 Coming back to our questions around 464 and 808 we had some time yesterday to talk about data and today I'd like to talk about training and data with the folks who are here in the room and so I'm going to ask Ingrid Jonas to come and join us first. Do you have anything online? I do not. I have some things to hand out but I yeah. I should not put snacks right in front of me here. Oh, you want you to feel welcome. Thank you. I'm not a giant proud of him. Yeah, good morning everyone. You're not kidding. The milk chocolate raisins are preferable but I guess the M&M's are. We're talking a lot of K-dips today. Again for the record major Ingrid Jonas from Mont State Police. I'm a division commander. Also with me today is Captain Gary Scott who is the director of fair and impartial policing and also Betty Wheeler who's our data analyst for the Department of Public Safety in addition to other roles. So I prepared notes because that's sort of easier to me but definitely want people to ask questions at any time during. It helps me to stay focused if I have notes to refer to. So just for some background Vermont State Police provides primary law enforcement services to 200 towns approximately in Vermont. 90% of the land mass of Vermont and 50% of the population. Our dispatchers answer roughly 89% of 911 calls in addition to all sorts of other calls. We have 334 sworn members in our department and around 64 emergency dispatchers and civilian staff that cover our three sections support services field force and criminal division. So field force is the officers who you see on the roads in the in-mart cars criminal division playing clothes detectives. My division is support services training recruitment fair and impartial policing internal investigations and other infrastructure and operational support to the department. What we refer to as fair and impartial policing that mission is a fundamental principle to our department and has been for quite some time and it's really fundamental in that we derive our power from the people that we serve and without the trust of the people that we serve we are ineffective as police officers. Our job is to promote safety in the community and without trust we can't be effective in our work. So the work that we do to ensure that our practices are ethical and fair is goes way beyond traffic stop data collection and is really a systemic practice and value system that we're always working on from our hiring and selection process all the way through things like traffic stop data that helps to give us a diagnostic test of how we're doing and what we're doing in the field. I also want to start out by saying that any police action or inaction that is based on stereotyping is completely unjust and effective and frankly unsafe and goes against the constitution and department policy. It's a fireable offense to use stereotyping of any sort to derive your law enforcement practices. Traffic stops and tracking those are one small part of the overall safety work that we do in Vermont State Police. So for frame of reference in 2018 because I don't have 2019 numbers yet we made approximately 58,000 traffic stops. At the same time we responded to just under 60,000 total calls for service. So 58,000 car stops, 60,000 calls for service. By calls for service I mean responding to burglaries, domestic assaults, DUIs, etc. So about a thousand domestic violence related reports, a thousand burglary reports, 1,100 DUI cases, 7,000 alarm calls. In the PSAP, the Dispatching Center of Williston we responded to 141,911 calls. In the Westminster PSAP we responded to 143,911 calls. Getting back to data collection with regard to traffic stops. So in 2009 we formed what is still known as the Fair and Impressions Policing Committee which was basically a collaboration between community members and sworn members in our department to try to answer widespread concern about bias motivated policing in particular racially motivated car stops. We wanted to see if there was a scientific way to take a look at determining if there was a cause and effect correlation between a driver's race and the vehicle stopping patterns of police officers in our department. We wanted to know does a driver's race or ethnicity or even other personal characteristics have a causal impact on decisions made by troopers in the field. That's what these studies are meant to look at. So as folks know that effort resulted in the development of data collection forms and the methods that were initiated in around 2009 in Vermont, Vermont State Police in particular. And I should note that that committee is still in effect, has broadened its mission, still is attentive to our traffic stop data and acts as an advisory group to state police. I think you know because the commissioner was testified here before that we commissioned a national expert, Dr. Jack McDevitt from Northeastern University to help us with our traffic stop data. Through that we learned that what these data studies are supposed to do is take a look at discretionary car stops. So some of our car stops are considered discretionary and others really aren't but the idea being that when you have discretion do you have any patterns or tendencies in terms of how you measure out tickets versus warnings or car searches versus other actions that you take in that capacity. So on the back of the Vermont traffic ticket. Yes, please. No, it's fine. Is the reason that we're focusing on traffic stops because there's some discretion on law enforcement's part versus when you respond to a 911 call? Yes. There's no discretion. That's correct. So but it's important to kind of look at the nuance of that. So I mean when you talk to troopers in the field when I was a road trooper, if somebody was going 90 miles an hour and I was sitting in a U-turn clocking radar using radar, guess it was a long time ago, but in any case if somebody was going 90 miles an hour I didn't feel like I had the option. Like I'm too busy right now on my phone. Nothing like that. 90 miles an hour you feel that that is your job. You need to stop that person. It's unsafe. But in general we do you know even just driving here three cars passed me. Sure I could have decided to stop one. I had another place to be in purpose so I didn't. So yes car stops tend to be looked at as discretionary to some extent and then certainly once you have a car stopped you do have an amount of discretion in terms of whether you issue a ticket whether you issue a warning or one of each of that type of thing. How you handle what it is that you find after you've stopped the car. So we are we were intending to study our discretionary actions as a result of stopping cars. Now we made some pretty big mistakes when we because we use the ticket itself for discretionary actions and others. This ticket is is is a universal document. This is the ticket that we were using for the you know for a number of years and it has a section here and I can circulate this if that's helpful because I don't know if folks have had a chance to take a look at a ticket. But you'll see that there's a section on the ticket. So after a trooper would stop the car pardon me. So you'll see that there's a section on the right hand panel where after the car stop is complete the trooper would check a bunch of boxes. So what is the trooper's perceived race of the operator. What was the reason for the stop and what were the actions taken and what was the outcome at the end of that. Now we use this traffic ticket for discretionary car stops but we also use it when we issue a ticket for something that is non-discretionary. So we're dispatched to a car crash and we learned that the driver had no valid license or was exceeding the speed limit and caused the crash. So those tickets issued as a result of a non-discretionary response also got thrown into the mix and that's just a kind of a side note because what we did was we submitted six years of raw data which was about 291,000 traffic tickets representing car stops and a number of those were thrown into the mix that were non-discretionary because we use that document for discretionary and non-discretionary ticket related activity. But folks know that in 2016 Dr. McDevitt and Dr. Stephanie Seglino from UVM both did analyses of our traffic stops in regard to racial demographics and disparate impacts of those. Yes please. No that's fine. This question was asked yesterday as far as was the data that you're looking to collect. How does it determine what's on the ticket what gets asked? Right. So I was not part of the initial efforts to create those that data collection section on the ticket. It's something that in hindsight I wish had been done in a more thoughtful way but those categories are representative of what the statute now asks so there are categories gender, age, perceived race, reason for stop, search, and overall outcome of the stop. So is there a statute driven as opposed to? Currently it's statute driven. Correct. Thank you. No it's a good question. It's something that I think could have been done in a more comprehensive far-looking way in the beginning but that's just my opinion. So as you know good quality data is a prerequisite for outcomes that you can really learn something from. In the early efforts there was no mechanism in Vermont for a standardized way of looking at how to check those boxes. So we heard about everything from troopers leaving the perceived race blank because they really didn't want to make an assumption about somebody's race to checking boxes based on the outcomes that they had with passengers that they engaged with at the traffic stop when really these types of data collection efforts are really only to be focused on the operator in the vehicle. So again concern around standardized ways of looking at the box checking effort. It's very important that we're all measuring the same sorts of things. So I think it's also commonly known that after we have the analysis done of our initial six years including all the error data in there we learned that we searched cars at around the rate of one out of 90 cars. So one out of 90 cars that we stopped were searched. Our overall hit rate which was a new term that a lot of us hadn't known of but the hit rate is what's referred to as the when contraband is found on a car search. So contraband could be anything from checking the box because you had an underage driver who has cigarettes which were illegal to stolen property from a from a burglary or heroin. So there was really we didn't we weren't delineating between what type of contraband but we were checking the box for contraband. Our search disparities with regard to race over the time frame of 2010 through 2015 showed that they grew. Specifically our numbers show that we searched black motorists and Latino motorists at a higher rate than we searched white and Asian motorists. At the same time though we had very high hit rates so 78 percent of the time when we searched a car we found contraband. We learned that we found more contraband when we searched white and Asian drivers than when we searched black and Latino drivers. Since that time it's important to say that we have done an enormous effort with a lot of help from outside and inside assistance and consulting to clean up our data meaning to make sure that what we are analyzing is actually representative of what we're trying to analyze. Discretionary car stops actions only taken with the operator as opposed to conflating operator and passenger activity and so on. And this is a commitment we made because again it really all boils down to trust and willingness to work with your community on something that's important. Yes. Is this still the only source or when everybody has in car. Well so everybody you mean in car cameras and those sorts of things. If you link the ticket to the statute describes what must be on here you have an elective ability to add more data. Correct. Right. So this is we've expanded the data collection. So we also collect passenger related information and actions with passengers and we also have provided to analysts when they requested it the breakdown of the type of contraband that we find. It takes a lot of work because it's not written on the document itself but we can we can go through and do that when we need to. Ticket based or is it computer based on the. You mean contraband. It's ticket based or a ticket based depending on what method the troopers or the officers using. And then that's entered into our records management system by admin staff. So let's see. So we've increased our accuracy in terms of data entry and the intended message for these types of efforts in the field by doing training policy improvement and by training I mean training the field and also our admin staff to understand really what is the mission here. We also have an auditing process that Betty can talk more about if you want but it's something that we didn't have in the past and that has really resulted in much cleaner and accurate data. The audits occur quarterly. So after the auditing process is done and the year ends we then go through and clean up all the errors, get rid of all the duplications, any blanks that we can eliminate and then we meet with our fair and partial policing committee in June of every calendar year and then announce and produce our data to the public after presenting it to our committee. So we have a number of command staff and troopers at all ranks and then a very diverse range of leaders in Vermont or just citizens who care about these issues. We coach the committee is co-chaired by myself and Dr. Aiton as Red and Longo who is the he's a professor at a college in southern Vermont but he's also the chair of the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system panel and he's been part of the committee for quite some time. I can give you a list of all of the members but if Alexa was here he would have answered that question. So in 2016 state police created a new position in the director of fair and partial policing and community affairs and the focus of that position it's really the first we're the first department we know of to have created a specific position is to really work with all levels of the department to ensure fair and partial policing at level. So I mentioned earlier but it really boils down to what kind of values you put forth as an agency from how you select applicants and all the way through your policy or procedure how you message the data collection effort and its importance in the scheme of things. So that position has been around since 2016. One of the issues that we had concern about and again we're troopers we're not data experts but Jack McDevitt used crash data as the baseline or benchmark for from which to compare our data to in those initial studies and it's something that we think is really important to get right. What is the baseline that your department's data is being compared to and that answers the question of who is driving in Vermont. So it's really important that there be a way for us to get correct who is driving in Vermont so that an agency's data can be compared against that accurately and fairly. So a lot of times I hear when I go to meetings or public forums there's an assumption that who lives in Vermont should be represented of who's driving in Vermont and officers don't agree with that assumption. You can't just simply take a look at census data and say well that should represent who's driving on the roads because that doesn't account for all sorts of other things. And the other thing that's been so crash data is what Jack McDevitt used he took a look at agency of transportation crash data and said that people who crash on the roads are representative of who drives and that's probably true you know to some extent but my point is simply I don't know what the exact answer is what the baseline should be but it needs to be accurate so that we can really learn what our numbers show around stopping vehicles because if you don't know who's driving how do you know what your stop data is indicating. So if I you know I used to patrol up in Franklin County if I happen to be patrolling within 10 miles of the Highgate border crossing and stopping only cars for excessive you know exceeding the speed limit and then my supervisor would take a look at my data and say wow do you have a bias against Canadians you're stopping a disproportionate number of Canadians compared to other drivers or Vermont residents and then my supervisor would say oh well the alternative factor is that