 and guests I would like us to start today with a moment of silence because it is National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Day and this we need to honor those law officers who have lost their lives both because of this and for other reasons and also those who serve us so I'd like to start with a moment of silence. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Can we start by having just a brief discussion of what happened yesterday on the floor? I think Brian that you did a really good job of reporting it and of answering the questions. There was no question in my mind about that. I I do not understand the the resistance here and most of these already had their budgets prepared I mean they're not their meetings were set for March 23rd and May 2nd and they're not preparing new budgets they've already got them prepared they just can't meet so so let's just debrief just a tiny bit about that who wants to weigh in? Well I'll weigh in because I was given that I represent one of the villages that still hasn't met. I was going to jump in but it's the zoom context is sort of awkward enough so that I I wanted to to weigh in and mention Peter's comment about particularly after Ann said they would double the budgets when Peter had said specifically they're all in Brattleboro at the representative meeting double it adds to their budget that you know that there's no likelihood that that anybody in this atmosphere and in this COVID context is going to be doubling a budget that was a I thought a bizarre thing to be talking about but also we there are a lot of villages that do their meetings after town meeting and and we were set to go and we're now put off till June sometime and and who knows this would have been very helpful for for the Village of Woodstock and I and I regret not having stepped up and and said that in in the context of the floor but I it was it's awkward anyway I'm still getting used to floor action and speaking on the floor well I will tell you one thing that I got it I got a note from Tim that said well maybe we should set a default for towns and my response to that is we have no business doing that the reason we have it the reason we interfere with the the education tax is because it's a statewide education tax so whatever one town does has an impact on another town but when you have municipal and village budgets it only affects them and we have no business in my opinion as the state telling them what they should do with their budget so I don't know where the rest of you are on that or not but I would I will resist anything any attempt to do that so Chris sorry one two things one is I was asked to step in and join a meeting quote-unquote in the pro tem's office on something an act 250 so I'd like to do that and come back but the other thing is to weigh in I agree with you completely on the direction you're going it would seem I never heard of just starting to dictate budgets that way and we elect people we can unelect people we counted them to use their their judgment and I don't know why we would get so involved in talking about municipal budgets other than to try to allow them to pass them so yes I agree Anthony and then Brian actually I wasn't there when this happened yesterday I had to leave early the floor to go to the doctor's appointment but this was just to allow the towns to pass their budgets right without having a full meeting is that what this is about it would allow the select the legislative body to and there was a yeah to adopt the budget and set the tax rate I guess that not having been I'm so surprised that there was so much resistance just seems weird yeah Brian well first of all madam chair I want to thank you for your support with your comments today but also on the floor yesterday and I I tried to make the point that we were talking only about municipal budgets we weren't talking about school budgets or anything else if that's an issue for people then let that be in another bill or another way to handle it all we were doing in my view was to afford those towns and villages who had not yet met the same flexibility that we gave to those that had met and wanted to take advantage of being able to change their municipal budget it had nothing to do with education or even the penalties all it was was to adopt the budget so frankly I didn't really understand the connection between that and school districts and everything else that Senator Baruth brought up if I can be a little indiscreet here I am going to say that I think that when you reported it Philip had a question senator Baruth had a question before we actually did the amendment and I understand that that's why I said Mr. President there is an amendment and I so once the amendment was passed and or once we explained the amendment and it just took the wind out of the sails but there had to be still resistance that's the way I see this I'm not sure how else to see it but because there was concern if it could have impacted the schools so there's a legitimate concern and Tucker took care of it yeah and I guess my question now is how do we address this going forward because I'd like to change opinions before our next vote in Tuesday on Tuesday well I I think that I mean it will pass there are a few people who might still vote against it I would rather not have the debate on the floor again but if we do we're going to have to I guess I think it will pass and it will hopefully be on for it will be on for third reading tomorrow and there were some very specific questions that were asked of Brian and we need to make sure that he has the exact answers like what happens on July 1st if a town doesn't have a budget they can't pay their bills they can't collect taxes is that so maybe we can have Karen and Tucker weigh in on that so that Brian you have the answers to those questions that were raised Tucker Karen one of you jump in so I can jump in this and horn and thank you very much for your support on the floor yesterday Senator Comer I think you did a really good job I did I did just a few minutes ago try to call Senator Baruth and I will try to call Senator Hardy also and Senator Cummings to ask them what you know what we can do to allay their fears if you don't have a budget you I don't believe you can assess taxes right so you're gonna not be able to pay your employees or and or any of your other obligations there are you know as Senator Colomora said a few villages that have later dates actually Woodstocks is June 9th Senator Clarkson yeah no I know yeah oh you do okay I'm right in the center of Woodstock some of them some of them are actually doing mailing out absentee ballots to everybody some of them are working out how to do like drive-by voting but several of them haven't made any decision yet because it's complicated right now how you actually might get a vote together I also wanted to mention that at two o'clock when I go to the House Information Committee that's to address the legislation that came from the Senate around school districts that don't have budgets so we're trying to keep those two issues very separate also and the municipal budget does not affect state revenues it doesn't it's not tied to budgets and other municipalities so I want to make that clear to the senators also I believe that in addition to not being able to collect taxes if you don't have a budget as I remember from being on the Putney select board you can't spend anything so even had a reserve right even if you had a reserve you could not spend because it hasn't been authorized to be in the budget so you couldn't so come July if your payroll was due on July 13th you couldn't do it even if you had the funds my understanding is it works the same way the state budget does if you don't have a budget on your debt and your tracks right so I think that's a great response for all of our to all of our colleagues well whether it'll make any difference or not I'm we'll see well it was a puzzlement to me so the other the other one that I think is important and I may be wrong on this but the if I go backwards from June 30th to today I'm not sure there is time to warn a meeting anyway even if it was done by mailing out if you for example in Woodstock their meeting is set for July or for June 9th I think you said so they've already warned the meeting and they've already done that but new a new thing I got an email from Chris Campany this morning who's on the board of trustees they their meeting was set for May 2nd they would have to re-warn I believe an election and meeting to be held by mailing out because their meeting date has already passed and I don't believe there's time for them to do that in order to have a vote by June 30th I may be wrong about that but this is May 15th and by the time they got a warning put together and mailed out the warning or posted the warning and then I might be wrong and then got ballots printed so no it's in some cases they don't they don't have ballots necessarily printed because they don't do them by Australian ballot like Brattleboro just does it by the town meeting vote at the town meeting right so I believe they do I think the smaller villages definitely do so anyway okay well Brian do you feel comfortable enough to tomorrow to respond to a couple of those yeah I knew I would ask either Tucker or Karen to just send me an email with with that those thoughts I think it was Cheryl Hooker that asked the question that sort of stopped the process and that was the one about what if a town or village doesn't have a budget by July 1st so I could also reach out to her individually and I think that might be a good way to do it so that what I'm hoping is assuming I get those pieces of information that we don't have any more questions and that third reading comes up and we vote on it and then we message it back the other body quickly I think that Senator Hooker was trying to support you oh she was okay I think that was the intent of her question ah okay I didn't understand that but now that you say that way I think I definitely think it was yeah madam chair I think Peter was on the call also okay Peter do you want to weigh in thank you and thank you senator Collin Moore for the leadership on behalf of the committee and senator white for you know leading the community was in all of you hello I said for poking her nose in oh yeah and and for all of you we we really appreciate the strong support that you're providing for this you understand the situation and you're trying to convince the colleagues that are trying uncertainty so thank you for that I would just echo what Karen has already said about the ability to just keep functioning what we're talking about here is continuity of government and you know I obviously people can argue about the accountability of elected officials to their voters and whether individual elected officials or individual bodies might act in a way that others might view as they're responsible but I think the bottom line is that select boards need to be accountable for that like they're accountable for all their other actions and in this moment we some of us a handful of communities across the state don't have a way forward to maintain continuity of government on July 1st and after and you've got a nice clear simple solution to that that's near the finish line and I appreciate that there's anything that we can do in terms of directly contacting the skeptical senators please let us know and we're happy to do that I would suggest perhaps that the if any of those villages or towns that do not yet have a budget are in any of those jurisdictions that they contact or that they contact their senators regardless of which jurisdiction they're in yeah Barry is in and so Chris thank you so let me know if you discuss this while I was away for 10 minutes one of the things that came up in the floor yesterday was the impact on the rest of the state should budgets