 Alright, we're live live. This is Senate government operations on January 8th Friday. And we, for those of you who meet with us kind of regularly, we have a new member among us. Senator Keshia Rom is our newest newest senator and newest committee member so welcome Keshia. Thank you Madam Chair. Thanks everybody. So, what we're going to do right today is normally on the first day that we meet we go through committee priorities individual priorities where what we want to do how we want to organize ourselves and all of that but we're going to do that I think we're going to do that on Tuesday when we have a longer meeting I think that people probably today are might not even have been aware that we were going to meet and it being Friday afternoon of the first week. So, what we're going to do is look only at the, the bill that has been introduced in the house and has now passed. I believe the House government operations committee and will be voted on on the floor on Tuesday there and the reason we need to do this. I think one of the things that I remember is because towns have to know by the, I think it's the third week in January, if they're going to have their town meeting on March 3rd, they have to have the warnings done by then. They can have some assurance that they can have some flexibility. So that with that's why we're doing this so quickly and don't think there's probably ever been a bill that has passed and hopefully be on the governor's desk by the end of the full first week of the session. And that is our goal is to do that. So that's why I didn't schedule time for priorities and committee discussion and stuff today but scheduled that for Tuesday, which and we will also be finishing up anything from this bill on Tuesday. So with that. Do we have Tucker here yet. No, we don't. Okay. Have you already had the election of your clerk for the committee. Do we like to clerk. I think, I don't know. We do. That's generally what we do. Oh, wait, well so who wants to be clerk. Do you love to be. I would gladly accept I remember being a clerk when I started in my first committee my first year in the house so I know the responsibility, I think, from doing it for three years and I would be happy to unless I'm a senior member really wanted to do that. Allison. I think we have Kasia assume the mantle, which I will ceremoniously once we vote passed to her. Anthony. My second case is nomination. Brian. Okay. I think you might find that the clerks responsibilities here are less onerous than their onerous but I'm going to pass you the mantle here is the mantle. But yes, and then told me actually, there's not a lot of responsibility. It's a good test. So, to know. I've loved being the clerk. Okay, so. With that. When I see when is with us. And Paul Thomas is with us. Have a new record of action. Okay. I tend for everybody's information I tend to not look at the chat very much just. I can't even read it. I know, I have to far away. I have to put my nose on the screen in order to actually read it. Exactly. But. Let us look at the. The, what Tucker sent us on age 48. And I believe this is what we talked about before. Does everybody have it up. No, but I'll get it. It's on our website on our page. Getting the link and doing that now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it does. It does. Basically four. Things I believe. The first thing it does is allows the municipal legislative body to move the date of their annual meeting. And what it does is they may require the municipal clerk to mail all of the registered voters. So they have the authority now to do Australian to mail out Australian ballots. And Brattleboro can hold its representative town meeting by electronic means. And for those of you who are, who might be confused by that. Brattleboro has a representative town meeting. So it's very different than just having a town meeting where. You have no idea who might come or who might stay home. On any given meeting. So they, and they did it last year. And it went off very well. They. They trained everybody. They made sure all 150 people had access. They sent them packets. They helped them hook up. They made sure they had the, the right equipment and everything. And it worked really well. So that it does that. And then it gives the secretary of state, some administrative and organizational responsibilities. Or leave flexibility to be able to help the town clerks. With with it. And that's basically what this bill does. Do any of the committee members have any questions about that? Brian. Thank you, Madam chair. Actually on page three. Line 13, 14 and 15, it does allow the board of supervisors of the Northeast kingdom, waste management district to vote to adopt the district's annual budget for the ensuing fiscal year. I'm sorry. Did they actually vote this one out? I thought they voted not, they did. All right. And I also, I had a further question, but I'll wait until. Folks have any other questions about that. Okay. I think we'd like to hear that because that was not part of our original discussion. I think that's a good question. Alison. I saw emails about this. I mean, we, we've known it. Yeah. We have had emails about it, but we also had. Testimony or we had an email from Tucker. That said he did not think it was necessary. And that it set up some. Weird dynamics by giving this particular one of the authority to do it. So. I'm, um, Oh, there's Susan. So, um, Paul, do you want to, um, as a representative of the Northeast kingdom, solid waste district, um, do you want, or waste management district, I guess you call it, um, would you like to tell us why you think this is necessary? Sure. And, um, thank you madam chair for allowing me the opportunity to, uh, participate today. Um, so. You, you mentioned, um, just a few moments ago that, um, Um, this may be problematic because it signals, signals singles out one, uh, solid waste district, but we are the only solid waste district in the state of Vermont that votes our budget. So, um, Um, Um, the reason this is problematic in our district is that if, um, and we have 49 member towns. So, um, if any one of those towns or any number of those towns decide to change the date of their town meeting, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, and registered voters in our district. And if the vast majority of them vote on March 2nd, those that move their day, their vote may not count. The other issue that we have is in a normal year, we send our budget article to the towns, we print the ballots, they're on a half sheet of paper, special color and provide those to all of our members. This bill would allow towns to mail their ballots to all of their registered voters. And while in theory, it sounds, you know, it's a great idea, if we don't get involved in that process, we don't have the means to mail ballots directly to the voters. So that becomes problematic as well. We felt like this remedy made the most sense because it's not unprecedented. All the other ways districts in the state do it this way. We have pursued a charter change in the past to allow us to do this, but we recognize that this year is a little different. And obviously this would just be for 2021. And to give those people who may feel disenfranchised by not allowing to vote, because our board has already moved the budget forward so they could be passed onto the towns to be voted on. We would hold another public hearing in February so that people have another opportunity to comment on our budget. And then our regularly scheduled meeting in March is March 9th, so one week after town meeting. So this bill would actually