 Welcome to under the dome returning to town meeting TV as part of our ongoing legislative coverage We'll be checking in with legislators from around our coverage area in the next several months Mondays at 12 p.m Actually, not in the next several months. This is we're actually wrapping up our under the dome season I think we only have one more show maybe two. We'll see But you can watch Mondays at 12 p.m You can watch online at youtube.com slash town meeting TV or on Comcast channel 1087 or Burlington telecom 17 and 217 if you have a question for our guests you can call in at 802-862-3966 and We'll get you on the air. So today we're joined by representatives from Burlington And let's just go between the two we got we got Emma in studio. We got Carol via zoom So we'll just go between the two of you and have you introduce ourselves. Let's start with Emma Great. Well, thanks. So first of all for having us on I'm represented Emma Mulvaney Stannock and I represent which is still numbered for the moment Chittenden 6-2 It will become Chittenden 17 I believe after the redistrict will be which will be the next session or the next campaign cycle But that is roughly the west side of the old North End and the southern third of the new North End And it's a one-seat district Carol All right, so let's just get right into it on committee work I know we're wrapping up the session here. So there's a lot of good stuff to get to And we can start with Emma your committee heard some testimony On a few bills last week s 11 and s 247 you were telling me there's some interesting things going on there So would you want to dive in? Yeah, absolutely? Well, this is really one for the political science nerds out there because I serve on house commerce and economic development And that is a a committee that often only works on a limited number of bills And that the reason why is that we throw a lot into one or two very large bills They're called usually omnibus bills and that is essentially what s 11 has turned into so for all of the Those who are running to your legislative Search engines s 11 will read like it's a bill about robo calls And this is a lesson for what happens at the very end of a session where we needed a vehicle a bill To put two other bills which had multiple policy ideas into it because of Timeline and procedure issues between the senate chamber and the house chamber So don't be disappointed if you go to find s 11 and there's nothing in there actually about robo calls Minus the title so what it actually is in in its um sort of Innerds if you will is what was h 703 which is currently in the senate Which was an economic development bill with about 20 different ideas in it that we pass out the house Back in march and then also h 159 which the how the senate passed to us Which is basically a workforce development bill and these are two major policy areas that my committee works on And I can do not have the time nor do I think people would stay awake if I went through all like 40 different ideas in there But i'll just mention a few of them that stand out. Um, so in h 703 Which was I might have inverted them this 703 is actually the workforce development bill And these ideas I just want to put a big asterisk. We're not at the end of the session yet There's a lot of stuff that will happen between now and about a week from now That will go into a conference committee So what I'm saying now may not be the final product of the bill, but as of right now at least house commerce position is We've done a few things around the idea of trying to help Folks return to the workforce in vermont. We've had a workforce, not necessarily shortage. I don't love that word. We've had workers Deciding not to go back to low wage jobs that might have certain working conditions that they did not did not agree with With unreliable work schedules, whatever it might be But there's a lot of employers searching for for for folks at this point So we're trying to figure out how to get people into critical occupations and also make sure that we have a workforce that's Agreeable for workers so they can make decent wages and you know and work in places that have a career option for them So you'll see in 703 a lot of investments to try to keep people in vermont There's a a $5,000 incentive for graduates of vermont colleges who would be willing to stay here for two years Basically a grant if they agree to stay here and work for a vermont employer We have a lot of investment in career technical centers in vermont Which would be helping to not only for high school students in cte's but adult education programs that are also woven into those programs To help them offer more to their communities including a big investment of a revolving loan fund for construction trade programs within cte's to build Affordable housing or an also up fit lighted properties within Regions around cte's there's about 15 of them around the state So we thought that was really like a moment of getting two policies. We really need advanced in one We're investing more in our department of labor to help folks Have staff there to help them find career advancing jobs in their regions There's certainly regions that there's plenty of options like burlington and others where it's a little harder You know in the northeast kingdom etc Two pieces in 703 before I move on to the economic development side that stand out is that we We put in money within our department of corrections So just as involved individuals which are folks who've been in our correction systems our community members as well and when they often return from the Facilities and after they've served their their sentences There's not a whole lot of workforce support