you're patrolling in an area that has is you know over representation of Canadian residents so those types of things have got to be considered. You know other other sorts of questions that need to help us answer does a driver's race or ethnicity or other personal characteristics have a causal impact on the decisions made by officers as people who drive more are at higher risk of being stopped by police. People who drive poorly are at a higher risk of being stopped by police. People who drive in locations where police tend to stop cars more frequently are going to be at a higher risk of being stopped by police and people who drive vehicles with visibly defective equipment tend to be stopped at a higher rate by police as well. So another thing that I want to point out is that for state police and I know other agencies have this as well a robust complaint and internal investigation system should be in place because things like discrimination are unlawful and need to be addressed head on by the agency. So I like to bring up this aspect of our agency because it is an important accountability component and an internal checks and balances. So our complaint and internal investigation process is overseen by the Commissioner of Public Safety as well as a civilian review committee called the State Police Advisory Commission. Our policies and procedures include a requirement that all members report any wrongdoing or misconduct of other members. It's a part a violation if you fail to report and know about a misconduct violation or allegation of a member in our department. In 2017 we had I want to give you a sense of the numbers of complaints we get regarding discrimination and I'm not saying there aren't a number of complaints every year of all sorts of categories but in 2017 the Commissioner opened an investigation for a discrimination allegation. It was investigated and unfounded. We had zero complaints of discrimination in 2018. We had one complaint of discrimination in 2019 that was investigated and unfounded. Discrimination in our Code of Conduct is a part a violation again one of the most serious and it states no member shall discriminate in favor of or against any person or other member on the basis of race, religion, politics, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, lifestyle or similar personal characteristics. I sort of wanted to set that context but now I want to talk about some of the tools and early intervention systems that we've set up in State Police regarding traffic stop data. So we have training at every level around bias unconscious and conscious forms of bias. The traffic stop data that you've looked at is submitted along with through the ticket or e-ticketing system to admin staff for entry. Our analyst does quarterly audits of our records management system checking radio logs to see how they match up with the tickets themselves to make sure that the tickets or warnings that are issued match what is in the radio log. If there are errors she generates a report and those reports go directly to the 10 station commanders around the state whose responsibility it is to get answers and clean those things up. Admin staff have had training to do proper collection and data entry. From the months of January to May the analyst verifies the data cleans and eliminates duplicates errors and gets the station commanders to fill in any missing entries. As I mentioned earlier we then release the data publicly in June. We post it on our web page and we also provide it to crime research group as part of the statute. We then work with the co-chair of the fair and impartial policing committee to help us determine from our total order our total organization folks who are out patrolling here are our stats. What should the number be that would result in a trooper being called in to meet with say a supervisor to discuss what their racial demographics show in their traffic stops. So I believe that last year we gave station commanders the directive based on input from the committee that troopers with car stops above 6 percent where the motorist is perceived as a person of color would come in would take a look at their data with their supervisor would do some spot checks of their videos and audios of their car stops to try to determine if there was any discriminatory behavior behind the disparities. So a lot of times we find that racial disparities in people's minds are synonymous with racial discrimination and that hasn't been always been the case when we look into traffic stop data. So there can be a disparity but is it driven by discrimination. If it's driven by discrimination then it needs to be swiftly addressed. But when you take a look at people's videos of their car stops or their searches and you find that those stops and searches are based on reasonable suspicion or probable cause then you have what is the requirement for a car stop or a car search. So having those conversations with troopers needs to be done in a respectful and appropriate way because there is a difference between types of disparities and improper practice or discrimination. Does that make sense? Through something out there that I don't know what it meant. So radio logs show and I might have to have Betty specify it but what I can tell you is that like a radio log will show that a trooper stopped a car for speeding let's say and yet there's no ticket associated with that engagement. So when you dig deeper you find that the trooper stopped the car for speeding but then learned that the driver was that he or she had suspicion the driver was under the influence and then ultimately arrested that driver didn't issue a ticket or a warning because it resulted in an arrest. So they didn't pile on other sorts of things. However Vermont statute requires that for every roadside stop there's a ticket or a warning where data is collected and so that still needs to be counted as a roadside stop or else it goes unnoted. So radio logs can help cross check those types of events that stops happened but no paperwork represented the stop. And it's both you arrest and get out of jail free. You can you can go sort of thing. I'm sorry I don't know if I understand the question. Well I mean you're a warning. You're not a warning. No not a warning. Just no record whatsoever. Well no so there needs to be a way to document that event. So well so the radio log shows that there was a car stop but there isn't a a subsequent ticket or warning associated with it. There's just an arrest. There needs to be a way to document those statutorily required boxes. Major it sounds like you were pretty full review. Look at your data but you mentioned a little while about reviewing instances that might show a bias from the officer. What do you do in those cases? Well I can tell you that we don't have a lot of those cases so it's not something that we're experts at that we can reach a firm conclusion that the troopers actions are driven by bias or discrimination. So it's not a common occurrence that we're reaching that conclusion if that were to be the case that would be at you know it's a it's a serious policy violation. Bias based policing is a is a form of discrimination. It's grounds for termination. We we would try to fix that person if and if that was if we were able to fix that person and through training and other forms of remediation then we would do that. If the person was not fixable then we would follow the due process and terminate them from working for us. So how often do you have your troopers go through implicit bias training? Well we have a number of different stages in which troopers at different ranks and levels go through training. So in the pre-basic which is the very first phase once they've been hired and they're in a three week initial phase of our training they are gary meets with them as well as a member from our fair and impartial policing committee to talk with them about the overall mission of the department and how fair and impartial policing is fundamental to our practice. That is a two-hour block of instruction for just like the 20 new recruits that are in our part of the academy. In the basic academy I see that director Cindy Taylor Pats is here and can talk more about what is the way that fair and impartial policing is is infused in all of the basic training. In our post basic for state police we have an eight hour block on fair and impartial policing that is led by Captain Scott and also a consultant that we work with who's a you know someone who helps our department on the whole in this area. So it's an eight hour block of instruction for troopers who have graduated but they are not yet out in the field. And then I am trying to figure out how many hours annually is required. I think that I will defer to Cindy for what's required of all officers from the state of Vermont. But VSP again we have a consultant whom we pay who works with you know comes to command staff meetings and does a one or two hour block of instruction. And we're able to send Gary out to do barracks level trainings on say proper collection of hate motivated or bias motivated crime and how to investigate those differently and in a more broad way. So we have Gary and others at our disposal to send out on a barracks level. So it would be hard to quantify you know four hour block here or two hour. It's and again we don't want to look at it as like checking the box. This trooper did one hour of you know bias free policing training online. We don't see that as as a comprehensive enough way to sort of tackle this issue. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier from 2010 to 2015 there was a growing disparity of police stops based on race. So stops and search searches. Yeah. So what's the current trend? So I still we don't have the 2019 data. I'll clean up yet but we have 2018 17 and 16. And I'm going to share that with the committee as well. So the first page is 2018. So if you go down here the searches total stocks with searches you see that midway down the first page. So total stocks with searches and it goes by demographics. So 322 white operators were searched. 25 black operators were searched. Five Asian operators were searched. 15 Hispanic or Latino operators were searched. Zero Native American operators were searched for a total of 367 total stops with searches in 2018. And then you can follow down through and see the results of those searches. So if you take a look at Asian operator searches there are five five of those five out of five resulted in evidence or contraband found two out of those five resulted in an arrest. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom out of those five total for the year that indicates that 100 percent of Asian motorists searches resulted in contraband being found for a search rate of 0.41 for Asian motorists. And you can do the same for whites blacks Asians Hispanics Native Americans. So you see our search rate for whites is a percentage is percentage wise less than our search rate for blacks and Hispanics as well. Can you see that on the bottom? I had a couple of questions on the actual tickets and we got more into the off track but this is my turn we can go back to sure real quick. You advised major that the state law requires the certified true bodies that the traffic stop and racial data is documented. Correct. So having said that is there a policy that would be as pre now that a written warning has to be given versus a verbal warning. The reason I ask that is if you have a written warning you have written documentation of the racial data collected or a verbal you might not and I question how a radio log would have that racial data. Do you want to get that? So is there a policy that you have a written warning or you have to get something in writing so you can document or not. But go ahead. So there's policy and I don't have it memorized but the policy states that we don't give verbal warnings. Okay. I think that's a good idea myself. Is most PDs in the state have that same policy because that's not a law right? Yeah I'm not sure if they do. I think it's hard to say because there's so many different PDs but our department has a policy that no written warnings will be given. Okay. So when you're referring to you're comparing the verbal warnings. Thank you. The number of stops and things by radio logs in there because there was no paperwork issued on it. Before being your ticket. Correct. Or a written warning. Different form obviously. Issue because you arrested somebody like on a DUI or something whatever but if you stopped me for something and I didn't get arrested or cited in the criminal court for something I would have at least a written warning. Correct. That's the that's what policy says. Okay. Okay. That's good. And then just a little off the thing. Do you guys have you have your tickets now? So do all your approvals have ticket printers? Yeah so our fleet staff has been phasing in the printers and the other equipment necessary for and I for a ticket and I can't remember if we've completed every single barracks or not but we're getting close. Is it saving time to trooper that stick to your laptop and do it? I think it does. It must. I mean that's one of the especially for when you're writing multiple documents like if there's three tickets or a ticket and two warnings you don't have to go through and manually. Correct. Thank you. Rob? Back up to the the search rates. Yep. I'm curious if when does age come in to part of the equation about whether you're going to search or not in that we all know that Vermont has an aging demographic and it would make sense that you're going to stop more whites and people of color because that's how our population is but the decision to make to do a search in other words like I have a 98-year-old grandmother who still drives and if she was to get pulled over I'm assuming that an officer probably wouldn't be so apt to look for contraband or go through that thought process with her as they might with you know a 20-something-year-old person. Well so I can tell you that age should never be a driving reason for why you would it's not a that's another personal characteristic that isn't a driving reason behind determining reasonable suspicion or probable cause to take an action like you know there are other things that need to be in place in order to give you what you lawfully need to do a search which is really a seizure of somebody it's not taken lightly and it needs to be very much based in those lawful reasons reasonable suspicion and probable cause but in general I mean sure if if I were to stop your 98-year-old grandma then I wouldn't necessarily be my first thought wouldn't be I wonder if she has stolen property you know what I'm saying if there was a TV in the backseat I wouldn't assume that it was you know stolen from somewhere I would hope that I wouldn't assume that when I stopped anybody but probably because I'm human I wouldn't assume that correct and so that's a good point it brings up a point at least to me that as human beings we all have these types of our brains want to work in this way of like putting people into neat little boxes and stereotypes based on basically how we look and it's pretty there there's sometimes it can be helpful right because it helps us make sense of the world quickly and instead of having to just take every single situation with a total blank slate however it can also lead us to make grave errors if we're operating only on our assumptions so looking at this looking at 2018 how would you interpret your findings and then what would the follow-through be you know we're collecting data and then we're using it for training purposes and for certainly to know more about stops but if you could elaborate on that I'd appreciate so our station commanders have to own the data so they have for each barracks they have this sheet for their own barracks with a breakdown of their members and they can take a look and in theory they could see if there was someone who looked like an outlier whose traffic stop stops and or searches looked outside of the norm for that barracks and they would it would be incumbent upon them to look into that further pull videos from that from searches or car stops listen to interactions sit down with a trooper and talk about what their method is for ticketing versus warnings or ensure that they are following proper procedure around decision making for for car searches so each barracks commander has this but for their barracks itself and then they work with their patrol commanders supervisors