allow us to make that move. And then our board would take action on March 9th. Okay, I did not understand that you were the only one that does it this way. So Allison, did you have a question or were you just waving your hand? No, I just wanted to remind myself about whether we are enabling all municipal annual meetings to be able to meet remotely or not? Or is it just- No, we're not allowing anybody to meet remotely except Brattleboro. Except Brattleboro, right. But what if a town could actually figure out how to do it successfully? I guess they could take a chance if they might. And Brattleboro did it last year, I don't think they had any particular authority to do it. And I question whether a town could figure out how to do it. If you have, if Putney has 1,200 voters, how do we know which of those 1,200 people have access to it? I mean, I don't know if my neighbor has a computer with access to the internet so that she could go on a Zoom meeting. I don't know that. And we had this conversation. Yeah, I remember, but I also, as people, as select boards have become increasingly uncomfortable operating and school boards, most municipalities, as we know them, are now functioning on Zoom or on some version of remote meeting. I'm just wondering if we want to revisit that at all or if we just want to pass this as it is. And my concern continues to be the school budgets that we do this in a time so that the school, that the districts will actually know when they have a budget so that we can set a tax rate before the mid-May when we have to set a tax rate. I'm just a little concerned about the timing still. I'm going to weigh in here and I'm going to say, unless other people really want to reopen this remote meeting discussion, my feeling is that having a select board meeting remotely and having people there, you only have five people or three people, however many on your select board, who can vote. They're the only people who can vote and who can, and other people can participate if they are allowed, if they are allowed to, but only those people can vote. But if you have a town meeting, every single resident has the right to vote. Well, if we may, I guess I'm not clear. I guess I'm not being clear. If we maintained the Australian ballot aspect of voting and just the mere holding of the meeting being remote, is there, I wasn't assuming that voting would go to in-person voting. I was assuming that we were maintaining the Australian ballot provision for voting. The town, oh, maybe, I'm going to have Gwen Wayne here in a minute too, but the towns are given the ability to do Australian ballot if they choose. If a town chooses to do Australian ballot, they will do their whole meeting, all of the articles probably on Australian ballot. Then there is no need for them to call a meeting because all the articles are being done on the ballot. So, they- Well, the meeting could be informational, which many meetings are currently. They can still have, Gwen, do you want to weigh in here? Because they, I, the other thing is, if we change this at all, it has to go through the Senate, back to the House, it will not get passed in time. Got it. Gwen? Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Gwen Zacca, VLCT for the record. Senator Clarkson, your spot on the public informational meetings are actually meetings of the Select Board where they're presenting their budget or their articles. So, they can already do that on a Zoom platform or electronically. So that's not going to impede that. So, they're all covered with that aspect of things. So hopefully that answers your question. Right. Susan, do you want to weigh in on that at all? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think Senator Clarkson has a great question about how to, you know, how do we combine these things? And, you know, the town meetings, and just to be clear, Senator White, you could, and Middlesex has, had a meeting that is warned in place, but offers an online option. So that means that you're not excluding somebody who doesn't have a computer because they can just come to the meeting. And we've done that for years. We now know that we've had previous legal advice that we can go ahead and do that. We are now hearing from the Secretary of State, especially given recent years, questions about voter identification challenges, that it's a good idea, maybe not to invite people to vote online. And that's something I think that in the future, maybe we might want to deal with. I don't think we can do that in this bill. So, you know, there's no point in talking about it now, but I would love to bookmark that for future conversation. But I do think that having those informational meetings by Zoom and then Australian ballot voting on a one-year basis only is, you know, it's gonna work. And I think a lot of times are gonna go ahead and do that. We can talk about the, my thoughts on that. When did you have something? I just wanted to add that the Secretary of State's office, including the Director of Elections, Will Sunning, has promised that, you know, as time goes on, it's not relevant to this bill. You know, having these discussions about how to open up voting more online and doing things more electronically is on the table. But in a short period of time, getting it done for March or April or May, depending on how far towns move their town meeting to, it's just, it's just not going to happen. But it's a great thing to look towards in the future. So I guess I'm a little, there was some mix up here. And apparently the invite went out, announcing that the meeting was at 2.30. Yeah, the calendar invite shifted as I was editing it and it messed everything up. My apologies, my sincere apologies, everyone. So I'm a little bit concerned then that we will not have the, oops, the appropriate people here to weigh in to make sure that we're on the, and remember, today we are only talking about the town meeting bill. We're not doing any other elections issues at all, just the town meeting bill. This is all we're doing today. So Anthony. Just want to make sure you know that Secretary of State Jim Connors has joined us as well as Carol Doss. So even though the timing is weird, some people are coming on earlier than 2.30 anyway. Yeah, and I think maybe, and I see John Odom as well. So I think that Gail might have sent out an alert to people. And I've, Alison. I've texted Tucker. I mean, I'm sure Gail did too, but I've already, I've texted Tucker to see if he's joining us. So does anybody have any concerns about the bill as it is written right now? Brian. Thank you, Madam Chair. Not a concern, just again, some more questions. Did the bill as we're looking at it already get committee approval in the other body, which would include the Northeast Kingdom? Okay, so we're not changing it. And the likelihood of the addition of that is not great to kind of gum up the works to use a very poor explanation. And I do have questions and I'm glad that the Secretary of State has joined us if I could just go back to the bill itself. So in page three, line 16 through 20, Secretary of State's authorized to order or permit as applicable appropriate election procedures that supplement and relate to any municipal authority exercising on the provisions of this subsection in order to protect the health, safety and welfare. It's a pretty open-ended sentence. And I'm just wondering, it also sounds like it's already been done like maybe last year. I'm wondering if the Secretary has any specific things that he could tell us that he would be able to do? So Senator Collin, I think much of that language is similar to what was