be voted x y or z way and I didn't you know a senator said well because municipal and education rates are added together yes there'll be an impact but those to me that they've always been independent travelers and I don't see of any impact so I just want to verify that setting a municipal rate is a municipal impact only choice and the it's not going to have a potential deleterious effect on revenues of the state in some other way that I've never heard of before I think that her what her comment was was that yes but you add the two together and it affects your tax rate she didn't actually say that it would impact the state education but the implication was that because it affects the tax rate but you're right they are two separate tax rates and when you get your tax bill it says education municipal well and this has always been true at least I've been around and select board members are incredibly sensitive to what they're asking their citizens to pay knowing full well that it's going to stack on top of the education rate so I don't I don't know how there's anything new here that would merit constraining them so Brian I think that you just need to make sure that you have the answer to that so that you can stand up and clearly deflect that I think I do thank you all right so do we need to do anything more about this issue and I really apologize to those communities out there I I think Brian did a great job I was taken aback by the by the resistance well if I'd done an absolutely great job that would have gone through on third reading and be now a situation the house was dealing with or if you've done a really great job there might have been more resistance oh okay all right so let's um I think we're okay on that um Brian if you have more questions or need more stuff from either Karen or Tucker oh I'm gonna just yeah I'll let them know my email right now what I need okay and Anthony you should get a rundown on it sometime it was pretty interesting so thank you Karen Peter always go back and stream it oh right it's if you do that it's the last 10 minutes of the meeting right you know so you the truth after being on zoom all day the last thing I'm going to do afterwards is go on YouTube to watch us to do oh yes okay all right but thank you for this suggestion Karen yeah Senate floor is must see viewing on Friday night it's it's your viewing pleasure okay so let us now um we also talk right before we get into the law enforcement thing we're talking about is um we talked about next week's schedule we apparently are going back to our regular floor schedule Tuesday at 9 Wednesday at 1 Thursday at 1 and or Tuesday 9 30 and Friday at 11 30 so what we talked about was this committee meeting Tuesday from 1 to 4 30 and I know that's a long time and we'll try to keep it shorter but we can also take like a 10 minute break in between and in judiciary Senator Sears always gives us a break in the middle and they just um Peggy somehow puts it on just mutes it and puts little pictures up in front of everybody so she turns off the video and and then Wednesday from after the floor till 4 4 30 and Thursday the same and then Friday from 1 to 3 or 4 whatever we need does that work Anthony is Chris gone away again no no I'm here saying oofa um yeah oofa two hours and two hours of zooming like the maximum for a human brain but whatever no so we'll try to keep it shorter because I think we're in pretty good shape maybe maybe we could schedule Tuesday 1 to 4 that's already adding yeah okay that's three hours straight that's and we may not need it so I do yeah 1 to 4 and then end of yeah I think the other bits great and then Friday we'll just do 1 to 3 we won't schedule 1 to 4 that's silly okay all right so the things we have to do next week is I think we need to look at some budget things that if there's a budget issues from the age departments that we deal with that they want to request in the budget adjustment other than EMS so I'll put a word out to public safety and emergency management Erika and the Treasurer's Office and just see if there are any budgetary issues that that they need feel they need addressed in but budget adjustment and then the court has asked us to look at one issue around the judiciary that has to do with government operations I'm not even sure what it is but Pat Gable just sent me a note so I'll talk to her and we'll put that on for Tuesday okay so let's go now to um 124 Betsy are you with us still hey Betsy Ann hello so what I thought we would do here is we took out a bunch of stuff from 124 when we did the EMS but that we there are some things in here that are not COVID related but should pass so I thought we would go over some of those particularly today around the law enforcement because I think that's about what's left so Betsy had sent us and is it on today's document the yes there is a yeah there's a summary of s124 as was originally passed out of Senate Gov off refresh your page refresh your browser so as you look at the summary oh there it is yeah okay I guess I went in yeah that's probably the easiest okay all right so do you want to kind of walk us through that so we can see and I'm not sure who we have with us um around this I'm trying to look at the participant list here we have it looks like uh 1802 whoever that is Drew Matt Birmingham Nolan Mark Anderson I don't know who that pink person is oh Gwen maybe anyway okay so let's do you want to walk us through start walking us through this and I actually think Vinsaluzzi was going to join us also did you send him an invite Gail yes I did okay thanks okay Betsy all right Betsy do you want to start us for the record Betsy and Rask legislative council so as you recall s124 um as passed out of Senate Gov ops on the last day that we are in the state house together um addressed law enforcement dispatch EMS and public safety planning uh you pulled out some of the EMS provisions for what became s182 which the governor signed yesterday um but none of the law enforcement provisions were taken out of s124 so none of those have moved since you last um addressed them so this summary uh that is up here just gives a high level overview of what those law enforcement proposed amendments were and if we're looking at this together here on page one it starts out with proposed amendments in regard to the criminal justice training council and um section one is just a technical correction section two get into more substantive changes specifically amending the membership of the council so big picture what this would do would take the council from 12 to 16 members it would specify who 13 of those members are and then it would provide the governor senate and house with each uh each having one public member appointee who doesn't have a law enforcement connection do you want me to pause after each one madam chair for a discussion or do you just want me to go through them what would what would be your preference committee to just look at each one as we go through so that we can um decide where we want to be and that might make more sense it might be more time effective yes okay or time efficient rather effective efficient okay so i have had a request from uh the head of law enforcement in the dmv to have to because i had suggested adding um somebody from fish and wildlife and then had a request to also add to the head of enforcement from dmv oh were they talking about the law enforcement advisory board oh that's the law enforcement advisory board not here yes uh so the commissioner commissioner of motor vehicles is already on the council you did add or you proposed to add um the head of a fish and wildlife enforcement to the leab leab okay great okay thank you thank you for that clarification so i guess i have nothing anybody have any comments on this um matt uh mark anybody out there would you like to weigh in i'm not hearing anybody am i missing anybody okay i guess we're okay with section two as we have it in the bill okay all right then the bill gets into the topic of having different training options for law enforcement officers um section four would require the council to adopt rules regarding alternate routes to certifications aside from the training provided that the police account that's not sounding good is that betsey you're cutting out i think hey and betsey betsey can you hear us yeah you we cannot understand you it's going it sounds like i can it sounds can everybody else understand her no it sounds like something from star wars or one of those um uh washboard um things that you pull the twang on sounds fine to myself sound fine now you sound okay okay let's try it again maybe it's my internet connection it was your internet okay it was like slow mo all right well tell me if it happens again uh did you hear me on section four about the alternate routes or alternate training not really okay so i'll start over section four would require the council to adopt rules regarding alternate routes to certification aside from the training provided at the police academy and it would require the council to strive to offer courses in different areas of the state and non overnight course is one possible your second any comments on that uh i i would say this this incorporates one of our lessons learned which is we need to be building flexibility and alternate training paths and alternate everything um as we look to be resilient and respond to unforeseen circumstances in state government so i think actually this supports uh a lot of our lessons learned out of uh covid crisis and i believe if i'm not mistaken i believe that the um they're all ready working on this so this just would reinforce it and actually put it fire under the feet so yeah okay all right can i yeah maybe you already said i just did not big deal but remember with leo and clep you are oh uh leo is law enforcement officer that's just the abbreviation i use okay and then what was the other one clep oh clep yeah that's the club learning uh what is that college it's it's like it's um lifelong learning you can apply lessons learned by either your job or by just being alive and breathing and you have to justify them but that's what it is yeah that's where we got to college right john johnson johnson state had an external degree program that um was heavily involved in that thanks yes specifically it stands for college level examination program and that's in section five so that that's um section five is in regard to the ability of an officer to transition from level two to level three remember the issue right now is that the way the council programs are set up um is that if you're level two you have to completely restart the training over again to become level three so this section five would require the council to restructure its programs so that next july um a level two officer could use portfolio experiential learning or that club testing to get to the level three without having to restart the process okay all right section six is just a report back on how that's going uh were there any questions first on section five or six then from anybody out there i see no committee members raising their hands how about anybody else out there supportive non-supportive questions i center white it's uh mark anderson thank you overall i've uh so mark anderson sheriff windham county for the record i'm also a member of the criminal justice training council um i'm not here to speak on behalf of the council uh and carif bonyak uh is currently tied up with an emergency so he can't attend right now but i hope he can join eventually uh overall in my conversations with various people um on the council and within law enforcement there's not really too much that's um i would say is controversial in those sections okay thank you all right moving right along all right um section seven is mostly a clarification but it just makes explicit that one law enforcement agency can seek certification from the