 Okay, so good afternoon. This is house government operations We were taking up two bills this afternoon and getting testimony and hopefully marking them up in voting on the first bill Is s-22 an act relating to authorizing temporary open meeting law procedures specifically remote meeting and s-223 an act relating to authorizing temporary election procedures And we have a number of witnesses with us today And I believe our first witness is Secretary of State Deputy Director Chris winners or deputies excuse me Deputy Secretary of State Chris winners Thank You representative Gannon. I appreciate that Deputy indeed my voice is a little funny today. Maybe I can do a little Western drawl to really play up the deputy role here. I May cough and sneeze a little bit through this so I apologize in advance With respect to the temporary open meeting law provisions We really appreciate that the legislature has taken this one up quickly as well The Senate did some some fast work on that to get it over to you and we appreciate you making time To take a look at it here today Really what it mainly does that we were most concerned about is to allow towns to meet without the physical meeting space Requirement that that is there under the existing open meeting law That was temporarily waived during the state of emergency as you all may recall that expired That meant that public bodies had to go back to meeting They could still meet remotely but they had to have at least a physical location where the public could attend and that had to be staffed or attended by At least one of the public body members or one of their staff members to allow for the public to attend in person if they wanted to Given the uptick in cases and the spike that we're in the middle of right now Many people thought that it made sense to waive that physical Meeting requirement again, and I think you'll hear from some people on the line today Who can give you specific instances as to why that made sense for them? on the senate side we Advocated that this be temporary temporary for sure Because you do also have to think about the the public's perception of this and the public's access to meetings And for some people your zoom is not easy or Telephone is not ideal So that physical ability to attend in person is important, but we think it's something that could be temporarily waived The the bill itself waves it through January of next year And I'll just note that that we thought maybe that should be shorter We were asking for an april date so that you could revisit it before You adjourned for the session and see if if cases had gone down you could reinstate the physical meeting place requirement The committee thought, you know, we just don't know how we can anticipate what will happen this fall They determined it was best to do it through january of 2023 The one other thing that i'll note from the secretary of state's office perspective is that the way this was written before there was A telephone requirement a phone option in the words if feasible we're in that language last time around We asked that that if feasible those two words be removed saying that if You can't provide a phone option Then you shouldn't have the public meeting and it just seems like everybody has figured that out There is always a phone option available Zoom has an automatic phone option in there So we thought it was best and the committee agreed That we leave in the requirement that if you're doing a fully remote meeting That there also be the ability to call in by phone for those people who couldn't do Zoom perhaps might not have access to a computer So those are the two major things that that i'll point out from the secretary of state's office's perspective We're okay with the bill as written and Glad to hear um some of the other people's perspective the other folks to testifying today To understand their concerns about the bill Thank you chris. Um, i'm apologize in advance. I'm experiencing a little uh internet difficulty representative behovsky go right ahead Wonderful, thank you so much and thank you chris for being here and helping us prioritize this to give towns the ability to have the flexibility they need Um, I wanted to clarify and i'm pretty sure I do actually know the answer to this But I got a specific question that I was sort of like I think this is the case But the telephone provision does not allow for towns to hold meetings by telephone only It allows for town. It says that towns holding a remote meeting have to have that as an option, correct? I believe under existing open meeting law that remote option is is not limited to video it could be telephone Only, um, I also have uh, jenny proser from our office is on the line And I'm not sure I'm gonna put her on the spot here I don't know if jenny if you have had any questions relating to this But I do believe that meeting could be held telephone only and there's no requirement to actually have a video Option available Jenny are you there? Got it. Got it. Yes jenny council jenny proser general Secretary of State's office and yes my understanding matches what chris just articulated that um under Former temporary law that allowed remote only meetings and under this bill as well It would be an option for towns to hold A fully remote meeting by telephone only I think the language I have to look at it the language is by electronic means Which would as is in my option as I I think ask tucker actually to to clarify for sure, but that that would also um, that would allow just phones Or a mix of phones and say, you know, what we're doing right now assuming, um, but But any event phones would be necessary Okay, thank you for helping with that clarification Thank you jenny Tucker anything you want to add on that one I think jenny did a great job