for them to successfully Reintegrate into communities have employers ready to employ them to you know provide flexible schedules for folks who are trying to navigate Checking in with their parole or doing other you know things to make them sort of regrounded in their communities So we have put in money for a pilot program to be run out of the chitin facility To really think about the continuity of services So you know working with folks when they're in the facility But then the six months after they're out of the facility to make sure as I mentioned their employers are ready to support them And they have what they need to be successful Then there's also a piece vermont has training Within our facilities for folks to sort of get job skills while while serving time However, it's not they're not being prepared for skills that exist in vermont We have we're pretty well known to have a sign making facility and a furniture making facility And some of our our sites in the in the state of vermont And you can't you're not going to you know leave the facility and find a sign making job for example So we're trying to also invest money in this bill within department of corrections to really rethink and modernize how we're preparing folks When they return The one other thing I'll say in this and then this bill is forever long So you can pause me with any follow-ups in the phones. I'm sure we're going to start ringing any minute now carol so, you know, that's a joke just to Get some humor in the mix because there's so much in this bill But the other piece we've been learning about uh since I've been a legislator in the last two years Is how much more we need to do to really understand bi-poch vermonters black indigenous people of color in the state and their And their experience in the workforce and in sort of the business economic development world So I I think this is a first time investment, but we are investing $250,000 we'll see if that stays in there to help with career development networking Job coaching but also business development money is for bi-poch Businesses and bi-poch professionals. I think that's first time ever investment for the state of vermont I'm proud of house commerce for putting that forward We learned a lot during the pandemic when we tried to get money from the state for business Grants to keep businesses open how very little the state knew about bi-poch owned businesses and could even Didn't even know where they were connected So we're really trying to move the needle to do intentional investments in that part of our vermont community Any questions so far before I move over to workforce or have your eyes glazed over? It's a long list Fascinating that like a lot is going into those bills. Yes. Yes. That's a lot. Yeah Can I give three brief updates on the workforce side of it? Then I will stop. I promise to share that airtime as I said We work on like two major bills essentially and that's why you see like, you know four months of work in two bills So what was h 159 was um a bill that was coming over from the senate within that is are some more business relief grants It's going to turn into forgivable loans and how we I think are going to finally Manages for businesses that are still trying to recover from the from covet and from the pandemic I think we could we could have done a little bit better This is my take on it around some criteria beyond the arpa federal funds criteria for how that money gets used But I am glad that there's some technical assistance in there to help businesses actually access that money That has been another struggle is that folks aren't always ready with a profit loss statement and other criteria needed To access grants. We've done in the past and this forgivable loan that's coming up So hopefully it's accessible But we also are getting the money to those who really need it and not businesses that are doing Okay, and didn't need that um infusion of public dollars The other thing I'll just lift up here is around covet paid, uh, the covet worker paid leave program in this bill Which I think is going to be a very important piece for employers and for workers It's one of the only real worker oriented pieces in this entire massive bill I've been trying to describe and essentially it will um repeat what the federal government had Running for a good portion of the pandemic But it's expired where basically if you run out of sick leave or you don't have much sick leave Anyway, and you get coveted or you have to support someone for a covet related reason This is going to be a state um fund program to help employers. It's voluntary employers don't have to participate It's kind of like the hazard pay program But basically they can apply and get um most of the employees salary covered so that you can have it Basically extended paid leave to if you're out with a covet related issue and this would run for um the next fiscal year for the state So that would be july coming up through the june of next year And as we've probably all seen an experience at this point There's going to be surges as schools reopen and wintertime etc So we're really hoping this can really support employers who want to do the right thing Keep people employed and not have to take unpaid leave to simply because they um are exposed to covet or have covet So i'll pause there because there's a lot more Now what is so what's the remaining process for this bill like what what other Systems does this bill have to go through before It gets signed into law sure So s 11 will will act like its own bill even though has all these bill ideas in there that have sort of been touched by the senate And house already so s 11 will be on the floor tomorrow tuesday