor can also do the auditing not just the agency with which with whom you're contracting. And finally, we, we did also bring Tucker Anderson in to talk to us about public records requests and how this interacts with public records requests, because there was a concern that once the auditor does get some of this information that it could be subject to public records request and Tucker can walk you through the nuances of how the public records act works with these kinds of records, and the auditor can walk you through the sort of provisions that his department his office does for public records. So there's a provision in here that he can explain to you probably better than me, but is was requested by the bank, the bankers Association that is that allows for them, it's, it's section two of the bill, I believe. No, it's not. Becky will explain to you where the section four of the bills that allow so banking records are covered by federal law and unless there's an explicit explicit permission to provide those banking records. It's a violation of federal law. So, Christina came in and requested this language so that banks can comply with the audits without being in violation of federal law. So, he can explain that and so can Becky better than I can but that is the basic gist of the things we did. We got a lot of testimony. And we tried to respond to as many of the concerns as possible and while still moving the bill forward. We feel like it's really important that the auditor be able to audit the records books, etc. of what first relevant to state contracts, a lot of state funding is put out there in contracts, and if the auditor doesn't have access to it. And that's leaving a whole slew of public money that is not being able to be audited by our state auditor, which is his constitutional duty as a state auditor. And I think also it's important to understand this is not about the current auditor or the past auditor or the next auditor it's about the office of the auditor in general and what the authority of that office is as the elected statewide auditor and the ability to ensure that public funding is used in a effective efficient and, you know, the way that it was supposed to be used for the performance of a contract. We got some last minute concerns about the bill that, frankly, I think we're a lot very overblown so I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Senator. Did you say that the individual department still retain the ability to do an audit themselves. It's not supplanted by this authority given to the correct. And we're looking. Thanks for coming in. Sure. Can you say more to the concerns that were raised. I'm sure you'll hear a lot about this, but there were concerns raised by the administration that this would prevent people from contracting with the state that they would be afraid they were going to be audited. And they would therefore not want to contract with the state. And they had a lot of kind of your mongering, frankly, about it. And I think that's one of the reasons for Senator Hart. It is following up with that. So were there, it's signed to the administration with their other organizations, any trade associations or any groups that represent. We heard that contract with the state that we're. Yeah, we heard from this expansion. Thanks for that question we heard from general contractors of Association Vermont. We heard from the hospitals we heard from. We heard from all the lists that and what when we added the performance of the contract language that seemed to quell a lot of the concerns there. You know, there was a concern that it was really broad and that the auditor could be asking for information about anything. And so when we made it specific to the performance of the contract that made them feel much better that it was just going to be about building the table. We heard about anything else they were doing. There were also, once we heard from Tucker about the public records act and what what is able to be kept confidential. And, you know, there were there were concerns about trade secrets there were concerns about personal personnel information there were concerns about medical records. You know, the public records act there are there are things that are to remain confidential even with that and still HIPAA still applies to medical records. It's not like we're, you know, the auditor is going to release personal medical records. The auditor already has a lot of this kind of information with other audits that the office does. We have medical records and, you know, confidential information and they have a policy for dealing with it. So I think that that we, you know, there were concerns initially about once we clarified things and narrowed the scope. Those concerns were quelled for the most part it was the concern that the administration had about people not wanting to contract with the state because they might be audited but already they could be audited. So that's the question of who audits them. And, you know, to be clear also that the audit would be of the contract on both sides, you know, that the contractor and the, you know, states performance in the contract to and so, you know, the, which the auditor already had access to state records. So it's not. It was, it seemed seemed like a concern that could was not necessarily a concern that needed to be had. We'll dig into the voices. So I want to make sure since legislative councils got a time limit that we get a chance to actually walk through the language with. Is there anything else you want to leave us with Senator. I heard from, you know, the, the health care advocate and others who are talking about how it was important that this these contracts be audited to make sure that that the performance was what we needed for the state. So, I think it's important to see both sides of it. The bills pretty short. So it's just one of those bills that created a lot of discussion. We'll discuss it all. Thank you all for taking it out. Thank you. Take care. And you obviously should hear from the auditor to hear what their procedures were hard. And he's on the area. I didn't. Mr. Thank you. Thank you. So I want to invite Rebecca Washington and legislative council to come and just walk us through the words on the page. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Good morning, Becky Wasserman legislative council. So I will turn to S 9, passed by the Senate, which is an act relating to the authority of the state auditor to examine the books and records of state contractors. As Senator Hardy mentioned, there is a court case that sort of motivated this language. So if you want me to speak to that I can but for now I'll just start with the bill. That is how you want to proceed. Yeah, if it would help the committee understand the context and I think a couple of folks doing this later might be helpful just to give a brief summary of sort of what the one care case was. Okay, I'm sure the auditor and others will put me on the bones of that but if you could say just sort of how this relates to that. Sure. And so the auditor requested some records some payroll records from one care, and I can let the auditor speak to sort of the intricacies of it, which one care did not provide after several requests. And so then the auditor brought a suit to say that there is a breach of the contract that one care had with diva which allowed for auditing of certain accounts and records and the contract that with diva had to auditing provisions one was in the contract, and then one was part of what are the attached to every state contract the standard sort of con standard terms and conditions that the state adds to contracts. So, both of those provisions. And I'm very much summarizing here but both of those provisions to provide for having access to a contractors accounting records, but it's the language in them is limited limits it to authorized representatives of the state. And so the auditor in the case was, you know, I'm the constitutional officer who performs government audits. So, under this, the terms of this contract, you know, I'm an authorized representative who should have access to these records. I sort of looked at the auditor statutory authority which is what this bill is amending and said, you know, your statutory authority says that, you know, the auditor has the ability to audit departments institutions and agencies of the state but does not specify that the auditor can audit contractors of the state. And so, sort of, based on a look at the language in the contract and there was no other language that sort of specified that in the contract that the auditor was for the purposes of that contract considered an authorized representative or sort of a third party beneficiary of the contract and looking at the statute that which did not does not give the auditor sort of explicit statutory authority to look at the to access those records the court said, we don't find that in this case that you have this authority but they did. As Senator Hardy mentioned, have some language saying, you know, the legislature does know how to give this authority when they want to and they also provided in the case some other examples of where the auditor was given in statute sort of more explicit authority to audit other entities that are not, you know, sort of specified in this, provided in this like general authority for the state departments institutions and agencies. Okay, have to learn a lot more about what the auditor does on this committee. Really understand all that context but I think that's helpful intro into what's going on that drove this bill so thanks. Great, so to the language of the bill section one is amending that statutory authority that I was just referring to the duties of the auditor. So one of the, the duties specified in statute says that the auditor at their discretion can conduct governmental audits of every department institution and agency of the state. So what the language change here is adding that this includes contractors as it relates to the performance of the contract with this with the state so sort of expanding that and specifying that that auditing authority includes contractors as as the contract relates to the performance as the as it relates to the performance of the contract. So on page two there's a new subdivision 13 added to this statutory section for the duties of the auditor. So the auditor has a discretion to examine the records accounts books papers reports and returns in all formats of any contractor that provides services to the state but there's sort of a limitation put on that. So as a provided that that examination is limited to those that are relevant to the performance of the contract of the state so it's not sort of a wholesale ability to examine only where there's those