 This is June 5th. This is the Education Committee and the Vermont House of Representatives. And we are starting with a concern around exposure of higher ed institutions, liability exposure during COVID-19. And this issue came to us from Wendy and Susan. So I thought, could you tell us what your concern is? I've invited a member of judiciary, Ken Gosling, welcome to the House Education Committee. And Eric Fitzpatrick is also in the room. This may be a bill that belongs in a different committee. So maybe a better idea. So Wendy and Susan, could you explain the challenge that you're concerned about? Sure. Susan and I have talked prior and she wanted me to start. So we have, and she'll tell you a little bit more about this later, but AVIC has pulled together a group of all of the college presidents in the state, which is all the independents, but they've included UBM in the state colleges. And she's been very kind to host weekly meetings for all of us to talk about all things COVID related as we go through this difficult time as they relate to higher ed. And part of that conversation has been some worry about as institutions that host large numbers of people that live in one place that will have some issues with a flurry of lawsuits if someone were to contract COVID or for things related to other COVID type of injuries or expenses. And I mean legal injuries when I say that. And so Susan and I and other representatives of different colleges throughout the state have been discussing it and doing a little bit of research and we found that there's a number of other states that have either passed this kind of liability shield legislation or are working on it. Utah by far has sort of the most broad type of legislation which says that any business or individual is shielded from liability if someone contracts COVID on their property or out there business with the exception of willful misconduct. Other states have have not been quite that broad. North Carolina has limited their liability protections to essential businesses. Oklahoma is similar to Utah. There's a group of six states Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina, actually five who have liability shields for healthcare workers and they've also started to expand that out to some essential businesses that they're classifying. I can Avery, could you could I just set you the draft. Could you post that. It's posted, but only recently so you may need to refresh the committee page and I also have a PDF, if you'd like me to pull that up right if you could pull that up would be great. Okay, go ahead Wendy sorry. Um, and so there's also been a request at the federal level for the United States Congress to take up this issue. That is, that has not happened up until this point. And I think that if it does happen, it will take quite a while so I think that's why some states have have been acting on it. Now, I think. If you'd like we can quickly walk through this draft. Susan and I have some folks in, in our general counsel's office, take a, take a stab at drafting it. Section one, obviously definitions talking about COVID-19 and coronavirus damages and describing an educational institution and I'd like everybody to please note that this request does come from all of higher ed, publics and privates together so it's not enacted in the definition of educational institution. Section two talks about liability. Subway talks about the fact that will be immune from from certain civil claims as long as institutions are engaging in a good faith reasonable good faith effort to inform everyone who's on a campus about how to comply with our COVID-19 safety protocols. Sub B talks about the exception for willful misconduct if an educational institution engages in willful misconduct, then they should be liable for damages. Sub C talks about the fact that we'd like it to be limited to economic compensatory damages. Let's move on to section three. It's talking about limiting the statute of limitations to one year after the cause of action accrues. Section four is just severability clause saying that if any one part is declared invalid than the rest is okay. Sub B talks about the rule of construction legal piece there. Section six is asking for no sunset and section seven asks for the effective date to be retroactive to March 1, 2020. This is what we consider to be a draft a starting point for discussion. And it and I did receive a question from some folks saying, you know, why don't you, why would you limit this to higher education why wouldn't you expand this to, to all this all types of business in Vermont and I feel like that's, that's up to you to have that discussion. This is something we're worried about as a sector. We wanted to bring to your attention and start by giving some draft suggested language and then if if people feel that it should be expanded to other sectors then I think that's the that's the role of the legislature not the role of higher ed. I assume you have some kind of insurance in the meantime. Of course, yeah. So question to, to Ken and Eric, are there any other organizations that are seeking this kind of kind of relief. Go ahead, Eric. Eric Fitzpatrick with the Office of Legislative Council. Thanks to the chair for inviting me along. Yes. This is an issue that has come up. I know that there have been healthcare entities as well that have talked about immunity from liability legislation, although in fact, the governor as part of his emergency executive order and proposed to include healthcare organizations in the immunity