 Okay, so let's come, Jeannie, if you want to start recording. So we're back into S40. Committee, you'll see there's a new version of S40, and it's paperclip to your folder. I don't think we'll look at that new language just yet because we've got tomorrow, we've got Michael Grady scheduled and he'll walk us through what he did, but I'm sure it's pretty easily understandable, but we'll wait for him to explain it. So why don't we start with Jeff Fannin. Hey, Jeff. Good morning. Good morning. It is somewhere. I did sleep. It's icy. It's safer and dead. Good afternoon, Jeff Fannin from on an EA. I'm here to speak with you about S40. My comments are rather brief. I was just talking with Jay before, my members simply drink the water and teach the kids to drink the water. And we support the notion of having that water tested to make sure that it's lead-free and that if it is, it does contain levels of lead that there be proper remediation in a plan to do so. And that's really it. So we support the bill. I do think that if there is testing, there will be expenses associated with testing and remediation that if they do have that, that schools should not have to, two things come to mind. They shouldn't have to have that count towards their educational spending as well as it shouldn't count towards the excess spending penalty they do. It should be subtracted out so that they're not penalized for spending money that we all think is well and good socially that kids and people don't drink the water, but they shouldn't be required to pay for it or be penalized if you will. We've talked, and I've talked individually with the pro tem and the chair of appropriations and the intention is to cover matching expenses state, local district. So with that, probably most, I take the point about excess spending, but I'm thinking it would probably be a small price tag with that matching. Certainly the appropriations are there to cover, yes, the excess spending penalty. Certainly we don't want to penalize your tax people initially for work that we've asked them to do. Even if it's only $2,000. It's something, right? There's additional costs every dollar over the excess spending penalty. So we have not to do that. What's your thought on parts per billion I am not a water expert. I know that there are some folks here in the room here who are certainly better equipped to answer that. So I think the experts should be asked and that should be responded to. I am not, and my members, I'm sure there are some science teachers in my ranks that could answer that question better than I can. I am not equipped and qualified, so I don't want to hold high. So strong support for employee testing quickly is possible to say? Well, I think, you know, within reason, I think schools ought to be given some time to figure out how to do it. I'm not sure. Somebody asked me about testing. I was talking about the natural pass and asked about testing capacity in the state. I don't know the answer to that. And so somebody else, again, might have that answer. But certainly schools shouldn't be penalized if they can't find a testing facility to do the testing in a requisite amount of time. I think the commissioner yesterday was pretty clear that testing ability is there and you're confident they can get it. That's great. Then I think that they should be asked to test in a reasonable time and move ahead with a remediation plan if necessary in a reasonable time, too. Yeah. So those are my brief, rather short comments. Happy to take any questions, but... Questions for Jeff? Okay. Thank you all. Please come for virtual test money. I'm counting on that going forward, too. Okay. So, Jeff Francis. So let me introduce Jeff. I don't believe you've met Jeff Francis. Yeah. Some half. When we talk about the usual suspects, Jeff is the most usual of those suspects. We hear from him a lot because of his extensive knowledge of the system. And in this case, you're speaking for superintendents, school boards, and principals? Yes. Yes. And I'll explain all that. Before we get into the testimony on S40, I brought you each year on copy of the Vermont Education Directory, which is useful information about the school systems in Vermont and their organization. It's compliments of the principals and superintendent's association. If I could, let me tell you how you use this. So you get an invitation to go to one of your districts, put this in your glove compartment, and then right before you go in, you read all the statistics and everything about it, and when you walk in, you just seem like you have an encyclopedia of knowledge. That's just how I use it also. Yeah. I also have printed copies of the testimony that I'm going to deliver. And before I start formally, let me just say it's a pleasure to be here. I'll talk about the bill in a fair amount of detail, including the funding aspect, which I'm sure you'll have questions for me about because we're taking a position somewhat different that was articulated by the school, by the Vermont NEA. So I'll read this because I think it's the quickest way to do it and then try to be prompt and answer any questions. So as Senator Baruth indicated, it's testimony offered on behalf of the superintendent's association, the school board association, and the principals' association. Those three associations have a fair amount of experience working on environmental health issues in schools. We have experience working with the Department of Health, AOE, and the Department of Environmental Conservation on the pilot that was run on lead. We also were involved at some level on PFAS testing in pilot, and I'll touch back on those themes as I go through the testimony. We decided that it was most efficient to deliver the testimony as a collaborative. We're operating from a core set of principals that are reflective of our collective thinking, particularly with respect to this issue of testing water in schools for lead. I always stress, and this is by design point number one, that we are committed to supporting safe and healthy learning environments and education settings when they're funded in whole or in part by taxpayer dollars. This includes Vermont public schools, as well as private and independent institutions. So the inclusion of independent schools and childcare settings is an important part of the bill that we support. We also think that both the state and the local school districts are right to recognize the commitment and public investment in achieving safe learning environments. We want to stress the absolute necessity of close and careful coordination between and among state agencies. In this case, it's the health