records are relevant to the performance of the contract. And then the next sentence says that any records accounts books papers reports and returns that are auditor acquires during an examination that are not otherwise available to the public are exempt from public inspection and copying under the Public Records Act. So this is the part that speaks to keeping exempt sort of confidential information that the auditor could come across during one of these examinations. Section two is amending another statutory section related to the auditor about what records are available for audit. So this is just sort of lining up the change that was made in section 163 because the section speaks to the examination authority that the auditor has with respect to the entities that the auditor can can audit. It does not include that exception for contractors that is in subdivision 13 about the limitation that's placed on that examination of records. So this is just adding into the section that cross reference to to sort of accept those particular records from this event, what records are available to the auditor. Section three section three. So this is session lots not amending statute it is directing the secretary of administration to update administrative bulletin 3.5, which is the state's procedures for for contracts that the state enters into and it includes a number of sort of procedures that the state has to follow when they enter into a contract. And what this is saying is that what you have to include in this bulletin 3.5 are terms and conditions that authorize the state auditor to have discretion to examine the records accounts books papers reports and returns of contractors that provide services to the state and have that being compliance with this new statutory requirement in 32 BSA 163 and the secretary of administration is directed to do that by October 1 of this year. And then section 4 of the bill is amending state law requirement that prohibits a financial institution from sharing certain personal information, disclosing that information under the law. And the list of exemptions to this prohibition and what is amended here is on page 4 is just adding the auditor to this list of exceptions to this prohibition against disclosure. So that the examination of records or disclosure to the auditor is not prohibited under the section and that would make this be in compliance with other statutory change being made here saying that the auditor could access these records. Representative. Is this every contractor to state engages in is it just personal service to go to buying trucks. Everything is up for examination. It is it doesn't limit. Yeah, I mean it doesn't limit the auditor's authority. That being said, I think the auditor can speak to you how many contracts they actually audit. I don't I don't know that they would have their office would have the capacity to audit every single contract. Any questions about the words on the page while we have legislative council. So I just want to happy to come back and answer more questions as you have great thank you very much more information. I know I know your books elsewhere at 930 so unless there's any burning questions from here we I just want to this is the perfect time for me to say, we are just hearing very introductory testimony a few folks the second they saw that we were doing a test. We wanted to testify on this. So we are going to hear from a few folks. If we as a committee decided to dig back into this in the coming weeks, we will take much more testimony and make sure we understand this issue more thoroughly. Today's just our sort of first, first pass through this so I just wanted anybody who's testifying to be aware I know there's a lot of concern about this bill that we're not, you know, moving at work speed here we're just taking our first look so just want to say all that before we get to the next level. Thank you very much Becky for being here this morning. I'd like to invite the auditor to come in. Give the office's perspective on that's nine. Thank you for the offer. Thank you. Good morning. The follow up on the background from the case it's kind of interesting was basically a contract case contract was very clear section 2.7 that said an agent of the state. If requesting records shall be provided those records period. No reason had to be provided. In fact, we had a good reason we were looking at the performance of one care. Not their core function, but a bunch of other functions where there were deliverables that required their staff to do work. And their payroll as proposed to the Greenland care board went from x to x plus in one year and we were curious why. And that's it. That's the primary reason. The green man care board didn't ask for that information nor did diva. So, and that leads to something I'm going to mention coming into my remarks. Oh, it was bizarre for the see that provision doesn't have anything to do with a 163 or 167 or even attachment C. It simply said agent of the state shall be provided these records upon request and they said, literally, the state auditor is not an agent of the state. And I thought, okay, we're through the looking glass at this point so. Your vice chair referred to this work as an expansion. I want to start with that. That's really important because five minutes before the Supreme Court's decision. We had the authority we're asking for here. Attachment C, which is part of bold and 3.5, which is the procurement rules for the state has a provision cleverly titled the audit provision. That says, again, the agent of the state shall be provided records related to the performance of the contract upon request audit and examination purposes. We've done that for years with no concern expressed by contractors at all. That gets to another concern that was expressed by the state. So they're not really changes. It's just going to take us back to the status quo from 25 minutes ago. In fact, I don't know whether you had a chance to see it, but I sent a clip from the Senate debate on the floor. Some comments by former state auditor and minority leader, Randy Brock, Senator Brock, who said that he said, I don't know what the problem is, but all this does is reinstate what we thought were the rules 25 minutes ago. So that's what's going on here. It's not really an expansion. Furthermore, the court did something interesting. They made a choice and that's their prerogative. But, you know, for a long time, state and federal governments have been expanding the nature and extent of what they do. It's very complicated. It's massive. You guys know, as well as anybody in this committee, state government doesn't work without contractors. Last year alone, a billion dollars was spent contracting for work on behalf of taxpayers. I think we don't pass this bill that it effectively says a billion dollars. We'll worry about that later. Well, I'm the only person. This office is the only entity in state government that is truly independent. And I'll get to that in a minute. So they're not really changes. They're not expansions, I should say this question. I'm glad that both Senator Hardy and Becky spoke to the concern expressed by some folks who testified in Senator Hardy's committee about confidential records. That was, in a way, sort of a shameless mischaracterization, not on their part, but on the lobbyists. TIPPA, personal health care records are protected by federal and state law. Period. We have accessed TIPPA records about Vermonters multiple times during my tenure. You are not permitted by law to make them public. Period. You can't. Somebody asked for them. I'd say I'm sorry. The law says I can't do that. We have received and utilized tax data, personnel data. You name it, we get it if it comes from state government in some cases from contractors. So the concern expressed about that kind of bug me because they should know better, you know, people representing hospitals know that HIPAA data is protected and it is and it still isn't always will be whether you pass this bill or not. One lobbyist referred to the potential for unbridled power on behalf of the state order. I thought that would be nice, but that's not what we're asking for. They misunderstood in many respects, but I think as you heard from Becky and from Senator Hardy, the only records that we would have the authority to request and receive are those relevant to the performance of the contract period. And so, you know, we've used that authority. As I said, before the Supreme Court decision, nobody questioned our authority. We've used it multiple times over the years. Good example. When I first took office, we did a job looking at the work of the contractor. I think they have a different one now who was asked by the corrections department to provide health care to prisoners and we had to see their records, which included records about prisoners. Nobody questioned that ever. Nobody questioned any of that until one care. So anyway, I'll miss the unbridled power, but I'm not really asking for that. The other one which is kind of my favorite is that the state sent three or four people to testify in a couple of committees about the dreaded chilling effect, which I think Senator Hardy referred to. The assertion is that the knowledge that your company might be audited would somehow reduce your interest and our willingness to contract with the state. Because you'd be scared of an audit by the order. First of all, again, those that authority has been in Attachments C for decades. Every single contractor that's working for the state today signed a contract that says you can be asked to provide records for audit and examination. Every single contract. So there's nothing new in that at all. The question of the chilling effect is bizarre to me. First of all, we've never had a chilling effect and everybody knows that that provision is in statute. If they don't, they're not reading the contract and kind of want to read your contract. Second, there are 12 states in this country that have explicit authority for state orders to do exactly what we've been doing and what we're asking you to codify 12 states, including Massachusetts in New York. No chilling effect that I'm aware of and I'm pretty sure we would have heard about it. But it's not there. So I don't know where that came from except who knows what I can't comment on their motivation. The state also said, you know, BGS came and testified and said, look, we don't really need the order to do this because we as BGS and that we have the procurement arm. We make sure that all the contractors meet their obligations. That's nice and I'm sure to a large extent you do. However, first of all, you don't do gag us audits. That's generally accepted government auditing standards. You don't do audits. You might look at the