 and running folks and Michael was going to do a little heavy lifting while we were doing our other committees and so we may as well start wherever you want to start Michael with changes. Well I think hold on a second let me grab the relevant document. The main change is going to be the report. No it's not at the end it's page page 18. And so I added into that section five the report requirement under subsection C that the secretary of AG beginning on July 1 2020 and ending on January 1 2021 shall report to your committees on the first day of each month regarding the status of the assistance programs established under section one and three and then the report shall include the number of applicants for assistance in each month and overall and the amount of grant funds awarded under each program. So that's the main change. The other change that was significant was back on page 16 line 14 and then again in section one where it says in the event that the US Department of the Treasury determines that an expenditure of funds made available from the CARES Act was not necessary or otherwise impermissible under the CARES Act. The AG and the secretary let's just say the secretary of agriculture shall hold harmless any grant recipient that accepted grant funds in good faith reliance on the state concerning the eligible applicants eligibility for or use of the grant award and so that same change was made on page nine line 17 and then that's age nine line 17 Michael yes subdivision five yeah any questions about any of these changes folks speak up where did that change come from it I think you're saying if we've screwed up the state will just pay for it yes and that was a language that was included in the economic development bill that the senate looked at either today or get sent it through today okay thank you and senator star requested that it be added in earlier today yeah so unless somebody fraudulently tries to get it there you're not on the hook for it correct yeah were there any others Michael yes and so in the eligibility requirements on page four and again in section three page four line seven you wanted to open up the period for a person to demonstrate economic harm and you move that from march from September to December 1st and so that was that change was made but that does raise a question in the appropriations section um and let me take you to that question it's on page on page 10 in that sub b it says any funds appropriated that are not expended by November 1st shall revert to the agency and for those who can demonstrate economic harm incurred from March 1 2020 through December 1st 2020 so so the December 1st 2020 date is now consistent with what you just changed in the eligibility requirements but if everything reverts on November 1st how are they going to provide assistance for anyone that shows economic harm between November 1 and December 1 what about if we said just October 15th for what the end date of the economic harm window well we'd have to move it the other way wouldn't we Chris but i i think i think my my point is right so maybe this language really needs to be clarified a little bit because it reverts to the agency for for further expenditure under the programs and maybe it's not a problem but maybe it just could be clarified further or again Senator Hardy was asking what's our goal our our goal was to try to make sure we're only giving it to people who are not profitable in the covid pandemic right right so here here maybe i can be more clear i think um on line 11 instead of it saying for ongoing financial assistance i think you just should say for reallocation for five financial assistance under the programs under section one and three right because now you're clear clarifying that you're going to take this money back and then you're going to reallocate right now the way that it reads November 1 for ongoing financial i think you could read that as everything stops on November 1 so i i would just want to change that word ongoing to for reallocation of financial assistance well i think that was our intention was if there was money get it to the people that it should be going to and then if there's money left it way at the end it reverts back to the ui phone right and that now i think you kind of have a logical and and kind of plain language the money gets appropriated if it's not spent by november 1 or reverts to the agency for reallocation if they have economic harm through december 1 they can collect it up to december 20 and at that point it reverts to ui yeah ruth did you have a question um well i think that michael's suggestion takes care of it but i want to have a sort of follow-up question michael to my question this morning about economic harm um and you know specifically when it comes to the dairy processors i know for example dfa is charging pretty high quote unquote covid charges on their milk checks which is they wouldn't do anything like that i know and i've heard from a bunch of farmers i don't know if ag remark is doing the same but i know dfa is doing it and so if that i mean that's extra revenue that dfa is getting isn't it or i i mean just concerned that they're going to be able to show economic harm even though they're literally taking money from farmers at this point um and i want to prevent that do you know what i do but is is dfa going to be applying as a dairy processor i don't think dfa is a licensed dairy processor well i i i don't know they may own they may own they process milk into whey up in st albin's right so they they own st albin's creamery but i don't but that's going to be a separate corporate entity um well i would think they'd be going after the big the big fish through economic development if at all possible so but we aren't going to be able to make this bullet proof i know i know i just want to make sure that they are you know i just enjoyed that they are doing that to farmers and then i