provision there, there is an existing statute that provides for immunity during times when the governor declares a state of emergency, but that that applies to a sort of emergency response related activities so I don't think that's that would be covered by the proposal here, but there is some information that's helpful for the committee to know that that there is some immunity in existence for emergency response activities that the governor has also noted with respect to healthcare providers during in one of his executive orders. So there has been talk about this with other entities I don't think anything has passed at this point but yes it has been discussed to respond to the chair's question. I just stand. Just wondering if we're the right committee to do this or this is something that we should send to judiciary. And I'm, I suppose I could speak with our House leadership on this, but I can certainly appreciate the concern that the institutions have. And this is basically someone who perhaps comes down with coven. Correct. In the institution. Kathleen James. Thanks. Yeah, I guess. Probably not a question for Wendy. Since you already said if you know if this bill is expanded beyond the scope of higher ed. Not your, not your deal. But it does. It does make me wonder now now that you raise it. I'm not sure anybody. How are childcare centers and and K through 12 covered right now. Well, they're close. Probably there, but I did see how, how will they be. I did see Candace. And I'm wondering if Candace, you had some some thoughts on things that are happening in that regard. Thank you very much. I actually raised my hand before mention of the childcare facility, so I don't have anything to add there, but I did want to know a few activities that Nebbi is undertaking on this topic. We have signed on to the American Council on Education's letter to our Congress. In support of federal action, but like Wendy noted, it may not be timely or give us or institutions that enough coverage. We have started to compile other state legislation on this topic, including the states that Wendy mentioned also just throw into the hopper Massachusetts representative Roy the chair of higher education filed a bill to give liability project protection to education institutions that are distributing emergency aid. And it was referred first to just judiciary. Look for additional resources from Nebbi on this topic. We're also planning to convene an ad hoc meeting of our legislative advisory committee on this topic in the next week or two. We have two members in this committee who participate in that so so that's, that's good news. In the meantime, I'm happy to take this to our leadership. It seems like something that we probably should be talking about our committee members in agreement that this is something we should consider, just need to shake your head yes or no, the ones that I can say. Okay, I'm seeing I just, you know, I just want to say thanks a lot for letting us bring it to everybody's attention really appreciate that. Thank you. I will be in touch with chair Maxine grad, as well as leadership. I really would hope that it would always be under a state of emergency. So that we wouldn't be setting a precedent for, you know, children catching anything like measles or the daycare cough or flu that I can see under a state of emergency, it makes sense but just to kind of, you know, make that the kind of, you know, precipitating requirement in a way to be able, you know, that that this that whatever this would this regulation would be under. Thank you. Interesting. Interesting concern. For sure. Kathleen, and then we're going to move on. I think Kathleen. I guess that was where my question was coming from not being super familiar with liability law was how big does this get. And how long does it last suddenly, you know, we have, you know, Important questions to be asking. I do want to mention that if you if you, I mean, all of you have just seen it so nobody's had a chance to really address it yet and I understand that but we are limiting it to coven so it wouldn't be anything to do with regular flu or measles or other infectious diseases but because this is so new and there seems to be a lot of sort of litigious activities surrounding it. It's made us concerned as we move towards fall reopen. Have you had any instances either either view in the independence or UVM or or the state colleges. Well, we haven't had anyone file a lawsuit yet against us because someone has become infected with coven but the university does have a lawsuit pending from a class action lawsuit. I think that's one of our students who are suing us because they felt like we didn't honor the contract. They signed with us when they pay tuition because we went to remote learning for March, April and May. They're upset about that. And so that case is is filed at this point. I want to say a couple of words about the private colleges. We have had students who didn't have a place to return to on home at to go home on on some of the campuses over the summer. And I don't believe there have been any coven 19 cases. But, you know, it's a great concern for all of the colleges because one lawsuit against an institution could be devastating just to defend it. So as you know where many of the institutions are in a financially precarious place and so having to defend such a suit, you know, could have devastating impacts to the institution, even though they have insurance, and the insurance would kick in you can know what that would do to rates in