deliverables and decide whether you're satisfied with the deliverables. That can be a different question than auditing a contract as it relates to the state and its expectations, which are sometimes broader than just the deliverables. So that's not the same thing. It's not apples to apples. If an agency says we've got that covered, that's not true. And I can tell you from experience, you know, 10 years now that we've produced a lot of work that shows very clearly that I'm sad to say there are lots of instances where departments and agencies don't even report accurate timely information to you about the work that they do. That seems to that I'm not going to interrupt your incompetence. Just that's life in a huge bureaucracy. So to say that we've got to cover it and ignore all that is disingenuous in my view. Also, what it would do to say to the auditor's office, you can have the information if the agency asks his company for it. We're putting somebody between us and the source of the documents that gives you the bureaucrat the authority to say, I will ask for some of it, but not all of it, or we won't ask for any of it. We don't think you need it. Do you is it really your intent as the legislature to say that the administration can stand between the auditor's office and an oddity. Do you want it to work because that would effectively give the governor a veto power over audits that we choose to do. I don't think that's your intent. I certainly hope not. Because that's a problem. That's a big problem. I don't know what else to say except I'll give you some background. I did some work under contract for then auditor Flanagan in the 90s. And that was a pivotal time for state artists around the country. Historically, they had always done the financial auditing and some compliance already. All important stuff. But that's not the end of the conversation. That's the beginning of the Congress. Because Gaspi, the government accounting standards board, said to auditors around the country back in the mid 90s or so. Look, that's great stuff, but there's more that you can and should be doing specifically find out if the money spent by your program and your program are actually achieving the goals as intended by the legislature. Citizens have a right to know that program managers need to know that if they're not already evaluating their own performance and certainly policymakers need to know that. But auditors weren't doing that at that time. Then they started doing that hit or miss over time now virtually every state auditor in the country does performance. In our case, that's all we do. You know, we farm out the financial and the compliance already. It's absolutely critical for you, but along citizens and program managers. At the same time, from the 60s onward, as you well know, government grew dramatically, as I mentioned before, it became much more complex and required ultimately the assistance of contractors for all kinds of things. Look at designated agencies. That's $300 million a year. That's effectively state work, but is contracted and you can find many more examples at that level. It's about a billion dollars a year. So you have, you know, states now routinely doing performance already and a significant part of all state efforts run through contractors. We really want to say at this point in time. No, we don't want the auditor to have access to the contracts which represent a billion dollars of taxpayer money. Is that the forward thinking way to think about this constitutional office. So, you know, this is a bit of a dramatic flourish, but I think it courage me at 330 in the morning. Just to wrap it up, you know, to paraphrase Martin Luther King who famously said the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. The arc of state audit bends towards transparency and accountability. People who oppose this bill are taking us backwards. So strongly about this. I can't even hope you appreciate, you know, I'm a numbers guy, but I'm passionate about this. This is a big deal. Question. So representative. Yeah. So, Mr. Hopper, do you think some of this misinformation or. Initial angst about the bill was because the building start out the way it's written now starts out with this bill proposes to amend. It's already of the state auditor to examine the books and records of any contract providing services to the state. The question is about relevant to the contract, but that was kind of already in item 13 and attachment C of 3.5. So that was already there that that expectation on the part of a contractor has been there for decades. And furthermore, one of the letters they didn't testify but they submitted a lever, seven people representing a bunch of health care institutions and so forth. And that's who first or initially spoke to, oh my God, we take protecting HIPAA data very seriously as if I don't. And we're concerned about what will happen if this kind of information gets in the hands of the other. So, you know, they didn't they're not aware or didn't want to admit that we've had that information for a long time. And you've never heard about a breach of confidentiality because we would never let that happen. The other lobbyists I think for the contractors said, you know, the auditor is a political position and who knows what will happen down the road. Well, first of all, the governor is a political position to and everybody here she appoints, but more importantly, I don't literally do these audits. I supervise the work of professionals who are bound by the professional standards manual, which is really strong on confidential information. So, you know, these folks take their work very seriously and I trust them and you should too, but is it improved by the tweaking. Yes, for sure. So, I'm seeing a lot of hands up and we had more witnesses to testify so I'd like to keep the questions, you know, kind of brief, and then definitely we'll have the auditor back if we put this up. That means I have to answer quickly. I'm trying to weigh things on the table here so folks can understand this bill this morning. Two things I'll try to be quick. Am I hearing correctly that the court decision was that if diva and health access had agreed with the audit they could have requested the records for whatever reason they chose not to support the audit. And can you speak a little bit to the, the narrowness of that specific contract when I was in there and I built bridges if I built a bridge in New Jersey that fell down wouldn't you want to have that included in your audit of a bridge built in. And indeed I would. The, the work of the office we have used. In many cases confidential contractor records on six or seven occasions during my tenure. I think if you add them all up between Gagas audits and investigative reports we've probably done 50 or 60 during my tenure and only half a dozen or so related to contractors directly. So we're outside of the scope outside of the purview of the department or agency itself. It was both of them as I think somebody pointed out earlier. So, you know, we're just not willing nearly saying hey let's audit a business for the heck of it. That's not what we do. And furthermore, if it's small, I can't justify the allocation of some very expensive resources in my office. It's only for big stuff. I'm going to have to leave it about 15 to 20, but I'll stick for a while if that's okay. Answer questions as they come up. Thanks very much. Deputy Secretary. Witness chair, please. This morning. Mr. Chair. So for the record, Doug Swarman, Deputy Secretary for the Agency of Administration. I'll try to speak quickly, given that this is a, an intro and kind of high level. So I'd like to start off by saying I have professionally been on both sides of the table here I've been in an auditing position and I've been the audited. So I have a great deal of respect for not only the state auditor, but I've been in the auditing position and I've been in the auditing position and I've been in the auditing position and I've been in the auditing position. So I have a great deal of respect for not only the state auditor, but, but the office and the staff there. The confidentiality concerns I've actually shared the auditor's perception of their ability to protect information when I was at the tax department I wouldn't have handed over information if I wasn't confident that they could have protected it. So I do think the confidentiality aspects of this aren't the primary issues to be concerned with. I do think it's ironic that the auditor closed with a quote by Martin Luther King and that I've heard some of the chilling effects kind of disparaged. I do think it's important for us to acknowledge other people's opinions and perceptions and being dismissive. I don't think it's helpful to a thoughtful and productive conversation. Because the chilling effects were primarily cited by our racial equity director, Susanna Davis, and are in the context of the black indigenous people persons of color community, trying to represent their perspective. I do have a couple pages of written testimony that if the committee digs into this bill more thoroughly, I think would be important to consider. I think part of the problem with talking about this quickly is that the state of Vermont has over 5000 contracts. They range from the smallest very basic licensing agreements to more complex service to construction to contracts that are with entities that are not purely commercial in nature. So it kind of blurs the lines on what our expectations should be from those entities. So I think there's a huge spectrum and one of my biggest concerns with this bill is that it casts a huge net to catch like the one care one fish kind of example. To say that my, in my opinion, I disagree that the data that was requested in the one care case was directly related to the performance of the contract because it was payroll data. What a commercial entity pays their staff is not relevant to the deliverables and the performance of a contract in order for it to be a commercial relationship it needs to maintain that separation. They ask us what they're charging us the rates but we cannot ask them what they're paying their people. That is confidential business information that really should have nothing to do with our evaluation of a contract. I think the auditor's role is exceptionally important and their access to the records and oversight of state agencies managing their contracts properly should never be restricted. That is every piece of paper that is involved in that process. And if the auditor feels that an agency is not overseeing the contract properly. That is an audit finding that should be published and shared with the legislature. And if the legislature feels an agency is not doing its job properly. That's the remedy for, but the