We may or may not end on friday, believe it or not So it will this will be one of the last bills finalized But this will present it as house commerce on the floor Of course the body can amend or vote it up or down in the house And then it goes back to the senate and the senate gets to decide if they concur Or they want to make further amendments or they want to go straight to a conference committee And so if I suspect you i'm a newbie, but I suspect the senate will say to our s 11 bill Let's just go to conference since this has really three other bills attached to it or two other big bills And then and then eventually when it's a conference committee Um Goes to conference committee it comes back to both chambers, but you only get a yes no vote on it It's not no longer debate. It's no longer amendable. You can debate it And then again, this will probably be one of the last bills will pass since there's a lot of money in it as well Okay Fascinating. Yeah All right, let's go let's go to carol So carol you're on the you're on the house committee on ways and means and just in case we didn't mention it before Emma's committee is the house committee on commerce and economic development. That's right. Yeah So carol, what have you been working on in your committee? I know we have s 287 was something that you were looking at last week that I highlighted here, but anything you'd like to talk about Well, I'd like to talk about s 287 because it did pass the house overwhelmingly right last week um In the 1990s the ramon supreme court in the brigham decision said that um Students were entitled to substantially equal access to educational opportunity across vermont And after that decision the legislature passed act 60 Since then there's been act 68 But part of that law dealt with how to collect property taxes and other taxes on a statewide basis to fund education And today that looks like residential primary homes income-based Revenue into the state coffers Non-residential property taxes from stores and factories and ski areas second homes and then other Taxes such as sales tax rooms and meals tax and lottery so That's the collection side of the formula and that We were not focused on what we focused on was um The way the taxes are then distributed that revenue is then distributed or how you have access to that revenue um, and so Even though act 60 later became act 68 there was a funding flaw that persisted and that flaw Was in how students are weighted in a school funding formula So under the original weights in the formula an elementary student counted as 1.0 and a high school student counted as 1.25 To reflect the additional resources needed to pay for high school students education So we've all been to school We can all think of high school sports and extracurricular activities and language requirements and more That make it more expensive to pay for a high school education than an elementary education Similarly extra resources are needed for academic success of children in poverty Middle school students and English language learners now known as English learners So in 2017 in my first weeks in the state house I introduced a bill to fix that flaw And the result was a bill that came out a law that came That required a study to determine the correct way to account for students in the distribution portion of the formula using those Using what would be after the study corrected student weights So finally this year the senate and the house is having each voted to Yes to implementing the results of that weighting by increasing the weights for English learners High school poverty rural schools and middle schools And that change is set to occur in the 24 25 school year The senate passed the bill over to us in that in our house Our committee made changes to their bill but kept the weights that the senate also recommended and now We'll see whether they Concur with the work that we did and then it would just go to the governor or whether they would Not concur and have a conference committee and make additional changes And that's where that bill is great Can I just add something or at least ask carol? Because carol the and i'm so appreciative of you starting the whole process really that led us to 287 Can you just mention how burlington in particular the impact that the weight looking at the weights per people Would have in burlington. I don't mean to interview you, but I think it's such an important piece. No, I'm glad you asked that yeah, um It would mean a if well looking at 2020 figures and with a lot of caveats It would mean that at the same amount of money that Burlington taxpayer is paying today We would be able to raise 16 percent more dollars to spend On programs a new high school bond and so forth. So it gives us added um capacity at the same tax rate to improve our schools Thanks for asking. Yes. No, I think it's I think it's important for particularly burlington and wanouski And anywhere there's sort of the tax and capacity issue. It's been an issue It's this is going to be a real significant change for what we are able to do for our students here in burlington And in particular our english learner students This is this is a big deal. It's only I just want to emphasize. This is a big deal moment It's such a big deal. It's um And and yet it should have been a small deal. It should have been that over all these years We were always correcting those weights We didn't start out with the correct weights when act 60 passed. Um, we only even had english language weights because um We worked especially this was uh, he was a superintendent george cross at the time He since was a state representative And now he's retired from that but um, you know trying to