to look at troopers and bring them in if necessary and talk with them does that make sense would additional training be required for a member who has data that's being an outlier so it could be so we found I was actually the person who went around the state when we first had the the six years of data the initial effort that I talked about with Dr. McDevitt where we decided as senior command that any trooper with four percent minority stops or above would come in and meet with me and have a discussion and I wouldn't want to take up all your time today talking about what that was like but it was challenging at what those weren't easy conversations but the outcome could result in training the outcome could result in you know you can find all kinds of things when you look at the way that people engage with the public in traffic stops and they might need to be reminded that we follow this procedure when we engage with motorists one example is that it used to be that you stop a car and say do you know why I stopped you and we received a lot of feedback through our FIP committee that that is sort of a dehumanizing uncomfortable thing in fact it's better if you state why you stop the person right out of the gate instead of having that awkward tension and people wondering what's happening it's it's it's fear inducing so we could learn through looking at videos that wow this trooper is not following that procedure well or that trooper is doing a great job with that procedure getting right out of the gate I stopped you you know trooper anger Jonas I stopped you for speeding I'd like to have a look at your license registration and insurance so you get that out of the way right away so something as simple as just is the trooper following what is now policy for the engagement when you do make a car stop all the way up to wow the trooper needs better guidance on the steps for conducting a search and establishing probable cause for a search and that would be something that is more extensive training around proper search and and so on did you find that this extra training in the meetings for the officer resulted and in a positive result that their rates dropped after that what I think that we're going to see that over time what we found was that the standardization of checking boxes and making sure that traffic stop that the that discretionary car stops are the ones in which you're submitting the data is that message is clearer but these things are taking time so I think that yes but that it will take we'll need to see a lot more years and a lot more data to show how it pans out in general officers don't really like to be called in to meet with a supervisor and and talk about this kind of thing and that these are men and women who take a lot of pride in the work they do and who who understand that without the trust of the public we can't do our work effectively and so it goes to like your heart to think like that something about your numbers indicate something discriminatory it's not it's not um it's it's not a great meeting to have or to be part you know to be part of but it does lead to good discussions um and you know it's growing pains and culture change basically yeah major you I mean I commend you for looking at this studying it following up doing all that you're doing and maybe this is an unfair question to you um but you're fortunate in that you have a large organization and you have folks like yourself that can devote some time to this one of my towns has a two person police department how do they do this um well I mean I hear you and I think that we it's it's if there's a standardized way of understanding what the mission is for what we're trying to if we have a common goal we want transparency we want fairness here's how you accurately check the boxes so that you don't make mistakes um and then I mean a two person department in a I assume a small town you have to also understand through experts are these statistically significant numbers can we really learn something from this is this enough are we making enough car stops is there enough um you know diversity in this particular area for us to learn something from this so I think you know it's state law that we collect this stuff but then we need to and we need to understand the importance of the mission but then we need experts to tell us does this teeny town can we learn a lot from this teeny town's data so you're you're doing a lot of look from the troopers into the what they do and it seems like you're starting to go a lot of look into why they do you just talked about correlation with people to stand out statistically how deep are you digging into other factors in the workforce their age their number of years of experience their training history in terms of how often they pop up on the high spikes and dragging in the more seasoned they are they less just out of academy aggressive and enforcement or is that something that dates um I think those are all valid questions I don't know I don't really have specific answers I think that in general um so we're not tracking that kind well I mean it's it's trackable certainly um every barracks knows the time on for the member whether they're new how long we've been on what they patrol and have a more of a traffic safety orientation to versus a criminal investigation orientation I um I don't know I think there probably are comments to make about that I don't know that I could speak anecdotally toward trends I will say that newer members of our department really embrace and appreciate these types of discussions more so perhaps than those of us who have been on for a really long time and um you know I know I just noticed that in general new troopers are like oh yeah I want I'm comfortable talking about these types of issues around inclusivity and diversity whereas some of us who have been around forever can be a little more resistant to those ideas so that's a generalization but you would reference the crash data before is is that being used currently as some sort of a baseline and if it is is there any correlation between what you're seeing in the race data in this report so I might have Betty chime in about that because analysts use different benchmarking or baseline data um the crash data even itself has been challenging because not everyone can agree that people who crash represent people who drive so but yes the traffic the crash data is um is being used and I might have Betty expand more on me yeah I just have a comment to share um I think it's well known now that Vermont faces a demographic crisis and I think one of the strategies for working through this is to be able to attract and retain people of color so what you're doing is really really important and um I heard of a story of an African American who was coming to Vermont landed at the airport rented a car and he's halfway to Montpelier he had to pull over he had to take a phone call and then he saw blue lights approaching him pulled right right behind him and he starts to panic and the officer approached him and said is there anything I can do to help he was the director of the national office of the league of cities and towns and he was here to decide if he's going to have his national conference here and he did because of that exchange so this is really really important thank you for sharing that be sure do you have any other thoughts first or should we see if Betty can yeah I think would you mind doing that okay um yeah I just appreciate the time and happy to be here I have one other question for you actually I'm talking a lot about the training that the trippers get when they come into the force and then sort of the ongoing training and the uncomfortable conversations that they might have to have if their data is showing um showing that there there might be some bias in their stops but you said your division is responsible for recruitment and hiring mm-hmm do you ever try to screen people at the time that they are expressing an interest in becoming a state police trooper to find out whether they come in with biases yes yes so and and I tried to touch upon that earlier that we do view from the very beginning of recruitment and selection that's a critical place where we instill the values of the department we don't want to attract folks who who are certainly unconscious or consciously acting from biases so the way that we do that is through the process of you know when they're interviewed as part of a panel of commanders interviews applicants one by one and asks and gives scenarios to see how they would respond just as you know these are young people who are attracted to policing we throw scenarios at them and listen to their thought process um and we give them specifically um examples how would you handle it if you received a call from a citizen you know in a town who said i'd like to make a complaint there's an african-american man parked in a car on my street how would you handle that call and you can learn a lot from people about how they talk about these types of things that we're looking at as a society racism and um blatant forms of it unconscious forms of it etc so they will then be rated and how they answer scenario type questions and it's not just those types of scenarios but um and then there's an extensive background process that occurs so a detective is assigned to this person if they've made it through several steps in the hiring phase and the background is intended to get at um how they've conducted themselves in their lives thus far i'm granted a lot of these folks are like 20 year olds who live in their parents basement still but we are but many of them but their lives on social media yes exactly and so we go into their social media and take a look at what they value and what types of you know how they portray themselves and so on yes okay thank you hello thank you um my name is Betty Wheeler and during the day i work for the agency of digital services in the department of public safety as a systems administrator and my part-time job for the vermont state police and the evenings allows me to fulfill my passion of working with data so what i do for them and everybody usually laughs at that yes because it's like data what i do for them is i work with their traffic stop data and you asked a very good question earlier about what happens with the radiologue and how do i look at that so what i do is i go into their cat rms system and i run a report that tells me how many traffic stops that particular trooper had then i look at how many demographic entries are recorded for that trooper and the number should be pretty close because the vermont state police says they shall issue something at every interaction at a discretionary stop sometimes as you said they stop a car in error maybe the light was reflecting wrong on the inspection sticker and it was a different color than what they thought so there is no problem they approach the car say i stopped you for an inspection sticker oh i'm sorry your inspection sticker is fine have a great day they still have to submit a piece of paper to the admin staff for that stop it was a discretionary stop we need that information so that's what i'm looking for is that being done so what happens is the trooper fills out the same information that's on the back of the ticket as to what they perceive the race to be why they stopped the vehicle the outcome of the stop all of that information and they submit it to the barracks clerk admin staff to enter it and that goes in the system and that's what i look at to make sure that that is complete so that's part of what i do the other thing that i do is i look to see if they're missing something did they stop this vehicle and not tell me what the race was if that's not there i send it back to the admin staff to the station commander saying this is missing they go back to the trooper they go back to the paperwork they see why it's missing is it missing because the trooper failed to record it is it missing because admin hit one too many times and didn't fill in that place and if they can correct it they correct it if they can't correct it it's not considered an error in their data and we look at the percentage of the errors for the overall barracks and the overall state part of what happened when we initially rolled out the program to collect demographics information is we didn't train we didn't train the troopers how to collect it we didn't train the admin staff how to enter we didn't look at it that was our mistake we should have been looking at it we should have been auditing it way back when it started but we didn't so we were missing things we were missing the outcome of the stop we were missing what happened if there was a search we were missing what was found when there was a search for that whole gap of data that we gave jack mcdevitt to analyze we trained some people well we didn't train some people they thought oh i should fill this out of every piece of paper i issue well recording what happened on one stop four times because you issued four pieces of paper and only once for another stop really makes a mess of your data so we had to go back and say did we do that back then we sure did so we left it we're not going to go back 10 years and correct it so you drew a line in the sand and said as up 2016 our data is going to be clean how are we going to do that so we came up with a process on every quarter we dump out all the data and we look for missing things we look for duplicates we look for things that don't make sense like they put down no search but then they put down contraband found explain that to me how does that happen so these go back to admin they go back to the station commanders that say explain this to me fix it and then halfway through the year i look at it to see if there's a big problem going on somewhere is there a glaring number that says uh oh this trooper has had 40 stops out of those 40 stops 25 of them were people of color is there an issue we send it out station commander will take a look well guess what there was a special festival in retland they worked with special detail nope those numbers make sense so that's what i do with the data just to make sure that nothing is going wrong um the other thing that i do with the data is i look at cases within the system so if someone has stopped in their licenses criminally suspended they are arrested did we capture that data did we fill out a piece of paper so that we know that this discretionary stop was for a white person moving violation who ended up an arrest so i make sure that that data is there what we found two years ago is we were missing a lot of that data if the person was arrested we weren't capturing that demographic so now we have a method in place to make sure that we do capture that so that we're not missing that big chunk of data so we were talking about you know a thousand du iris did we have that data so now we go back and look at each one and make sure this demographic entry for that discretionary stop if it was discretionary now what if it was a motor vehicle accident do we want that information no we don't um that's not a discretionary stop we sent that trooper there to do something so we've trained our admin staff to look at that okay this is a motor vehicle accident there's three tickets attached to this motor vehicle accident but wait a second the trooper filled out demographics let's make sure that's not in there if they find it's in there they'll send it out say this needs to be removed because this is a motor vehicle accident non-discretionary we don't allow just blanket deletes you need to tell me why something needs to be removed so just because the trooper failed to collect the information on discretionary stop and is missing two things in that entry and it's an error sorry it's an error we can't delete it you need to give me a valid reason why something needs to come out of the data so that's what i do and i love it gives us a good benchmark you asked also earlier what we use for population to figure out if there's a big issue back initially the crash data did not require that they entered a race of the person so for 10 years that data didn't have that so when Stephanie Seguino did her study and said that's inaccurate information because it's missing so much data the agency of transportation said well wait a second we can modify our program and make this required so they did that two or three years ago their data now gives us a much better picture of what our driving population is based on accidents there we're missing i