really as long as uh, you meet the underlying requirements of the open meeting law Specifically that the members of the public body Can hear what's happening and be heard and announce themselves Then you could have a fully telephonic meeting and that is something that was already embedded in the open meeting law prior to this temporary authority Wonderful, thank you so much And this may be a question a larger committee discussion question and I personally don't have any issue Having, you know, january be the end date to this temporary provision and there's a lot of discussion right now so that Bodies don't have to keep revisiting this about linking this kind of change these temporary covet related changes to the Two specific data and I wonder if you have any way in on If that would make sense here or if it just makes sense to set a specific date Yeah, I would just say that we were we were pondering that In the late fall and early winter wondering how we could how what's the what's the appropriate end date? And could we tie it to some sort of data? It's my understanding that there are things like mask mandates in a few states where they do tie it to actual Maybe cdc data. I don't know what data they use We kicked that around a little bit and and just felt that it was too Difficult to match up and you also wouldn't want it to be If you're on the edge of a certain number to go on off and on off and on would be kind of confusing To people and so they landed on the let's just do it straight on until January and again, this is permissive for towns to do It's not mandatory, but it's permissive for them to eliminate the physical meeting location Thank you Representative dannon Thank you, madam chair. I actually think it was a wise decision to to allow remote meeting through january 2023 Every time we think this pandemic's over. It's not So but that's not my question My question actually is with respect to the criteria if a town decides to hold its meetings fully remotely And that's the third criteria, which is posting the information About electronic access Does that mean like posting the zoom link without any password protection? And the reason I ask that is, you know, I think there are some communities like burlington Where some of their meetings get disruptive And I was just wondering if if there's a concern about zoom bombing or other ways that people may disrupt a meeting I can relay my recollection of that conversation and maybe tucker or jenny could join in after to see if I got any of it wrong But I think the conversation was around, you know early on as we all fondly remember, I'm sure there was zoom bombing was a real problem or passwords were out there People were joining meetings and and doing inappropriate things and disrupting meetings So there was a move toward not including all of that information in the meeting notices Since then I think we've all learned a little bit better about Moderating meetings and how to allow people and how to block them how to shut them down quickly Um, and in the meantime when that information is not posted in the meeting notice We've heard some stories of people who you know decided at the last minute Yeah, I guess I'll go attend that meeting and the meeting notice says, uh, call the town clerk's office or call the superintendent's office for Meeting on how to access the zoom for information on how to access the zoom and the office might be closed So they're effectively shut out of that meeting So that was some of the back and forth that happened in the senate government operations committee and ultimately the committee decided to Actually require that information on how to access the meeting needs to be in the meeting notice Great, thank you Any other committee questions for the deputy secretary? All right, uh, thank you chris for being with us today and jenny as well. Please hang tight We'll uh, we may come back to you with other questions Next i'd like to hear from the league of cities and towns And uh, and and you know, please share with us your thoughts on the bill as written And you know feel free to enlighten us on on how you weighed in on any of the dialogue that happened In the senate government operations committee Thank you, madam chair caren horn with the league of cities and towns and gwyn is here as well today um, we did support age 222 in the senate, we're Very grateful that you're again taking the time to take this bill up As as quickly as possible um We were just reading this morning that last friday. We had 3000 cases. It's a little crazy now, so um We uh, we do support the bill as written. I did want to just Comment a little bit on the letter from mr. Weiss who's a resident in montpellier civil engineer in montpellier and um There there are situations Uh, where under any circumstance somebody might not be able to get to a meeting if you have a physical location Someone needs a car or public transportation or some means to get to that physical location We're thinking that right now given the risk of omicron And and the way that's progressing in vermont. It's more important To assure that that local boards and local officials are able to Be safe essentially um, and Right now the bill is written as a temporary measure through 2023 through january 2023 That date was chosen in the end because the senate after some discussion realized that they might be busy in april of 2022 and That then they would be gone and given the pattern of surges of coronavirus In the fall as people move indoors that it might be best to extend this till january 23 when you're back in session I would just note that um, we would love at some point to have the discussion about making this a permanent feature of the open meeting law as has been recommended by the climate action plan But that's a discussion