council for any in-service training it provides not only to its own officers but officers of another agency so for example vermont state police might provide training and then if officers that are not within vsp take that training they can get credit for that training that vsp provides if they get vsp gets certification from the council any questions or concerns about that okay moving right along to the top of page two this is about uh a requirement for a potential hiring law enforcement agency to contact an officer's current agency to get an analysis of the officer's performance at that agency i'm going to bug out here for one second okay so you already put in the law it's already a requirement that a potential hiring agency has to contact the officer's former agency if the officer's no longer employed there but what this would do is add on to that requirement to say if an officer is still employed at an agency and is looking for work elsewhere the potential hiring agency has to contact that current agency to get an analysis of the officer's performance at that agency and there's a transitional provision in section nine that would waive this requirement in case there's an existing nondisclosure agreement that would prohibit this disclosure but then once that nondisclosure agreement terms ended an agency or an officer would be subject to this uh this requirement and i think we're brian so if i'm i'm just trying to think of an example that's so if i work for the woodstock police department but i'm interested in moving to the Hartford police department i better make darn sure that the woodstock police department is aware that i've made an application or they're going to go in essence not behind my back but they're they're going to be contacting my current woodstock employer and it would put me in an awkward position if i wasn't up front about it correct yes and actually the the language in the statute first requires the officer to execute a written waiver that explicitly authorizes the potential hiring agency to contact the current agency so there will be that explicit agreement yes go ahead and contact my current agency um but you're right the big picture is the officer's got to be comfortable with that idea of the potential hiring agency contacting their current employer thank you allison um i have um well the plus of the there are a couple pluses uh there you remember the poaching issue that we have dealt with is big and so this this i would hope would sort of um reduce some of the the poaching one agency from another i guess my question really came with the non-disclosure agreements i mean to me that would be a red flag as an employer looking at an employee if there was a something i couldn't see or something i couldn't understand about that was in a non-disclosure agreement um i'm not sure i fully understand why i can't remember this conversation about why we needed this section nine um as i remember and i would ask um maybe matt or mark to weigh in on this um was i remember um currently what happens is this is we have done the same thing around educators over the past couple years is that you currently you are not required to contact the current employer so if you have somebody who's a bad apple and wants to move someplace else there's no way of knowing that so we heard early on from that when we were dealing with the covid stuff that this was considered a necessary pass but not related to covid so i would just ask um mark and matt if you wanted to weigh in on this just a bit i i certainly can that's okay madam chair yes please uh for the record me and director of the state police uh we currently i the state police currently um request and requires a waiver from every applicant for past employment records so we're already doing this as a matter of practice um so i can only say that i um supported and i think it's very important i think it's important too so this is a this enables you to actually understand the non-disclosure agreement i do you want to comment on that i think a non-disclosure agreement is that there are some who currently have non-disclosure agreements and this is just grant saying that this does not apply to those who already have a non-disclosure agreement in place is that do i understand that right because there are some some people who as part of their um they might have negotiated uh yes i will do this but you can't we're gonna have this agreement and non-disclosure agreements are relatively common in the employment world and um so i think all this does is grandfathers those that currently have them oh is that what this does i believe so so yes yes and it's it's just a temporary provision just in cases you're describing madam chair if when an officer is working at his or her current agency when they started that employer employee relationship if if in some case they had some sort of agreement that you're not gonna employer you're not going to disclose my performance at this at this agency just in case that exists um you had the same exact language that's in section nine that same language appeared when you originally enacted the requirement for a potential hiring agency to contact the officer's former agency so it's a repeat of that language that was enacted um when this statute was originally um suggested or proposed madam chair yes happy to speak to it as well if you thank you yeah please so similar to uh what colonel birmingham said we also do a waiver for hires uh the issue regarding poaching this would certainly help uh and as it would require an agency had to reach out um as you know the training process is long which also requires us to commit a lot of time to planning and what we have found especially with the shortage in personnel is that uh a two week notice in or shorter in some cases might be all an agency had gets with the requirement to train so this would help at least in terms of planning that uh these processes usually do take a while uh to hire uh and so i would allow an agency had to be aware of that another part uh that as i'm reading it and i've i as i'm excuse me as i've reviewed it over the last week there's also the ability to allow uh agency had um relief to share openly and honestly about issues that they may have with a person uh there's uh while i think vermont is very good at uh dealing with um inappropriate action uh to include the you know the criminal charges up in i think it was st albin's uh most recently there's also a possibility that a person who's undergoing a current criminal investigation or current internal investigation is entitled to some protection of confidentiality or it might be uh in the best interest of the state not to release certain information uh because of the active investigation um there's also lawsuits that happen and i can't speak specifically to union type issues because i don't have a union but there's uh i imagine there can be issues regarding union grievances and talking about issues that a current agency is having with uh with a person where they would essentially say we're not going to share that information with the uh the hiring agency uh because of a concern of a lawsuit that they would prevent them from getting hired elsewhere thank you okay uh can i that's it why it says it's a transitional provision what do we mean by i mean i know what transitional means but does it mean it's going to expire at some point in terms of overall or is it just about the individuals you're muted you're muted thanks uh it's just the language in section nine of the bill says that that requirement of the current law enforcement agency to disclose its analysis of the law enforcement officer's performance at that agency quote shall not apply if there is a binding non-disclosure agreement prohibiting that disclosure that was executed prior to the effective date of that section so it's just not applying this uh disclosure requirement if at the time that this takes effect or would take effect there's a non-disclosure uh agreement in effect that would prohibit it so it's transitional and that it only applies to those current existing non-disclosure agreements if they exist okay once that disclosure agreement um ended because it wouldn't carry on in perpetuity okay may not it just wouldn't apply to those so the Congress clause essentially thanks thank you okay any more questions or concerns about section nine or eight may ask a question yes please is this limited to state of Vermont agencies for example if the state of New Hampshire is trying to steal one of my employees and the chief calls me and says hey we're looking to hire this person would I have protection under this yeah so the the language in the bill specifically says it only applies to state of Vermont law enforcement agencies because we can't control um whether New Hampshire will disclose so the language actually says if the current or former agency is an agency in this state the agency has to disclose um but we can't control whether or not New Hampshire discloses but does it need to disclose to New Hampshire uh I don't think by the language of this I think that would be just a discretionary discretionary on the Vermont agency's part let's see just looking at the actual text of the language I think it says if the current or former agency is a law enforcement agency in the state of Vermont that uh you have to disclose to the potential hiring agency um and it says it just says potential hiring agencies my under if I read that if New Hampshire is calling you asking you you have to disclose to New Hampshire because that's a potential hiring agency and it doesn't say that the potential hiring agency is in the state of Vermont but if if you're calling New Hampshire they don't have to disclose to you but the way am I wrong Betsy I think that's a fair reading I mean I think it's set up to really kind of focus on Vermont officers and Vermont agencies but yeah I see I'm reading it the same as you now Madam Chair going back to it um it does say just in plain text that if the agency's in in this state they have to disclose to the potential hiring agency their analysis of officers performance so just I probably would be a matter of whether the New Hampshire agency context Vermont the Vermont agency so Allison so I understand that it would we can't make uh policy that affects other state agencies but other states I mean um but could we in that instance that Mark brings up could we require that an employee who is considering a job in another agency outside the state uh require that they let their employer know I don't think you can and future employer out of the state yeah well I mean it's basically giving notice to the current employer that I'm actually up for a job in another state and giving them time to either counter offer or uh or whatever but it gives them to go back to the poaching issue and the time frame and the investment we've made in these people to have other people take advantage of our investment is always frustrating I I'm I um it does say that an officer has to um give the um executed a written warrant shall not be hired by the potential hiring agency but I don't know that we can hold a New Hampshire agency I'm not I'm talking about the I know but I'm not sure that we could require and that might be a labor relations law I'm not sure a question I'm not sure we could require yeah any more than we can with anybody else right I don't know the answer off hand I mean it on the one hand Vermont law can control current Vermont law enforcement officers but I would want to speak with our labor attorney about any issues with requiring our current state law enforcement officers to disclose something to another state I just I don't have the easy answer I'm not talking about disclosing it to another state I'm trying to protect our own Vermont agencies oh to alert so that ever more than somebody exactly to go to Mark's point you know if if you