get uh Trying to Put in the formula what we needed Uh to recognize that there are extra costs involved with teaching english language learners and so The weight was in insufficient and finally with this study. We had um empirical evidence data that showed Yes, the weights were wrong. They were very underweighted students poverty students students um english language The high school students had gone from The correct weight and it could put down we never had enough weight for the rural kids We just didn't have this formula corrected also Now we know that um updating these weights will happen on a more regular basis, but Um, probably don't vary so much from year to year. It would take great educational Shift in how we provide education for the weights to be dramatically Changed in future years, but we do know that we have the correct weights in the formula now So it's and and it's going to be just wonderful for being able to provide Equal access to educational opportunity across the state and in burlington Which will help our property taxpayers and will help um our our schools and our city thrive. Yeah That's great. I mean, this is uh, I mean and this is also like this is a national issue Like this type of this question about school funding and and properly weighting students Is like a national problem. So the fact that we're dealing with this in vermont at this time is is really great Do we do you know if our where are other states doing this? Are we like ahead of the pack as vermont often likes to be or We're definitely have a very different education funding system because we are We decide we decided Our constitution Requires um that that we have an education clause in our constitution and The basis of the um decision in brigham in the late 1990s Was based on our constitution putting In the constitution itself there it established public schools. It was the only government service included in the constitution. So Relying on that um our constitutional basis for equal educational opportunity um The court came to the conclusion that we needed that and we said And with act 60 we share we pool all of the property tax wealth in the state Plus some other revenue sources that I mentioned earlier and we use that for all of our children That doesn't we are unique in that way Yeah Now there are foundation formulas in other states, which we had a foundation formula before we had Act 60 and the brigham decision Where weights are used and that's where the whole idea of weights We had weights in the foundation formula and we carried them over but not enough attention was paid to them at the time And so now we are rectifying that interesting All right. Um, I guess a decent segue here is um going into Issues that are particularly important to communities in burlington things that you think are really important to your constituents We'll start with emma. Do you have anything you'd like to yeah? I wanted to close a loop on um several Burlington charter change items. So the way that it works in um in vermont is that when a town like the like burlington Wants to change its charter, which is essentially the local constitution if you will that underlines how and How and what a local town can do in terms of local ordinance Uh, so we had one two three four. We had five I don't know if that's a record care But we had five that we we approved between about one to two years ago And and that's go through the town meeting process And then it comes to the legislature and the legislature ultimately gets to Determine if the town is able to amend its charter We weigh in more on certain towns than others depending on the topic and so uh, burlington as I said had five The airport change the airport commission. Um, we added two seats to that that was moved through h 454 last Actually, it was passed by the senate this beginning of this session. So that is out and signed by the governor So that has been um on its way to being implemented by the city H448 was the thermal energy piece which is around allowing the the city to start to explore Looking at fees and assessments related to this is a larger piece of climate change and looking at how to encourage new buildings And maybe in the future other buildings Um to move off of fossil fuels into more renewable energy sources to heat Um, this doesn't change anything at the moment just enables the city to start to explore an ordinance change or a fee structure And if anything was related to fees it would have to go back to burlington voters But they needed to go through this, you know, elongated process to get the charter Amended and then the legislature to weigh in that should be headed to uh, the the governor at this point It passed through the senate about a week or so ago and it already been through the house Um h 7 0 8 was around just cause evictions This one is one that I know a lot of people paid attention to both renters as well as landlords in burlington That had an interesting journey through the house But it went through the house And was adopted by the senate as well and is off to the governor and that allows basically people to have renters I believe it's after one year of renting because there were some changes along the way to Have uh for a landlord to have have to have a just cause reason to evict someone right now. It's pretty minimal And the housing your discrimination Laws are exist, but it's very hard to prove discrimination as a reason And then of course if you can't prove that if it was a whole other reason People tenants are really in a pretty vulnerable position 7 0 8 Now that if it gets passed on by the governor again The city would have to go through the ordinance drafting process So none of this even these