in Act 95 and 135 or 92 and 135 from last year. And it's basically to allow me to be able, working with Will to be able to move quickly during this pandemic to figure out what needs to be done to help the cities and towns around the state of Vermont hold their meetings one way or the other. I mean, nobody wants to do away with town meetings. That's not what we're trying to do here. What we're trying to do is make sure that the cities and towns can move forward. And again, I would just reiterate that this is a session law and would only be for this year and this year only. And then it would revert back. And then if the legislature decided they wanted to make changes, they could, but that would be a later discussion. And I do wanna, I don't know, Madam Chair, if this came up yet, but there is the importance to understand the timing of what's going on. So March 2nd, everybody worries about town meeting day being on March 2nd. Well, there's a lot of deadlines that occur prior to that. And the very first deadline is next week, January 14th. That's for articles that are not candidate articles. Candidate filing deadlines are the following week. And then of course, ballots have to be printed February by February 10th have to be available. So there are several deadlines that are appearing starting next week. Will's on the phone as well. So he can, or on the call, so he can help with this. But if you talk to Carol Dawes or John Odom, they will fill you in. Yeah, March 2nd is seven or eight weeks away, but there's a lot that has to happen between now and then. And that's why the legislature literally has to get this bill to the governor's desk by sometime next week, or it's all for naught. We actually want to get it to the governor's office desk by Friday. Okay, I think you've answered my question, Jim and I appreciate it. Thank you. Asia. I'm sorry if this was answered in another forum, but I take it there's no budgetary component to this, but have there been resources allocated to help towns with drop off sites and other supports? JF, the Joint Fiscal Committee, the governor recommended $2 million of CARES money to help fund this and the Joint Fiscal Committee approved it on Tuesday. And we, Senator Rom, we have no idea knowing if that's enough money. The original ask was 1.5 million in discussions with the Joint Fiscal Committee on Tuesday. It was actually the Joint Fiscal Committee asked that we increase that number to 2 million to try to ensure that we had enough. But we still, if every town in the state took advantage, that would be one thing, but if every town and every district that's out there, there are sewer districts, water districts, multi-town school districts, you have the situation with the Northeast Kingdom in their particular instance, they have 46 or 49 towns that they have to try to align dates on. So there are a lot of hurdles that have to be overcome in order for us to be able to do this. And we're going to do the best we can to encourage cities, towns and school districts to make sure they try to consolidate. I think the OCTs on board with that consolidate elections to the same day. So we don't have the town having a deadline here and then the school district having another one over here. And we basically pay twice for the same election. So, and I think Gwen Zakoff has a comment about this as well. So. I feel like I'm stepping on Tucker's toes a little bit. There was one change to the bill that was introduced that was made in committee that wasn't mentioned, which was sort of the legislative intent. There's a provision that was added that to sort of flag for towns and cities that have to work with schools in particular because they're so dependent on town resources to the extent practicable that they could coordinate things and share resources and time things accordingly that they should do it. And it was a way of just flagging it to communities to have it be on their radar. So we're fully behind that and completely support it. Carol, would you like to weigh in? And then John. I was going to say exactly what Gwen just said for the record, for those who don't know me, Carol Dawes Berry, city clerk and treasurer and legislative chair for the municipal clerk and treasurer's association. Yes, at the bottom of the current draft page two is the language that Gwen was referring to as far as the intent for cooperation of municipalities. And we clerks and treasurers, we certainly approve that support it wholly. You know, I'm lucky in that my school district is just Berry city and Berry town, but we already have been working because we already work on different schedules. Berry town has a different date for their annual meeting. And so we've already been coordinating on how we're going to move forward. And I think that it's vital that that cooperation continues to happen. And having it in the bill, I think is really important. And I'm just gonna throw in here before John comes on that I do know that this is an issue, not this particular year, this particular issue, but aligning the school voting dates with town voting dates has been an issue for a long time. And just the way they're done, and I know Will has been working on that for a long time. So hopefully we can at some point have the agency of education come in and talk to us about why we can't have this alignment happen. So I just wanted to throw that out that this is not something brand new and it is not something that's been ignored in the past. It is something that we go through in Berry city because the articles of agreement for our unified union school district set different deadlines for nominating petitions than everything else. And so we have to follow two different deadlines. And it's actually later and makes the window for getting our ballots printed even smaller. Yeah. John, would you like to weigh in? I don't really have anything to add to that. I mean, in Montpelier, we share a ballot with two other entities. There is a little bit of a difference in the filing deadlines, but not enough that impacts us. So it's something I certainly would recommend to other clerks makes life easier and cheaper. So does anybody else, Will, do you want to weigh in at all? Sure, Will Sending, Director of Elections. Sorry, I was late. No, that was our fault. Thank you. On that point, I would just say that it's those issues of coordination between the school districts and the towns and cities are going to be magnified this year because the school districts moving to Australian Balloting and mailing ballots to all voters. And in so doing, relying on the town clerks and the towns to do some of that administration, the mailing of the ballots back and forth. So it's just, it's been, like I said, highlighted, elevated as an issue where it's even more important this year to have good coordination between the towns and the school districts. So maybe after this, if we get, when we get through this one, you might have some really good suggestions of how to coordinate it better and... Yeah, and it's not just dates too, but it's who's responsible for what aspects of the procedures. And there might be more support also for it. Yeah. So does anybody have any questions about what's about the bill itself? Yeah, Keisha. Just one more new person question and maybe the secretary can help me with this, Mr. Secretary. Whatever a town has in place for any kind of early voting around town meeting day, does that automatically correspond? Do you support them through that? I just didn't sort of see that spelled out, but I thought it might be captured in your way of helping them through their election