can't affect the New Hampshire agency that's poaching your officer maybe you can affect the officer giving you notice and a heads up or you know whatever might work within the labor relations context we should check with Damien on that but I would be very skeptical about whether we can require a law enforcement officer any more than any other employee in the state of that works for I don't think we require if a state employee is applying for a job in New Hampshire I don't think we could require them to notify well what what's unusual here is that we the state and or the municipality or whatever has paid for their training I mean we have an investment in these people I understand that yeah but we could say the same thing about anybody we give a any college student or anybody that we give a a scholarship to or a state training if we send them to leadership training if we send them to so I mean I would just check with Damien okay I'll follow up okay did I hear somebody else or was that a train okay all right let you'll check on that Betsy yes okay so now we go to sub chapter two yeah we're getting into unprofessional conduct now one of the first things that this section does this section 10 is just in regard to category B conduct when the statute currently defines category B conduct it says that category B conduct includes conduct that amounting to actions misconduct amounting to actions under a color of authority um and then it says such as so the first thing the bill does is substitutes for such as says shall include because this list that follows the current laws such as a through e includes things such as sexual harassment um that involves physical contact or misuse of position excessive use of force biased enforcement so it's a clarification instead of using such as which seems to imply that these may be examples but not necessarily it's saying no they shall include the list that's already set forth in a a through e right so that we know that these are definitely examples of category B conduct and using include means it's not an exhaustive list so it could include other things but it at least includes what's already listed here in a through e the next thing that this does is addresses again category B and says the category B conduct includes excessive use of forced first offense rather than excessive use of force second offense and we discuss this how this has kind of a ripple effect a triple whammy if you will Betsy um for the effects that this has throughout the chapter the sub chapter on unprofessional conduct um there I listed a few of these uh are the ones that stick out really um what the changes this would make in the summary um one of the things is that the agencies are not they um report category B conduct to the council well if category B conduct is defined to mean excessive use of force second offense instead of first offense it's meaning the council's not finding out about allegations of first offenses of category B conduct so it's hard for the council to track whether an officer is alleged to have committed excessive use of force then um also an agency is supposed to report whether an officer is terminated for category B conduct and so if an agency terminates an officer for a first offense of excessive use of force the council by law doesn't have to be made aware of that um another thing that it does is that um the council cannot discipline an officer for a first offense of category B conduct so if right now if category B is excessive use of for second offense what that really means in practice is the council cannot take action until the third known offense of excessive use of force so just by substituting first offense for second offense um it's just making the council more aware of potential excessive use of force by officers and their ability to um take action if necessary for excessive use of force and they could do so for an actual second offense of excessive use of force okay and this was something that the council requested any questions on the triple whammy and when we report this on the floor we're going to ask Betsy to stand be while I was going to have her stand in the front of the the chamber and waiver arms around I guess we can't do that because we won't be in the chamber maybe I can zoom in there somehow okay zoom bomb is that what it's called yeah I don't want to zoom bomb okay any questions or concerns about that section um nobody mapped mark no madam chair if I could say one thing though please go ahead can you hear me yeah okay um map army ham uh director of the state police I just want to I don't think the commissioner and I were we're under the understanding that this would this bill would be reviewed today so I wasn't completely prepared to discuss it and and he is unavailable so I would just ask that um that he be given an opportunity to weigh in on on this as he is the DPS representative on the council and I do not want to speak for him today I haven't had a chance to um to touch base with him so I just want to make sure I get that on the record got it thank you okay and so I guess madam chair may ask a question mm-hmm I'm still I'm still concerned about first offense um you know and sadly you know so Betsy and could you just remind me because I know we discussed this at length in committee but what the action after first offense in agency can take action uh against you know about this about a first offense I mean right it just isn't recorded is that right yes it's an agency can definitely take action against an officer for a first offense of excessive use of force this is really about the council regulating law enforcement officers because while an agency itself can terminate or suspend or condition the officer's practice it's that only affects the officer's practice at that agency the council is like OPR it regulates the certification of the officer and so the council has the authority to limit or restrict an officer's ability to practice or unprofessional conduct and if they don't get reported right you can't do it until the third time right right I know I know we corrected that I just I I guess I guess that gives somebody an opportunity to to to uh take that on board and you know that I I guess second offense is the right I just did bother anyway well they're not the council isn't going to take action until on the first offense it's just reported to them so that on the second actual second offense they will know that it's the second offense and they can take action right now I'm if they're if they're never notified if they're never notified of the first offense and there's a second offense and then they're notified that's the first offense to the council so they can't take action until the third offense I remember this discussion I think it's essential that a first offense uh be noted okay are you are you okay with this then I'm yeah I'm just you know it's been a while since we talked about it I'm just refreshing I'm just thinking about it okay yep okay so um Matt we will we are going to schedule this again next week for uh we wanted to start going through it today and um we'll schedule it again next week for a final um review and vote thank you madam chair I appreciate I'll let the commissioner know I'm taking notes as we go through for him but that uh just so we could make sure he gets on the invite list I appreciate it and I believe that he weighed in while we were working on this yes I I think he initially did senator I think he'd just like to loop back around with you all again um for the for this latest version just to make sure he has a voice in some of this as it is really at his level and so we'll what we'll do is we'll make sure that um everybody involved gets a a copy of what we think might be our final bill after we take out uh we'll have Betsy take out the things that need to be taken out and then um or write an amendment taking them out since that's probably the way we'll have to do it because we don't have control of the bill anymore and then um and also have perhaps send out Betsy's um summary here to people okay all right let's go on oh somebody else have Mark Anderson county sheriff uh I'd also like to make sure that chief brickel the chair of the training council be invited as well um he's in another meeting right now but he uh does have some concerns he'd like to relay to the council I'm sorry to the to the committee okay thank you well we will do that okay so are we going on now to uh 7-11 uh not just the almost there I'm at the top of page three the summary the last issue in regard to category b conduct is eliminating the current law language that an agency only report to the council alleged category b conduct if it is deemed credible by the executive officer of the agency as a result of a valid investigation um the overall rationale for again this was um recommended by the council and the overall rationale is that under the current law the council might not be made aware of all complaints of law enforcement officer conduct that right might rise the level of category b conduct because it's contingent upon the agency deeming the complaint credible and conducting a valid investigation to do so so by eliminating that language about the agency deeming it credible first before it gets reported um the council would be made aware of allegations of category b conduct and then could thereafter check in with the agency on the agencies um the status of the agency's investigation of that complaint and it would provide the council with more oversight of a complaint against an officer and the agency's valid investigation of it any questions about this section I think a lot of this um tracks with the way OPR does it if I'm not mistaken well the big difference big difference is that under law enforcement officer regulation each individual law enforcement agency for the most part is essentially the one that conducts the investigation and then the council does have the ultimate authority to take action against an officer's certification whereas OPR has independent investigators that investigate allegations of law enforcement of professionals unprofessional conduct yeah yeah that's true okay all right now we're on section 11 okay so this is in regard to the state treasurer proposing a plan to the gov ops committees to place municipal police officers that are covered currently covered under the municipal employees retirement system on a new retirement plan that's substantially equivalent to the one that covers our law enforcement officers officers under the state employees retirement system except for the health and medical benefits that are available under the state employee retirement system I think we need to have some more conversation about this section because I I do know that and I'd like to find out where the treasure is in terms of the group C committee that's looking at group C and and then her ability to then do this in addition to that does that make sense okay all right so 12 all right then we get into the Vermont crime information center section 12 would require VCIC to establish and provide training on a uniform list of definitions for officers to use when they're entering data into their agency system of records which could be spillman or val core and then would require every officer to use those VCIC definitions so there's at least uniformity in how crimes and crime criminal information is being reported because it all feeds up right into the for example to the FBI is that right yeah and I believe we heard from Jeff Wallin that they are working on that I know that there's a bias related bias incident bias related incident reporting group that's working on coming up with standard definitions for that so I think we just need to make sure we have standard definitions I will hear from Jeff Wallin again about this okay and then still in regard to VCIC section 13 would require VCIC to disseminate on a