oversight should not be a direct relationship between the state auditor and then the commercial entity. The auditor did ask do you want that agency in between the two and he presented it as a barrier I look at it as the commercial relationship is between the agency and department buying services buying goods. And that's who they're working with. If you have a situation where multiple parties are involved in great breach of contract scenarios. And that complicates it and it makes our already difficult contracting system more difficult right now. Yes, we it's massively important that the auditor. Oh, look in and make sure the executive branch is doing its job in contract management. Absolutely over a billion dollars right now we have even more because we have the short term federal funds that are being deployed over the next five years. And those are federal contracts as well so we doubly have to make sure and the auditor has produced valuable findings related to contract oversight in different agencies. So I think the role of the state auditor should be auditing the state of Vermont should not be auditing private entities should not be auditing commercial entities. And Gagas audits the clue is in the name, generally accepted government auditing standards should not be applying Gagas audits to your private vendors your commercial private parties. So I think those are the primary concerns. I know I'm trying to run through them very quickly. But I do think that my main the administration's main concern right now is the broadness of the issue and the impact it would have on potentially over 5000 contracts. So I do think if the committee serious and taking this up the contracting situation at each agency and department is different. There are different cultures there are different levels of sophistication. And I would say that the committee should hear from every agency and department to hear how it would impact their contracting specifically. I do think I took auditor Hoffers comments about BGS's response to heart. I do think that was perhaps a bit current perhaps a bit flip because they the Office of procurement does help and does provide some limited kind of structural guidance, but they don't perform that they don't provide the value that the state auditor does to that contract oversight, which I do think is ultimately an auditor's opinion of if the agency or department that's getting those contracted goods or services is doing everything they can to make sure Vermont gets the best value from that relationship. Thank you. Mr. Farnham. Gatsby standards are the gold standard in auditing set close to a actual comment. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, Gatsby is a, I should know this off. Yeah. I think GAGA standards are designed to audit governments and I think that it's very important that governments are held to those standards, especially with smaller businesses. I don't think they're necessarily applicable to much smaller vendors. I heard that the auditor said he wasn't, you know, going to be going out and auditing a large number of small businesses. But I think that the main thing in a relationship in a commercial relationship is the goods being delivered for the amount of money. And we should have a high level picture of the financial stability of that contractor, but it's inappropriate to go any deeper for a standard commercial relationship. So I would imagine since you hit specifically on wages, if for one had a minimum wage that an out of state contractor might know about door to contract had a specific provision for a scale. That would seem to open the door to effectively giving an audit opportunity to look at what was happening in that end. I think under the current structure where there are certifications that they're complying with our wage loss. Any federal contract of course is going to have to comply with. I can't remember words this morning, Davis Bacon. Thank you. So there are certain types of work where the wage information is already expected to flow through in a very regulated and controlled manner. But the question was simple. If the contract contains specifics on wage data, that should be subject to examination. See if it's actually happening. It's sort of yes or no thing. Yes, if it's, if it's related to the performance of the contract, which in in a capital construction scenario would be related to the performance of the contract. Yes. You're related to Joe. Probably. Thanks for being with us. Any other questions from the perspective at this point. So represent our waters. Thank you. I'm wondering that we just heard under our say that that when the Supreme Court decision was made, this is this bill would restore what was happening 25 minutes before that decision was made. Can you explain what the difference is the way you see it between what this would allow and what was happening in that you know proverbial 25 minutes before the decision was made that what, what's the difference. So what was happening prior to the one care case is that generally the state author auditor was asking for records which directly related to the performance and there was no disagreement about whether or not they related to that contract. So, I would also say from working from the state of Vermont for a number of years just because something was happening doesn't mean it was right. You know the courts review of the contract shows we were being open and we were sharing because no one disagreed on what was being asked for so it ended up being there was no harm involved right there was no conflict. The one care case was a situation where the state agency wouldn't demand those records because they didn't believe they're related to the case. If you change it, the contracts on paper have always had the audit provision but the state auditor is not referenced in the Attachement C audit language. There's a tacit assumption that any document while there's a statutory authority for the auditor to audit any document which is received by the agency related to any contract right. That's just part of the documents that the auditor has access to a plain language reading of Attachement C language led some auditors to directly request records. I don't think that direct request should have been done in the past. I think it always should have flowed through the contract because the contract is a relationship between that state agency. And a good example is the Department of Taxes can have a contract with a contractor. The Department of Public Service can't come in and request the document right. They're both part of the state of Vermont, the larger entity but they're separate legal entities from a contracting perspective. That sounds like the crux of the debate between the two positions. So thank you for framing it up that way. Are the different types of contract versus like a purchase agreement versus a situation where the contractor would be acting as an agent of the state on behalf of citizens. Like, is there a distinction in the types of contracts like that or are they all kind of contract. I think as you drift towards the situation where a contractor is acting on behalf of the state of Vermont, that's going to become more similar to a grant agreement, which a grant agreement profit is kind of not allowed in a grant agreement. So a grant agreement would generally have a much broader set of documents that's related, like if this had been a grant to one care. If the state order wants to know if they were taking any of that grant and applying it to their payroll, that would have been an exceptionally pertinent question, right because they, they, that would have to be controlled they're not allowed to profit off of a grant arrangement. We do run into trouble where trouble but difficulty. You know there are federal standards for separating grants from contracts, but anytime you draw a line, things can get very close to that line. And as it gets closer to a grant from as a contract, it becomes more difficult to differentiate what's an appropriate request about performance. And our healthcare system, it is very complicated it does have some kind of non standard non commercial entities involved. And I think that also makes it a more complicated situation to evaluate. I want to mention all of the federal regulatory pieces that we've touched on earlier. So I don't think we want to dive that deep. I think it's really important for us to kind of scope out what the areas that we need to dive into in order to really understand ramifications of this bill. I appreciate doing this this morning. We're going to be running a little bit late until we'll end up having to start 386. It's a few minutes late here, because I want to give our last couple of reasons to testify. So I want to invite Secretary Mailer to come up and give the agencies perspective on S9 because I think there were some specific things you want to bring to our attention as we consider looking at this bill a little further. Thank you. Good morning. For the record, Sean Taylor, Secretary of Digital Services. So, I think you heard a lot of great testimony so far about kind of the, the pros and cons and challenges with this. I think that we deal with about 1500 technology contracts annually. So our amendments as a subset in the agency digital services is charged with delivering what the administration legislation legislature wants with regards to technology services to assist for consumers in getting the best programs and offerings. And, you know, I don't, I would say that bringing the concern around the effects of this to the vendor community shouldn't be considered fear mongering. I think a valid concern, given that we have an instrument called retain our contract pool where we go out and we have a kind of a pre vetted master agreement with it vendors to do work. And we know that most of the large companies in the in the country do not participate. And we know because the work, the size of the amount of money, compared to like the obligations of the state of Vermont are not worth it for him. So we don't have the benefit of being a Massachusetts where our contracts are large enough and they can put the time in and negotiating. And so I think a chilling effect as has been described is a real possibility and one you can't measure because we don't send out contracts and say, Well, we expect all of these people to reply. And if you don't respond, please tell us why. Right. What you see over time is a reduced vendor pool, use choices and increase cost. And that is the the effect. And so, you know, in that very real instance when we have this, as it's written, right. The removal of involvement of the contract owner, you know, coupled with the broad documents that are listed, and then paired with the case that was the impetus for