don't want them to qualify for our program if that's what they're doing well i could that is what they're doing i i could see the rate going up proof you know it's like i don't know eight i don't know what i'm not sure what it is like eight and a half cents a hundred weight or 10 cents a hundred weight but they could raise it to 15 or 20 if they see the primers getting uh you know some money we think they're they're eligible for the 60 grand as a large processor well we think so we're not sure they might be they might be they'll try to be it's more likely yeah they're gonna get any penny they can get they'll go from accd and here because uh you know but the primers supposedly own the co-op and if it doesn't make money they have to put money in to make it uh stay alive so i you know i don't know if there's there's a fix to it but it's not finished bill yeah it's a brutal system anyway okay okay um there was on page four line 20 i replaced the term expenses with economic harm so it says economic harm is not compensable under the section of the same economic harm has been or will be covered by insurance or another state or federal grant um so i just wanted it had previously said expenses and expenses didn't encompass all of economic harm and i think that's really the only changes any any uh anyone else pick up on anything we talked about this morning that michael may have missed i and uh i forgot to say that i took out the appropriation to the agency or the language that could have appropriated money to the agency to do education and outreach that was in section five yeah michael what did we land on for the date question uh for non-dairy did we resolve that do you mean the net profit yeah yeah you told me to leave that alone um it was august first right it was august first uh brian thank you mr chair so michael the only appropriations in the bill now are dairy farmers dairy processors non-dairy farmers and processors and the vhcb is that right that's correct thank you the spreadsheet's pretty accurate right now on page 14 you did change the grant amounts too yeah so that's that's what's not accurate about the spreadsheet right uh i thought i changed the spreadsheet yeah the spreadsheet's accurate oh it's at least the one that i have i didn't know that you had updated it so the one i'm looking at committee discussion pardon on the spreadsheet there's one that says committee discussion at the bottom right that's the one i changed i can change committee final also how about you just as long as it's in this bill it's fine right that's a good point we're not passing the spreadsheet right so the amounts are 2,500, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 yeah that's what i got and i haven't got the spreadsheet um anything any other questions concerns uh any of that so i i guess i do have a question michael where we forget where the language is but where it says um basically these could work in tandem with other federal or state grants or your insurance but all together you can't blow through you know you can't double count losses does that um um does that mean that they would be that the businesses would be eligible to go through the same program that we passed this morning through accd's kind of business program um yes um so for example on page 13 line six it says economic harm is not compensable under this section it's the same economic harm uh should say economic harm has been or will be covered by insurance or another federal grant so what about another state grant um you could put that in there if you would like well i think it's a question i mean if if if a big out that had $200,000 in losses they could do harm at ours or do the other one and then come back with a different set of bills and and harm they can't use the same harm right both programs they've got to have a different set of um numbers and and a different level of harm or not a different level but they aren't going to be able to use the same harm for two programs no but right but if they are eligible under the accd like every other vermont business and then they're eligible under this because they happen to be in the ag sector i don't know well they'd be able to get funding up to their total loss so if they've lost they lost $200,000 they got $60,000 out of $100,000 out of this program they could go look for another $100,000 another program they so they could continue to try to get rewards of grants until they reached their total loss i appreciate that i'm not saying it's good or bad i'm saying that's that's what that seems like what i could do but uh but a restaurant for instance i think the working assumption was the max grant would be in the neighborhood of 60 grand and we didn't have that in the bill ultimately but it gives you some context so you know i don't i don't want to fight about it it's not that big a deal but it is a little strange it seems to me well i'm not saying you're i'm not opposed to what you're saying what you're implying anyway but i will say that other especially in the house that there are programs that will be available to to multiple programs that will be available to the same business for instance house naturals talking about a program to give assistance to outdoor recreation businesses but those same businesses would would be eligible underneath the economic development assistance program so the ccd program as well um and so they they have multiple opportunities or potentially those outdoor recreation businesses will have multiple opportunities i the only thing i really want to make sure of is we don't and we've done it is i don't want the same bills being used to be able to collect off from because that's really bad in my book yeah i think michael that you should um online seven will have not been or will not be covered by insurance or another state or federal grant yeah but i actually do have that for the other program so yeah they should be