process. Will, do you wanna take that one? I think the answer is yes. It's in a straightforward way. There's no changes there, Senator Rahm. So it's if they move to an Australian balloting system, whether mailing those ballots proactively to all voters or not, their ballot will be due to be ready 20 days before the election. And it's from that point forward that early voting at the clerk's office is available. And that's just standard law and hasn't changed and would apply here this year. The difficulty obviously is the status of the clerk's office being open or not due to COVID. And so what we said all last year and would continue to be the case is that they're not during that 20 day period from my perspective, unless the legislature was to do something different, not required to be open more than they would be otherwise due to COVID. So basically people looking to vote early at the clerk's office are in the same boat as people looking to do any other business at the clerk's office that it is as it's available because of the circumstances. And then I think this gives me a good chance actually, I said to the House committees yesterday, the House committee, the first two operative provisions here are pretty straightforward and understandable and make sense, authorizing the mailing of ballots and authorizing the moving of the meeting date. The third provision is equally important, right? That gives us the authority to adopt these procedures that will allow the process to be done into COVID safe manner. With the one of those that I would assume will be included in that directive will be an extension of the use of the drop boxes which you were asking about. And that's one way to help give more opportunity to the voters during the early voting period to drop off their ballot even if the clerk's office is otherwise closed. So, Tucker, we apologize, there was some kind of a glitch and it said 230 as opposed to one o'clock, so we apologize. But, and Gwynne just stole all your thunder and went through the whole bill and told us, what was what? So, and I will ask you here in a moment to make sure that we went through it right and that we're getting it all right. But the one question that I did have from someone called me last night was this is not, this is not gonna be a central mail out. Like the general election. This is going, each town will determine how they do it and they will mail them out. Am I right about that? I just wanna be absolutely clear. That's correct. Yes. Okay, that's what I... This whole bill is enabling legislation. It's not a mandate to anybody. Right, yep. All right, so any more questions before we go to Tucker to make sure that we really are doing the bill, the way we want to. Hey, Tucker, do you wanna just make sure that we have it all straight? Sure, good afternoon, Tucker Anderson, Office of Legislative Council. I wasn't here for Gwynne's impeccable walkthrough. So how would you like me to move through this? Would you like the official long-winded walkthrough? I believe so, so that we're all really clear about what we're doing here. Okay, I'm going to work off of the proposal of amendment that was passed out of House government operations yesterday afternoon and go section by section. We'll start in section one, which details the legislative findings intent and purpose as expressed by the General Assembly. We'll start with the findings. We'll break it into two categories. The first finding is that the continued spread of COVID-19 has a potential to jeopardize the health and safety of Vermonters who are voting at their annual meetings. The second finding is that despite the temporary authority that was granted by Act 162 and to refresh your recollection, that act provided legislative bodies with the authority to apply Australian balloting to their annual meetings and it waived signature requirements for local candidates at the annual meeting. Despite that act, there are concerns that persist and the two high level concerns that are highlighted here in the bill are first, that in municipalities that choose to apply Australian ballot voting, general law is still going to require that voters apply for their early ballot or that polling places be available to voters within a municipality. Second, that there are many municipalities that want to continue their tradition of using floor votes. So that tees up the intent and purpose of the bill. The intent is to protect the health and safety of Vermonters while allowing voters the opportunity to participate in their annual meetings, including those traditional forms of in-person from the floor voting. The purpose is to permit municipalities to move the date of their 2021 annual meeting to a date later in the year, to permit municipalities to mail out 2021 annual meeting early voter ballots and to authorize the secretary of state to order or permit supplemental elections procedures that are related to the powers you're granting under this bill and that support them. An additional piece of intent was added by house government operations and that piece of intent expresses that the general assembly wants municipalities to cooperate in the administration of district elections. It specifically calls out boards of civil authority in municipal clerks and asks that they help administer district elections that are being held within the member municipalities. That moves us along at hyper speed to section two, which contains the operative provisions of the bill. Subsection A contains all of the temporary authority that we are granting to municipalities generally and to two municipalities specifically. Subdivision one provides that a municipal legislative body may vote to move the date of their annual meeting to a date later in the year 2021. Second power, a municipal legislative body may require the clerk to mail out ballots to all active registered voters. Third, that the town of Brattleboro, which is very special, may hold its annual meeting by electronic means and the reason it is very special is again because it is the only town in Vermont that uses the representative annual meeting model. There is an additional special municipality that was added by house government operations and that would be the Northeast Kingdom Waste Management District. Then under the provisions of the bill as amended by House GovOps allows that district to approve its budget for the ensuing fiscal year through a vote of its Board of Supervisors. Finally, a subdivision provides authority to Secretary of State to authorize and permit as applicable alternative elections procedures that supplement and relate to any municipal authority under this subsection. Some examples that were brought up and I'm sure you have already heard them, creating ballot collection stations, allowing clerks to begin counting ballots in an earlier window. Think Yesterday will brought up tabulators and deadlines associated with acquiring tabulators. Subsection B of this section provides that municipal officers shall serve until the expiration of their terms. As you recall in early discussion of this bill, there was some concern that if the annual meeting was pushed out too far, that statutory deadlines for when officers assume their new positions would cause it so that there would be a vacancy in office until the meeting was held. This was put in as a guardrail to make sure that officers will remain in office even when there's a statute that says they are supposed to leave it on June 1st, May 1st, whatever the date may be. The Secretary of State shall adopt any necessary corresponding procedures to ensure that the public can monitor