for another day So if you have questions, we're happy to answer them Thank you. Karen. Um, give committee members a moment to To raise their hand if they have any questions All right seeing none. Thank you. Um, I think that it would be helpful to hear from uh, sarah bruce Who is with us from the hartford? um hartland, sorry hartland energy committee And welcome and we would love to hear your thoughts on this bill Thank you for inviting me Um, my name is sarah bruce. I am a resident of hartland And I am currently chair of our energy committee um I have six members on our committee and all of them prefer virtual meetings This is in large part because of our goal and the state's goal to reduce energy consumption Karen horn just referred to that in the Action climate action plan in the comprehensive energy plan However, the open meeting laws, which I actually incur very good and have great respect for They require a minimum of one person at the physical at the publicly announced physical location Uh since nobody on my committee wants to do that um as chair by default. I'm it so I am in the physical location, which is our library and um Energy committee meetings aren't a big draw shall we say so we don't usually have a lot of public coming But that does not eliminate my concern That if somebody comes to the library a member of the public a member of a resident hartland comes to attend the meeting And let's say they're not wearing a mask Um, and perhaps they declined to wear a mask even if I have one to provide for them How do I know it's vaccinated? They are now in the room with me for 90 minutes or sometimes a little longer So I What I really appreciate The attempt here is that that addresses that concern and I know that concern. It's not limited to me. I think it's also true for many other committees, not just in hartland, but in multiple towns And um with regards to the time frame of this the one other point that I would like to make Is that from my perspective? And I am a biologist. Um, we will be dealing with kovat for We deal with omicron right now But then we will deal with future variants as long as we allow this virus to be transmitted Within the population and in many ways countrywide and worldwide The virus will be transmitted the virus will therefore replicate and this allows for mutations to generate new variants. So I think it's unrealistic to think that all we have to do is get through omicron Because we don't know what's coming next So I fully support the efforts here And I think we have to think a little bit longer term than just the next few months when omicron might calm down Thank you Thank you so much. I uh, I appreciate you coming to share your perspective. Um Karen horn go right ahead Yeah, thank you sarah's testimony does remind me of one other point that we wanted to make which is that When you have a single person in a physical location in an otherwise empty building at night There are some other basic security concerns that can arise and have arisen for some Um members of boards around the state Thank you fair enough Um questions from committee members All right, we have a a collection of other folks with us as well who um, who I think maybe are primarily here to speak to 223 but um would pause here to allow you to raise your hand if you wanted to weigh in on On open meetings and physical location as well. All right Uh shifting gears then let's uh, let's run through the run of show again on s223. Um This is the bill that That deals with a couple of other lingering issues around annual meetings this year at a time when we're experiencing such a surge in covid cases and Deputy secretary, I think we'll just throw it back to you to lead off from the top of the list Thank you, madam chair Round two here. This is another um very fast moving bill and again. Thank you And thank the senate for their quick work on it and for you for taking it up so quickly This has two very basic provisions in it. There were additional concerns that were being raised as you were Moving the initial what we saw is the most important town meeting bill through your committee last week The two provisions are to waive petition signatures for local candidates for annual meeting only And also to allow for a waiver of the commingling of ballots for those school districts where their articles of agreement might require them to Mix their ballots together and count them so that no one town's results are made publicly known There was a certainly a groundswell of support for doing something to address these two issues To be honest, we didn't think that they were Big issues as we started the legislative session or we perhaps would have included them in the initial town meeting day bill But we've heard from a number of people with legitimate concerns Both about collecting signatures and about being put in a situation where they have to count Ballots with a lot of other individuals so increased exposure to other people in this time of surging COVID numbers didn't make a lot of sense for some so We put together the Tucker Anderson very quickly put together this bill senate took it up and I think passed it as as it was drafted And so this is before you we support what's in this bill We do think that the waiver of petition signatures ought to be limited to local candidates and I would urge you to hear from some of the town clerks and I believe select board members who are here to To discuss their concerns and why they would have you pass this bill as well I'm happy to answer any questions And I just note that will sending has just just joined us If you have some election specific questions will would be happy to answer as well Thank you so much representative higley has his hand up Thank you, madam chair. This may be a question for both chris