department, the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Agency of Education. I think that to the extent that we have observed glitches in past environmental health program, it's because the department and agencies didn't always work as closely as they might have, and we have a particular interest in an understanding on their parts of how schools function. And I'm going to come back to that. We think that the state agencies have to pay particularly close attention to how schools function. That's the point I just made. We also believe that in this case, and I know that you're going to have questions about this, we think that the remediation and testing should be paid for by the state. And I'm going to talk a little bit later about the ED fund and fiscal implications for individual school districts. The pace of the... Yes, sorry. Would you say remediation and testing mean 100% of both? We're asking for 100%. I'll explain why, and you can judge for yourselves whether you think there's logic to the request. We think that the most efficient and expedient method for getting the work done is to streamline the process by simplifying the funding and payment models. I'll elaborate on that. You asked Jeff Fanon what he felt or what reminded him he thought about parts per million of contaminants. We've looked at that and it's not fair to say that we've studied the research, but we've looked at the research. We know that pediatricians, we've looked at levels at anything one or above. We know that the EPA cites 15 parts per million. Our organizations are interested in that issue. We're less interested in it if the state funds the entire program. I think that you need to err on the side of safety, but we know that the research and the science is not always consistent. That's for a comparative risk analysis. When you look at the age of the buildings and so on and so forth, I think some folks would argue that the parts per billion standard could be reflective of a comparative risk. That science that we're content to leave to the health department and DEC, I think that it's an important consideration when you take a look at what the ultimate cost of the program may be. We are not going to weigh in if we have an interest in that. I think we'll have more of an interest if you say that you want cost-sharing from schools, because we're going to then be put in a position of having to evaluate the costs. I believe that's the likeliest outcome. 100% state coverage for testing, 50% matching for the future. I'll respond to that specifically. With regard to S40 specifically, we've got our points incorporated here. We support the purpose of the bill is written. We support the inclusion of childcare facilities. We reserve comment on the proposed action level of levels of contamination that require action. We believe that the testing, as you indicated, should be paid for entirely by the state, including follow-up testing. There's a provision in the bill that requires schools to keep records with regard to the results of the test and mitigation. We think that a far more appropriate and efficient manner would be for the state to establish a central database. These records are too important to be retained certainly at the school level. At a minimum they ought to be at the district or supervisory union level, but we think if this is an important public health initiative of the state, then there ought to be a reservation and have it maintained at the state. One of the rationales for our proposal there is that while schools are adept at keeping records, there's a lot of turnover. If this is a health initiative with environmental conservation interests, then there ought to just be a repository where the results of the test and the remediation action get put to a central database and that it gets managed from a central database. The new secretary of education, Dan French, is a technologist by nature. He's talking a lot about data and utilization of data, retention of data. We ought to start right now with this type of a program and put it all in a single repository. There's a drafting matter in the bill that I want to point out to you. I'm not exactly sure what the remedy is, but Jim Demeray could help if you accept the logic of my thinking here. If you take a look at the definition section of the bill, it refers to schools and incorporates both public school buildings and independent school buildings and intentionality there. If you talk with school officials, their common vernacular does not regard a school as an entity for purposes of deliberating action following through on action and taking action. If you took a look at the Montpelier School District, for example, they have Main Street Middle School, Union Elementary School and Montpelier High School. The notion that the school itself would take action is not consistent with how the public schools operate in the state. The locus of control is the school district and the reference in the bill should be the school districts taking action. Remediation plan, notification, testing, it ought to be school district in the schools within that school district, not the school themselves. If you look at the section on actionable level, notice, and reporting, we think that there's an important mission, which is the Vermont Agency of Education. In fact, draft one of the bill, and I haven't seen the second draft, doesn't make any reference to the Agency of Education whatsoever. Because the Agency of Education has authority for oversight of public schools and public education in Vermont, an initiative this important should not move forward without involvement of the AOE. And the reason is because if I have an issue around, not if I have an issue, if an issue comes to my attention involving a school almost in any aspect, my first point of contact is generally the Agency of Education. So even though it's an environmental health issue, the AOE understands better than DEC and how schools function and operate, and they should be party to the entire bill in an appropriate manner. Can I just unpack that a little bit? So when you say party to, I'm hoping you're not talking about dual regulation on this, so you're talking about so one, you're talking about AOE having the information on the website, but can you say a little bit? Yeah, so one of the final recommendations we make goes to the rulemaking process itself. We think that it should be explicit in the bill that in the process of making these rules that health and DEC should consult with the educational organizations because we think we're going to be able to inform the rulemaking process in terms of what makes sense. I'm going to give you an example, and this is not