polling places and the counting of ballots. That is the entirety of the temporary provisions that are contained here. If there are any questions about that incredibly thorough fluid and monotone presentation you just received, please let me know. Keisha. Well, I thought it was riveting. My question is about the definition of an active voter, particularly for town meeting. Is that someone who shows up to town meeting or do they have to have voted in November elections? Is that standard in legislative language? I think that Tucker can answer that, but I believe it's somebody who's on the checklist. It would be someone who's on the checklist so that they know who they are mailing it to. And I'm sure that Will knows how that works through the Secretary of State system, but I think it can be instantaneous and same day. But again, they're mailing these out so there's gonna have to be some deadline by the time they prepare in mail ballots that you're gonna maybe count it as an active registered voter for the purpose of mailing. Will. The... Will, you're breaking up, go off video. Yeah, you keep freezing. Sorry, you can hear me? Yeah. I'm touching the old one in the house. Not working. So an active registered voter, Senator Rahm, is a voter who has not been challenged by the Board of Civil Authority. So if, although they're still on the checklist, there are challenged voters and active voters. So an active voter is anybody that's not challenged. And obviously because we do have same day voter registration, that will play into it as well. Anthony. I'm gonna ask sort of a pessimistic question. We're allowing towns to put off their vote, their town meeting date to date in the future. If things don't get better COVID wise, I mean, is it possible that we'll come to a time where we have to say to these towns, look, we will let you wait till April or May, but it's still too dangerous. So you're gonna have to take a vote by mail. I mean, I'm just wondering what the worst case scenario would be if a town puts it off, but things don't get better. I think Gwynn can probably answer that, but my understanding is that towns have to have a budget by a certain date so that they can turn that budget in to the state because of their school budgets. So they're gonna have to have some kind, if it keeps getting worse and worse, then maybe they'll have to say, well, we can't put it off any longer, we'll have to do Australian ballot. And there's- Even though it would be later in the year, we'd still be able to give them the support that they need to do Australian ballot. I would think so, Gwynn. I think the biggest issue would be not wanting to incur penalties from the state, from the education tax portion. So I think that that's gonna be the biggest driver. And I think that select boards won't wanna be borrowing in anticipation of tax. I mean, there's all these budgetary issues that are lingering and they're very aware of it. So I think for the towns that at least I've spoken to or the ones that I've heard from other attorneys in the office is that they are, the ones that are holding off are really looking for early spring and not pushing it anywhere close to early summer, hopefully by the end of spring, where they can do perhaps a semi-indoor outdoor town meeting at the local fire station where it's open and they have a lot of room. So there's these automatic things that are in play that this bill doesn't change like the penalties. So they know that they're gonna have to get it done sooner rather than later. Alison, did you have a question? Well, I raised this earlier and I just like to tag onto Anthony's concern because having served on Ways and Means, we set the tax rate. And this year, we have a lot of pressure on that tax rate and we need those budgets in for us to know where the tax rate is gonna be set. So this continues to be a concern for me that we don't have a date certain that we have a school budgets voted. And I know it's, I don't mean to be a squeaky wheel, but if budgets all come in in a reasonable way, it'll mean we don't have to do the, this huge increase everybody's worried about. But we're totally dependent on this vote for us to set the tax rate. So that's my continuing concern, which Anthony raised earlier. And that's our job. It's not enough to just pass the school budget for the schools, we have to set the tax rate. I think that we have to have some faith that our select boards and school boards are well aware of their responsibility to the state and know that if they don't get it in, there will be penalties that are assessed against them. And they select boards and school boards have been doing this for 240 years or something like that. And I think that we have to have some faith that they aren't gonna put their annual meeting off until August when they know that they have to have their numbers in much earlier than that. I mean, we could set a date, but I don't think we, that's my personal feeling. I don't think we need to because I think we can have faith that they know when they have to have things in. Jim? Well, yeah. So I just wanna make sure everybody remembers town meeting day is March 2nd and we have all these deadlines that are approaching us fast. And if, for instance, the legislature decides at a later date, hey, we gotta get these things. We need to get these meetings done so that we can get these budgets in. The legislature has time to get that in. I mean, I know you don't have a lot of time, but you've got more time than what we have right now or what the towns have to get these town meetings in the processes in place because that's really what the concern is here is how do we protect town meeting and going forward in a very short window? As I said earlier, you know, the first deadline appears next week. So. When do you wanna respond to that? Secretary Kondos is absolutely correct. I think that this is doing the bare minimum of getting us where we need to be as a state to work up against those deadlines that are lingering and that, you know, there's a wide variety of how towns are gonna go about things or towns that have already said that they're gonna still hold their original town meeting dates. There's a lot of towns that are taking up the Australian ballot authority, even though they currently do floor votes, but still keeping the dates and pushing it out a little bit more. I think just the sheer volume of towns that are going to be switching over to Australian ballot, especially if there's resources available because there's going to be a cost to that to make these transitions. But so if they're seed, there's incentives and money and it gives them more time to prepare, they're going to be more likely to hop on board with that system, which obviously is going to make voting safer and it's going to sort of not solve the problem that Senator Clarkson was bringing up but sort of help alleviate it to a degree. Anybody else on our way in on that, Anthony? I just want to say, I wasn't necessarily gonna propose that we set a deadline or a date. I just wanted us to talk about it a little bit, which we did. I'm pretty satisfied with the direction we're going in. Thanks. Anybody else have? So I have one other question and I'm glad that they put in that section about the asking for cooperation. And I'm glad that the VLCT and the Clarks Association is supportive of that because there was a suggestion that we should put something in an amendment in that would require them to do it. And I think that would have torpedoed the whole bill in my opinion. So I'm glad they did it that way. The other question I have is do we know at all