and tucker In reading through the wording in regards to the co-mingling piece It talks about how The legislative body of a school district May vote that the ballots for the 22 annual district meeting shall not be Co-mingled But then it goes on to say the ballots may be counted by each member town Um, I guess to me it reads a little bit conflicting. It sounds like You know the school district, you know May take a vote That they shall not co-mingle Yet it goes on to say that The ballots may be counted by each member town um, am I wrong in that and and does that allow a town to Say that they're not going to count them. They'd still want them to be co-mingled I will defer to either tucker or perhaps to will sending This language came from our office from the directive that we issued last year Under our temporary elections procedures and that's what I think tucker used In this spot in the bill Maybe will you could speak to the what's intended there? The intent is for the decision to be solely with the school board And then I think that second sentence is kind of a Is a in that case The ballots may be counted in the member towns. That's it's as opposed to Bringing them to a central location. It's saying they may be counted in their dispersed member town locations I see tucker nodding if he thinks it could be refined. I would leave that up to him To to better express that intent I would agree that the intent of this is that first you have the permissive step Where the school district may vote to not co-mingle the ballots that come from the member municipalities And that the second clause is contingent on that permissive vote Uh, however representative higley, I would agree that it would be much clearer if that may was a shall And there was a lead-in clause that says if the school district so votes or something along those lines The ballots shall be counted by each member town and the results reported to the school district clerk However I think you may want to hear some background on how this works out practically Before taking that step to mandate that the ballots be counted at the municipal level Contingent on the permissive vote from the school district Okay, thank you. Tucker other questions from committee members All right Next I would like to hear the clerks perspective and we have Carol does of the clerks and treasures association And also representing a larger community and bobby brimble comb who represents one of our smaller communities. So Carol, why don't you go ahead first and and then we'll go to bobby Thank you Yeah, we we actually represent different sides of the coins, which is great because I don't as a General rule. I don't co-mingle ballots But bobby does so she'll be able to speak to the sort of normal practice associated with that with regards to the nominating petitions We certainly support Waving them for the local offices for this year to limit on People interacting Not having to collect the signatures. Obviously they'll the candidates will have to submit their consent a candidate form So we will have some kind of documentation on file about putting names on the ballots So we do support that With regards to co-mingling It and as I said bobby, we'll we'll talk about sort of the normal process associated with that But I represent a group of Wearing a different hat than vmc ta Um, I represent a group of 18 towns that are in a unique position this year. Um, we are There has been warned a creation vote for the center vermont career center And there are slightly different statutes that control the creation of a career center Uh, those elections and the between the statute and the articles of agreement Um, it requires the 18 towns to co-mingle their ballots Uh, and the statutory language specifically says that representatives from those 18 towns will all get together at the same time and place To co-mingle those ballots Um, and I have concerns about grouping together or a bunch of people Not only to feed the ballots through the tabulator, but also they all they will include School board members on them will have to review them all for for write-ins Um, so I I do have some concerns about that um, the Perhaps one way around that would be to Clarify that we don't have to do it all at one At one place at one time if we could spread it out during the 10 days That we have between the election and when the election has to be certified You know a town I could have two towns a day come bring their ballots to me because they will be co-mingled in berry city I think there are ways around it to continue to um Respect the intention of the planning committee that that wants the ballots co-mingled so as not to have Um individual community results. They want to be able to think of everything as one district But I think there's ways that we can do that and yet still provide for the safety of the representatives from the 18 different municipalities Representative Higley has a question Thank you, madam chair This is probably a question for you carol A question was asked. I believe yesterday Wasn't for me, but I've got it written down About the security of the the ballots that are counted by each town again Can you fill me in as to What that looks like when those ballots are all at the different towns and if somebody wants the results or information from those towns is it readily available and Uh, yeah, the security is an important issue. I guess yeah, um under the The co-mingling process what would happen is that in each of those towns They would of course be counting their town meeting ballots their local school ballots or their local school district ballots But with regards to these central vermont career center ballots They would be a completely separate document and in those towns They would just be dropping those ballots the