intended to disparage any party. We were working on the pilot for testing for lead in schools, and I went to a meeting with representatives of all the named entities, and they were talking about going into the school buildings doing tests either the last week of June or the first week of July. So that's indicative of the fact that they did not understand how some schools operate because schools have a tendency to close down in those months, and you'd be hard pressed to in some cases find anybody in those schools. So when we start thinking about what school personnel we might employ to draw the water samples or who's going to receive the test results, you know, if you lived in Burlington, your context would be different than if you were associated with the Washington Northeast Supervisory Union or the Champlain Valley School District or Addison Central. That's easy enough. We can make reference to that in the rulemaking section. You're not talking about anything beyond that. In terms of oversight or authority or I think that if the oversight and authority gets treated the way we believe it should for a program which has the high priority like this one does, I think we'll be okay. Where you run into trouble is if somebody in a local school district has a question that they need an immediate response to, they're not clear whether to call the health department, the Department of Environmental Conservation. I don't think they should call the agency of education but if they don't get a good response or any response from those two other two entities, then it ought to be somebody at the AOE that they call and say I'm trying to get an answer to this question and they can't. Because you can put somebody out into the organization that is state government familiarity with that particular entity or organization and they're going to want to go to a more familiar place and that more familiar place if it's not them calling me they would be calling the AOE. I would say that these are pragmatic recommendations that are offered as soft recommendations because I didn't know what the subsequent version of the bills would look like. I didn't go to the letter of the particular legislation. These are concepts that we will be looking at subsequent drafts to see if they get incorporated or not. And if somebody says to me how do you want that incorporated, we'd have a conversation about that and try to get it incorporated if you're so inclined. What I will do, I'm making notes here I'll pass this on to Michael Grady who's been drafting for us and have him work up language and we'll have a little discussion at the end of the test. So we will do our best to maybe not speak to every one of you. Sure. I'm now on point number eight on the second page. So that simply suggests that if there's going to be a website at the Agency of Natural Resources that is informative with regard to the testing results for schools then we simply think there ought to be a link to the AOE because we think in some instances parents and families would first go to the AOE in terms of trying to find out about the circumstances or conditions for a particular school. Schools do a lot of work with families to ensure that they go to the website to get information and so this is another category of information that we think ought to exist at that website. Under number nine we talk about the lead remediation response. We can't emphasize enough that the initiative ought to be properly resourced both with regard to funding and personnel. So we just want to make sure and I say this with a fair amount of understanding and appreciation for the work of both A&R and the Department of Health we want to make sure that the folks there know what they're dealing with as it were I'm confident that they will be but we feel it's an important point to reiterate. Number ten talks to the reference in the bill to the model plan and this may be simply a matter of interpretation of language. One definition of plan would be you receive your test results and then create a plan to respond to the results of that test and that's a valid way to describe it. I think that for an initiative which is going to result in various forms of remediation like plumbing fixtures or piping or water source but a plan it might rather than have a model plan it might be explicit steps to resolve a particular finding. So rather than a plan like a practical approach five bubblers here's the method that you use to replace those drinking fountains. I guess I dated myself for that. It may not be that's why I qualify this statement but this may be a matter of interpretation. The way I think about it is I'm a parent I find out that my kid's school has led in it I want to know what's going to be done to hand me this document. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to replace in the north building we're going to replace these three in the south building we're going to replace these two and it's going to cost this much because the state is supplying this much so now I have a picture of the work that's going to be done. I agree with you entirely. Maybe the use of the word model that threw me off. I was thinking of that and this is to Ruth's point yesterday I was thinking of that as you know something where you could plug in a template. Yeah I mean that would be good. What I want to say also is that we know that the average cost per fixture is this we know that the supply companies that can provide new fixtures is this we know that the plumbing companies that can do that are going to replace me. I'm not going to belabor the point but I'm going to talk about how schools are going to work with this based on my experience. Number 11 the bill calls for initial testing to be completed by January one 2020 but the agency and national resources is not required to complete rulemaking until November one 2020. So you're going to have a lot of action kicked off potentially before the rules that Michael Grady provides for us puts in an interim guideline a set of guidelines because we have Corey I think brought up that exact point. So I believe what we're talking about in the current version of the bill is there's a kind of emergency action guideline that we're leaning on with the idea that rulemaking would follow and be done by. Right. Okay. Okay. Number 12 talks about the Vermont Agency of Education involvement. They can comment on that for themselves. I'd be redundant if I revisited that. 13 I'm already said we would like our associations consulted with during the rulemaking process. 