quarterly basis to the legislative body of every town that doesn't have a police department a report that describes the nature of the crimes that are alleged to have been committed in the town within the last quarter without any personally identifying info so that I think the big picture just came from your law enforcement road show so that towns are made more aware of the crimes that are alleged to be happening in their town if they don't have their own PD right we never want to hear that nothing like that happens here ever again okay any questions or concerns on that we'll hear from Jeff Wallin on that one also all right then on page four we get into the law enforcement advisory board one of the things that this is doing is just putting the leab in the correct place in law where it should exist it should exist in title 20 right now it's in title 24 but the substantive changes to the leab are adding two members one the director of the enforcement division of the department of fish and wildlife like you were referencing at the beginning madam chair and the other one is an officer appointed by the vsea yeah um and this is yeah this is where I guess the dmv wanted I was mistaken on that so any issues on this one okay should I go ahead and plan for the dmv to be added as a member I don't see any reason why not to okay anybody Brian Brian how many people are on it now yeah let's see I think I want to say like 13 I think it's it's moved up here I can tell you in a sec so there's currently 14 yeah this would bump it up to 16 and some of them we heard were members but don't go unless there's something on the agenda that is of interest to them so it just provides for all voices to be on the advisory board and it's just an advisory board how is the dmv not already represented I guess is what I would ask if just not they have a unique perspective I'm not against it I'm just asking yeah it is created within the department of public safety so maybe it was just considered more of a dps issue but it has a variety of members under current law it includes the commissioner public safety director of vsp and then but it has representation from uh chiefs of police municipal police sheriffs blct a member of the police association the attorney general a state's attorney the u.s attorney criminal justice training council the defender general a rep of the troopers association in a constable now are you happy brian yeah that's fine now that the constables are on there yeah I like my constant I know we all like our constables I'm fine with adding my guess or adding dmv okay yes all right and then the other thing that this doesn't regard to the leab is to require them to report in 2021 on how towns can increase access to law enforcement services but let me move on yep the next issue this bill addresses is the department of public safety and dispatch starting in section 18 one of the things that is happening here are some technical corrections to get rid of outdated language for example it would eliminate language it says the commissioner gets appointed for a term of six years that's not how it works anymore it also eliminates that statute that purports to say that the governor can only remove the commissioner if the governor file presents charges there's a hearing and there's the governor can only remove the commissioner for cause this has been sitting there since 1979 even though the vermont supreme court in that year said that this statute was superseded because all governor appointees serve at the governor's pleasure but the big thing that's going on in this section 18 is requiring the commissioner public safety to adopt rules that provide the rates for the department of public safety charges to perform dispatch functions and then also to adopt rules to regulate the technical and operational standards that apply to any entity that performs dispatch so those are two important rules there that would be required to be adopted by the department of public safety and i think they actually have done the first one on rates they they're working on that you know my preference here is to not have them doing dispatch at all but at least this is a step in the right direction uh in accordance with section 19 those rules would need to be adopted by july 1 2021 any questions concerns comments madam chair may i speak to that yes mark anison window county sheriff uh with regards to uh section two regarding uh rules regulating regulating the technical and operational standards that shall apply to any entity performing dispatch i have concerns that the department of public safety um could establish things that would go beyond the relevance of my agency or the dispatch services that we provide as most of you are aware we provided a contract dispatching service we do that within within that uh realm we've been doing it for many years and i think that we've been providing a professional service i'm not sure that i need the department of public safety to designate how i do that i would almost think that um there's a closer relation to the training council than there would be to dps i we we should talk more about that i think the the issue here was that if we if we move to more regional um dispatch services that um there needs to be some standard of providing those services both technical and operational and who should set those standards if you you don't want the podunk area to to be providing a lesser robust and effective dispatch service because nobody there are no standards for it so my guess is that anybody who is currently providing dispatch services probably would already meet any we're talking about floor standards here i think are we not committee i wasn't sure what it meant remember we had this conversation about who and we had it with 911 board with um barboneel about somebody making some standards for um dispatch services and if if there is a more regional approach for both call taking and dispatch how do who's going to set some standards for that who's going to there needs to be some oh there needs to be some space yeah i agree and and i think but we can talk about whether it is the commission's the department's role or i'm not sure that the training council would because we're talking about dispatch here not just for law enforcement we're talking about more dispatch right the ability to have more dispatch so we can talk about who that who should be the most appropriate um we had thought maybe it was the 911 board but they they felt not so let's flag that for some more discussion thank you madam chair thank you all right that takes you through the law enforcement office law enforcement provisions of the bill then the bill moves into ems the may may ask a question madam chair yes so um and i i acknowledge that we're rebooting on this it might we haven't sort of thought about this for a few weeks um i'd like to go back to section 17 and which has the leab specifically recommending ways that towns can increase access to law enforcement services is were we thinking that that was code for looking at uh and and suggesting ways we could do more pilots or do something on on on regional uh emergency services i i am not sure that it's code for anything it's just saying they should come up with some ideas about how how the towns can increase their access towns don't have access yeah and and i could we underscore or reinforce the hope that maybe the leab would be looking at and recommending ways we might move towards a regional law regional i i think we do we do that later on where we have some um with our pilot some planning um asks of them but i would not i mean although i love to remove in that direction i hate to ask them to come up with something and we already have some predetermined outcomes okay i was just thinking if this could be a vehicle this section 17 could be a vehicle for more for more that's all i don't know committee i like the way it's worded i think it gives them flexibility to recommend whatever they think is the right way to go chris in here yep anthony is that thumbs up oh that's i couldn't tell if it was a thumb or something else okay all right so um and let's go on then to where we start the ems okay if you're looking at the um the uh bill itself it starts on page 22 if you're looking at the the um summary it's on um it's fine yeah okay i've got them both up here all right okay that's Adam chair yes hi i'm met birmingham again if if you're all set with me i do have to get on another call so i just wanted to make sure you're all set thank you and we will um send out the agenda for next week of which day we'll take this up great thank you all for your time i appreciate it thanks for joining us okay all right so moving into ems the first thing that this would do is uh throughout section 20 it would substitute the department of health for the state board of health so that it's the department that is the one that divides the state in the ems districts and issues licenses for ambulance services and first responder services um this was proposed uh by the department of health i believe dan was with us is he still with us and drew also was with us yes okay so dan this actually came from you guys right that's correct okay are there any issues with this now from our standpoint um i think what we're looking to do is make the process a little bit more nimble uh the challenge of the board of health as they meet only so many times a year and um i think we're a little closer to the organizations that we're able to have a better sense of what's right what's wrong okay all right so are there any more comments on that one group so uh just more of a question so is there like an appeals process or how does um how does it work if say the uh the agency denies an application for license where does that go is it a single person final word or is there a hearing process that's built into that um this is the creation of the districts only i think at this point but also the ambulance licenses where which section is that you can find that on page 25 let me see we'll find it exactly okay but down to 25 yeah page 25 line 17 let's first of all let's get rid of the the section above that down to this point is there are there any issues with that that just transfers the um to the rich women in superior point i'll call him back any issues with that down to and then starting on page 25 there on line seven is where i think dru is what you're talking about yeah i guess the first question would be is uh is everyone comfortable with the department of health being the one dividing the state into emergency medical services districts rather rather than the state board and if there's an issue with that that you know that very well that there's always the appeal to the legislature which i believe is what happened before oh no that wasn't the division of the districts that was how okay different different issue okay everybody okay with that okay then let's go to line seven on page 25 yeah 17 yeah the next question would be with uh whether people are comfortable with the department of health being the entity to issue ambulance service and first responder service licenses rather than the state board so right now drew your question was was there an appeal process is there an appeal process right now through the state if the state board makes the decision so at this point there is a process where we could go to the state board and um you know plead our case for or against a license should that you know be appropriate or necessary with the language switching to the board of health does that mean that you know Dan decides on his own and his his um his decision is final so you know we have a single person making a decision about an ambulance service for a community and i'm just making sure that there's a process in place so that um if i read lines 15 and 16 it says they have to develop rules for um for that and i would assume that in