what's happening with the lawsuit? Which lawsuit? I thought that there had been a lawsuit filed against us. Oh, Scott Woodward? Yes. I've heard nothing on it. Obviously that's the AG's office. But I mean the deadline's fast approaching next week and for those issue articles to be placed on the ballot and towns do have, I think you guys discussed this last fall towns do have the ability to place a ballot item without signatures onto their ballot, a ballot question onto their ballot. And at the same time towns also have, or I'm sorry, organizations have the ability right now to for instance, send out an email to, you know, 500 people that says print this, sign it and send it back to us for the petition. So, you know, I think those issues are out there. But, you know, I guess, you know, I'll rely on Tucker, Gwynne and Will who are attorneys to talk about this. But, you know, you can't operate just because there's a lawsuit sitting out there. You got to do what is in law and we're acting on what the law says right now. And that's how we're moving forward. If a court decision comes down and says you got to change it, we'll change it. No, no, that's fine. I just wondered if there was an update on it. Not that I'm aware of. Okay. I don't know. Tucker, do you know anymore? It has been docketed for a motion for temporary injunction for Wednesday afternoon and will be heard in the Wyndham Superior Court, I believe. And that would be a motion to essentially enjoin the state from enforcing signature requirements leading up to the deadline which is next Thursday or Friday. I can't recall which day it is. It might be Friday. So, it is not a suit against you all or the General Assembly in specific. It is asking for no enforcement of signature requirements. So, even if it was accepted on Wednesday and there was a, people would, oh, nevermind. I think it's all just very confusing and very, I don't quite understand it. But anyway, anyway, are there any, Allison? Just, Paul, we're on the subject of sort of the order. What gets put on where? I had a question about whose responsibility is setting the order of the articles on a ballot. Or in a meeting. The order of the warning, which article goes? Exactly. Whose responsibility is it to set the warning or is it set out in statute? Is it a choice or is it set, is that set in statute? Gwen, do you know, I always thought it was the select board's responsibility and that's how we did it. It's up to the legislative body, select board or school board and there is no statutory mandated order of article center. Thank you. Because one can, yeah, okay. Thank you. Yes, Keisha. If you wanted to finish your thought, Madam Chair. Just as a, it's a more general question or concern about having been a three term justice of the peace whose term is expiring and I'm not running again, but people often informally ask you for election support or to help them with the ballot. We obviously try to coordinate with our local clerk's office, but are they covered under health and safety of election workers? Are they getting any guidance about how to fulfill their duties because they're often sent out to people who can't bring their ballot somewhere themselves. So I just wonder if they've been given any consideration in this process. I don't know that we've addressed them specifically. Will, do you want to weigh in on that? Sure. And if I do break up, I'll go off my video again. Senator Rom, we addressed that last year for the state elections in the directive that Secretary Kondos issued and essentially said that they can't be compelled to do that during the COVID outbreak, that if a town has BCA members who are willing and able to do so, they can, but if not to find an alternative way to get ballots to those folks. And to get them back to a job. And to get them back. Okay. And one of the things that makes that a little more palatable is that folks with a disability or who are sick or ill have the right to have their ballot delivered electronically. Okay. So it can be essentially emailed to them through our system. They would still have to return the physical ballot. We don't have electronic return, but at least that eases one direction of that process. And I would assume, I would intend, I would recommend to Secretary Kondos that we include that in any directive that comes out about annual meeting. So I'm going to ask committee members if there are any lingering concerns about this bill or we actually won't have the bill until Wednesday. I believe that's the earliest we can have it because they will be working on it. It'll be on the floor on notice. It was on notice today. And it'll be on for vote on Tuesday. And I think that they're not going to have any trouble suspending rules. So they'll get it to us on Wednesday. And we should get it at our one o'clock floor session on Wednesday and we can vote on it, vote it out on Wednesday in our committee meeting. If that, does that make sense to everybody? We would do it that way. So if that's the case, are there any lingering concerns about this bill as it is right now? And if not, we will, what we'll do is put it on the agenda for Tuesday, just to make sure that if anybody else feels they need to weigh in, they'll have a chance on Tuesday and then we'll vote on it on Wednesday. Does that make sense, committee? It does, Madam Chair. And just in case there's town clerks that got the wrong time today to allow them another chance. Yes, thank you, thank you. That is true. So we will put it on the agenda first thing on Tuesday and then allow anybody who has any lingering concerns or any questions or anything to come then. And then Jim. I just wanna say that this has been a very collaborative effort between the administration, the secretary of state's office, from Monteliga cities and towns, the town clerks to try to come to a resolution that makes sense during this pandemic. And I wanna thank personally everybody that was involved in helping to make this happen because this is clearly a really good news story that we were all able to come together to resolve this in a very fast fashion. As I said, the timing is not great. And we just have to, we're basically, we have to suck it up and get this thing resolved as quickly as possible and onto the governor's desk. And everybody has been supportive of working together to get there. Thank you, that is true. And I see that Kendall has joined us and I wanna thank the governor's office for being supportive of this and also for going to Joint Fiscal to request the funds for it. So I wanna thank the Kendall and the governor's office. Thank you for that, Senator. And I apologize for being late to the meeting today. Nope. I think it was our error that. No, thank you. And I look forward to Tuesday in hearing any lingering testimony then as well. And then we hope, I don't know if you heard if you were here when then, we hope to vote it out on Wednesday because hopefully we'll have it assigned to us on the floor on Wednesday and then we can vote it out on Wednesday and get it to your boss's desk right away. Senator White, I think John Odom wanted to. Yep, I'm going there, John. I just wanted to just put a bug in your alls here that with these exceptions that were carved out, there is the potential of a can of worms being opened. So you all might wanna be prepared for that. You know, dominoes could fall. However, I do think honestly, if you all stick to the timeframe you have, I don't think that worms will have the chance to escape the can in time. But what carve out or what I don't. Just particularly like, for example, the Brattleboro electronic participation