14 speaks about the absence of an appropriation. The second version of the bill has an appropriation and I know the governor announced 1.3 and his budget address. I don't know how his approach and your approach are going to reconcile but it's good that there are budgetary references. I included 15 both as instructive to the committee and because I think it's a valid point. So in 2003 the General Assembly passed the law 3VSA 832B which basically was intended to point toward being asked to do more and more. So there's a provision on the books titled administrative rules affecting school districts which says that any agency promulgating rules affecting school districts needs to do a cost benefit analysis both of direct and indirect costs. I think that the agencies that are doing the rulemaking should be alerted to that requirement particularly because while the state may test or may pay for testing and remediation at some level there's going to be a lot of implications for school districts in terms of the work that they have to do at the school district level itself. I in no way shape or manner bring that up because I think that you shouldn't be doing this on the contract. I think you should be doing it. I just think that sometimes in the dynamic that involves schools in all forms of initiative in the state the cumulative cost implications are often lost on people. So you will hear me when I sit in this committee on any topic that involves fiscal impacts on schools talk about the fiscal impacts on schools. So now I'll go to the funding. My preference and the preference of our associations would be to have the state fund this as a hundred percent both mitigation and testing here's why. There's not going to be any lack of commitment from school districts in terms of getting this work done. So you don't need schools to signal their intent around this by putting up some money themselves. That's the first thing. The second thing is the investment that will need to be made if you expedite this is going to be off budget cycle. So school districts are developing budgets for the next fiscal year right now. If tests start to materialize at the first of the year and school districts are asked to remediate on a timely basis you do not want them waiting until July 1 in the next fiscal year. You want them to go to work to take care of it right away. They won't have budgeted for that. That's the second thing. The third thing is the administration of a 50 percent match both for the state and the school district may not do justice to the amount of money that you're going to need in total investment. I think you would be better off to say we're going to test we're going to have a schedule of remediation costs that will fund not do grant programs not do applications simply say your plan says you're going to replace five fountains we know through our research that that's going to cost X if you give us invoices that some know more than that we're going to pay it. Another so I'd like to have you think just about the administration of a matching program as opposed to an expedited program which has the state pay which is the state is well versed in that. I'm confused how less administration if we pay all or half seems like the same amount of administrative work it's just the cost is different. I don't think that's true because of the calculations that have to take place I mean there's there are interactions it's hard to do with it let me make another point I'll ponder that feedback if you take a look at the pattern of school budget approvals in this state I can predict with a fair level of certainty some districts that will defeat their budget on the first time through if you take a look about perceptions of community wealth and how education gets funded I think that it's within the realm of possibility that you may find school systems that historically are considered to be more financially stressed and strapped than others. So the notion that you would go to any school district and say and I want to pause here and ask that you consider my line of reasoning cumulatively rather than piece by piece if you go to any school district and say you need to replace these fixtures the perceptions in those communities is going to be different from place to place there are places that will take care of it immediately Montpelier looked at the fact that this program was coming and Montpelier where I reside has a history of basically supporting any level of expenditure for schools that have a program on their own there are other places that I will tell you have their hand to their head right now and they're saying boy when they come in and test our schools if they find five fixtures that's going to be a measurable burden and impact on our school and when you consider the rurality of some of the schools and the declining enrollment and the corresponding increase in spending as enrollments decline if this is a public health initiative by the state that you want to take care of on an expedient basis you would be far better to grease the skids and let's say that the total cost of remediation I have no idea what they're going to be but let's say it's five million dollars you'd be better off saying the five million is available we're going to get the job done then we're going to have to split it let me I have one more point but I'll take it so Jeff I appreciate your point about health equity which is an issue that the commissioner of health brought up yesterday that in some of our communities there may be more ability and more enthusiasm for doing the work I completely appreciate that I think that in a lot of cases the remediation is not going to be as expensive as you are presenting replacing a few faucets is not going to be an enormous cost for most school districts and the paperwork bureaucracy for some kind of even 50% match maybe more burdensome to the school district than just paying for a $50 new faucet so I don't want to and I said this about the model plan too I don't want to create bureaucracy that's unnecessary and I think that if we have to dig into the pipes and replace a whole bunch of plumbing then obviously that's going to be more expensive and that might be something that we would want to look into but to your point of making sure it gets done it's going to be more burdening school districts but if it's really just replacing a few faucets it seems to me that creating a bureaucratic structure for that is excessive and maybe we could create some kind of match for cost exceeding a certain amount that would be more appropriate than okay we're going to give you $25 because you just spent $50 on a faucet well just to clarify so I take Jeff's point about they would like a statement of the state's willingness to pay what it's going to pay before the bill leaves this