think 30 to 40 percent previously of the race so it didn't give us a good picture now they're missing maybe two percent maybe three percent so it gives a good picture of the driving population for that area so now we can say for example if we were to go up to the northeast kingdom and say what is the driving population up here what is the census population up here you could see a six percent difference between the two that makes a big difference when you start to look at the number of african-americans that are being stopped the number of asians that are being stopped the number of native americans that are being stopped in a particular area so if we look at the northeast kingdom and say we've stopped three percent asians in the northeast kingdom is this wrong we may look at the the census population and say well the census population says we have 0.5 percent and these are not accurate numbers because i'm not looking at my information in front of me okay this is just a what if but the driving population is six percent asian okay so we're within a good range of what we should be stopping in this area if we were to go to bennington county bennington county says maybe there's census population says there's two percent blacks that live in bennington county but we're stopping six percent we look at the driving population it says eight percent so that's a big difference between the two so we're not looking at one we look at both and we want to have a good picture there's no accurate way the only accurate way to do it would be to hire someone to go out and stand at the corner and say black driver white driver asian and come up with the driving population that way but that's not reasonable to do that's still a perception do we stop every car and say we're doing a survey to find out the driving population that's not accurate either so we have to use the information we have in front of us which is the crash data and the census data so that gives us a good idea another thing we like to look at and we'll take a look at the vehicles people are driving older vehicles newer vehicles we've looked at color of vehicles because i just wanted to see did we stop more red cars than blue cars we'll look at um age and sex of the operator did we stop more females than males because i just wanted to know did we stop older people or younger people because i just wanted and this is the stuff i'll push out to command staff that says hey look at this just for the fun of it can we get that color car i mean it might you know what it really makes a difference it really makes the difference because i forget oh they stop more red cars don't they don't it really makes the difference and then i have to stop and think well are there more red cars out there anyway so then you try to find that information good luck a nice conversation with you um previously in in the larger yes committee hearing but there are some other questions that we've been swirling around with respect to trainings sure yeah so my name is Cindy Taylor patch i'm the director of training for the vermont police academy the criminal justice training council and i've been there since around 2001 so seen a lot of evolution and culture change and um to speak about our program before but i'm here today answer any questions that you have about you know more specifics about what we offer um and i just as a reminder we oversee both basic and in-service trainings and we serve all law enforcement agencies in the state so um i can talk about what we do in basic training what we do for in-service training i know the question came up about what's required for fair and impartial policing training and it's not an an hour requirement but we do have a subcommittee who reports to the council who develops a curriculum for training to be offered every other year per statute so that is the number of hours that's required to do that is totally dependent on what training objectives the group would recommend in the future that you know for our next round what training objectives do we want to meet and then how long is that going to take rather than saying we have you know two hours or four hours to fill but what do we want to accomplish and how long does it take to do that that could be two hours could be eight hours so we we purposefully like to not have it statutorily mandated has to be x number of hours because it gives us a flexibility to do whatever we need to do at that point in time but that's every other year required for every officer and anybody who's not compliant with that is you know essentially called to answer for that and it is required for them to maintain their certification as a police officer so we do work individually with officers and departments if they are deployed in the military for example and can't fulfill their training requirement then we develop a plan for how they're going to get there when they return to law enforcement duty same if they're on a medical leave or something of that nature you know we'll develop a plan for people to become compliant but if they don't then it goes forward to the council for consideration regarding their certification so how do you know if the training is effective it's a great question I think it's something that we all look at us you know what's going on out there in the world I think the race data collection is a big piece of that it gives us a nice snapshot and how officers are carrying out their responsibility in the community yeah the policy in our budget you know a request for more appropriation to go from a six to 20 weeks for basic training so can you give us a sense on what would be included in those extra weeks of training yes and I think there's a few things that I think are of specific interest to this group one is additional training around use of force and I know that you all met my counterpart director of administration through bloom he and I worked very closely together and making sure that you know we're both on the same page as far as how use of force training is carried out and then I teach things related to communication and mental health response because that's my background and we work closely together I also work closely with our patrol procedures team so officers that are teaching patrol techniques like how to respond to an alarm and do a building search to how to conduct a traffic stop and we do a lot of hands-on scenarios in that patrol procedures program so it's as close we can get to you know actual live response in a designed environment and we even those instructors are very focused on making sure that people communicate appropriately like recruits are communicating in a way that's respectful and what we would expect them to be doing when they're out in the world on their own but there's use of force time there's patrol procedures time so actual live scenarios where these folks and as the major said some of them very young really really really have asked for and benefit from hands-on practice how do I do this and have somebody who could be there to guide and mentor them and this is how you do this this is how you can have respectful encounters with people because some of them struggle with communication and we find that in a generation where they're exceptionally driven by technology that communication is something that needs needs some guidance and it's it's needs to be done in a live and active environment so scenarios is a huge part of it we're also looking to expand fair and impartial policing training right now we only are able to give it four hours and we want to give it eight hours we want to expand from the curriculum that we have that really focuses on implicit bias and we talk about things across the board you know as a major saying race ethnicity socioeconomic status age anything sexual orientation transgender issues and to expand that to bring people with more lived experience into the classroom you know we don't have time for that much right now and also to make sure that we're more thoroughly able to cover the state's model policy that was developed and things of that nature so definitely the four hours there is pretty important to us some other things so right now we have eight hours of interpersonal communication skills and conflict resolution and another eight hours on mental health crisis response but you know we're looking for an additional minimum of eight hours to add more opportunity for de-escalation substance abuse issues suicide intervention and the scenarios that go along with that so that's that's a bulk of what the expansion's looking to accomplish so if I look at 464 if I'm hearing you correctly there's a section on there that requires four hours of additional training are you supporting that change and what the what's the impact on your budget if we add that in there I think I would have to understand more specifically what the what the goal would be again I would be hesitant to to label it four hours but just like what what's the goal what's the purpose of the requirement and just to remind folks that we already do have the the mandatory fair and impartial policing training required already on the books but I think if I read this it it would increase it by another four hours basic training is four hours what the mandate is beyond your basic level is what varies okay so like all new officers have to get the minimum four hour training but then after that every two years after your initial training you're coming back again for more training for the rest of your career and then the number of hours associated with that varies and if if we were successful in getting the appropriation to expand basic training then recruits would be getting minimum of eight hours that's specific I mean we also have other places where things come together like we have a block of training in our domestic and sexual violence training when they talk about human trafficking there's obviously cultural issues and gender issues within that context we have a four-hour block of training on hate crimes that is taught by folks from the AG's office so it's not just in the courses that are labeled that specific topic but it's kind of interwoven throughout our programming Cindy just a quick question the basic academy currently 16 links which one you want to increase the basic academy for the 20 weeks could any of this additional training of everything and this is dealing with this specific including as far as things as well I was like could any of this additional training that you guys want to put into four weeks could this be done in in what used to be called post basic training I don't know if you guys still follow that or not we still don't we yeah we have put post basic training still part of the concern about that is that anything we do post basic would not be required for your certification necessarily and it wouldn't be testable if we spend a whole week the final week that recruits are there testing their their hands-on live response to different scenarios and if we were to do that after graduation and the issuing of their certification it would definitely be a different dynamic a different environment we have thought about that looking at all factors that it would bring into play but we would definitely prefer to have it within the program so that we can have a more thorough assessment of the whole officer and how they're going to act in the field before certification and graduation occurs and part two of that getting into it could be post basic the the officer is already on the street the ones that are certified working need additional need additional training specifically this bill itself and I applaud that 100 percent all right is there going to be a specific course instruction such as a four-hour block I use the terms that we used to use when I was on job so a four-hour block on on Rachel and by by his training things that an officer a veteran officer in the street already working already gone through basic already got all those certifications can he go to that four-hour block and get all the additional training and then he just needs to do his in-service every year or two or whatever yeah so in-service hours are required every year and for specific to fair and impartial policing you know whatever we choose that every other real requirement that's in-service that's what they have to do to maintain their certification so that's a four-hour block it varies it varies depending on the year and what training objectives are decided on that it needs need to be met so they do they have the opportunity to take any in-service that we offer but they're required to take that one and we also changed our rules a couple of years ago that requires updated use of forest training every year so that's also something that officers in the past weren't necessarily refreshing on unless their department made a specific priority for that and we've now required it you have to revisit use of forest training so you know things like that that come up certainly we we offer mental health training and most people just take it once I have had some people that will repeat but we're also hoping that eventually if things change in an organization we have a little bit more flexibility and what we can do funding-wise to offer more opportunities for de-escalation training right now you know we're we have a tiny staff we're pretty maxed out but definitely would like to offer more around de-escalation training for officers who are currently in the field I do partner with the FBI either every year every other year to bring in their crisis negotiations training it's a 40-hour school that they come here primarily out of their Albany office and and offer to you know state and local agencies so we try to partner with them to bring that in as and another option as well that's a 40-hour program yeah so we've heard how challenging it can be for small agencies to access post basic training and have you ever considered a trained the trainer model for some of that training so that it could be always yeah yeah we always do so for example we have had a fair and impartial policing train the trainer before and have officers who have offered that at UVM Colchester down in our area as well and when we probably within the next two maybe three years we'll be doing another one another train the trainer for you know refresh curriculum and a batch of instructors but we tend to do that with most things that we do especially things that are mandatory training there's just way too many officers for us to try and train everybody with with me my staff there's just not enough of us so we do that all the time across topics thank you that would be an amendment in section three of the bill because section one's about performing a pack section two is about the pack connected organization name and then section three is really in regard to that issue of limiting who can contribute to candidates and parties and the operative language right now in the bill is on page six which currently provides that notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary only an individual a path or a party may make a contribution to a candidate or to a party so an amendment if along with this potential change would just be to eliminate or to political party there you would keep this language in regard to an ability of an individual to make a contribution to a candidate from their capacity as an uncorporated sole partnership or from their revocable trust that would remain and the other change would be at the top of page seven here to say that just a candidate shall not accept a contribution from any other person other than those permitted to make a contribution to the candidate which would be individuals packs and parties and then you just need a title change a slight title change because you would not address persons authorized to make contributions to parties so I could do it as a individual amendment or I could do a strike off you just would rather the body see the language in total which in total makes it easier since we're not printing multiple copies like used to strike all this costs as much Jim I don't know where to start um first of all if we're gonna it's so this amendment is I understand it uh and the original bill that came over from the senate um corporations could not donate to political parties correct they put the packs right and then they're packed and in this amendment it carves out political parties differently so corporations could donate the political parties as they turn on the current box yes yes so the only thing this does