and the one you referred to in the Northeast Kingdom, just one of those, if you make an exception say on types of electronic participation for one, then you might hear last minute requests slash demands to do similar things or just, particularized things in different municipalities from different municipal officers. And that's just me being sort of paranoid in worst case scenario. That's my way. You might be right. And I was very uncomfortable about the Northeast Kingdom vote, but then when we were assured that they are the only ones that do it this way and every other solid waste district does it by their board of supervisors already. And Brattleboro is very different. I hate to keep saying that, but it is very different and very special. And I worked with Susan years ago and Frank Bryan, who was very, very opposed to the representative form of town meeting and finally got to the point where he supported any town with more than 5,000 registered voters could vote to have representative town meeting. Is that not right, Susan? That sure is right. And I wish more towns would take it up. And in fact, cities, I think Montpelier would be a great candidate for a representative town meeting. Well, we'll have that conversation later. But may I ask a question? Madam Chair, John, you know, the can of forms, I mean, it's, so in giving the Secretary of State flexibility to work with towns, do we envision that if a town really made a good case for their doing their meeting remotely that the Secretary of State would have the flexibility to authorize that? I think that that is beyond the administrative and organizational help that... Okay, so we're envisioning their help being so, and so I guess the other tag question is, how do the towns apply for the funds to help them with their mail out balance? Will or Jim, do you want to take that and just say how they'll be reimbursed? It won't be a proactive application for funds. It'll be spend the money and ask for reimbursement from our office. And it may not be right away. I want to be clear. We're going to keep a spreadsheet of this and all the different types of reimbursements that are being asked, because we only have $2 million to spend. If all of a sudden we get reimbursement requests like total $2.5 million, we may have to either decide what of those are, go back to what you guys pass and determine what is critical and then go back to the legislature and you can perhaps in the appropriations bill in May add some more money to it. But again, we only have $2 million here. And it did, and just to put it in perspective, there were 440,000 ballots that went out for the general election. We spent about a half a million dollars going each way, half a million going out and half a million coming back. And that was when we started to see the concern when we were talking with the Joint Fiscal Committee and they added the extra half million to the 1.5 to try to give us a cushion that we would have enough. Any money that we have left over if we do goes back to the legislature to decide what to do with. This is not money that is going to stay with the Secretary of State's office. This is just for reimbursement purposes, but we may not be reimbursing until May or June. We may have to hold on to those to make sure we have enough money. Thank you, Jim. Alison? May I just follow up on that, Jim? Cause I think it's very important that towns be assured that if they choose to do this, that the money will be there. It's just a question. You know, I don't think we want towns making a choices because they think financially, they won't be reimbursed. We believe that we have enough money to do this. Okay. But if we don't, we will come back to the legislature for perhaps a future appropriation in the big bill at the end of the year. I guess I can't say it any clearer, any faster than that. Okay, sir. I'm just wondering if the towns are required to ensure that the envelope is postage paid or if they get to make that choice, the return envelope for voting. Will, it's our intent isn't it to have it be postage paid, but that's up to the towns. It is now, Senator Rom, the towns decide whether to pay, some towns do pay postage already for absentee votes or early votes, some don't. There's no language to that effect in the underlying legislation here in front of you, which would be one way to guarantee it. But I think it is included in the parameters that were given to joint fiscal, the including the return of ballots. And at the very least, it would be our strong recommendation that the towns pay for it both ways. I'm wondering if in a pandemic, we should require that the postage is paid. I'm gonna weigh in on that. If we did, we'd have to send the bill back to the house and it would not be, we wouldn't have it passed in time. Thank you for that reminder. From my perspective, we should be permissive, this is a permissive bill, not a mandatory bill. And in my opinion, we should always give towns the flexibility to make their own decisions. Gwen, you'll hear that from me over and over and over again, Keisha, I take every opportunity to say it. Gwen- Music to our ears, keep singing. I think that the Secretary of State's elevated authority or ability to help towns and cities and other municipalities digest and sort of make sense of what's going on with this bill. We'll give hopefully the flexibility to say those sorts of things and say, it's best practice to do this and we encourage it. And I think that that's kind of why VLCT was okay with that elevated authority, because normally the Secretary of State doesn't have any say over local elections, but it worked when the rules that were put out by the Secretary of State last year to help towns, it was really valuable and really helpful and the coordination worked great. So working from that momentum, I think that this is, it's a good balance, right? So you're not going to maybe capture every nuance with this bill, but the Secretary of State knows how to run elections so they can help with making sense of it all, including those sorts of things and telling towns and cities that this is best practice and you really should be doing it. Will? Thanks, Gwen, I agree 100% and that gave me a second. I'm sorry to go back and look at, and Senator Ron, this might be good, quick background for you too. The directive regarding local elections that we issued in April, last April, when the committees gave us that overall authority for last year to implement new processes, it was both statewide elections and local elections. And the first steps we took actually were around local elections. The first directive we did was very simple and it allowed them to move, cancel and postpone the meetings. And so you guys have done that in this legislation. You sort of took care of that first step that we did in our first directive. Then the second directive, and I could share it with you in the committee if you're curious or it's also on our website, had a number of measures included and I would foresee most of those being included in one that comes out right after this bill is passed. And I just took a second to look and we did require postage paid return envelopes if a town chose to mail ballots to all their voters last year. And I will recommend that again to the secretary. I love how I point downward because his little screen is right below mine. So that if it's not only recommended, it might be, you know, if you're gonna do it, you have to pay the postage and I would support that. Yeah, if I may, I just appreciate that. Not just so it feels fair that everyone who might not otherwise be able to afford