committee but the plan has always been that the appropriations committee will create exactly what we're talking about so we can obsess about it in here but Jane and her people are going to do what they do Ruth is suggesting that there's an amount that triggers these grants they might decide after looking at it that you're right they should pay 100% I tend to think what they're going to do is land on 50-50 and districts will have to apply for that in which case it may be that if it's $400 they might have a fund that would cover that and they move on without applying for that $200 but I hear your testimony and I'm not kicking the can down the road completely because the statement we make in this bill will have to take a stand in one way or the other but that can be countermanded very easily down the hall and I've made my points I understand your perspective I don't think it's a showstopper one way or the other I was on the committee that made decisions about the $5 million in school safety grants that went out it was an extraordinarily heavy bureaucratic process so you know it was a competitive process the governor had in his address today another 1.5 million I think for that it was competitive to the point that they wanted to make sure that the investments were well made but there was an effort to fund the high percentage of those grants as possible that's why you had to spend a lot more time here we'll be talking about here are our receipts and again it may ultimately be worth quibbling over but not today another option would be to just have the bills for the fixtures and the replacement go right to the state don't even engage the school district at all but all I ask is that you think about it so that is some total if with your permission I'll look to Jay and see if he thinks I left anything out I don't think he left anything out I just want to touch again on the model plan what we were concerned about was a model plan the idea of there being a template Jay Nichols, Vermont principal association executive director when we wrote the legislation together what we were concerned is oftentimes we see it comes out with it's this format that it may not fit certain places so having some type of template where people could build into it what they needed to that makes perfect sense to us I'll answer any questions you can take any more from me I neglected the most important thing about he was Joe Benning's roommate think about that every time you see him because I can't look at Joe Benning without thinking about it yeah yeah with that I think I should I can speak to myself I've known Joe for a long time I understand one of them was the real troublemaker the other one was kind of a goodie goodie and you can look at it it wouldn't be appropriate for me to respond without Joe to hear it thanks very much thanks Joe so that was extraordinarily efficient because we in effect heard from all three organizations right then so Rebecca Ellis Deputy Commissioner Department of Environmental Conservation thank you and I am here so for the record Rebecca Ellis Deputy Commissioner Department of Environmental Conservation and Brian Redman Director for the Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division and thank you for taking us in at short notice and we had some comments on the Proposed Bill S40 draft 1.1 and I was able to give some of you paper copies there's more and I've just emailed it to your committee assistant and we wanted to comment on some things and also give you a chance to ask questions as well about some of our positions that I brought Brian along because he can answer questions so basically six comments we also have a markup of the bill that's more detailed which I can provide to you or to Michael O'Grady our first and main comment is that we want to make sure that when the bill gets drafted in its final version that Vermont Department of Health is the lead agency and you did have a draft yesterday that Commissioner Levine brought in that would make you the lead and the reason we're recommending this is because we did do a pilot last year in 2018 with the Department of Health and one of the reasons for the pilot was to figure out who's got the best expertise in which areas and to learn some lessons and we felt that Department of Health really has better connections with the schools they do testing already they have a lab and that it would make sense to do that initiative DEC really has expertise in terms of remediation so if your school does have a hit what do you do to fix it and water systems can be very complicated and so that's what our staff does is help people fix the water systems so this is something that both DEC and DEC agree on and so we would recommend moving the program into Title 18 and out of Title 10 second we would recommend that the legislation keep our current action level of 15 parts per billion and then lowering it to one part per billion and that if you keep it at 15 parts per billion and you do remediation that you then have the school bring their levels of lead down to the lowest feasible level obviously below 15 parts per billion but the reason that to one part per billion is that that is not sometimes feasible for a school system school systems will frequently take water outside from a public drinking water system that might be at 5 parts per billion and that is perfectly legal and that meets federal and state standards so if you have the level too low it's really setting up an impossibility for schools it can also lead to higher costs of compliance and that was an interesting discussion that you had about the costs our experience at the 15 parts per billion is that the remediation involved changing out taps it was really inexpensive it was at the $50 level if you are at a lower level and again it's hard to draw exactly where the line is but if you're at a lower level that's below what the public drinking water system is giving to you that's millions of dollars that you're talking about because you'd have to replace the whole public drinking water system so I was going to drop in quickly and say that we spoke earlier about that I said that our testimony yesterday to a person pointed to lower action levels than 15 and that the science based testimony seemed to be pointing toward lower levels I said that we hadn't yet decided what we were going to do but that seemed to me to be the science based argument here you're talking about lowest feasible level so we're in a different area of considerations in some ways feasibility costs et cetera so the committee will have to weigh those when we ultimately swallow the PPP level right certainly and it is interesting to consider how