the future. So we've been working really hard all together to give recommendations to the governor for reopening restarting the campuses. And everybody is very concerned to make sure we have liability protection. Our first concern is keeping the students safe and Vermonter safe as well. So we don't want to be faced with lawsuits that may have devastating consequences to the institutions. Thank you Scott Giles from BISAC. You're muted. I probably missed the very beginning unfortunately one use testimony but one of the things I wanted to reemphasize was an observation that Susan had just made that part and parcel with this and something that I think makes the piece of the Vermont conversations, you know, I won't say unique, but somewhat different is that the community has worked together to develop a common set of standards for reopening that are being submitted to the governor's office, you know, for approval. And this conversation about liability comes in the context of a very, very concerted effort to come up with the right standards for ensuring safety, not just for the students that would be on campus but also for faculty and for staff. And it's something that makes this request somewhat different from the requests that other sectors and other industries have made for liability relief, because it comes with a common set of safety precautions and standards assigned to it. And you see value in this. You know, I do want to, you know, one of the things I'm mindful that I think makes this a particularly important issue in Vermont is that we're second in the nation and the per capita importation of students. And, you know, that makes this an even more pressing question, you know, for Vermont institutions that it would be for other institutions that aren't as reliant on students who travel from afar. Okay, I will follow up with leadership and see where we want this to go. And I will follow up with Maxine grad, and I very much appreciate having Eric and Ken in here joining us today and thank you for bringing this up to our attention I know we talked about a little bit earlier Wendy but it now seems like it's really time for us to take a look. Thank you. Thank you, Eric so we are going to switch now to our second topic. Which is our amendment to age 961. This is our discussion about the study for the higher ed study. And Jim is adding had a chance to redraft the bill so that it's now an amendment. He's put everybody's name on it. Maybe we could go through that and then I've invited Wendy from UVM I've invited Scott Giles and Tom little from the sack, since they're both on the list to join us as well. So if he's here as well. To respond to the draft that we have at the moment, which will be on the floor on Wednesday for assuming it gets out of our committee. Avery, could you bring that that up. Okay, Jim, we could run through through this. Sure. So for the record, Jim Daniels console. We are walking through draft 2.2 of your, your, your individual amendment to each 961. The members listed members who have not gotten back to me today that they didn't want to be listed. And I'm not sure there are, there are only two changes from the last draft you've seen. Do you want me to walk through the whole bill or to highlight those changes or reports. Let me just make sure one thing. I want to just make sure that that the people that are joining us Scott and Tom and Wendy have had an opportunity to take a look at this. So if we highlight changes there's still on board to, to knowing what this was about. Okay, so let me just walk through it then maybe. Tom, if Tom and, and Wendy and Scott could just let me know do we need to go through it the whole thing or the changes okay. Just going through the changes is fine with me I've read it carefully. I've read 2.1. Yes. 2.2 that's right so this has to use the end 2.1 so we're about to do the changes. Okay, I think the changes will be fine. Okay, great. If we scroll down every two. Subsection B2. So keep going. Okay, right there. Right. Keep going up. Right here. Okay. Okay so the first step of the community has is unchanged. There's a new sub two online three. And says that remember me be appointed to fill more than one role as identified above. And the other change if you go to the very end. It's on the appropriation here, right there. Sorry, a little bit further up there, Avery. These are one page, right there. So appropriations, appropriation for the per diem and reimbursement is the same amount. It's being appropriated now, though, to the Secretary of Education rather than to JFO. And then secondly, too, is taking money, already authorized, and another part of the budget to use in order to pay for the consultant. And that's the only change there. So that's it. Section 2 here, the second instance of amendment on line 20, just adjust the effective dates in the budget to include the effective date for this new section to scroll down Avery a bit further. On line 2, it's referring to section A9, which is this section, and that will go effect upon passage. So Peter Fagan. Thank you, Kate. So one thing, it's on the floor on Tuesday. So we'll finish this on Tuesday. So Tuesday at 8.30, we are entertaining in our committee, Zoom committee, amendments. I'm just checking the new, let's see, A2, A3, and it should have been sub, where is it? A3B, should have been A3B, was that correct? Can you go up there, A3 over here, A3B. A3B, perfect, perfect. So Kate, we briefed this, Jim did a great job this morning of going through this on a more of a concept basis than