this. The concern is that the vendor community is not going to dive deep into it. They're just going to say, Well, they wanted payroll information and now this is the result. And so in Microsoft, I don't feel obligated to do it. Why would I respond and want to do business with the state of Vermont? And so it's whether or not it's, it'll be hard to measure, but I think it's a valid concern and one that should be considered as you take up additional testimony on this. What we're looking to do is at the end of the day is we want to make sure that for monitors have the most options and choices available. And the more restrictive we are, the less choices and options we will have to be able to provide services officially to them. Pause there. So I'm sure we'll be back on this. Yeah, I think we'll probably hear debate on either side, but I think it's good that we have the concern generally laid out. Representative Hooper. Thank you. Do you find in your contracting efforts that it's 3.5 and there that are more to the idea of we don't want to do business with Vermont in the financial services side of things. We have a lot of problems with people taking exception to a lot of stuff in 3.5, as opposed to what has been apparently going on for a long time. Well, you don't really get to know, right? Because the people that don't, the vendors that don't respond don't respond. So how do you get to find out why they chose not to respond? And so it's, it's hard to tease out what could be their motivation. I know from just some informal conversations that things like indemnification and other things that are pretty rigid in this state contribute to a value analysis. Right? And often the cost of the cost of providing a service to Vermont will be less than a larger state. And that value analysis is not worth it for him to go through the effort of bidding on it for Vermont. That's deeper than what we're talking about here. That's done into the overall contract expectations of 3.5. Well, no indemnifications in statute. I'm just, I'm saying that these, there's a lot of things that come into play as to why a vendor may or may not. This could be another, this could be the proverbial straw on the camel's back in some instances. Anything else for Secretary Nailer at this point? For those who are here on 3.86, we have one more witness that we want to hear from on S9 and then we'll be switching gears. So thanks for your patience. There's a lot going on here today. Megan Sullivan from the Chamber and thank you for being with us to give the Chamber's perspective on S9. Thank you for having me for the record. Megan Sullivan, Vice President of Government Affairs for Vermont Chamber of Commerce. It's nice to be back with you all. So I know last time I was here I was talking for restaurants, but I think this shows the breadth of industries that the Vermont Chamber of Commerce deals with. We have members in every region of the state and from every industry in Vermont. And so, you know, I appreciate coming in today during this sort of introduction because we have sort of broad questions and concerns that we've heard from our members about and those members are from industries that are varied including healthcare, technology, construction and general contracting, telecommunications, energy, finance and baking. And so before I get into some of what are those questions, what are those concerns, what are some clarifications that we might ask this committee and the state auditor to dig into as we this committee potentially looks at this. I do just want to underline that the framing of this conversation and what we're talking about is about the authority of this constitutional office, not about the actions of a specific individual. And the considerations being taken up by this body are for changes to the authority of that constitutional office. And I think what we want to especially think about is that at some point, state auditor is either not going to run or the voters are not going to re-elect him and we will have future auditors. And that if there is a future auditor with less reputable motives than the current state auditor or Martin Luther King, that there need to be guardrails in place to ensure that that activities are being done in the manner that this body is expecting of that. And I think just personally one example I would give you is when I first heard about this, my thoughts went to the state in this body and the governor have gone to a length to ensure reproductive rights in the month, in the constitution and that fear mongering was used as a, why do we need to put this in the constitution? The legislature is obviously going to protect that, but saying future legislators may not feel the same way and we need to protect the rights of people to access that. And so when I thought about this, I thought, you know, what if a future state auditor who did not agree with that decision came in and use that as an opportunity to look at, you know, how can I look at the contracts that the state has with the offices that provide reproductive rights who have contracts with the state? You know, are there abuses that are possible because it allows direct access to these state contractors, including healthcare providers who provide these types of services? And I think it's important for us to think about how could these be used by somebody who does not have, how could this authority be used by someone who does not have that sort of moral standing that is saying that, you know, thinking about justice. So the first question and concern that we heard about was around the clause that exists as the state auditor mentioned in bulletin 3.5 around audits and the authorized personnel. And if authorized personnel can access state contracts or can ask for information from a state contractor and now the state auditor can do the same, does that create some type of confusion or duplication within state government of different organizations, different state agencies who are going to be requesting information? And pulling together the types of records, the breadth of records that are being asked for takes time and it takes personnel and it costs money to do that. So if we're saying that it can be done by the state agency that oversees the contract, as well as the state auditor, that can create additional costs and confusion. And it also, you know, I think for the legislators perfect that are we having two state entities spending money to do the same thing. So I think looking at is there a duplication of activities that would be going on here. And how do we minimize the costs of that or the impact of that on a contractor and I think that might be part of that cooling effect is knowing that there are, that they could be asked from different places for similar information. So that's one area that I think we have, we have concerns about another piece and I'm glad that the state auditor brought up gagus audits. And that I, you know, I would say I don't believe performance audits are all that the state auditor office does they also do non audit reporting and it would seem to me under the language that non audit reporting would be a way a use of this confidential contractor information. And it's important to clarify that those gagus standards while they may have some interpretation are held to a higher standards than a non audit. And when you're talking about confidential information. The public or this body does not have the opportunity to examine that themselves. So if there's a disagreement between the state auditor's office and a pirate private contractor of how information is being represented. This body or the public can't do their own examination. So it's important if we're talking about access and reporting on confidential information I would agree that having those gagus standards in place is important. But in the language here it doesn't limit the access and use of that private contractor information to gagus audits. So, Megan I want to say that if we go further in this bill we're going to talk a lot about the Public Records Act and what is available to the public and what's not because I think a lot of folks in this committee probably have some of the things that we talked about in terms of HIPAA and confidentiality and things in the prior testimony this morning. That's a little bit over the heads of folks who haven't been in the weeds on that before. But I guess for the purposes of us framing our future conversation around this issue. So what is the chamber's response to the assertion that 25 minutes before the one care case decision. It was kind of generally understood that the auditor could could ask contractors for this kind of information and then the the case upended what was the general understanding that already existed. I would say that from what we've heard from our members it was not generally understood that the auditor could call any contractor at any time and ask for information that we're discussing in one case. You know if an agency is under a performance audit by the state auditor's office. I assume that state agency would have notified their contractors, especially if it was to deal with their contracting. And that if there was agreements put in place between the agency and the state auditor's office that's one thing. But again I don't see in this language that it limits the request to the performance of a contract. But I don't see and maybe Becky would tell me I'm wrong here that that this limits the request to an ongoing performance audit. Right so so you could say paper I see you have a contract with a OT we don't have an active. Well that's probably because they just paid. We don't have an active audit going on with a OT but I have questions about the performance of your contract and I'd like to see your personnel information. Right so maybe it's a clarification that there is that access to these contractor documents are through an active audit, not just performance of the contract does that make sense. It does I think it opens up a lot of questions about what we mean by an active audit or the performance of the contracts in practice but good. Thank you so it's so just clarify what you're saying there so this so like an active audit within the administrative entity that's contracting with it trigger then the audit form. So if the state auditor is the state auditor's office is auditing a state agency's contracting. They're saying we have concerns about how the state agency is performing their contracting services or how they are overseeing contracts and they open an audit on that state agency and they say it's important in this audit on that state agency that we have access to the documents of the state contractors that are working with this with this agency. We have an audit going on of the state agency under