health based standards are set versus maximum content levels are set so you have VDH saying the health based standard is no lead really is the best when the EPA and states set maximum content levels they try to get it as close as they can to the goal or to the health advisory but a maximum content level also looks at feasibility to consider costs in setting that level and so I think if this committee does want to lower the action level from 15 to something lower that it is very appropriate for this committee to look at the cost because the cost will be much higher and we haven't done this yet but we'd be happy to work with the fiscal office to give you some estimates of what costs might be as you start going down. Stephanie is preparing a number of different options for us and I believe part of it was based on child care centers or not all of the child care centers or not but I believe we asked didn't we ask for different parts for building? I don't think we did specifically. But we have that information from the pilot kind of we have the numbers we have the numbers from the pilot that we asked her to look at and also from the testimony that we heard yesterday based on what Professor Kistanza Robinson found in the schools that she tested for her percentages and that's how I think that Stephanie is going to make an estimate based on those two. That's my recollection. And absolutely any information that you can feed to Stephanie about estimates and costs would be very helpful to us. I just, you know, the five parts per billion is an old recommendation from the EPA drinking water standards for bottled water five parts per billion a health based standard recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics is one. We're going through the entire process of testing every tap in every school in our state in order to make sure that our kids are healthy. I find it really disappointing that you guys would recommend a standard that's not based standard and obviously there are feasibility and cost issues at hand but to start at a level that is not actually based on the health standard is I think incredibly problematic. Yeah, we're certainly talking about the health of our children and our youngest children so health is the first and foremost concern. Yeah. So going on to the third point which some of the members might not find we recommend at this point to remove the requirement for testing at child care facilities and maybe do a year-long pilot or study the pilot that we did in 2018 was schools that did not include child care facilities and the reason for doing a pilot is to work out what are the issues and what's the best way to roll out a program which we think we can now provide for schools. I don't think we have that level of comfort at this point with child care facilities also many child care facilities are already regulated by the Department of Children and the bill says if they're not already required to test or not already regulated then they would fit into the year. Again we have a question there about whether we revise that language in the bill to go to all or leave it or take it out and put a pilot in so model language about a pilot program would be useful for us to see when we make that decision and you know as I said before some of those feasibility questions will be made in appropriations because that's more their bailiwick. This is education and kids in here so you know if push comes to shove I'm personally leaning toward lower action levels and more testing in daycare centers because that's our charge but we will do our own analysis but just to say we start with a different focus in here once it hits the money committees the focus shifts back to feasibility and numbers etc. We'd be happy to provide for the model language about a pilot. On the fourth we would be collecting minor just that if there's data or website we would recommend that's managed by the Department of Health they would be collecting the data they would have a test results. You wouldn't have any problem with I think Jeff Francis was talking about a mirror module along with a web site. That would be fine. They would probably just link to whatever the website is. The fifth comment it looks like you already noticed that the testing date was after when the testing began so I thought that was maybe even a typo so I was going to suggest changing the date back a year although that's not very much time to do rule making it sounds like maybe you're going to address this through some other way that you could also have a protocol for the first year or something like that. That's what we're doing. I didn't see it in the version that's online. No it's sampling shall be conducted according to the methodology provided for me the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's three T's for reducing lead and drinking water in school. So that's what we're proceeding under before the rule making I believe. Okay and I think our comment on that would be for something like state standards some state specific requirements there are a few things features to the pilot that we included that are not part of three T's that we would recommend implementing. I haven't read through the newest version of the bill but as you heard from Dr. Stanza Robinson yesterday the flush sample at the initial that is three T's not at the initial collection three T's looks at it as a feature to diagnosing a remediation we'd rather have that information up front as part of the initial sampling collection because you're diagnosing the fixture and then further down into the pipe so that's a good indication if you need to go back behind the wall and you're getting into more expensive remediation. Okay so I'm a little confused about what you would like to see so to the extent that you could give us pieces of language that speak to what you're talking about because Michael Grady is not an expert in this area either and actually we do have a markup with a recommendation already apparently that was in the version 1.1 and I forgot because we were trying to speak to the experts requirements on testing methodology and I believe that those were I believe the past tense that they were all captured in three T's that sounds though that's not the case Yeah I made some notes of things that were recommended yesterday that didn't get in here too in terms of notification also and the requirement that testing occurred during the phrase that she used basically during the school year We've got Michael Grady tomorrow at the beginning of our session so we'll download all of these suggestions too We also have updated fiscal note from Stephanie and then hopefully starting next week