voters would just be dropping those ballots in a ballot box They wouldn't be going through a tabulator. They just would be going in a secured ballot box At the conclusion of the election they would be transferred into a ballot bag where they would be sealed Then they would be brought to the polls or brought to my location For co-mingling then run through the tabulator Um, after they have been reviewed for write-ins. They would be rebagged resealed. Excuse me and would Then go back to their member town for For storage for the the 90 day storage period So under once a school district is in existence then the ballots are Stored by the the clerk of the school district But since this is a unique situation where we're talking about the creation of a district The ballots would go back to all the individual communities Is there a period of time that they're required to Keep and store those Ballots securely 90 days. Okay. Thank you local elections are 90 days All right, um bobby. Thank you for being with us and um, please do share your perspective on On either of these issues in the in 223 I I think most small towns will support Both of these measures um to give you a little perspective on how we count our school ballots Typically marshfield has an open meeting. So we have our floor vote and we may have um An australian ballot for zoning issues and for our solid waste district Plainfield the other town in our district has australian ballot voting for their officers So at the end of the night at seven o'clock when the polls close They separate all of their town And school ballots into two separate Boxes make sure making sure they have all the school ballots and then they Send their justices of the piece to marshfield and we Sit down together put all the ballots from both towns together and count them but We don't feel that that's a safe option now with covet. We would rather not have Jps from different towns having to sit down together to count We did vote not to commingle Last year under the emergency provisions. It worked very well Marshfield counted marshfield ballots Plainfield counted plainfield ballots And we both reported our results to the school district clerk And we didn't hear any any negative issues with that We just feel like in these times. It's not really It's not a good idea to encourage people to gather if it's not necessary And as far as the petitions No one in marshfield has ever had to gather a petition. We've never we do all of our officer votes from the floor And the same is true of our school district and assuming I don't know if the governor has signed s 172 yet, but if he has the school district We'll be doing australian ballot for their officers as well And we only have until january 24th to gather signatures It's it's a lot to ask people to do right now and I worry The fear level in our community is so high. I worry that requiring signatures will make people not Not take up office I think there are people that won't be willing to run if it means they have to go We're in the middle of a reappraisal and it's Causing a lot of angst people don't want appraisers coming on their property I can't imagine that they're going to feel comfortable going around gathering signatures And I think that would bar people from running Thank you representative higley Thanks again, madam chair I'll be in regards to you know that that january 24th date being of course gone If this is past There is there must be A time frame for you to get those names on the on the Australian ballot Is that is that different for each town or is that Is there is something you still have to abide by We still have to have the The local ballots ready a number of days before the election Especially since we're trying to encourage absentee ballots. We want The ballots ready as soon as possible So so does each town make that determination? It's statutory The deadline of january 24th is in the statute So folks still have to get their names in by january 24th to get on that That's that ballot that australian ballots. Okay. Yeah, thanks If they only have to do a consent of candidate form they can do it safely Yep, thanks Carol I saw your hand up. Did you were you Answering that question or did you have something else you wanted to share? I I was answering the question but bobby beat me to it All right, uh will sending Thanks, madam chair just a quick follow-up on that one bobby's correct. It is um statutory rep higley 20 days before the election is the deadline to have the ballots prepared January 24th, which is the sixth monday before the election That is in statute as the date that the candidate consent forms need to be filed So, you know, you get your candidates filed by january 24th And then there's what you guys a couple weeks between them and 20 days before the election when the ballots technically have to be ready But what I really wanted to point out so bobby was accurate there in the previous emergency legislation that you passed The one bit of waiver authority that's provided to our office In that legislation. Sorry. I was just making sure I was right that that was the first bill Allows my office to waive particularly those deadlines That are related to an australian ballot election For any towns that move articles from a floor meeting to an australian ballot this year pursuant to that emergency authority So say they don't get around to making the decision or the there's a delay in the bill being signed If they are right up against some of those deadlines You've left it up to my office to say you can have another five days before your candidate's file or whatever We work out with that town as reasonable for their circumstances Go ahead rep Higley Thank you, madam chair that helps me Again for my own benefit If a town chooses to move either one or