which they're requesting documents as opposed to just saying any contract if there's 5000 active contracts with the state of Vermont. Regardless of whether there is an audit going on of a relevant state agency, a information on a contract could be requested. If it's requested under the frame of a performance on a contract. Another suggestion for us to put on parking lot for our future work on S9 when we pick this back up again. We're over time I need to switch gears I'm wondering Megan before you leave us if there's anything in particular you want to fly. Another suggestion is that in state contracts in 3.1 it limits the time to three years you can request work records from a state contractor for three years. You don't see that time limit here. So again thinking about how far back can we go how much money could that cost somebody if we had a state auditor in place who had who was using this authority in a less ruthless way could they ask for contracts related to performance of a contract related to a contract from 10 years ago from 15 years ago. Again I businesses in the state of Vermont pay a lot of taxes. And we are very happy to have a constitutional office that is ensuring that those taxes are being used well. Because our members as they're paying them want to ensure that that they're being used well so we are very supportive of the office of the state auditor. I just want to make sure that if there is a change whether it's perceived or you know this is coming up new. This is an opportunity to look back and say do we have the right guardrails in place to make sure that that this authority is being used in the way that our current state auditor is is asking them to be used. So today I'm again we are over time and you just switch gears to some charters that we promise to look at this morning. So we will definitely if and when we pick this back up again let you know. So thanks for bringing the chambers perspective to committee. I would say we have heard the initial framing of this issue and voices on both sides about us nine. I have a number of notes and we'll pick our work back up on that in the next week. So thanks for the whole questions this morning. I know that was a lot. I'm just putting that bill out for a walkthrough. I got a lot of requests for testimony and didn't want to dive completely into all of the various questions issues that that bill brings up but I think it was a little bit inevitable that we would see little glimpses of it and probably more questions than answers this morning. So with that we're going to turn the page and finally take up H 386 the Brattleboro Charter Change. So if the delegation wants to come and give us the sales pitch first and then we'll have legislative council walk with the Charter Change. I represent cornhizer and we're all here because the Brattleboro three. Introduce yourselves for the record and tell us about each 386 please. And then Emily cornhizer from Brattleboro. Representative Molly Burke from Brattleboro. Representative Tristan Tolino from Brattleboro. And thank you for inviting us and for being willing to take this up this measure has had a long journey so far in just a little background in 2019 March of 2019 in a 908 to 408 vote the citizen of the town of Brattleboro voted to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote in local elections vote for candidates for Brattleboro select board and representatives for a unique form of town meeting. Then, I have some comments about that but just sort of what happened is last year in 2022, the House approved this measure and after a vigorous debate, I voted 102 to 42. The House approved it after that. Senate voted in favor of on February 28. On March 11 2022, then the governor vetoed it in February at the end of February. And then March 11 the House voted to override this. And then on March 11 2022, the Senate failed to override because of concerns about whether youth voters who were select board members could enter into contracts. But I think that that issue has been settled. And I think that's something Tucker can talk about it, but he believes that the charter is sufficient to confer legal capacity for an youth voter to consent to contracts and he said you could add a provision to the charter with which authorizes youth voters to execute contracts in their capacity. So that's where we are right now. And actually even before that sort of procession of voting and veto and more voting in the biennium previous to that the House actually passed this charter affirmatively. And it met crossover and then the pandemic moments later and so we didn't really sort of do anything with. So that's why it's been four years. And I just want to read a little bit. And I have pages of things that we can do to the committee about research on youth voting research shows that voting is habitual. And those who vote in the first election they are eligible for is likely to continue voting consistently, while someone who doesn't will take several years to pick up the habit. 16 is a better age to establish a new habit than 18 youth are affected by local political issues as much as anyone. They also work without limits on hours and pay taxes on their income and can drive in most states 16 and 17 year olds deserve the right to vote on issues that affect them. When it comes to income taxes, youth are contributing money to a system in which they have no voice. Lowering the voting age can drive demand for effective civics education in schools. Students learn best when the material presented is relevant to their lives. Civics classes fall short when they teach young people how government works without any ability to actually participate in it. So I think 16 and 17 year olds vote will bring much needed relevance and productivity to civics classes. Youth vote has a trickle up effect on civic participation. Conversations about politics and local issues are brought to the dinner table. Parents and family members are engaged in civic life 16 and 17 year olds in their household. If we want to retain our youth, we must create conditions of belonging and trust. So there is a lot of research and we can distribute this. I could just add a brief story. My child is 18 and a senior in high school so still at home lots of you know kids I personally left my hometown before I turned 18 so actually turned 18 in Vermont. But turned 18 in January and so was able to register to vote for actually was automatically registered to vote through the DMV and registered to vote in our recent town meeting election and then came with me to town meeting this past Saturday as it was elected as a town meeting representative. My child is not like me. They're an introvert. They do not ever want to be a politician, but they've been, you know, hearing about politics at the dinner table as I'm sure anyone in your family has for quite a while. And I was really and we have you know meaningful conversations at dinner, but I was really surprised at how much their focus and intent and interest in all of the sort of vagaries of local politics and what it means to debate an issue and all of those things really like just changed over the course of those the month in between when they voted for the first time and then when they joined our town meeting on Saturday it was really like very inspiring to see how much more engaged they were in local politics and just like that really from that really short difference between just hearing me talk on about it and being able to really participate themselves. It was very cool. They're about to leave home in like two months and we could have like really cemented that habit much more if we'd had another two years of this representative hanker. Thank you. Do any of you have any data as to where else 16 and 17 year olds are allowed to vote. Data on what Where else in the United States. There are some things here. Yeah, so I don't yeah we did previously the last time we talked about this we had that data. Where is it. Oh, also Nancy Pelosi is in favor of this. FYI I just want to remind the committee on this bill we had tried to do an introduction previously we're just doing an introduction and walk through it. We are not moving this bill. Some of the other charges that we did last week we are looking to move today so I just wanted to make that distinction for everybody in case anybody's got anxiety about us doing this one today. It is not my intention to move this one today. So seeing a lot of hands pop up and you can get back to me if you don't have that data. It's a coma park Maryland did in 2013. But we have sort of we can send you like a full. We're not the only one. We're not the first ones. So represent Higley and then representative or wiki. I saw a flurry of activity over here but I'm not sure who still wants to speak so we'll figure that out. I'm a little surprised to see that this is back again. I had a real hard time squaring, but we just did on the floor a few weeks ago as regards to not allowing 16 and 17 votes to get there. I also remember back during the control legislation when it was changed from an 18 year old to a 21 year old to be able to purchase a firearm and the debate seemed to go center around the cognitive reasoning ability of the younger folks. So again, you know, I just can you square that for me can you square how a majority of the folks in this chamber voted to not allow 16 and 17 year olds to marry with parental permission situations yet you want them to be allowed to vote now. So I'm happy to take a shot at it. And I wasn't there for the floor debate. I will acknowledge that because of the vibrations process but there's a distinction in what the capacity of 16 and 17 year olds have that's important to voting for voting is sort of a measured reflective process there the challenge for young brains is more an impulsive decision making and both of those have a nexus around impulsive decision making and I think that that's the distinction. And I believe that two years ago we shared and we can pull that back up the research on sort of the difference between I don't it's not slow thinking and fast thinking but it's impulsive thinking and deliberative yes. I was one of the sponsors of the the marriage prohibition in the first 17 years. There's been a lot of research done by the Vermont Commission of women and other organizations about the negative effects, particularly for young women of marrying at a really age. And so there's there's there's there's harm that could be done to particularly a younger younger woman. And being allowed to marry and a lot of times it's sort of a coercive kind of situation there and that's also leaves young women open to trafficking. So it's a very complex situation. It's not just the people are saying oh well we're in love you know and somebody said