on Tuesday we'll have most everything that we want in the bill and then we'll be kind of vetting with people who want to take another look at it so you can always come back and get another 10 or 15 minutes So on the technical but very important changes on your definition of first draw sample it says to take the sample on water that's been standing in plumbing pipe at least 6 hours it should actually be between 8 and 18 hours so it's actually I was going to say it should have 8 to 18 there needs to be a stop gap on the back end for a valid that's a 3T that's also reference which number is that on your sheet that's not on the picky things that you're going to do a little technical things it's on here a markup of your earlier version oh yeah happy to and then the final thing we just want to make you aware of is the appropriation and the governor's appropriation should include money for staff person to your staff person VDA to your staff person A&R at DEC if you are to change the standard 15 parts per billion to something lower or if you are to include childcare facilities that will definitely impact our capacity so for example there was a discussion of what kind of assistance will DEC provide to a school maybe it would be a childcare facility that hasn't hit so our folks are available to provide advice to you can you just did the pilot so what what's the what DEC's primary role was was once a tap is found with elevated levels of lead we worked directly with the school in consultation with VDHG they're not out of the process and really part of it is determining what the next steps are to really diagnose the problem and to understand what type of remediation is going to resolve the issue so the first initial is to establish communication with the school usually it was the head of maintenance and look at additional sampling we're looking sometimes at water quality so the pilot were those that were served by public community water systems so they're receiving municipal water so part of that is checking the water that's coming into the school seeing what kind of quality or water the service connection is actually receiving looking at water quality parameters pH, grossivity alkalinity and really diagnosing the problem and establishing next steps to really figure out what the proper remediation is we were worried about the worst case scenario in the pilot which we didn't come across the replacements and the remediations were all relatively straightforward and easy we saw a lot of bottle fillers going in we saw a lot of taps being replaced we didn't get into that nightmare situation where we're chasing the plumbing through the walls in the ceiling we would anticipate that with the lower standard that there will be more of that happening it is a matter of that simple fixture replacement is not something that we can sort of count on so am I right Rebecca that you said two positions right two positions so one at BDH and one at DEC because and you said with a lower action standard you might need more right because you'll have more hits the administration I believe has asked in budget adjustment for four positions so now that would be sounds great then we're all set I haven't seen I haven't seen that in budget adjustment for this initiative 900,000 for testing 400,000 for positions four in number that's what they so the 1.3 sounds familiar but I think the breakdown is a little different from what I have seen but maybe I'll ask you on that yeah so and again so maybe the language did the language actually say four positions and I know because certain persons reaction to the number yeah Brian has the after the pilot testing they did the remediation and then there was testing again do we still not have that that data was I witnessed the committee ask for that data yesterday I contacted VDH today it's not ready for you today but we're actively looking at the feasibility of the one part per billion based on the limited subset of data we collected for the pilot and I don't mean to be paranoid but what sometimes happens when you can't get data that seems as though it would be hanging around because you did the pilot you have all that data then it was a much smaller subset that you needed to remediate you did the testing you have the results so I'm just wondering why there's a delay getting us those results sometimes it would be because it's a bad news story in other words the retesting didn't accomplish everything that it was supposed to do so I'm all the way of saying that it was good to get everything out quickly we will work on getting it it should be available I'm not the keeper that data that is with the health department the health department will have that data the commissioner yesterday I think said he would get it too okay can I have to declare my question in the pilot what was the PVB standard that you used was it 15? one would be existing federal standard it draws consistency the standards that public water suppliers are held to the water that's being provided to the school in the case of the statewide program the other bigger consistency issue actually for us would be that 150 of the schools that would be subject to testing under the programs are public water suppliers in and of themselves the non-community assistance I spoke about yesterday essentially this would be superseding existing standards and just to if I could react to what you had made earlier it is not an old standard it is the current federal drinking water standard there's only one other state in the nation that has taken action on a lower drinking water standard for let for public water supply regulations and that's the state of Michigan the following the water crisis and their regulation requires the standard to go to 12 parts per billion by 2025 it's a very complex matter especially when you're talking about large geographical areas that shouldn't necessarily be compared to a per-tap at school program they're a little bit different but that's valuable information I don't see anything wrong with saying given the testimony we had from the commissioner about developing brains the especially toxic effects on young people that we might have even temporarily a more strict standard in schools than we have in other places in the state but again 15 would be very difficult to bring to the fore with a straight face given the testimony that we had about the science involved so again still an open question anything else folks any final questions great thank you so much that was very helpful and I will pass your suggestions and the ones I marked from Jeff Francis on to Michael Grady and I will have another discussion with him about Department of Health taking