rulemaking there would be plenty of opportunity for input by the the providers themselves and the and other people am i wrong about that is that right Betsy so if you're looking at lines 15 and 16 of which page uh 25 okay so that was in regard to another substantive issue which was um ambulance services in order to get licensed um not discriminating um similar to like how home health services cannot discriminate on the uh to whom they provide their services um so i think it's a separate question i think one of the places to look maybe i could look is to see whether there's um any sort of rules right now that apply in regard to the process that the Department of Health has to use in making decisions and whether there's any appeal built in there um i don't know the answer um but perhaps it's another just question to have a DOH weigh in on on whether there's anything uh controlling Department of Health now on their issuance of decisions dan do you know there is i'm i'm struggling right now to try to find it for you but there is an appeals process for licensing decisions it uh would go back to the board of health right now but i think we could mirror whatever existing rule there is within the the department so that it wouldn't be our office's decision but an appeal to go to the commissioner again i don't want to promise only because i need to know a little bit more about what our current and existing rules say but i would not envision a system i would not support a system where there was no appeals process okay okay so we'll come when we come back to this bill we'll have some answers about how that would work okay any more questions on that one if i don't see raise your hand yell at me because the sun is coming in really bright from this window and i can hardly see the screen i'm sure you can hardly see me i'm waiting for the clouds with the rain okay all right um i'll go to the next uh thing on the list in the summary which is eliminating the requirement for EMS personnel to be credentialed by their affiliated agencies if you look on the summary you can see i have that highlighted in yellow because you've already done this through s182 which the governor signed into law yesterday um just to put it on the committee's radar been um i sent doh some potential language because we got feedback on the house floor when the house was considering s182 as to whether uh at least one of the eliminations of the credentialing requirement actually had a substantive change that wasn't intended about the ability of people to get licensed without examination so i followed up with the department of health on some potential language to fix that and also some other potential places to potentially maintain a requirement for EMS personnel to at least be affiliated with an affiliated agency in order to be licensed even though the credentialing requirements not there so i just um just put that on the committee's radar that that might be a there might need to be a fix that needs to be made um and if so i have the language that could potentially do that and it um we could do that in this bill if i didn't know that this bill would actually move or another bill to do it in is in s233 it seems like another potential vehicle well we are hoping this bill will move okay so that'd be a place to make that correction um dan i had sent that draft language over and i know doh is super busy so uh but maybe we can figure out what if any fixes need to be made um for s182 in this bill dan i did see it and i did read it and i'm sorry i haven't gotten back to you yet it seems like it's fine i just wanted to do a little bit of a deeper read over before i got back to you drew you're muted what was the problem that was created i guess i don't understand so yeah when we got rid of the credentialing requirement in s182 there's one provision of the law in 18 vsa 906 subdivision 10 f that allows a person who is nremt registered to get licensed without exam if they're a national guard medic or it said or they're credentialed by an affiliated agency when i remove the reference to credentialing um it was brought up on the house floor does that mean that only national guard medics who are nremt registered now can get licensed without exam is that eliminating the ability of other people who aren't medics to get licensed without exam if they're nremt registered so a potential language solution would be to say you can get licensed without exam if you're nremt registered and affiliated with an affiliated agency and so then i looked through s182 to see oh my gosh are there any other places where this is an issue and um so i sent some language over to see where we if we need reference to being affiliated with an affiliated agency in other places where the law used to say credentialed by an affiliated agency because i think the big picture right is that a person can't get licensed as an ems uh ems personnel and just go out and start practicing ems without being affiliated with an ambulance service or a first responder service is that right i like i couldn't engage in solo practice now i'm going to go out and start being a paramedic on my own right so just some potential technical corrections that i didn't pick up when we were doing s182 so i'm sorry for that it's okay we didn't pick it up when we were doing this either yeah we missed it twice what in the house just put a floor amendment on it then they let it go they did it um the question was raised but they sent it through all stages of passage that day um okay so and that was i think maybe because they were considering that it has must pass legislation yeah and it could be fixed yeah and we and because we do have permission to get this one going so we can fix it here okay let's fix as much as possible all right and thank you for dan he just sent over by chat some info about uh appeals so i'll take a look at that reference thank you dan but if we want to keep chugging along here yeah i had already mentioned um that new requirement about uh ambulance service license and renewal applicants needing to provide their services in a non-discriminatory discriminatory manner similar to the requirement for home health services and requiring Department of Health to adopt rules on that and i guess one thing just uh um we passed or you passed that out um but just another look by DOH at that language um to determine whether all that makes sense the way that it's phrased i think would be helpful that language specifically appears on page 25 starting on line seven and that was going to make sure that there isn't cherry picking yeah cherry picking exactly um all right the next issue is extending ambulance license terms from one to three years that's highlighted in yellow because you address that in s182 now that is the law so my question vetsy about the ones that um we've already done now you'll prepare an amendment for us that removes those sections i will i'll i'll do a strike all to get rid of all that language that's already been addressed in s182 and whatever language you actually do want to move forward with from s124 well i'm not so sure that we can do it that way because it's in appropriations so i um it would have to be done as a strike all from them so i wondered yeah um i i i don't know but unless we get it back i don't think we could do a subset they can do their amendment to their portion and then we would do a subsequent amendment i would think just taking those out but we'll find out what the procedure is okay sounds good okay uh the next thing on the summary is highlighted in yellow is the department of financial regulation enforcement of direct ambulance service provider insurance reimbursement you did that in s182 that's taken care of at the top of page six of the summary if you're there the next thing that the ems section would do is uh require the green mountain care board to identify priorities regarding ems resources and needs in the state's health resource allocation plan the h-rap and then related to that is a requirement in section 23 for the current ems advisory committee to identify those resources and needs and report them to green mountain care board any issues on that okay uh next moving on section 23 would require the department of health to establish by rule at least three levels of ems instructors and the education required for each level i'll just make a note that when you looked at the ems provisions of s124 to decide which ones you wanted to move forward with for s182 that i i recall department of health being concerned about putting additional obligations on them during the covid outbreak so just putting that back on your radar um we have dan here but checking in with maybe what's what's feasible to get accomplished and by when dan do you have any response yeah uh it's not so much that we disagree with it um in fact in a broad plan we like the notion of dividing up the levels of instructor coordinator the challenge of course is that by creating more uh administrative levels of this and uh having to create the the rules that go along with it we're going to make it more difficult at least in the short term to become an instructor coordinator and uh i'm a little concerned that my colleagues especially in some of the underserved areas will push back against that um uh it's uh it's a it's a it's a bit of a tricky process as we as we develop a new system as we build a process and we have to orient people through it that's going to be the challenge drew do you want to comment you're muted i was looking to you're you muted yourself again you unmuted and unmuted i'm good now there you are all right um so can we leave this in and just extend the timeline so that we identify this as a priority just give us a little bit more time the um advisory committee's education um subcommittee would be more than glad to take this project on and do a lot of the legwork but i think it's important that we um move forward with it maybe just extend the timelines out so that we have a little bit more time to work on it that makes sense to me how about everybody else i think that would make excellent sense and i would fully support that chris uh i'll say thank you anthony now listen okay great good idea what would be your preferred date for these requirements betsey you sound like a little ding dong ding dong thing so what would what about now hey now good better okay better you do a great um r2d2 imitation so would uh what is it currently what is the date for that for this july or i think it's july 1 2021 i believe let me double check yeah the uh so on page 41 starting on line 16 uh all rules would need to be adopted right now by july 1 2021 so that's final adoption um and that's pretty much for everything the multiple different subjects that doh would need to adopt rules on so i think it's just a question of and so you want to at least provide an agency with six to eight months for rule making and then they actually have to come up with a plan to get the rules going so just a matter of counting you know how how far out should this go is january 1 2022 more reasonable why don't we maybe have dan and drew um department of health and the advisory council work together to come up with what would be a reasonable uh date for putting that in place does that make sense i'm willing to get we can work out that and get back to you guys sure okay thanks all right um moving on in section 23 um in regard to eliminating the nremt psychomotor skills testing for emrs and emts so this would say so right now the psychomotor exam is required for emrs and emts and this proposed language in section 23 would allow either the demonstration of skills competencies or the nremt psychomotor exam um suffice to test psychomotor skills of emrs and emts but then there's section 24 which is a future date that would say by july 1 2021 the nremt psychomotor exam is eliminated um so it would just be demonstrating skill