well if you're in love you can wait two years or wait a year or whatever. And I think that also maybe comes from an earlier concept where if a if a young woman gets pregnant that they should be married and I think that you know I think more has have changed about that about whether it's great. I mean that they could do at the age of 18 so I'm just trying to respond. And I don't think there's any evidence of negative repercussions for individuals youth voters if they started voting early. There's a lot of evidence that a lot more to say on that but we won't have the time right now that I appreciate you both all three of you explaining that particular different I don't expect you to have an answer to this right now but I feel like with a town overwhelmingly votes for us. I'm very hesitant to go against that. You recall the percentage of this vote. It was the number here. It was 908 to 408. Quite overwhelming. And there was a few high school students. This is in 2019 who were very very active working on it. They were at the polls getting signatures. They were very very engaged and upset when we were not able to pass it. And I I agree with you representative Markey. I've in fact voted for charter changes that I wouldn't vote for in my own town within this body because I think it's important to respect communities charter changes in that way. Representative Cooper and then Boyden and then I really want to have Legislative Council do a walkthrough before we don't want to do the whole debate about this bill today. We don't have time for that. Why don't you just evolve into a discussion about the individual people under 17 having to legal right to form contracts when you basically don't contract with an individual. It's the body. None of us are in the Senate. And so I don't think any of us were privy to the Senate. I think there was like a background to be there right before the final veto override vote. And I can talk her because I speak to it better than we can. We have a cup of tea. We turn it over. We look at the shapes and try to understand from that what the Senate's thinking. Very Hogwarts of you. Representative Gordon. Thank you. But I think this is a really important conversation to be had especially as we as a committee consider the future of town meeting and local elections or town elections and getting more of our youth to participate. I know when I was at my local town meetings, I was one of the small handful of young people there. So as we look for more participation and keeping town meeting alive in Vermont, it's this presentation. Participation. Excuse me. That really matters. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. We're going to take us through the words on the page today and then we'll put pause on 386 that thank you all the bridal borough reps for joining us together. Showing the full delegation support. I'm honored to have you all here today. Thank you. This is very important to our community. And so you're very available for any and all questions or research. Nice to meet them in this room since it was transitioned. It's how often we get asked about it. It's it has not left the mind of our community even if it feels like it should after over four years. Thanks for coming down. I know you all are busy. Thanks for being back. Making us through each 386. Good morning. Tucker Anderson Legislative Council. You have in front of you each 386 has introduced which contains the youth voter charter amendments for the town of bridal borough. The bill largely speaking does two things. The first is that it allows 16 and 17 year olds to vote as youth voters in the annual representative town meeting in the town of bridal borough and in their local elections. I'll give you some background and history as to how youth voter in its current context came to be with respect to these charter amendments as I do the walkthrough. The second thing that it does is it cleans up a little bit of the charter. This was bundled with the vote that happened in 2019. I'll quickly note those corrections as I go through. But largely what it does is it eliminates references to offices that no longer exist with respect to the town school board. I'll note that as I go along. You heard some history about these charter amendments that were passed in 2019. One thing that I would know is that what you see in front of you is different from what was passed by the voters in 2019. And what are those differences. Well primarily what was passed in 2019 by the town of bridal borough directly amended the definition of voter in their town charter. And the way that those charter proposals were presented would have allowed anyone who was present on voting day who is 16 or 17 year olds without respect to citizenship or any of the other qualifications to vote in an election to actually vote in the town meetings. The second thing is that by amending the definition of voter it had a much larger context for the town elections than what is presented in age 386 as you see it because voter occurred throughout the charter with respect to a number of different offices including potentially those that are appointed by the select board. Finally the other implication that perhaps caused some debate and confusion as this bill moved along in multiple iterations over the last four years is that by amending the definition of voter there was the direct implication that those individuals could hold an elected office not just vote for them. However the materials that were presented at the time presented this as youth voting not youths holding office. Which is how we came to the legal questions and debate around whether a 16 or 17 year old could for example consent to contracts on behalf of a municipal corporation. I will state my legal analysis and position on that up front just that consistently over the last four years it has been my analysis and position that that question is resolved simply by the passage of this charter. The general assembly has the power to grant capacity to any person in statute and that is what the charter as it originally was written over the last three years did. It said the 16 and 17 year olds had capacity to hold an elected office and to perform the duties of that office which included if necessary the execution of contracts. To resolve any ambiguity about a potential conflict between common law and statutory law in front of you. There's a provision added to the end of the charter that states expressly and unambiguously that youth voters have capacity to consent to contracts. That provision is unnecessary but it is put in here so that the debate ends expressly around that piece. Section one of the bill consistently the same throughout all the charters you'll take a look at this morning. This is the expression of approval from the general assembly for the charter amendments. You'll also note that in each one of these sections one that you evaluate this morning it will tell you the date on which the voters approved the amendments. In this case it was March 5, 2019. Section 2.1 and we're on page to the bill has introduced defines youth voter to mean any person who is 16 to 18 years of age and is otherwise qualified to vote under state law. So this essentially provides that the youth voters meet all of the qualifications to vote under title 17 but are 16 to 18 years old. That's where the exception was. Tucker figure back up just a minute. I believe you just got through telling us out this particular charter bill is different from previous one. Yeah. Yeah. You just made reference to in section one. In regards to voters approval approved proposals of amendment I'm actually 2019. Is that legit. I mean, yes. But it's different. Right. The voters approved amendments that did not achieve the legal end that they intended it to achieve and over the last 4 years various iterations of this committee have come into clean up and actually accomplish what the voters want to accomplish from a legal perspective. But you're saying that that word and still needs to be in the beginning and then throughout the rest of the charter explains how it's different. Correct. This is something that is actually done and almost all of the charter bills that are subsequently amended by the committees of jurisdiction whether from a policy or legal standpoint section one expresses that the voters approve whatever the contents of the charter are. And then the charter is a component of state law is amended at the will of the general assembly. And there are some instances where there are inconsistencies and the committees of jurisdiction have determined to take out section one, just so that it's not stated that the voters approved something that you change whole cloth from what they approved. In this case, the youth voter amendments are consistent with what was approved by the town. Thank you. So we'll say before I go to represent food birds my intention to complete the walkthrough of 8386 have us take a short break so that folks can take a bio break, etc. And then come back and do the second look and potential mark up and vote of the what I would consider more simple straightforward charter changes that we looked at last week. So just setting the agenda. Sure. So, question is popped up in my head. Often, once a town proposes and adopts a charter change, and it comes to us and we don't take it up immediately. It never dies. It can be taken off the table at any time 1015 20 years. It can be resuscitated. As we I think we covered this in some of the initial discussion of charters like some of the day one stuff we did together. This is all state law. It relates to the powers of a specific corporation in this case, a town, but this is, this is your baby. This is the general assemblies law. So you actually don't even need a proposal from a municipality to tinker with the charters. This is really the this is a delegation of authority and it's that the women will have the general assembly. You don't want to quote justice Dylan about his breathing life into the That again, that was right. I have that quote tattooed on my So the town would have to actively withdraw. I thought it was charging. They could absolutely take that step. It might be more cost efficient to reach out to the delegation from the particular municipality and say we don't want this anymore but I'm going to go on to section 2.2. I'll note two things in the section first the struck language that you see are those technical corrections around the board of school directors for the school districts that no longer exist. The second thing that I wanted to note is this is an area where youth voters is inserted and I'll tell you the offices that are listed in section 2.2 of the charter representative town meeting members, the select board. Those are the district's trustees of