is essentially eliminate um corporations from donating to individual candidates so I as a candidate I think I received one modest corporate contribution that disclosed visible the whole world can know about it under this law that corporate contribution could go to a pack or party and then come back to me is that correct or the indirectly or the corporation could form a pack that could then that pack could contribute to you as a candidate okay so for changing the title why don't we just change it to the dark money act because we're hiding it and I know I'm being a little facetious but we're hiding it no I know I know you just happened to be in the seat I'm missing something we talked about transparency until we don't want to be transparent so I don't I don't know what this accomplishes we are I'm going to form a business on the side you know form your own pack because that's how we get around it I guess it's not for you you're you're you're the good soldier here they're writing this up so so are you are you speaking to the underlying bill as I guess I'm speaking to my suggestion about removing the I'm speaking to the underlying bill yes I'm sorry I didn't mean to make any discussion you're confused there are transparency provisions in terms of how packs are named yes yes and so from that standpoint it's not entirely dark money okay mostly dark it's twilight Rob well I guess I have to agree with my colleague to the left here and that I uh I care I know he's not on an island as he normally is here um I just don't think that this is a cop going to accomplish what they're what they're looking to do I think it makes a process that some feel isn't as transparent as they'd like it to be even less transparent and somebody who's involved in a few different businesses and different types of corporate structures you know so now I would have to go through and and set up a pack if I wanted to I guess what give money to my local committee even um I guess I just think that this is a solution in search of a problem to your local committee meaning your political party yeah um just under the potential amendment a corporation would still be able to contribute directly to a party with the amendment potential amendment that is being discussed just like prior to the amendment yes yes I couldn't do it correct yes um so change the limits no change the limits um but right now let's take a corporation for example is a single source and so a single source is prohibited um it there's limits on single sources contributing to candidates look at the house candidate contribution limits so a corporation under current law is a single source could give a thousand dollars to a house candidate a pack can also give a thousand dollars to a house candidate so what this bill would do is not allow a corporation to give a contribution directly to a candidate the corporation could form a pack but then any person that wanted to contribute to that pack would be subject to the contribution limits on packs and then when that pack gave a contribution to a house candidate the pack would be subject to this one thousand dollar pack contribution limit these have been adjusted for inflation there's an inflation so I think it's up to a thousand forty dollars or something now at this point so committee questions on what we will see the next time we look at the draft of this let's shift gears okay we will um we will shift gears to the youth state youth council bill at this point we have made the changes that we wanted to make to this bill um and so I would ask us to to go through this sort of section by section and feel comfortable with where the bill sits right now and with the purpose of voting it out today all right uh Betsy Anrasco legislative council I have behind me the draft 1.1 strike all of age 775 which is the act relating to creating the state youth council uh you review this language at one of your committee meetings I think last week and you had discussed the changes that you wanted to see um for this bill so I have highlighted throughout the language where changes would be made and so everywhere you see highlighting is a change from the underlying bill otherwise all the language remains the same so it starts out with um the findings here um the spine team a1 relates to I think a change that you may you're proposing to make in the makeup the council um so and the underlying bill the council will be made up of youth members between the ages of nine and 26 years of age and we'll see this in a later provision but this committee had discussed changing that to members who are between 11 and 21 years of age and so accordingly this finding in the original bill is introduced uh provided the percent of the Vermont's population made up of youths nine to 26 years of years of age so since you are no longer focusing on that nine to 26 year age age range and you're said going to wanting to discuss the percent of population um in Vermont made up of people who are between 11 and 21 this data point needed to be amended accordingly I reached out to the chief performance officer to see if we can get um if there is data on Vermonters between the ages of 11 and 21 years of age and uh the feedback that I got in response was that we don't have that exact data point but what I was able to be provided with is the age of Vermonters that are under 21 years of age so note the distinction that it's not counting people including 21 year olds but those under 21 so zero to 20 that's the best data that I could bring back to you and that percentage of people who are zero to 20 is specifically 23.74 percent um so if you want to just have a more general reference to people under 21 years of age you can say that they represent approximately 24 percent of the Vermont population but just note that it's not capturing also the 21 year olds that was that change any question there so then you get into the actual substance of who makes up this council so the bill is introduced would have provided that it was a 15 member council of members between nine and 26 years of age and that there would be a side from everyone being appointed from one member from each county that there would be an additional statewide member who serves as chair this committee discussed not having an extra person because that would mean that another count one county would get another rep on this council so it would be one member from each county bringing it down to 14 members and you had requested that the membership be between 11 and 21 years of age and similarly that the council itself elects its chair so there are those changes at the end of line 10 and I highlighted that period because that used to say that the uh the interagency work group use services advisory council um appoints one member who serves as chair so that's just flagging that that chair language got moved down here and that the council itself would elect its chair from among its members Jim so we talked a little bit about this yesterday but I just want to be clear between 11 and 21 so if you're appointed at 21 or 20 you have a two-year term and through your term you have to get off once you turn 22 so the the language doesn't state explicitly that you can no longer serve um after you go beyond 21 but it does say that it's composed of use between 11 and 21 so I would think at least implicitly that if you are surpassed 21 that you should no longer serve on the council but if you wanted to make it explicit you could add language to that effect I don't know if it's necessary yeah it's it's not a big hang-up I've just yeah hanging out the obvious step definitely and it might from the point authority might say you know we better just be safe and invite you know appoint people 19 or 18 and I'm not sure that you know gives you the perspective of the 21 year old I just want to support Jim's idea from yesterday I think we should say between 11 and 21 at the time of their appointment so you could appoint somebody for three years who was 21 years old but they couldn't be reappointed at age 24 I think it's it's it's tough if they have to step down once the moment they turn 22 you wouldn't appoint young people who were 21 because they couldn't serve a full term and that just doesn't seem right I thought Jim's idea from yesterday was a good way to go at the time of their appointment the other question that I have you know that we're thinking about it is um 18 to 21 year olds tend to be college age and if the advisory council was picking from within college age Vermonters or college age students in Vermont would anything in this ask them to only consider people whose permanent legal residence is Vermont it just describes them as Vermont youths between that age range there's not a definition of what is a Vermont youth you turn to election law it's where your residence is and what you consider to be your home which might still be Vermont even though you're some other state but it doesn't define what it means to be a Vermont youth county thing having experience with a statewide organization there are certain areas that you just can't get anybody so that either means it's an unfilled seat or you have the option of electing to pull somebody else in I think it's a big deal but sounds like something that it does come up when we visit that the thought of uh college age youths who may have grown up as Vermont residents but change their residence when they go off to college so that they can vote in that area and similarly students from away who move to Vermont and change their residence so they're here and can vote here I would put it Vermont residents if they if they're right to vote in Indiana is more important to them than maintaining their Vermont heritage in any unblemished way so be it but that should be Vermont residents makes sense I totally agree with John it should be a Vermont residents he's advising said the birth that lies in the governor and thinks a different state of Vermont so you have to take ownership in that you know be a Vermont resident is it youths should we say youth residing in Vermont or Vermont resident youths right did you also want to add the language that they're between that age range at the time of appointment did I hear a decision on that or I think that's fine okay got those two changes good to go there yes all right so here on page four is about the requirement of the council to give its advice to both the governor and the general assembly so here on page four line eight I just highlighted that subdivision a because it was just a new subdivision designation the language regarding the government or governor being required to meet with the council does not change but new subdivision b would be added because you wanted to have language that discussed how the council would give its advice to the general assembly so this language would say that the council shall annually report its advice and recommendations to the House and Senate committees on government operations and to any other standing committees it deems appropriate and that the report may be in verbal form so they would not feel obligated to draft a written report although they might want to so on page five you get to the part where it discusses how you wanted to make sure it was known that they could participate remotely in committee council meetings but that also you wanted to have some encouragement for council members to meet in person because you had stressed the importance of in person interaction so this new language that I ran by Tucker as a open meeting law attorney would provide first that members of the council may attend council meetings by electronic or other means without being physically present as a designated meeting location as permitted under one vsa 312 a2 so this is using language verbatim from the open meeting law that's what that site two is and that site one vsa 312 a2 is a provision of an open meeting law that does allow remote participation in meetings so long as there is at least a board member or a staff member of the board present at a designated meeting location so that members of the public can go there at that meeting site so that's why that language it's taken verbatim from the OML and say that they may attend meetings by electronic or other means without being physically present as permitted under that provision of the open meeting law that requires a designated meeting location and someone to be there for members of the public to participate and then adding there on page five line five that a finding to reflect your encouragement for in person interaction so the finding by the general assembly that such virtual meeting attendance is particularly expedient for council members from remote areas of the state to participate in meetings but also general assembly encourages council members to be physically present at meeting locations when possible due to the importance of in person interaction that language particularly expedient expedient is a phrase that the Vermont Supreme Court likes to use when they talk about legislative discretional decision-making expedient meaning what you find is the right thing to do at the time so you're finding that it's particularly expedient for these council members who are youths might not have their driver's license yet they might be coming from remote areas of the state and this is fine for them to participate remotely but you're also encouraging them to be physically present when possible due to the importance of in person interaction does that reflect what you wanted to state there yes okay thanks hi and then the next change was about their term likes so the bill is introduced stated here in in regard to the initial provisions that the initial appointments would be for one two and three year appointments and you had suggested that instead that it be their terms be for two and three year appointment terms so that they could get a little bit more experience than not just have their time be up after a one year a one year term and then finally the last change or one of the last change is to state when they had the report back to the general assembly on changes for their ongoing operation and the bill is introduced provided this reporting date to be November 1 2021 and you had discussed instead making that recommendation date be January 15 2022 when you'll be in session and then good to go on that one and then finally you had requested a sunset and to give them what two years from their time of appointment or three years from their time of initial appointment so this would provide section four would provide a sunset of the council to be three years after their initial appointment November 1 2023 in the meantime you could revisit the sunset before that occurs to determine whether to continue the council as I was thinking about that yesterday I thought it's a little strange to have a repealed November 1 when we've been out of session for the great majority of our vacation wouldn't it be better to have a sunset I don't know town meeting day so that you know we we could come into a session and realizing that we're facing or a potential repeal and would give us time to change it then otherwise we have to do this well certainly no later than mid-may of 2023 we have to be looking in advance. Good question for Betsy and do you folks flag for us each session the sunsets that are coming up you know that year that would have to be acted on like this session that would expire otherwise before we return in January we can we have a Ledge Council attorney who tracks sunset so it is possible for us to pass that info on to a committee I don't know if it's always standard practice that we do but we are able to. I just asked I mean I'm kind of indifferent on it but if I would hate to appoint the new terms in November and then we don't act on a sunset that following the session if the way it is now if we're flagged to help us with our memory we would have acted on the sunset before those appointments that November for the new three year terms that's all I just something to consider I just hate to take those dug out oh you're appointed two months later you're gone thank you for your service I mean I think the sunset you know unless there's a disastrous result I mean I think the sunset's almost automatic I mean to be renewed I would expect now's the time if we want to make a change to that you can agree with me again reporting to the House and Senate committees on government operations into any other relevant committees that they think should get the information that what they would probably do in the