the other or both of their their meetings to let's say a May date You're still saying that You know, they need to 20 days before that election Uh get their names in so they can get on that ballot correct Yes, and thank you rep Higley. That's another important note to make for everybody if they take advantage of the provision that moves the date What's nice about those provisions in the law is that they're not specific dates They're tied to the date of the election So it becomes 20 days before that date you moved it to or six mondays before that date you moved it to Thank you Representative Lefebvre Thank you, madam chair So when we heard from secretary condos back on the fifth, I believe he gave us a really nice layout also of The elections backing up from the general election. Would there be something that could be put together by either mr Winters or mr sunning that would give us This detailed information to also be able to assist towns with Um Those numbers or those dates. I followed us those dates For sure rep the fave and just on top of that They're going to get a lot of communication from my office with reminders about those dates and deadlines, but definitely Um, go ahead bobby Oh, you were unmuted before and you rebuted yourself accidentally Technology's grand you think after two years um I just wanted to point out we did discuss the option of postponing our Town meetings so that we could give people Time to do a petition when they felt like it was safer, but because of the central vermont career center vote That vote will happen on March 1st and we thought it would be Not a good idea to have a meeting in march and then another meeting In april or may since we have to gather in march. Let's only do it once Makes sense. Um, committee members any other questions and um League of cities and towns karen horn. Do you want to weigh in on this bill? uh, thank you, uh, we are supportive of of this bill and um again, aren't you to pass it as soon as possible because of the Deadline for collecting signatures next monday, which has been discussed already. So thank you Absolutely All right, um committee any other perspectives you need to Hear in order to feel comfortable with these two bills All right, so representative murwiki is going to oh representative lefave Sorry, I was not fast Um, I would just like to highlight that we did get written testimony from someone that did not oppose this I mean did not support this Um, that they opposed how fast this came out of the senate. Um, I think it was s222 um that they opposed if I'm recollection correctly um and I do um I do also would like to have a little bit more committee discussion I'm about s222 um s223 um I feel much more comfortable with besides the fact um, I don't I would like one more reminder from mr. Anderson if this would also be able to do anything with people wanting to put um asking for donations for their Charities if they would have to still have um signatures or if they could just submit us their ask So I did go back and take a look at what we did last year with this specific issue And uh these wet ink signature requirement for those petitions would remain in place This bill does not suspend them. They were not suspended under the previous authority And the reason for that at least according to the notes that I kept from last year Is that the legislative body of each municipality has the ability to add those articles on their own motion So no petition needs to be submitted in order for the legislative body to add those articles to the ballot If you were to suspend the five percent of the voters minimum threshold Uh requirement then effectively one individual voter Could petition and have an article placed on the ballot for the annual meeting So, uh, they're likely would you want some middle ground there if that's something you want to pursue But again, that was not part of last year's temporary authority And this bill would not waive uh those particular signature requirements Thank you all right Just reminding committee members that we have two different Tracks here that we have possession of 222 and uh, and therefore we can Take an immediate vote on that and we have We expect to be referred to 23 when we get onto the floor at which point if If everything is going as We hope it will um the speaker would Ask for a rule suspension to take that up. So what I'd like to do right now is take a motion on 222 so that we can finish our work on that and continue To discuss uh, 223 if folks have lingering questions. So representative murwiki No, thank you, madam chair. I'd like to move that we approve s222 as it came over from the senate Right any further committee discussion representative lafave um, I Would ask that we take a look at the date of how long we are allowing this out to And ask that we reconsider this before january 15th of 2023 a lot could happen between now and then Yeah, it would be my intention that um in april Knocking on wood after we finish redistricting and before adjournment um that we would take a look at whether we can imagine some sort of metric that that could be used in order to Roll this back before next january If that is the will of the committee. So I would absolutely You know commit to having that conversation in april and would invite any of the folks who are On the call with us today to uh to give that some thought as to what you think might be a reasonable Trigger in the event that we decided we wanted to roll back that That open meeting requirement before january Any other committee discussion all right representative colston if you're ready I shall begin the roll call Gannon yes maricky yes the claire yes hooper yes colston yes anthony yes phyhopsky yes lefaye now Higley yes mccarthy oblin hanses yes And I would ask that we just keep