public funds. Moderator first constable and a second constable. Those are the elected offices. It can be voted on and can be filled by the youth voters. Section 2.3. This includes the youth voters in the representative town meeting provisions of the charter. Section 2.3 section 2.3. This is the charter specific provisions around early and absentee voting. And it includes here a provision that covers the youth voters who will be old enough to vote on election day. It's the same provision that is in both general law and this charter for 18 year olds currently is included in section 2.4. This is the inclusion again for consistency of youth voters in provisions governing representative town meeting members moving on to page 4 section 2.5. Thank you. I don't know if you I don't believe you did this this year Tucker but could you explain since this is unique to Brattleboro what representative town meeting is. There is a general law provision that allows any municipality in the state to communicate representative town meeting where certain legislative decisions at the local level including setting the budget and proposing the budget are determined by a representative body not dissimilar to the House of Representatives. I believe it in Brattleboro. This is the only town by the way that has decided to adopt this model. It is 140 elected members who go and then represent the voters at what would typically be carried out. For example, floor vote municipality by the voters of the town. So youth would be eligible for one of those 140 positions. Yes. And when is that determined when is that election for those 140 individuals. I actually don't know the date of when they are elected by the town but I can find that out for you. So, just thinking, you know, like if a 16 year old wants to be one of those 140, they have to be 16 at the time of that election for that body 140. And that is because under the provisions that I very quickly went through the term proof voter is used for members of the representative town meeting and you have to be at least 16 in order to meet the definition of youth voter. I think that's a good question. Representative town meeting members in Brattleboro are elected on the first Tuesday in March at town meeting but they don't hold their town meeting until well they just held it last weekend. Thank you. The election happens just a couple of weeks before the meeting typically. I love that we went down that particular this bill just it does all the framing that I love even if you don't love the guts of this bill it brings up all the usual charter questions. Perfect for that. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would like to flesh out the representative town meeting, which usually is just a blip on the radar, for example, when you're doing the special authority for Brattleboro and over the last four or five years for them to hold their representative town meeting electronically. Thank you. Just as a follow up if this bill were to move forward and we were to pass it out of this committee, I think we need to have a little conversation about the eligibility of someone in terms of age. Like, does will that person have to prove that they're going to be 16 by the first Tuesday in March when they would be duly elected by general public. And how would that be proven and who would take the proof of that. And as a, you know, like an affidavit who would, who would determine that. So I just want to flag that for the committee. Why does it matter? Well, it brings up a good question. So maybe I can help to sort of to sort of push to push that into a little bit of a clearer place here. It's Brattleboro. I mean, well, so here's just a quick quick question is if there's any question about the eligibility of someone run for any office in the state that's typically a complete driven process. It's not that we check that they're eligible on the on the front end. It's it's that they are they are themselves attesting their eligibility by filling out a consent form running for office, etc. And then if there's a complaint about it, that might bring it to light. Isn't that typically the process for any eligibility have to be a little careful and distinguishing state from local offices. But yes, it is largely a complaint driven process where someone's eligibility may be contested and a contested eligibility goes first before the board of civil authority in the town. To answer the question about with whom you would register as a youth voter, the answer would be the town clerk. And there's an explicit reference here, at least for the early and absentee voting provision, do you have to file and register with the town clerk and fill out a form as prescribed by the town clerk. Very similar questions came up during the non citizen voting discussion for the city of Montpelier and the provisions they put in place for separate voter checklists that would be administered by the town clerk. Section 2.5 we're on page for now. This includes youth voters express authorization for them to be members of the select board so it's included there. Section 2.11. This is the new language that I was talking about earlier this is express authorization for youth voters to consent to contracts and their official capacity states that a youth voter who was elected to a town office shall be capable of performing all duties and exercising all powers of that office including the formation execution of contracts relating to the office or official duties. So again that first part is a restatement of what is assumed when the General Assembly gives someone capacity to hold an office that yes, we're giving you authority to hold this office and you get to exercise all the duties and authority of that office. Since I really didn't take part in the discussion when this charter change was presented previously in the legislature. I don't know the answer to this but I feel like I remember that there were some contracts that 16 and 17 year olds were not capable of signing because of their age am I remembering that wrong. The discussion that came up and call them largely objections based on the common law. There is a common law doctrine called the infancy doctrine. The infancy doctrine largely states that people who are under the minority age do not have capacity to consent to contracts. Now they can complete the contract but it is at the risk of the entity or person who is contracting with them because the infancy doctrine doesn't say that the contract is invalid. It says that the person who is under the age of minority can always back out of that contract in the future. There are exceptions to the doctrine. It is a very well fleshed out very complicated area of the common law. One thing that I will know is that under the common law the age of majority is 21. So unless a state has already lowered the age of majority. The default under the common law is that no one under 21 years of age has the capacity to consent to a contract. Vermont is 18 because you have a statute in title one that says that the age of majority in this state for all purposes unless otherwise accepted is 18 years old. So you already have a statute which has lowered the age to consent to a contract from 21 18 from the common law to a statutory standard. What the charter did as introduced in the past is said essentially and again this is an applied provision. It is an assumption is that 16 and 17 year olds in the town of Brattleboro have capacity to hold those offices. What follows from that is they have the capacity to carry out the duties of that office which might include consenting to contracts. The other thing that I have consistently testified about in this area is that with respect to the positions here these are on boards. The board is consenting to the contract. The voters vest the ability to make those decisions in a legislative body. The youth voter is a member of that body that has voting capacity. It is not likely that you're going to have someone under 18 on a select board carrying out contracts and their individual capacity on behalf of the town. I'm not aware of a provision that would invest that power in an individual member of those boards. So just to be totally clear, the section 2.11 elected youth voter authority language makes explicit what your legal analysis all along believe was implicit. Yes, it is sufficient, but maybe not necessary. I appreciate that distinction section 4.1. If you're ready to move along. This is another edition of youth voters in the charter references to select board. And the next amendment outside of some technical corrections and section 0.3. In that section adds youth voters to representative town meeting membership again. Section 3 of the charters states that the act shall take effect on passage. So committee, I think we should break until 11 o'clock and we'll put a pin in each 386 for the future and represent who. We could potentially vote this out today. Correct? Well, no, no, no, no. So, why not? So, we've all voted on this except for the three of them sounds like you know, okay, so let's just back up. This is my general assembly. So all of the references to previous testimony are appropriate to an extent, but we really do need to consider this as if we're doing it for the first time. We can't just sort of say a lot of us have seen this before. We can never really do that, even though we're all bringing some of that past experience. I would, before we vote this out, want to hear from some people to talk about the context that it exists nationally, some of the historical importance people from the town of Brattleboro who support it. I imagine they're there. So we would want to do a little more work on this before you pass that again. So just and also I made a commitment to the committee that we would warn that we were going to do market vote. So for the other charges that we're going to look at after our break. Last week, we did an initial presentation of those today we're going to do a formal walkthrough markup and potential vote on those because I have given notice to the committee and by the agenda to the public that we would consider those for a vote. I wanted 386 to be on the table so that folks would have the opportunity to go, oh yeah, that's that one today. We actually tried to get an introduction on it earlier. And given that the three members from Brattleboro are all on money committees, it makes it challenging to get them all in. So, so we were delayed until today. So don't want to, don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm for 386, but we're not going to vote today. We're just going to call it enthusiasm. All right, so let's adjourn. We'll come back just after 11 now I want to give us at least 10 minutes and then we'll switch gears to pick up our work on some of those first.