early part of any given session so if a little later in that session they were facing the potential for a sunset that would be a good time for them to say by the way we're doing good work and we hate to have the sunsets two months from now I still think it would be better if the sunset happened while we were in session not certainly not the first week of it I agree with you I think that we need to we get other committees need to be here to review this but it's up to for a possible sunset action you can't do that in November it's unfair to call the committees in to do this in November it's all pick it up reasonable date March or March 1st whatever gives a couple months for the place to say sure it's a man's session almost two months by March 1st gives them time though I agree with that I would kind of I would just push that February 1st you can push back I watch is a tough time to right you're working across all person you know anything like that to like at least at least you know give give a month or so for the for the legislature enough time for it to go through both the house and yeah because you're really committing you're here you're committing to send it to things too and you've got to make a reasonable so you um you would like Madam Chair a walk through of what the the house appropriations amendment is going to be today great yes please thank you okay so for the record this is representative Diane Lanford and I'm here today to represent the house appropriations amendment that we passed there might be confusion whether it's well confusing house appropriations past this amendment was what because we look at just very specific things within the bill and we passed this amendment out of our committee 11 0 0 so we all like to work and um but you know we've got when the whole bill came there's a varying degrees of concern from many many different places but the final bill was uh a 6 5 0 so but I'm just going to speak to our I don't want to confine your amendment on today's calendar and yesterday's today's calendar if it's up to the last document on this list no that was a it's a summary of all the amendments I guess we've asked Michelle to update the page summary by topics and including the money committees amendments as well as 856 information about the supplemental the box amendment and which is under Dan's name and the supplemental ways he means amendment which is under Sam Young so we will hear uh in in that summary here we are sorry you got it yeah right there there I am okay so I have just a larger copy of it but I can I can I can go along with here but if you um so there are 12 instances of amendment and that seems like a lot and that is but they're doing a few things in the first instance which is in section two we amended the board from five to three members and that was strictly on a financial reasoning and you'll see later that we actually reduce the board but the dollar seemed to have grown because when we got a new estimate on what it was really going to cost it was actually higher um so the second instance is in in section three which continues to adjust adjust the three members to a one member to two-year term and a one member to a one-year term and then the third instance which is section five the cannabis control board we do three things is is accomplished in in that in that section or that instance the first is we removed you won't see won't see in that we removed the language that made the connection between the application and the and the licensing fee to those established in massachusetts so we were looking at the dollars thinking okay if it's going to cost this much to run the board and they have to do fees and they can't raise fees longer that you this put them in a box and put everybody in a box and and whether or not they were going to be able to eventually get to the point of being able to um uh fend for themselves on on the fees that were raised so we just released them from this massachusetts connection but that doesn't say that they won't pay close attention to that all the time so so um we took that part out the second thing that we did is um we had the fees fund the duties of the board and then the third is we recommended the fees repay the general fund um for the deficit that's allowed to accumulate in section six c over time over 10 over 10 years if they need to um that is some of us have sort of a little bit of a trauma issue around when the vermont life magazine was allowed to not I don't know was allowed but because it could draw on receipts as a lot of funds can and they're going to need to at the beginning they're going to have to be able to draw on the receipts be able to get going and what we're looking at is to not let that get so far I don't know if you remember but um it's like three million dollars in the hall we could never get ourselves out of of that so so there was some serious backstopping and having the the um the fees try to pay for the deficit in the fourth instance of amendment uh we continue to move from the three five to the three board is what that is and then the fifth instance you'll see that we moved from the eight hundred and ten thousand dollars with updated knowledge from joint fiscal as to what the cost we're going to be uh is eight hundred and sixty thousand so it has a question okay so on that line if we had kept it five it would have been a lot more a million a million plus I think was okay so the eight ten was wrong the eight ten was probably their best guest at the time and then jfo probably be we're saving money it just doesn't look like it it doesn't that's why it seems a little in logic doesn't it yeah but it was another reason why oh my goodness we should probably keep it at three four now and then in the sixth instance of amendment in six c the original bill has the a and only the a so we kept the a as five is the same language but we added b and c so six um cb that's kind of a funny sound moves any positive balance that may be at the end of that fund at the end of the year or at the end of positive balance in the cannabis regulation fund to the general fund okay so that it isn't left there as like this little orphan access dollar hanging on the bottom so we're we scrape for every penny you can imagine so um so that comes back to the general fund if it's there and then in section six cc that we also make sure that if there is a positive balance on the end of that fund 30 percent of that fund would then go to the prevention as we indicate in 18 a okay the seventh instance of amendment is a little more active much like you had this discussion that i came in on which i'm glad of talking about sunsetting not sunsetting letting something be this is fairly new there's language that the um auditor in the bill will come back in 2023 after it's been after the cannabis board is up and running will come back with their examination and recommendations on well that you know with this is how i would interpret it time goes on he's going to take a look at it and then he'll come to the general assembly with this is what's working great you don't need to do anything or okay we need to make an adjustment here because this is so new it's going to probably have a lot of variables at first until it settles out so we sunset the board in 2024 a year after the auditors which gives us that year the general assembly to come back here and react either say it's fine we just move the sunset out or we're going to need to work on on some issues with it and then the eighth instance of amendment is the place where the six percent sales tax the ways and means committee unlike the senate the senate had 100% excise tax that goes would go would have gone to the general fund and our ways and means you know which i i don't disagree with is it's a taxable product it's like binas posty you know it's it should be you know a part of the tax revenue how it was it's 100% of the sales tax goes to the education fund okay that's good and nobody disagrees with that but this is where from hearing about the issues and actually and the governors recommend to actually try to develop a universal after school and i'm sure you've heard where we come to an agreement here in our committee to guide the six percent dollars to the efforts of the grant programs to start and expand after school and summer learnings with a focus on increasing access to underserved areas of the state we did not create a fund and i don't think we needed to so i get a little uncomfortable just personally having it just fall there and we're going to have a line item that we track that says this is what the six percent sales tax of the cannabis sales is brought in and that you know aoe please use them and then you'll see in 17 d uh you know in the manner to which we the legislation intends you to do and um even in 17 d we don't just leave them alone to make that decision we actually ask for uh in mid november and each year after to report back or submit to the general or somebody a plan to fund grants uh in in the way that was laid out in 17c so that's the the the grant process there currently is a grant process at aoe for the uh 21st century i keep saying century 21 so i think that's exciting because i have to think about it for it's 21st century it's not the real term those are federal grants that come in and flow through aoe out to communities that apply it's a competitive grant piece so it would be in my thinking that the funds that would flow that we would provide a number that says this is the six percent sales tax that would boost that grant program um and if you had heard you probably have heard that um in order to get to that goal of universal after school in 2015 it could have been 14 but 2015 there was a a report that it would take approximately 2.5 million dollars to get there so not not to put words in the governor's uh mouth but i was so excited because i've been a part of many of this conversations to see that he was so focused on it in the state of the state and in his budget address and actually reference cannabis get my fingers crossed all right so that's what that does there's an amendment uh in the calendar the beck and browning amendment that is proposing to strike this out and just let those dollars fall to the ed fund with no no guidelines um our committee voted on that amendment to find it unfavorable 11 zero so um so we'll have that discussion on the floor the ninth instance of amendment um oh does for the prevention fund this this is a similar setup as what we did for education but takes the 30 percent of just well it takes the 30 percent of the revenue and and um um uh has the substance misuse prevention oversight and advisory council recommend the prevention programming that that 30 percent should go to and then the 10th 11th and 12th are just the um it's never just but it's the alignment of the effective dates to our amendment so in a nutshell of and i'll probably say this on the floor but there are so many needs in our state there are so many holes for resources that are needed just everywhere you look um so for us to vote 11 zero to use this money in this way is a significant say that where we find the priorities because of the nexus with cannabis to and in our prevention programs and our desire to wrap this money around our kids and to keep them safe in so many ways and we have already avenues we don't need to reinvent the wheel we don't have to do this from scratch scratch there are programs and entities and avenues just needs the resources so that's why we chose those directions madam chair and everybody i'll be quiet if you want to tell me so that yeah thank you you're welcome committee do you have questions i'm um good morning i'm still trying to understand the connection between the initial cost going up 50 000 and we're dropping back to cannabis board members where where is the additional costs coming from an update from jfo Stephanie come in to right to tell us that when they looked at it again this is what they feel is the true cost now i can ask her for a little more explanation as to where and why that came up yeah but that was you know she just wanted to update us that this is no longer unique specifics they just when they as far as what their estimates were they didn't really drill down instead i mean i i don't know why would it be 50 000 more or two less people that to me is quite a significant shift yeah i'm referring to young has an answer to that okay oh michelle has so uh and uh i don't blame you for not remembering this because it was last year that you dealt with it but when y'all were working on this piece and you decided to increase the number because it came over from the senate with three members and the 810 is you guys increased it back to five which is what the community jurisdiction and the senate had originally before senate approach reduced it to three but uh but you didn't even though you increased it from three to five you didn't tweak the 810 you left that if you had made it go to five it would have had it would have been more than 810 but you left that 810 number knowing that appropriations was going to do their part so the 810 was reflective of three and so it's really only an increase of 50 000 for a three-member board and uh and part of that 70 said was it's a it's another year out and and then they also just kind of looked at it in between a little bit but the 810 was always for three members okay see there's another little piece because i have a tendency to get way down the you know pun on this but the um that this is only 10 months this number is only because it's only a 10 month so it's not the true annual cost so the year after that it will be a full 12 just so that when we take a look at it we know don't to us don't freak out when we see that this is like a million in the next year so you're saying that the 860 is 10 months number and the next number will be even higher could be it would be anticipated to be so the sunset on the board so we don't extend the sunset the board books put their time right right so yes some of us wanted to at that point in time have that conversation whether it's up and running we've done all the regulations etc um and want to put it for example under dlc we could have that conversation that okay thank you you can have a lot of conversations just thank you this is good work and really tough though i'm wondering you can get questions about the money going to after school i wonder if we do better to reflect the reality that this is extended day summer learning yes it's not after school kids can ask women to go on these this is an extension of the school day it's structured learning that happens in the after school hours and in the summer to prevent summer learning loss so those questions will come up and i'll certainly speak to it but hopefully yeah because after school means ymca boys and girls club your teen center so i have that in my nose to the state is is a part of that exactly so we it should be you know we've heard this called after school you hear called third space and trying to get the language correct to the actual activity questions just to really be ironclad short the 30 percent it's going to prevention education is effectively a business expense there's no way that that gets not contributed it'll be day one i i would have liked just me personally would have liked to see it a little harder harder placement you know only to keep i would like to have gone into a fund but i do understand the dynamics around that because right now it it would be a line item in our forecast that says this is the cannabis forecast and a number that would be agreed upon like the dollars when we i call it balancing the checkbook in january and june there'll be a forecast number of what the dollars are going to come in from cannabis and then we know that 30 percent of that goes to prevention for this uh substance misuse and advisory council to say here's what we want to use those dollars for in the prevention programming but there's there's no avenue by which somebody gets to say over it starts to pay back the general fund a little bit more we have that authority as legislators and may not be here in four years so somebody can always do that notwithstanding notwithstanding and so it's going to take vigilance which is where like this weekend i can honestly say that we you know we're trying in our committee we've got the budget and we had a couple other bills there was the global solutions and there's act 250 and so we kind of broke this bill up into some sections that that that we worked