line by line and took 15 minutes. There was very few questions on the part of my committee mates. It was received very well. Of course they are, as the term goes, they are digesting over the weekend. They understand it, and as I said, I thank everyone involved. This is, can I say a hell of a piece of work on Zoom? You're right. OK, it's a hell of a piece of work. It really is. You did one hell of a good job in a very short time. We'll have a little more feedback today from Vsac and from EDM. So before we congratulate ourselves. There you go. Questions, concerns. OK, I'd like to, I will let the folks know that we spent a considerable amount of time looking at the select committee. And I know that since you are both on the select committee, you might have some thoughts about that. So perhaps Wendy, do you want to go first? Sure. Yeah, so thanks for letting me chat about this today. And I want to say thank you to Dylan and to Kate for reaching out to me. And asking us to voice any concerns or any opinions that we had about it. So thanks. You know, I think that this is, as Representative Fagan said, a really big piece of work done in a short amount of time. So that was good to get it together so quickly. I think that it's a big body of work to be done. And I understand that. I've got a couple of, I don't know if I'd go so far as to call them concerns, but I do think that the select committee at 22 members is very large. And I know that it's very difficult to create these committees without having a really big number of people. But those of us in higher ed who have walked down these committee paths before and we've done them many times, having 22 people, I think is slightly unwieldly. And I don't know how effective it will be to have that large of a committee. I know that there is a question about UVN's representation on the committee and whether we felt we needed more people. I think that the answer to that is no. I think that we are satisfied with our representation on the select committee and would not find it wise to add more members and make this even bigger. So I think leave it as it is. And the other thing that I wonder about a little bit is the 18 month horizon on getting this done. I mean, I think that's a long time. And I understand that this is a very large issue that all of us, the university, the state colleges, the privates, all of higher ed in the state of Vermont should be concerned about and are concerned about. But I do think that given the challenges of COVID and everything else that we have going on, the times of the essence with this, I think 18 months is a very long time horizon to do one of these studies. And, you know, I mean, other than that, I don't think I have any comments. I'll just say that, you know, we're glad to be working on this. I think that we've been talking about doing something along these lines for quite a while. And I think the stakes are very high. I mean, I think that, you know, we know that the state colleges are having some challenges. I think UVM is having some challenges for COVID. And I think that we all need to take this really seriously. And I think we will do that and we're ready to work on it. And we're thankful for the opportunity to do so. So I'm gonna leave it at that. Thank you. Thanks. I would like to hear from Scott and Tom at this point from VSAC, whoever wants to go first, probably Scott, probably. That's fine. Okay, I'll be happy to go first. And Kate, thank you for, again, you know, for the opportunity to see the bill and for reaching out and giving us a chance to kind of speak about this. And, you know, like Wendy, I wanna compliment you guys on having done what I think is a really good work in a very short period of time on a critically important topic. And I'll just take a few minutes to explain why I think it's so important than offer some specific observations about the legislation. You know, we were recently kind of taking a look at as all of us are as to what's happening within the state across the country, you know, with regard to COVID-19 and its impact on families. And as I feared, the economic impacts of this are breaking out along socioeconomic and educational lines once again. If you take a look at the St. Louis beds unemployment data from the end of April, the unemployment rate for folks with a bachelor's degree was 48% of both the national average and the unemployment rate for individuals, you know, with a high school diploma, you know, or less. So this is critical from an economic development perspective that we figure out and get this right, you know, both as a state for whom higher education is a major industry, a major potential sense, you know, source of our workforce. And with COVID-19, the other thing we discovered from a community perspective was that we don't have the people we need with critical skills and essential service areas. You know, we've seen that particularly in healthcare and without having a vibrant public higher education system, we're not going to be able to meet those needs effectively. So this was always important, but I think that the pandemic has made it more, even more, earth highlighted how important it is. So a couple of observations, you know, on this, and I know Tom will echo this as kind of the experienced sage within BSAC, but one of the critical areas of this work plan is to actually review the work that has been done already before through the various study groups, Pre-K through 16 council. Wendy and Susan will recall that we actually did some pretty good work on