the postage or millennials, you know, who rarely know how to put on a stamp get to vote, but someone could really question the integrity of the election I think and question the outcome if they weren't given that postage paid opportunity to vote question the barriers being too great. So I appreciate that, but I appreciate you, madam chair, reminding me that our towns are well capable of making sure that that's in consideration. My guess is that with the advice from VLCT and the secretary of state and with the ability to have it, the postage reimbursed is that most towns will probably take advantage of that and do it without being mandated. Keeping in mind that everybody's goal is to reduce the amount of in-person voting on election day. I think most people understand at this point that the best way to do that is make it as easy as possible to vote by mail, which includes paying postage. So anybody else have any concerns, any questions, comments? So we will schedule this then for first thing Tuesday to hear from anybody who might have a lingering concern or town clerks who may not even have a concern but may just wanna weigh in with their thoughts who did not join us today. And then we'll hopefully plan on voting for it first thing Wednesday after the floor. So then we'll vote it out of committee on Wednesday. And then, so it will be on the, hopefully on the calendar on Thursday for notice and on my hope is to be able to ask for it to be taken off the calendar and voted on on Thursday and then put it through all stages of passage. That would be great. So, okay, anybody else have anything? And we have been joined by, if you are looking at your screen, you can see Ameron, Abrajoli there, and hi, Ameron. Ameron is our new, for committee members, Ameron is our new Betsy Ann Rask because that other body over there took her away. And, but we're very happy to have Ameron with us and she'll be joining us on other issues but thought she would sit in and because we've told her that this is probably the best committee. I have heard that. Betsy Ann has returned to her roots in the legislature quite frankly. Yes, she has. She was assistant clerk, wasn't she? Yes. And Gwen had that position. Yeah, and then I took it over when she left for the secretary of state's office. Exactly. That's when we got all the horses in the well of the house. Okay. So committee on Tuesday, let me see if I can find Tuesday's agenda here. 130. Oh, great. Thank you. Yeah, because the Democrats usually caucus at 12 on Tuesday. Yeah, 12, 15 to one, at least. That gives us a little time. So we meet on Tuesday and I'm trying to pull up my agenda here. So for the wait, it's not published yet for next week. They've asked us to hold off until we get the heading of the new committees in place. Okay, but as soon as I get that information. But I'm gonna tell the committee what we're gonna be doing. Okay. So I just, we're going to finish up with the town meeting, Bill. Oh, we don't have anything else on Tuesday. I think that we won't need all day for that. I'll schedule something else. Wednesday, we're going to look at an issue that some of you, I'm gonna explain it in a minute and then hopefully we'll have an update from Susanna Davis and the racial equity advisory panel. Thursday, we're going to have all things election. And then Friday, we're gonna have a briefing from JFO about what monies are. I, my computer is being really, all I can see is Gail. Oh, I will, I'll take my video off. Well, I just lost everybody. Anyway, I'll assume that I'm there. We're here. We're here. Yeah, all I can see is one of you at a time. Well, that's because you may have hit the view, the view button as opposed to gallery versus individual view. So how do I get that? Upper right. Oh, there. Okay. So on Wednesday, we're going to hear about an issue that some of you may be aware of and some of you may not. Tucker is going to, it's a public records issue and it revolves around the issue of when there's an arrest and this dovetails with judiciary. So we'll both committees will be dealing with it, but when there's an arrest and a charge, it's a public document. But if it ends up, there's certain crimes that can either go to juvenile court or adult court. When it goes to juvenile court, it becomes confidential, but it's a little beside the point to make it confidential when it's already been made public. So the question is when do those charges and records become, if they could go to either juvenile or adult court, is there a time at which they just shouldn't be made public at all? And it came about by a case in Chittenden County, I believe. And there are some dispute between the courts, the attorney general, the prosecutors, law enforcement about when that should be made public and when it shouldn't be made public. So it'll be, we'll take on the public records part of it and then judiciary will look at the division between the two courts. Does that make any sense at all what I just said? Sort of. Okay, sort of. Did it make any sense to you? Enough for now. Okay, fine. That's so much more, that's so nice. What Anthony said. Yeah, it was brought to us by the attorney general's office. They really need clarification on it. So that's why we're taking it up. It is not something I just dreamt up. Okay, so that's our schedule for next week. But I think Gail, I think we'll schedule more on Tuesday because we're not gonna need all day for this because, okay. That's fine. And just to clarify, Susanna Davis had to reschedule for the following week. Okay. So we are scheduled to have the VSEA come in on Wednesday and give us an update. Okay. So committee, do you want to, on Tuesday when we're, because this is not gonna take us more than half an hour, I can't imagine on Tuesday because we've had most of our questions asked, am I right? Yes. You wanna see if we can have, get the Larry Novens in to do the ethics commission report. Yeah, let's get, great, let's. All right. Let's get some updates on things that we have interest in, that we passed reports that have been due. You know, all that. And he did send us the entire report. So we have that. So if we have a chance to read it before then, that would be good. Is it up on the website? No, because it's a draft. I don't know if it is or not, but he did forward it to us. It's a draft. I will make sure that everybody gets. I haven't seen it. I mean, I didn't see it in my inbox. Okay. Did anybody else get it? Other than. Here it is. Look at how thick it is. Oh, great. I don't recall getting that. It's dated November 12th. I will make sure you all get that he forwards it to everybody. And then there are a lot of reports that are due to us on the 15th, all those law enforcement reports and stuff. And we'll be taking those up, not next week, but the next week. But just so that, and on Tuesday, we also are going to have committee discussion on our priorities and how we operate. And we have to somehow convince Keisha that she got on the right committee here. Keisha and I get to spend, yeah, she's definitely on the right committee. We get to spend all day together now. Oh. Just like we did, just like when we were on Ways and Means together. Just like Brian and I get to do. Yes. And I don't get to spend all day with anybody. Just after- Just you yourself and yourself. Yeah, just with me and myself. How boring is that? Oh, that is not a word we would apply to you, Mistress White. Okay, committee. There's sunshine outside. I would say we're maybe, Gail, did you want to wait for a few minutes? So I'm going to say we're now done with our committee discussion and we will go on live.