on pieces of it and plus the hope so i can say friday we it was it was all weekend and monday monday was of wrestling to get to a place that we could that we were very that we could go 11 0 nobody in our room likes everything even within our own amendment but we can we got to a place where we could all support it representative young for the record ways and means committee and i also point out that there's a fiscal note that got emailed to everybody latest updated fiscal note should be in your email and there will be some paper copies as well first the ways and means amendment is here the basic gist of it is the senate had a 16 x size tax and a 1 local option tax the basic gist of the ways and means amendment is that it would be a 14 cannabis x size tax and apply the sales tax and that would also allow for a 1 local option sales tax the other thing that we did was to remove the six million dollar cap on the the substance abuse prevention fund and if you look at the fiscal note it doesn't look like it really gets close to the six million dollar cap but in case there was a if more money came in more tax revenue came in and it hit the six million dollar mark it would just continue to fill out the prevention fund i think i think that's pretty much the ways and means amendment rather than so i have a the one percent local options tax that only applies to the the communities that currently have it that's correct let's say the communities goes through and has an affirmative vote and gets one in the future would they be able to apply the one percent local options tax yes they would yeah and currently about 40 percent of the sales in the state actually follow up how about the one percent local option tax on it but we i don't know since my time on ways and means we've probably approved five more towns that have the local option tax sometimes it's by charter it kind of depends on whether it's like around act 60 whether you had to do it by charter or not but if it's a charter we generally approve the charter change and actually goes through this committee too but aside from that there really wouldn't be any revenue sharing from a tax perspective that is correct and which kind of rolls into the next amendment which is a recommendation from the cannabis control board next year when they recommend this fees for the state also to recommend fees for the for local municipalities and if it was just a local option tax only towns with retail establishments would get any revenue and this would allow for if you had the other types of entities in your town that you would actually be able to get some money for the municipality for the different types of licenses and not just the retail licensees so kind of spreads it out a little bit more so based on what i've heard today i am somebody that's applying for a license i'm going to have at least two license fees that i'm going to have to be tangled in the state one and then potentially i could have the local one as well so where where does the municipality get the money the state or the local or both i'm going to say get the money i'm talking a portion of the license fee that's i'm wrong here this the portion i'm going for a portion of the state license fee or whatever they're doing and if the local if the municipality forms a cannabis control board and they set local license fees so does this still allow the town to collect the fees from both licenses or does the town have to go through a charter no no no no no for the fees there doesn't need to be any sort of charter change but it's just like just like we had it that was in the bill before for the cannabis control board to come back with recommendations for the fees for the state licenses they'll also come back with the recommendation for local fees and we will have to and we will have to approve whatever that is next year raise them lower than what i was just going to clarify for jp is that i think what you were talking about is the the local so if you have your select board do create a local cannabis control commission they'll still do their local permit fees and can do that and then this new local fee that's assessed at the state level is separate and then they'll go back to the right in my my question the important issue was could the local select board when they establish a cannabis control board commission whatever you want to call it don't care and they decide to establish a local license fee can that be done here without having to come back to the state in other words i know they're going to come back with the state fees and to the legislature we'll look at again but because i think that right but there's there's two so separate local fees there's the one that if because not all towns will establish a commission and issue their local permits but if they do they can collect those fees on their own just like it came out of here they don't need anybody's permission separate want to make sure yeah i'm sorry but i'm still a little confused about that and so the cannabis control board will set fees at the state level correct or recommend the recommended fees to us we have to approve these but the fees at the local level i mean insoluble level will they also be making recommendations or the local governing bodies that would have oversight over the cannabis can they set their own fees or does that need some other approval hasn't changed from the way that you guys had it in your local in your local government piece around issuing if you decide to issue local licenses you guys hadn't it was just there wasn't anything that really addressed the issue of how to set those fees or what they're supposed to be well but initially we were only talking about retail establishments as well now that's been brought into any license correct so i'm still trying to find out so who is who's going to have the final say as to what a fee can be at the local level it's going to be the local governing body or it's going to be the state level cannabis control uh cannabis board well ultimately setting the fees has to happen with a recommendation from a policy with a recommendation from the board i mean isn't this similar to what we do with liquor licenses we set a liquor license four hundred dollars a hundred dollars of that what you do here goes to the municipality isn't that what we're talking about i mean are we talking about totally separate license that is essentially what we're talking about but i wouldn't say that anything has been set in stone we're just asking for recommendation and i'm sure there's going to be a lot a lot of public input from the municipalities in that process i'm sure so confusion level what we're here to hear now back to the initial question does the town this valley whatever you want to call it have the authority what the town does have the authority to establish a local cannabis control board commission whatever you want to give it and then does the town have the authority to set the dollar amount for the fees without any necessary approval from the state of period anybody in the state of remodeling just late year cannabis pro board anybody i don't care jenna's town said without any authority being required from the state of remodeling i think the answer is yes but i'm gonna look to the lawyers so so section 863 which is the regulation by local government that's all the work so so much on that is not amended at all by the ways and means amendment or by the separate young amendment the only thing so whatever you had with regard to inherent authority to issue the local licenses there's nothing in that language about how you set fees or anything like that there's nothing restricted is not addressed so i think that the presumption was that it would be it would be following the way that you do with liquor licenses now so there's no requirement that you get anybody's approval for their fees or anything like that there's nothing in there that says specifically an affirmative you can set fees for those permits i presume it's i mean i would consider it to be implied because you that's what you do is you issue permit and you collect a fee for it that's completely separate that's not touched by any of these other amendments the only thing that the ways and means and the subsequent ways and means amendments are dealing with are this new additional fee that would be that the board would recommend to you legislature would choose what it is and say board you're now when you when people get licenses they're going to collect a state fee and a local fee and they're going to figure out what those are and then that's going to go out to towns regardless of whether whatever type of uh cannabis establishment they have correct did that make sense so some towns may choose so every so under this proposal the idea that's that all towns will get probably some money from the state collected local fee and then only the towns that choose to issue a local lice permit through their local select board i you know slash cannabis control commission will be doing that individual permit based on fees that are recommended and approved by no no no no it's completely local yeah it doesn't yeah the recommendations and they'll double check but the recommendations are just having to do with the new local fee but i'll double check to make sure that you couldn't read it otherwise so committee we should john is there anything that you want to add to this no i think sam did a great job so we have uh ways and means committee amendment that will come up very first after the initial floor report and then we'll do the appropriations committee amendment on the floor and then we'll come back to the other amendments in one of which being sam's second amendment which is this local local fee issue so i'd like to do a show of hands on the ways and means committee amendment looks like all right if you are a yes on the ways and means committee amendment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and if you already know on the ways community ways and means committee amendment 3 7 3 1 and sam young's second amendment with the local uh the municipal fee show of hands if you are in favor of the municipal we want to bring it up can we can we search it all that search it's yeah that's safety but young oh yeah that's good let's look up let's look me up so there's young for ways and means and then there's young for and really the needs to be charged collected are we ready to vote on the second amendment should be i'm reading i'm reading this and this is why i brought the question up the question i had was the town's municipalities have total control over setting the local fees in this amendment states that the cannabis control board which is a state board remember i said anything from the state of the line all the way from the governor down to the committee and the answer was presumed that the town could set the fee as they saw fit so i accepted that this amendment states that the cannabis control board is going to recommend for the local fees the board must recommend design the great god we all know why and everything like that um and then it creates the authority for the board to charge and collect the local fees why is this was a state going to collect a local fee a local license fee if the town's going to have to open for her they don't get that it's the new fee that's added by the young amendment i think i understand i understand how you're reading that and i think if it if it helps you know i can do an amendment that anybody can offer uh out on the floor today that will just clarify and i would amend 863 on the regulation by local governments it's you know affirmatively state that the commissioners may you know determine a fee that they may then you know charge for the the the local control license that is under 863 which is separate and apart from the state-assessed local fee so i'm happy to do some clarifying language if that would help folks so let me see if i understand this there will be a state fee there actually there are just two fees involved and that's one up on the local level and one of the state level but the new board will recommend the rate for both and if i'm a municipality and i have a grower i'm going to collect that local fee for the grower's license for the municipality regardless it's going to be coming to the town and then the state because it was stated so there are just two not three uh no okay and i know maybe takes happy so uh and i'm doing my best here but i didn't write this amendment actually so uh so what you guys have worked on with the like just like liquor you can establish the local control license and you can set a fee for that that the intention of all this that is untouched that exists and then the new part is that the board is going to recommend you know fees multiple fees and part of that a new in addition local fee that would be collected on you know at the state level for all applicants so so uh that would then and then figure out right make recommendations about how that's distributed to to all the municipalities and they would be recommending to the general assembly who remember it's always a general assembly that sets the fee is not the board about what that would be but so the idea is that there is a potential of two what you would consider to be local fees one which is you know assessed at the board level to every licensee and then the other one being an option for towns that they don't have to do it maybe they don't want to do a local you know a cannabis control commission or maybe they do and they're saying well we're only going to issue local control licenses to retailers and integrated licensees but we if it's cultivators we're not going to do that or whatever so they get to do they still get to have that authority that you created in here with regard to the local government and that's separate and apart and they can set that right but I understand why folks are getting a little confused about that because there are ostensibly you know potentially two local fees one at the state level that's collected and then one at the potentially at the local level if they issue the local control license and so I think that you know we can add just some little clarifying language in 863 and on the other one and we can do it as a separate amendment just to make it clear to people that that this by adopting the young amendment and having the new state assessed local fee does not negate any powers that the town is able to have under 863 and I'll bring this feedback back to my committee as well so discuss it just so I can get my my brainwrap right now so basically what we're talking is that if you have a local legislative body that's got oversight over cannabis they will set all the fees but if you're in a community that doesn't have one that this gives the state the right and the authorization to no no this would be the the new proposal with the local fee collected by the state is going to be something for everybody everybody went on under that in terms of the towns whether you and they'll figure out just to make a proposal with regard to distribution things like that so they so if you look at the the language in the amendment it talks about that's you know to to deal with any impacts of the regulatory scheme so let's read the language in the in the young amendment so the recommendation so this is shelby accompanied by information justifying the recommended rate is required by 32 vsa section 605d the board to recommend local fees that are designed to help defray the cost incurred by municipalities in which cannabis facilities are located so it's not every municipality well I know they're located but it's state that's the state board right but but it's for every type of licensee yes at the local level you decide that you're only going to issue local control licenses to retailers or whatever then that's your prerogative to do that and collect the separate fee with a camp a local counts control work no you would have to do it you'd have to create local cannabis for to issue permits to issue the local license just like local liquor but the problem with the liquor analogy is it sounded like the $400 is set here so where with the local board it sounds like that that's being set in milton with their local cannabis control not irregardless of what the state sets as its master fee for everybody once city council in milton decides they're going to allow a sales establishment there they set the fee for that permit is that correct Jim can we ask abby if she works on the tax and fee stuff I don't mean to put you