this vote open for a few minutes In the event that rep mccarthy comes back he had Indicated earlier that he thought he might be able to be here around too um So let's just hold that open for a moment rep maricky hang tight. Um We might be able to get all 11 committee members weighing in on this Additional committee discussion. Oh rep colston um Madam chair, I missed the conversation yesterday about this. So who was selected as the reporter? Uh representative merwicky is going to report this bill. Um, and Uh, and in case folks hadn't figured it out. Um, I asked rep higley if he'd be willing to report the next bill um Which is possibly why he was asking all the really good questions Okay Okay, so I see that um rep mccarthy has joined us. Um rep mccarthy. We have just uh kept open the vote on s 222 If you would care to vote on this bill The uh temporary elections procedures relating to open meeting law I would thank you McCarthy is that a yes Yes, thank you So the the bill passes um 10 1 0 great Thank you much. Um So uh representatives colston and merwicky you'll need to communicate that with the clerk's office. Um As quickly as you are able to sort of in the background here Um in the event that we get rural suspension to bring this up today Um, so committee discussion on 223 Um, we want to be poised and ready if we get a recess on the floor to act on this So what other questions do folks have? What other perspectives would you like to hear? Excellent. All right. Um, I want to thank all of the assembled witnesses who came to share their uh their experience and wisdom and perspective on these bills and um You can tune into the house floor later today. I I hope and expect that That we will be able to move these bills along so that the communities have What they need in order to safely conduct annual meetings and And regular meetings in this really challenging time. So thank you all for being with us Thank you. Thank you committee Okay, so committee um that is all we have for uh for work at the moment on these two issues And I just wanted to come back um and make sure That we covered any other um budget adjustment related questions that folks had or if you had any thoughts During your lunch break. Um representative merwicky Thank you. I did have thoughts about that and I think I mentioned i'm going to try and get the hold of Representative townsen, but I I do hope we can keep the the money in the In that budget for those two positions that that they had been asking for I'm not sure the ration now for pulling at so quickly So That's my take on it. Thank you representative lefave Thank you, madam chair and to confirm that was the only that those two positions were what they were asking for And everything else that was being asked on the wish list was just to be added after but for what we are concerned with The budget adjustment act was those two positions being taken away from them um, I think it was the Oh representative gannon might have a thought on this so Based on my communications with representative townsen um, so You know the we're talking about the venom Vermont criminal justice council Um, they have a total appropriation for f y 21 of 2.6 million dollars There was a carry forward of two hundred and seventy six hundred thousand dollars Forward to f y 22 And so The the administration only reverted 62 thousand dollars of that amount um, and that's because Uh, as part of the carry forward process, uh, you know wants to ensure that the money's can Won't obligate future state expenditures and so the only reason it wasn't carried forward was because It could commit future expenditures It's Well, the there was a large amount that was carried forward and that was because there was open positions Based on my email with representative townsen. This isn't taking away positions from the Vermont criminal justice council so i'm a little confused by The the statements here today that positions are being taken away Because most of that money was because the ed position did not fill as quickly as they anticipated as we know That position is now filled representative hofsky Um, I certainly understand why there is extra money And I guess my question given that we heard even in testimony today from the criminal justice council that they need resources If if we can't allow them to keep that money to utilize towards some of the other things that they're saying they need resources for uh, it is a concern that um, you know that this isn't the first time we've heard them articulate that That they have been unable to achieve a legislative directive because of shortages and resources so It's it's hard to square this circle at this moment that we uh that we would support a proposal to Take money back out of their budget When we know they have some tasks that they haven't been able to get to Other committee discussion representative anthony You beat me to it. I uh Perhaps some of my colleagues could refresh my memory It wasn't clear to me that the curricular preparation for a lot of the work revolving around sensitivity to minorities Was already pardon the phrase in the can or not and i'm i'm wondering whether and this goes back to a earlier conversation um last uh session uh whether the the revision of the money is in recognition of um not not having prepared if you will To put those positions to work because the curricular is the curriculum is not completed Somebody could help me out on that i'm i'm not sure what frankly the flexibility in the current appropriation is to prepare the justice council to in fact put those two positions and that money to work Uh if it goes if it is not swept in the budget adjustment act i'm not sure that i can um enlighten on that point, but let's put that in the hopper and Rep Ganon were you were you raising your