competencies to test the psychomotor skills of emrs and emts so maybe this is another place where we need to have some input on whether that's i think everybody agreed that that's something we should do but whether that's a reasonable date by which to do it i'm going to ask that question as well at our hoda meeting and find out what that feeling is on date dan yeah i'm much more concerned about this one um for a couple of reasons now in principle i agree and uh there's it's not the idea of it that i that i um am against the hard part is the application of it is is complicated um the reason we have psychomotor testing right now is to assure competency uh and um the reason we regulate it from the state is to assure that that competency is coming from a non-biased place that is um there's a third party looking at and saying that these folks are competent before they're walking out of the streets now i would wholeheartedly agree as a as a former ems educator myself i would wholeheartedly agree that an educator knows more about the competency of a student than any test evaluator does in 15 minutes above psychomotor exam i understand that however um there are any number of pressures associated with putting emts on the streets that make this really a little bit difficult a little dangerous um if we're leaving this in the hands i think we have excellent ems programs in the state of vermont and there are a number of them that are very capable of doing this we have some others that i'd be a little bit more concerned about who um have have some some pushes some some urgency to get folks out there that i'm not sure we can reliably count upon to say this is really a competent person beyond the push to get them out to the street this is going to take some quality assurance this is going to take some building of capacity before we can just say sure we we believe you we're we're confident that what you're doing is really getting folks out in the streets so so again i'm i'm all i'm not against it but we definitely need to have some time on this one okay so you guys all work together to come up with some a time frame and i assume that there are going to be rules around this one also and you'll come up with a time frame for when that could reasonably be accomplished i'd be happy to yeah okay great all right the next thing that this bill would do is uh require the Department of Health to establish by rule the entry level certification for what you called the new vermont ems first responder and again do we need to have an extended time period for that so um i've actually heard a lot of uh feedback on this and um a lot of requests from first response quads to make sure that this happens as soon as possible uh the way to fill their ranks so i would like to to say that you know we should probably push um push forward with this level of first responders sooner than later to help out those departments that are struggling and it's definitely something that we'd be willing to work with the department on creating the curriculum and getting out sooner than later so if we extend the time period on the others maybe we don't need to extend the time period on this one dan i'm not sure what is the time period now do we have we established that what would the goal be i think it's again the july 1 2021 date so the challenge of this level is that there is no existing national equivalent so that means there are no existing materials there's no existing dedicated texts now i think we can adapt other resources to it but there's a lot of moving parts to this one um this isn't this isn't like we can just sort of uh throw a class out there we're going to have to build this from from scratch so um i'm not saying it couldn't be done by in a year but it's that that's there's a lot of moving parts it makes me concerned is this something that maybe the the national guard or the um uh uh red cross or the army or somebody has um something similar that i don't know so there there are definitely similar products and i think probably the most promising way to do this would be to take an existing program and slim it down and utilize uh resources that way um but there's a lot of decision points um uh there's no psychomotor exam for this we'll have to design we'll have to design an exam or we'll have to decide even if we are gonna have a psychomotor exam for this there's no um there's no cognitive exam there's no questions at any level uh written for this um any one of those things is is a big is a big deal um and uh we're gonna have to like i said we're gonna have to build it from scratch so that that just makes me nervous so i would suggest perhaps that since this seems to be the one where there's the most um pressure from the field that we leave the date there we ask the advisory council to work really closely with the department of health and try and advance this as much as possible and um i don't know where um pat malone might fit in here in terms of advice and helping with this and in january we'll be back in session presumably and we can always extend that date if we need to anybody and i i think there's a group of people that are um willing to put the time and work in that we don't have to task uh more work to the health department than they can handle right now um from what i've been getting for comments i i think there are people that are really willing to do the light work um you know with with some direction to get this program up uh you know off the ground so that we can get some responders so i don't think it's impossible i agree with dan it's going to be challenging but i don't think it's impossible and i think we do have the bandwidth amongst some of the leadership that are in these services to get it done and we can always change that we can always extend the the date if we need to in january who i heard either chris or brian i thought weigh in but now i don't see either of them i do see so committee members weigh in i think allison's fallen asleep i already did i'm fine with did you was that a little nap you just took you're fine with it okay chris bray yes i am i am also fine with it and i'm not sleeping but i'm anthony i saw you unmuted yourself and i'm fine with it it seems like a big job but so leave the current date on there trusting that there we could change it out there who are going to work really hard to help the department of health and um we can change the date later if we need to right yeah i think it's important to keep the date word is given how important it all right but i am practicing keeping it unmuted to try and satisfy my you know anyway i'm trying to appreciate it you don't have to keep it muted as long as you don't eat yogurt and clink on the dish well have i not been better you've been much better all learned to be better on our zoom experience with each other i thought it was pretty funny yesterday when we were in the middle of a session and chris bray says oh excuse me but i seem to be having some help from a dog outside i thought your your hounds made perfect cheerleaders for your bill so that was uh you know dogs outside sleeping for like three hours straight the mailman comes one of the dogs is a little bit afraid of the mailman so he starts barking so the mailman besides that yesterday during my floor report is the moment to go into his bag get dog biscuits and try to finally win over our dog which makes him even more alarmed that he's food by a relative stranger so whatever okay it was charming well i'm glad it wasn't we just have lots of ambulances going by my house right now through okay um let's move on all right next up is the requirement for doh to conduct sunset reviews of the continuing competency requirements this is the same thing that you would you required proposed require an s233 for other professional regulatory entities the language in the bill says that doh would do its first review when it starts the room making that's required by this bill okay the next thing is in regard to the ems committee advisory committee and establishing a new education council so one of the first things about the existing advisory committee it's just amending its report requirement to uh require it to report on the annual number of mutual aid calls to an ems area that come from outside the area um it also just to remind requires the ems advisory committee to identify those ems resources and needs so the green mountain care board can consider and include them in the h-rap but the more most substantive thing is uh requiring the ems advisory committee to establish an ems education council from among its members that would sponsor or approve ems training or education programs and provide advice to doh regarding standards for licensure down so we would although i uh we support the notion of building the ems uh education council uh that's something that i think makes good sense uh we would not support the notion of them approving classes uh on their own um approval of classes right now is managed by the department health uh again it creates an impartial process uh uh where uh the specific uh biases and concerns of local agencies are not influencing into this process of approval um i think this process would be uh would be potentially fraught with some dangerous circumstances um and also a good bit of conflict of interest when we start talking about putting folks who are actively teaching programs into the approval process um they're still at this point plenty of input into the approval process uh and we'd be welcome we would welcome their uh this councils this new councils input into the approval process but i think the the final say in approval should stay in the hands of the department health drew um so i don't have a strong opinion on the final approval but i would say i do believe that the ems advisory committee is um represents uh all stakeholder groups and all districts in a very non-biased way so whatever um job the committee's task with will be um done in in that fashion so as far as input into education the testing um curriculum of education i think the ems advisory committee setting up an education um group to review that is an excellent idea and completely support that so if if that education came through the ems uh education council and had final approval at the department of health i wouldn't object to that uh but then would it make um would it help clarify if the if you want to move forward with this um education council um uh offering these programs would it be better if the language were clarified to say that the education council shall seek um certification or approval from doh so that uh doh puts final um gives final approval that the education that's offered is um meets doh standards for these education courses i think you would also want to have input from the council into the into the uh curriculum and i i'm not sure van i would happily uh work with the advisory committee to to make sure that that committee that subcommittee has a an appropriate role in a course approval if they want to appoint a couple of rotating members to work on all course approvals to give us input uh into that process i'm absolutely fine with that i think we do have to acknowledge that there are a number of different sponsors of education of ems education in vermont um and although i think there is a role for some central sponsorship we want to also protect the other organizations like the university of vermont and vermont technical college who might continue to want to do this independently of any central uh central places so um although i think i think it is appropriate that this this education council could develop education and be a sponsor in and of itself i think we need just need to make sure that there's room for others in that mix as well so can we ask you to work together on some language here so that the the we create the education council and they have um figure out what their