consistent yeah and you're yeah and you're gonna make it harm throughout yeah yep okay anything else guys and you're with your gal that's okay guys more sort of gender we should all just use y'all y'all is good um i'd get arrested for sure then i mean my biggest concern right now is making sure we can move this fast i mean we spend a lot of time on it and i just want to make sure we can move it as fast as possible so what anything we can do with our friends in the house and the rest of the senate to just get this through so that we can get these checks out um that would be helpful um it better it better be able to send checks a week after next because i've told a lot of farmers that it should be happening yeah i think that's that's going to be tight but but yes i think we have to in the next few weeks i just have gotten so many desperate calls and oh the check is in the mail so in that regard senator hardy i did spend a little time on gov ops today um with the three members who are not members of this committee um asking if anybody had questions and they actually did and anthony can correct me if i'm wrong but i think we've got three votes there and probably no questions and i have an email from senator brock who's concerned about it not being the 50 million and i'll i'll call him when we're done here and explain what happened there so i can i can pretty much see that we're going to be uh greasing up pretty well here on the on the floor on thursday well the the main thing is approach does it need to be referred to approach and we should move tomorrow that pending entrance in the notice it be referred blah blah blah i you you got to get a rule suspension first yeah that won't be a problem and okay jane jane may not even take the bill in like like today she said you know how um rules and not ask to have it go to to uh i think we'll look at this tomorrow and in ag so maybe thursday it won't even have to go have to go to prop so i'll chat with jane yeah i think she thinks as long as she's aware of it knows what the number is at the top end that she's probably gonna be comfortable with it yeah do your magic bobby she's the one that gave me the number right but it is it is not a bill yet it's just being introduced so that usually slows us down by a day so i didn't have a bill did he uh michael in in government ops yeah there was s 350 i think when will this get assigned a number uh michael tomorrow oh okay so thursday it'll have a number okay somebody want to move the bill oh go ahead ruth uh i uh move the bill six point two michael six point one yes oh two be right there'll be corrections yeah yeah so it's been moved by ruth seconded by brian yeah um shall i call the roll is there further any further discussion uh you want to call the roll ruth yes senator hardy yes oh wait sorry senator column war yes senator hardy yes uh you guys are hard center piercen yes center polina yes center star yes and i there's probably uh several that would like to report the bill um i thought maybe uh chris and i would would do this one and um and then i'd have you other three uh do 652 i think it is 656 which is a multi page uh multi page bill and it would break that up with three of your doing it and and i thought chris i would if you don't mind i mean i'll do any part of it that you don't want to do but i thought i'd do the dairy stuff and and not through maybe we can talk about what section that ends in and then you could pick up the you know the off-dairy stuff i can do that in the bhcb that's fine and and the reports and stuff so you've got the bulk of the money and i'll get the right point um so is there anything else that any of you would like to bring up and talk about ruth well i just wanted to um mention that we have that other bill the livestock your bill and yeah the the last bill and i think that i think senator sears is taking that up tomorrow in judiciary in the morning that's right and then there right i can't be there and i can't be at our meeting if we're meeting tomorrow i don't know if we are but i couldn't do it until later in the morning well i was planning on because we got a we got a rock and roll on well i wanted to get your uh 254 done you know talk about that and and we got to talk camp in the hell out of offering that that amendment is it it you know it doesn't really study did you look it's a study well yeah well you guys you guys can definitely meet without me i trust you i i don't want to hold everything up we have so much to do i don't want to hold everything up but tomorrow is my son's eighth grade graduation well i guess we ought to all be coming down to go to it it's drive-through we have to do it from the car but it's still he's excited about it so i'll know creamy's afterwards are they three morning it's in the morning so i think i should be able to be i can join you guys probably around 11 don't certainly don't hurry back to be with us when you could be with him um and um so we'll we'll just tinker with um well we may talk some politics on this bill uh but um we'll look over the study that brian has and um and then we'll go to work on six five six yeah and then michael do i need to do something with this bill to since i'm the clerk to get it to the secretary will you send me a clean draft to spend to lumer uh yeah normally committee bills are delivered to legislative council drafting ops to get the bill number we'll hand it to you michael then will you take care of it yeah but you also need a message to our drafting ops from your rules committee that it's okay for them to process it i've got to hop off bobby you're going to take care of all that for us right not the hell with it just put it in michael okay i'll call me right away okay that's that's all we need is an email from peter or tim or whoever to say it's been approved yeah and uh so you've got the committee vote and all that yeah five zero zero yep okay bye guys good work