on the spot but can I give you the seat oh i have five minutes more i'm supposed to be in committee but they haven't taken up i was just okay they're about okay thank you for inviting me and so abby shepherd also office of legislative council um I did work on this draft so I think I can answer part of that question um this is just for the report that the board would make about what the local fees should be set at but then it would still be up to the state to set those local fees and they would follow the fee bill process so this language is sort of an opening so that local fees can be proposed it does not establish any it does not set the rates or the amounts and again it's still required to follow um six it's 32 vsa 605 which requires uh fees to be for the cost of providing the service or the cost of administration so just to be clear if my friend in milton wants to establish a higher fee he can't it would depend on what the legislature and the legislature then allows then if that board thought that the fee should be higher they would have to come to the legislature and propose a higher fee and the legislature would have to enact it thank you so just said so now we're back to the opposite from what I told earlier now now the local local commission whatever is going to have half legislative approval to set that fee so scenario state of Vermont said save licenses fee for whatever they're going to set whatever thing you're going to do cultivate and retail whatever make something up five thousand bucks and then and then the state's going to set a a fee that the awful people will get a spelling get two thousand bucks nine or up to seven thousand dollars okay so now the local municipality commission wants to set a fee and they want to say five thousand bucks in order for them to set that fee of five thousand dollars for the local the third or the second actually local tax that five thousand dollars has to be approved by the legislature in in person but that's a yes or no answer yes okay and that would apply to every local fee it wouldn't be just for if that particular municipality said we think that it should be a higher amount it would change it for all localities assuming that that's the structure that we follow this is also recommendation okay so why should the city of Burlington and have the right or actually why shouldn't the city of Burlington and have the right to set a ten thousand dollar local fee where a town municipality of whatever name if mine sets a local fee of five thousand why does it have to be five or ten for the every municipality you see what I'm getting at I'm talking about the third tax which is the second local tax you see I'm getting up I don't think this language gets to that amount of specificity I think that would be part of the proposal of what the board would recommend to the legislature yeah so I'm I'm afraid I can't answer just something like the board recommend goes going to recommend it may recommend and whatever happens happens and I guess you might get one and the final say would be yeah by the legislature I would move that we find representative young's amendment favorable more discussion show hands if you approve a representative young's amendment and if you disapprove thank you so there are 11 instances of amendment here most of these are very technical corrections so in the first instance of amendment what we're doing is changing the number of names that the governor has to submit to the cannabis control board nominating committee from 10 to 5 which just seems like a more reasonable number of names to submit for each vacancy so when the cannabis control board is first set up you'll have to submit at least 15 names any vacancies after that it would be five names the second one really just eliminates a redundancy so you know it said groundwater you know quality requirements or regulations so it's now just groundwater quality requirements and so that's just removing a redundancy that was in the bill the third instance of amendment is changing the definition of small cultivator by increasing the square footage that a small cultivator can grow cannabis in from 500 square feet to a thousand the reason we did this is we heard from small growers and they are more comfortable and think it's more economically viable to have a hundred a thousand square feet than 500 square feet the fourth the fourth instance of amendment is very similar to the second one um it it it just eliminates redundancy um then um e replaces um oops well no the fourth instance sorry just changes language with respect to pesticides and ensures that federal regulation of pesticide applies to cannabis cultivators the fifth amendment is a language change that we intended to have in our amendment to the bill but failed to make it in this was a recommendation from the committee on health care is that all advertisements shall contain health warnings developed by the department of health and adopted by rule by the board that is the language that we agreed to um uh john is the fourth instance number e 40 c r f the most stringent regulation there's no state that would well we'll get to another there's i'll get to another thing that deals with pesticides but this is just ensuring that federal pesticide regulation applies to cannabis cultivation um so then we move on to the sixth amendment which gets sort of your answer there is this makes sure um that any rules adopted by the cannabis control board around pesticides need to be at least as stringent as those developed by the agency of agriculture food and markets so they can't make something less stringent they can only make it more stringent um the seventh instance amendment is another thing from health care just again um making it clear that the labeling requirements for cannabis sold by to retailers and integrated licensees includes health warnings developed by the department of health the eighth instance of amendment changes the number of milligrams of thc in basically edible products from a hundred milligrams to 50 milligrams now the serving size hasn't changed here so the serving size is still five milligrams but the the purpose of this change is um to make it to reduce the risk of somebody consuming too much cannabis an edible product and i will say this is the most stringent standard of every of any state in the country most states set the the total milligrams of thc at 100 and the serving size at 10 so we are under both um the ninth instance amendment is again this is coming from health care um and deals with labeling and appropriate warnings developed by the department of health again the department of health has to develop the warnings and then the board has to implement those um the tenth instance amendment um says that well there can be um exceptions or accommodations for small cultivators um there cannot be exceptions or accommodations with respect to land use and environmental things which is what section 869 of our bill covers the 11th instance amendment we just learned about yesterday is that the national highway traffic safety administration is getting out of the business of approving roadside devices um for setting impairment levels and so with this change it really makes it what will happen is the department of public safety will make a recommendation to the general assembly as to what you know is there a measurable level of impairment for cannabis and two is there a testing device a roadside testing device that can accurately determine that level of impairment and so they will be making a recommendation on those two things to the general assembly and then the general assembly can determine um whether to approve the use of that device for roadside testing and that's it we need to take action on this I would move that we find representative Gannon's amendment favorable before we lose any questions for john most of these are our issues that we're kind of bringing this into alignment the the knits of amendment is the one that popped up yesterday but I think we still have a solid expectation that DPS will come to us if and when there's a device that is uh accurate and can do a timely test uh all those in favor of the Gannon amendment all right let's leave it open for those three what was that that that was unanimous so far but we're missing three people so eight eight while you're ahead he's feeling very feisty today so I hate to beat this this licensing thing to that but what happens if municipalities decide that they will set their own local fees so high as to prohibit any kind of um growing manufacturing processing up to them Jim I I think it it would be if we allowed it next year you know the board comes back with a recommendation and if we decide collectively that we want to give that authority so right now I think it's a good point because we don't know what they're going to propose and we don't know how we're going to feel about it if we want to allow Burlington to you know set a hundred thousand dollar license fee when I doubt we would do that but I mean that would be up to us to give them that authority I think as I understand it my friend from police means that but I mean we could do that it would be unusual just like it is with liquor license it's the same in every single community and that share is the same in every single community today yeah y'all know my intention is behind all this now is to represent the people that I've I'm here for that's the residence of Tom Melton yeah and so should Tom Melton decide they want to allow cultivation of cannabis for retail purposes and or allow a retail store to sell the cultivated cannabis they have the right to do that by Tom Bolton initially and by saying Tom permission but I I do understand that the state wants to have control over how much the municipality can charge somebody to do this and that bothers me very much but bothers me greatly that the state is going to be able to mandate to the municipality you can charge this a lot but you can't charge what you decide you want to charge but that's always been the bill even before this ways and means change I know there's a two percent local option tax that was set by the legislature I know I understand that but with at least with the two percent local options tax the municipality on retail sales anyway I know it was going to get the two percent so that was something that the municipality was going to get right now the municipality is going to get which state decides they're going to get it's going to get them whether it's five hundred dollars or or fifty thousand dollars from a from a two percent options tax and it's a big difference option tax was based on sales this is based on licenses yes so for example in Milton I understand so let's let's use the example of Milton which has a dispensary so if the the dispensary you know can get an integrated license so there would be a potential fee set by the state for for that license and the town will get a portion of it yeah no town there's a local part that they will get oh right and there might be other growers or other manufacturers who seek to be licensed in their municipality which could offer more license fee revenue than than in the scenario where it was a percentage of sales I from the perspective of my small where I don't know whether anybody will choose to open a retail shop I actually think that this is a more even spread of revenue sharing across the landscape because you can imagine that there you know are is going to be a wider distribution of growers and labs and wholesalers and manufacturers across the landscape that there will be for the distribution of retailers so you know from from the perspective of my community I could see having more more of an even revenue spread across the state that question but the other side of the thing is the thing that I've always been concerned about is the addition to have the sales right well this is this is the next stop of the bill on the floor for the house to adopt it after that we will have to sit down in conference with the senate who has a different scenario of taxation than we do and so that will be an interesting conversation I anticipate that you know this bill is for on the floor this afternoon we will have a conference committee and I think one of the things that will be hotly debated in that conference committee is local taxation given you know I've heard that from the senate I mean I think that is one of their concerns so I mean with this bill as it comes out of the house so you know there's still another step in this process assuming this gets passed on the floor this afternoon where we will have to say because we'll be part of that conference committee process we who vote for it another problem I have and I understand I know why the fees haven't been set anyway the problem is that I see is we have no idea what these fees are going to be and we won't until the the cannabis control board sets these fees so these fees could be thousands of dollars of these fees could be hundreds of dollars we don't know yes we're setting the fees they're making a recommendation true okay and that's fine I'll stand corrected on half of that but we set the fees but based on their recommendations but but today I do not know what these fees could be that's fair so this could be a $50,000 integrated license fee or it could be a $500 integrated license fee and that's a big difference yeah well let's look at what did I get I'm trying to represent the term the because my constituents in my town because we have the largest medical it's right now it's medical marijuana and dispensary in the state and who knows that could expand well the dispensary's fee licensing fee today is $25,000 that's the recommended and there's no taxes so there's no ability to collect a option tax on dispensary sales on this so what you're saying is I take you're saying John is your again we don't like to use whatever so but we need to assume here because we don't have setting so we're going to assume but that the let's let's say an integrated fee which is the biggest and the best and the largest fee which is going to get the most money is going to be at least how much I think you know you could model it after the integrated license I mean not the dispensary fee that is currently charged because it's 25 I think right right and that and that 25 all that 25 will go to all that will go to where it will go into the cannabis regulation fund to support the cost of the cannabis control board so what what part is good what with the amount do you think it's going to go to the top well there's a separate fee that will be set for the town again we don't know we don't know but we don't know any of these fees but ultimately here we decide and you have input into that process we continue all right the only other amendment that I know of was an amendment to the appropriations section of the was an amendment to the appropriations amendment which essentially takes out you want to describe that to us so it does not it does not designate where the six percent sales tax revenue goes it just dumps it into the ed fund okay we voted on that look yes I'd love to know what you we voted to find that amendment not favorable on 11-0 and I just said in my hand too just an update for those that are going to be selling the the newest fiscal note of the board cost over three years so we'll have that on our desk from ways and means but I don't know if we need to hear from the sponsor if we do we can wait but otherwise I would move that we find the back amendment unfavorable I don't maybe it's not even for us to it's an appropriation money so maybe it's so it's a it's a data point that might come up and so I think it's fine for us to struggle it it because it was an amendment to the work that the appropriations committee did he presented it there so if Jim's motion is to find back unfavorable so yes means now do you find the back amendment unfavorable all right do you find it favorable are you abstaining sorry I'm sorry it's it's lunchtime no it's not much I made the motion to make it unfavorable which that we don't like we don't want the amendment I mean you'll just get put into the education fund and who knows where it goes I think it's what the appropriations kind of goes into that money which can always use more but it will get lost right so if you vote yes it's going to go into the education fund and if you don't know what's going where no if you vote yes it's not going it's going into the afterschool program right and that's what I like okay so you're voting you're with everybody