the lead and committee are you comfortable with me asking for the region based on the things that seem to me to make sense from these lists or would you prefer to go through point by point we could do that after get a dollar on one so we can do this side by side too yeah so maybe let's do it like this how about if I speak with Mike about things that seem to me to go in and then when we have a new draft you'll have these documents if there's anything that didn't make it in then we can have a discussion but I think that's a more efficient way of doing a revision just to get the bulk of it in unless there's well you can also let that strike it out so is that yeah I mean you're saying you would work with Mike to get a third draft by tomorrow no not by tomorrow in other words Michael could tomorrow we'll talk when the committee breaks I will sit down with him with these documents and ask him I've made some marks on the ones that seem to me uncontroversial or that we seem to be in agreement with we can have him put those in then we'll have a draft on Tuesday and at that point we can if you notice any one of these that didn't make it into the draft we can know that that's fine that's fine with that that's the case what will we talk to him about tomorrow about the draft that he's produced actually we could alright let's do it this way when we talk to him we'll talk about the draft he did but then we'll also today I'll sort of leave the discussion about things that I think should go in but we'll all chime in and have not as formal as a straw boat on each one just sense of the committee as we go along and then we'll drop them to him one by one he'll make notes and then we'll send him out with those notes for a vision does that sound good so in other words instead of me doing it with him alone we'll just do it together as a committee it means we'll take a little more time tomorrow we don't have a lot on the agendas are we starting on one tomorrow we're starting on one because it's Friday so the idea is to get everybody out just a little longer how long is it just a bias training so just a bias training is going to be about two hours that's 1.30 so we have implicit bias training at 1.30 and I don't know what our morning committees are doing people want lunch they said that we were eating during the training oh we all really fit into this room and eating at the same time eating out eating out in the room not always going to eat standing up eating at 1.30 so I had asked Genie to fill out tomorrow not thinking that we would be doing this with Michael I do have a starting at 1 but you're right it'll be at least 1.30 we can take Michael out and just do it with the original proposal we don't need to meet with him if you're going to meet with him and again I mean this okay if you don't mind me doing that we can take Michael off the agenda and start with Stephanie at 1.30 are we making any fiscal changes that she's going to have to come back to us with another note what we're doing for Michael I don't think so she's going to present us with the option she has so far that'll inform our thinking we won't have to decide tomorrow but we can give her any additional revisions or questions so her fiscal note is a work in progress that we are collaborating on as is the draft with Mike so we'll have both of them back in on Tuesday with revisions after tomorrow but I can talk with Mike offline and we'll talk together with Stephanie tomorrow and get a sense of what her numbers are looking like so if we start here at 1.30 then Mike won't if you can cancel with him just tell him that I want to speak to him when we're done yeah so whenever let's say 3.30 tell him see if we can set up a appointment here at 3.30 and then I've asked Jeannie to starting at 2.00 to go back to pre-care and have testimony from some providers some are your district Ruth some are my district but this is the beginning of a sort of smattering of public and private providers and what they think of S10 so that'll take us from about 2.30 well we're not having Michael so I think these guys can probably be half an hour we might run 10 minutes over yeah so we'd be out by 3.30 and then I'll sit with Michael Green for another half an hour comments questions so we will I'll start scheduling next week committee time on this bill for us to flesh out our thoughts and begin making these decisions clearly the administration is interested in not moving from a 15 parts per billion standard they're very serious about wanting the Department of Health to take the lead and some other things so that's not determinative for us but we're going to have to have a good solid discussion about if we don't go with their recommendation why we're not so the parts per billion we've been having that discussion as we go we haven't talked much about who would take the lead Michael Grady has an argument about why he drafted it as he did we'll hear that again but I think there's a lot of value in having the administration on one page about their line of authority so that's I regard that an authoritative argument that Mike's argument would have to be strong enough to overturn so we'll hear from him Tuesday and then there's the question of the child care centers too that seems to be a different question and there's some other ones that will have to wind up strong the other thing just to let you know how I operate some committee chairs are very look-as-can since people try to make a case to individual members on the committee and so you see people having quiet huddles and private huddles in the hall I tell advocates that if they want to make a case to you to change your mind feel free so you know there's never any prohibition on you listening to as much or as little of people's arguments as you want even if it means you're going to change your mind from where I think it is I always appreciate a heads up if you were positioned that you voiced before as change but you know so I said to Rebecca if her people want to speak to you about the parts per billion question privately and have a back and forth then by all means and then when we straw vote again it's we go with four votes so on some of these we'll have to have a way to break the tie because we have to have a parts per billion standard so if we go three to three we have to figure that out maybe rounds of voting, successive rounds of voting until somebody changes about three and a half but in order to get something out of the committee we have to go with a vote of four so if we deadlock on a bill for instance and it's three three the bill doesn't advance out of committee no matter what I or anybody else we want okay thanks guys see you tomorrow