hand to respond specifically to that? Yes, phantom chair. I was um Based on the information that representative towns and gave me which came directly from Heather and mike manly The money that's reverted has nothing to do um with open positions except for the executive director position that the money the large carry forward was a result of Reduced expenses due to covet um vacancy savings from the ed position difficulties making purchases and manning managing grants and the absence of the executive director Those are the reasons stated it has nothing to do with two positions from what representative towns and deduced from her conversations with heather assignments and mike manly And i just add if we want to have a discussion about the staffing of rock criminal justice council I think the time to do that is with respect to looking at the budget not a budget adjustment act change right and the lingering question in my mind is um uh When we were talking earlier um The statement was made that uh that they have a fair and impartial police trainer who's going around the state and and um and helping to get agencies um their trainer at training and refreshers on fair and impartial policing and um You know to the extent that we want them to do that and do it faster um would having access to this 65 68 thousand dollars be helpful um and you know, they're also talking about wanting to um You know parallel some of the training that they do with new recruits in the academy around you know, sort of the history of policing and and um, you know the history of racial bias in the country and and uh Christopher brickel was talking about wanting to make sure that they extend that to sort of mid-level supervisors as well as um managerial level law enforcement officers and uh, and again that Would be a priority that I would prefer other over almost anything that I could imagine doing with this um this 68 thousand dollars so Uh representative lefate Thank you. Madam chair. Um representative gannon. Could you give me those numbers that you had in the beginning one more time? Thank you Sure, I'd be happy to um, so The overall appropriations for the Vermont criminal justice council was 2.6 Million for f y 21. There was a carry forward of two hundred and seventy six thousand dollars um of which 60 2049 dollars was reverted to the the general budget general fund Other committee discussion Representative higley This is on a different subject. Just thinking ahead a little bit Uh, so when we request that 223 Come before us. We're going to break and and then i'm assuming go back What's the best place to tell folks? To find us is it would it be our january 11th committee page under? Tucker anderson or is there a better better place to tell folks? um either that or uh as past the senate so um You know the senate gov ops page also has the bill I think it probably would be helpful and I can do it as soon as we Get off of committee probably would be helpful just to send These bills out to all house just so they have them Great. Thanks All right committee discussion Anybody want to make a recommendation on how we move forward with respect to the budget adjustment question that we've been chewing on I guess madam chair if you're looking for a motion to approve for a straw poll Don't know which but um, I guess I would I would uh approve of Of the consideration that we've been talking about um So would you approve of us recommending to the appropriations committee that um That the criminal justice council retain their budget carry forward and use it towards um police training uh No, I thought I would be supporting the appropriations committee and their request to uh Send some of it back to the general fund Okay, I just wanted to make sure that We were clear on which side of this question we were talking Other committee discussion And if that is going to confuse things madam chair, I would uh, I would certainly Uh remove my motion and and wait for another motion to come forward Well, we've got some hands up now representative gannon. Let's see if we can clarify this um I'm actually very supportive of representative higley's motion. Um, I think we would need to take more testimony if we want to Explain to appropriations why? This motion reverts the general fund um, so I mean I am sympathetic to to the needs of more training. I'm just concerned that We don't have sufficient information to provide appropriations as to why it should not revert at this point And we're running out of time representative anthony Ditto, which is why I asked a rather confusing Question about recollections because I just I couldn't follow it this morning. I was I was unconvinced frankly I know they have tasks they need to complete but boy, I didn't I didn't see a roadmap for this 68 000 Any other committee discussion? all right, I think we can uh straw poll of communication back through representative towns and um and um and rep higley's motion was to uh To support the budget adjustment recommendation that scoops the 68 000 Any other committee discussion about that? All right, if you are in favor of that, please give us a thumbs up Uh, one two three four five six seven. I see seven All right, if you are opposed to that And we must be missing two committee members. Okay Excellent, um representative bannon, would you um be so kind us to communicate that to representative towns and on the Appropriations committee, I know that you you and she have been exchanging emails about this. Yes, I will All right, excellent any other Questions comments committee discussion Are we poised and ready to act on s 223 when the When the house takes a recess? All right, well, we have gained ourselves a little bit of time to uh to get some constituent service Done with between now and three o'clock and I'll see you