concepts are approved none of the actual details have been worked out yet That's the city it goes back to the city. They take like the third step of this process And then the final to h744 Is what ranked choice voting got put into and that is for city council races only and that would be how we vote on city council candidates and essentially would rank your choices versus having a winner take all Structure that is let's see it passed out of the house. It's over in the senate I I believe it's going to make it through this session But again, we'll see what the governor does and the final one was most recently passed this last march Which was updating obsolete sex worker language within our charter the house of ill-refutist folks might recall And we are updating that language, but state law prevails here on this particular policy issues However, it's still really important at least in my opinion I'm sure keller would agree with me to remove pretty sexist language out of our charter Even though state law prevails on this particular policy and that is coming to the floor of the house This week, I don't know if we'll make it by the end, but it's a pretty minimal policy idea So I imagine we might be able to get that through the senate to the governor before the end of the session Carol same question issues Also, I would like to point out that emma led the berlington delegation on getting those charter changes through absolutely every week Worked on that more than once a week. Thank you carol. So the There's a lot that goes on. Yes, it's a lot of work to do. Yeah. Yep. Thank you first well, um, a lot of Some priorities that I heard about when I went door to door were Cost of living taxes affordability One of those is about social security and we had We had a bill now where anyone living a law now that anyone living exclusively on social security is receiving those social security benefits tax free But this february the house passed h510 And that's a bill that would help middle income seniors keep more of their social security benefits By increasing the 2018 social security exemption by $5,000 to $50,000 for single filers and to $60,000 for married filers including a benefit phase out over the next $10,000 of income and that bill is In other bills right now and then the child tax credit until recently Federally, there was a child tax credit that put money directly into the wallets and checkbooks of families with children And this credit helped people pay for rent child care and food Nationally that credit reduced food insecurity by 25 And for parents with more income the credit helped toward mortgage payments as well as credit card Um payments car payments and student loan debt So in february the house passed h501 I actually cosponsored that bill Which would create a vermont version of the vermont child of the child tax credit So it'd be a vermont child tax credit And this payment of a hundred dollars per month for a child six and under would lift families with young children out of poverty And would also encourage young families to move to vermont or to stay in vermont and thrive These were these were things that I heard about when I was going door to door This focus on young families addresses two goals. It reduces poverty for young children and helps meet our demographic challenges That The way it came out of our house has changed So that Only well it has changed and we'll be we'll be going to conference committee to um to advocate for that For the way It came out of the house Which is what I just described Those are a couple things I can go on but I'll wait for another question Well, we're actually we're running short on time here. We have about two minutes left So I think if we have enough time for just like a short Statement from each of you just a wrap-up Thought or idea before we go We can start with emma Wrap up thought well, there's so much moving this week So I I always wanted to say that um I want to encourage folks to reach out if they have any questions Even if it's a topic that carol and I didn't cover we we have touched a ton of different topics over the course of this session And by anym We'll both be out. I don't know if carol is seeking reelection Relection time is right around the corner. So we'll be out and try and engage with voters soon It'll be very different than my first run two years ago, which was the height of covet So I'm looking forward to door knocking and engaging with folks So folks can always reach out through social media or email or by phone And I just really want to emphasize I especially for constituents in my district I really try to engage with folks. So I want to hear what people are thinking I want to help with questions That's that's our job. So I'm here to here to help Great thanks Emma and carol As emma said Also, I am here to help and I am also running for reelection and I am out collecting signatures on my Petition something that two years ago we couldn't do because of the height of covet and I look forward to hearing more about what your issues and concerns are for vermont and what your ideas are for how to make it better and Um I'll continue to focus on the priorities that I hear when I speak with you and listen to you and I'll try to bring real solutions for your priorities when I'm doing that Great. Thank you carol and thank you both for joining us And thank you for tuning in to under the dome We'll take a brief hiatus next week then return may 16th with legislators erin brady and james mccullough You can watch this and other local political coverage on our website at cctv.org Our youtube channel or our channels at comcast channel 1087 Burlington telecom 17 and 217. Thank you. See you next week