role is in sponsoring and um having input into into the education programs and the is that something absolutely okay and drew you're okay with that yes we can uh i'll add that to the list and we'll get right on okay thank you okay all right in the summary if you're following along there i'm at the top of page seven um this would just add that new certified vermont ems first responder and the current licensed emr's to the current financial allocation so you can find this on in section 25 of the actual bill this amends the statute that describes what the current funding source or who the fund current funding source is for um right now it says that it's for the training of emt's advanced emt's and paramedics so this would add in the current emr's to that and then also add in the new certified ems first responders to the entities that can get training funded okay all right and then the last big thing that this bill would do is make the appropriation for ems training uh your bill as pass out a committee said it was the 450 thousand dollars from the ems special fund and the 400 thousand dollars from the general fund and i suspect that appropriations will probably change that given what we've just um what they're dealing with right now i'd rather they deal with the 3.9 million than 400 000 so for the bill for the rewrite should i how would you like me to handle that i would i would check with um uh let me check with jane and tim and um secretary bloomer and see what's what do you think committee i i think rather than us i i don't know that we can do a strike all because we don't have it and i don't necessarily want the strike all to come from the appropriations committee because then that means they would be reporting out all of those changes so what i would think is that we would present this bill on the floor just um not reporting on the sections that are to be just saying this will be taken care of in an amendment then appropriations would do their amendment whatever that is and then we would have another amendment afterwards allison so i i think given how much how much we're altering this bill and how much we've taken out it wouldn't be it would be appropriate if you wanted to ask for it back uh for us to in light of the changes we made as a result of the covid priorities for us to uh i mean there are enough things we're looking at adding that and there we altered the finances so completely through uh our other bill uh and through your letter um in in in your request i would think it would be appropriate for us to take this back and make those alterations okay we could i i will ask if that's a possibility without us then not meeting crossover right i i understand but gosh the work you know we responded to covid needs immediately through this bill and yeah i think it's only fair for them to let us rework it a little bit with a short time frame uh i will check i will check that out that's in and i'll i'll try and get a whole get a decision made by um sometime monday afternoon yeah because i just think it would be simpler i think the long run it would be a simpler solution it would it would be simpler if we could do that and just have a strike all right and who knows what the secretary will come up with he always has another card or two of his sleeve on how to do something procedurally this is true brian i'm fine with going that way too okay anthony yeah i i don't know what the other choices would be i mean that would work any better i really don't i mean we couldn't inject the higher amount of money into the bill that's in that they're already looking at right i think we have to that would be the other option be to say well we don't want the 400 000 whatever we want the three million but it makes more sense to bring it back to us and then just not and make all do a strike i'll make all the changes and not even put in the appropriation because we've already put that right in right yeah we we hopefully hopefully we'll have been dealt with we're hoping okay anybody else betsey section 27 just provides the transitional provisions in regard to the ems portion of the bill so it's just setting up the deadlines that things need to happen basically the july 1 2021 deadline so i can go back and revise that with that whatever the appropriate dates are that um are recommended okay so i will try to have this um a decision made on this by monday afternoon so that we can then get um whatever draft we need and then everybody can look at that because we are going to need to hear then a little bit from the training council and the commissioner and um um doh and the ems advisory council yeah and huh and the um and the instructor the instructor pat wasn't pat also going to weigh in on some stuff if if he cares too but there's so all the rest of the bill and and jeffrey wallins we were also going to hear from him on that section so that we'll take this up again um probably next is friday a decent day for people sure every day with you is a decent day party's fine yeah it's okay it's just like tuesdays anyway huh all my days are tuesdays they just all blend together oh i i am fatigue fatigue yeah i i had no idea this was going to be i mean and i we're not in any different position than anybody else that's doing this but i had no idea it was going to be so fatiguing but yeah i'd rather suffer cabin fever okay i have dan and drew this friday good day betsey i'm sorry that's dan is friday a decent day oh yeah definitely there is one other portion of the bill i just gonna remind there's the last portion of the bill is public safety planning yeah all right right right right like we haven't come there okay great okay let's finish that right okay so section 28 would require towns to have the town public uh town public safety plan and it just piggy backs off of the current requirement for towns to do an annual assessment of their capacity to respond to all hazard incidents they already have to do that annually so just kind of piggybacks off of that process and requires them to have a public safety plan that's probably something vlc team weigh in on i think they felt much better about once we did this than required it as part of their town plan and then the last part of the bill um or i'll just mention that those public safety plans every town would be required to have one by july 1 2023 um and then the last part of the bill is the accd public safety planning grants where there'd be a hundred thousand dollar appropriation to accd in fiscal year 21 for three public safety planning grants uh the bill provides that regional organizations can apply for them uh grant would be for a max of three years and not exceed thirty five thousand dollars they'd have to go to different geographic regions of the state and report annually to the gov ops and appropriations committees on um how it's going with their public safety planning and provide data are we still okay with this committee this this is our our pilots on regional uh emergency sort uh regional emergency services right it could be yeah yeah it is yeah doesn't it spell it out of it doesn't not in the summary but it does in the bill it's for three public safety planning grants yeah it's three pilots i think it's great and it's pretty um bare bones funding it's pretty modest yeah in it in light of the need uh well anyway i i think that's one of the things we might discuss is actually the funding yes brun no i was gonna say today no no thank you not today okay so we have a list of questions that we need to get answers to and i will try to schedule this i believe on friday to give time for everybody to weigh in and think about it and okay okay palina has said i have to say that um sometimes committee members are more quiet in this format than in others but i like the format of not having somebody testify and then somebody testify and then i like the format of kind of having a more open discussion and having people have input rather than um the more formal testimony especially when we're just doing this kind of discussion so i have had the other experience though where if something is controversial and people are feeling a little disputatious going good word back to the testifying and sequence thing helps settle things back down and then you go to the discussion mode but i agree testimony in sequence is not ideal for sorting anything out right like witness one does do people remember what witness one says when money just finished you know and we usually are pretty good actually about having kind of these kinds of discussions afterwards even even in our more formal committee meetings but i do appreciate people being patient and um willing to to do it so you run such a fine establishment that's why so many people hang out and when they don't have a bill right right well particularly chris christopher right now that you're providing such vistas for us to enjoy i know i could get something new that one this is beautiful do we see the is is it looking east or west that is looking southwest from uh bristol mountain and right behind me those little dots are the houses in the here i'll lean some more oh yeah there the little dots are the that's the village and then anthony has his flowers we can enjoy yeah i went a little greenhouse but most of the flowers went outside today because it actually warmed up so they're enjoying themselves outside waiting well actually starting to rain now they're enjoying the rain just in time that we're going to finish up so i was going to go outside and walk around a little bit now it started to rain okay walk around anthony with an umbrella this is your ipad this is true anyway thank you madam chair i think this is was good was good to get our it was good to get our heads back in these other pieces of this bill so i will send out a uh proposed um scheduled for tuesday wednesday thursday and friday of what we're going to be doing so sorry i hate to ask this but um it's the end of the week have we heard anything about the resolution on our elections uh work uh we have i got a uh some information today from chris that they're still working on it and um where we will take that up on tuesday because that is we had sort of set that as yeah kind of run the time i know well he asked that we take it up on tuesday did did um miss rask draft that version a draft a version she probably did i do i have some language but i'm still working with the secretary of state's office on uh what would be appropriate from their perspective okay one of the double check make sure i hadn't missed an email with something in process thanks okay anything else committee have a good weekend gail do you have anything we need to be aware uh no just waiting to hear what next week's schedule is going to be okay um we do we did have and so we've gotten permission to deal with all of the bills that we think we need to deal with so far i did get a um an email from greg night asking us to deal with the provost marshal bill i don't have a clue what that's about but he thinks that he said it's important so um i we will schedule him to come in and talk to us so we can see if um okay okay and then on tuesday we might be looking at some um but if there are budget requests that we need to address besides the ms did you get permission for the weathersfield charter so we could move ahead on that so we'll vote yeah we're going to work on that on tuesday we can that's not a um that's not a a must pass right away right i just was curious we're going to vote on it on on uh when whenever we met remember we were going to vote on that but you had gotten permission to right and we we can we can vote on it but um it isn't a must pass so i'm trying to figure out like these budget things if we need to get requests in for budget adjustment we need to do those things first okay great all right okay okay everybody have a good weekend thank you have a good weekend thank you everybody tomorrow