performance-based budgeting. Several years ago, there has been some good work done with regard to the coordination of services and programs between our institutions. In our first order of business, should be to take a look at that and see what we can learn from that so that we don't recreate the wheel where we don't need to. And then, you know, kind of in addition to that work, there's a lot of work that we at BSAC have done, as you know, on student attitude, aspirations, students behavior and student kind of aspirations, outcomes and success that we can bring to this table and will not need to be created kind of a new. So, you know, my emphasis here is to make sure that the work plan includes looking at that material so we don't recreate things that we don't need to. Wendy made the observation that 21 people is an unwieldy group and, you know, every single person here, I think, has had the experience of chairing a committee or a nonprofit board or another work group and knows how hard it is to build consensus. 21 is better than 40, which, you know, we have seen historically in many cases, you know, some of these study groups, you know, encompass and rather than focusing on the number, I just wanna make a couple of observations that are less about the structure than about the execution. So, you know, assuming that we're in, you know, basic agreement regarding the structure and the work plan, I think that, you know, from a practical perspective, the selection of the chairs is going to be probably the most important decision that is made as part of this process, only to be followed up by the individuals that are selected for that steering committee, because I think we all know that even though there will be a consultant to do a great deal of work and potentially support on the project management side, the bulk of any project like this ends up being done by a relatively small group or subset of that, you know, leadership. And so, picking that group wisely will be critical to the success of this particular initiative. And then my other thought on the selection, and this is, you know, kind of reflecting on some of my own experiences in the past, kind of chairing some of these studies. The membership, it's important to have people that have both the knowledge and the authority to kind of approve elements and to report and commit to enacting recommendations, kind of when they come forward. And this will be true for the legislative members as well. And what I'm about to suggest may be controversial, but it's, I think, historically accurate, at least from the perspective of how of higher ed. In days past, in the old days when we had the committee on higher education funding, which was a group that came together to make recommendations to the legislature, the key to the success of that initiative. And if you remember, that was created out of the legislature's desire at the time to try and reduce the amount of competition and conflict between the various funded sectors of the community between UVM, the BSC, and BSAC. And the membership included the chairs of the two appropriations committees. And what was important about that was that it both grounded our requests and recommendations in reality, but also meant that there was some capacity within the legislature to be able to push those recommendations forward kind of once they were enacted. And so whether it is the chair of appropriations committees or the chairs of the education committees or the finance committees, I think it's critically important that the legislative representatives not just be individuals that have a passion for this work, but whose leadership positions put them in a position where they can both adequately represent the legislature, but just as importantly when the report is completed and recommendations are ready to be implemented, that they also are positioned in a way that they can actually help to drive those changes, whatever kind of they may kind of be from that perspective. Any and all times these legislative provisions permit designees and my comment about designees is really the same one that I would make about the members of the committee themselves. If we are going to permit designees, those designees need to be equally individuals that have the knowledge and the authority to be able to both make decisions and to be able to commit their institutions to implementing them over time. I think we've all chaired groups where the designees were in a position where they had to perpetually go back to their institutions in order to be able to get approval. And because of the magnitude of the work and Wendy had suggested that 18 months is too long, the more you wanna compress this work, which I think that there's, we have to acknowledge the sense of urgency. The more important is that the people that are actually doing it are people that are in a position to make decisions largely in the time. And then finally, I just wanna make the observation that members should be selected for their knowledge, expertise and credibility and not solely because of the interest that they may represent. I think it's critically important for the success of these things. And I think we can each speak to our own experience that the members that are on it almost have to think about themselves the way we would think about being the board of another nonprofit of another entity where you have certain obligations to that group that are as important as your obligations to the group that you come from. So that what you are doing is working towards the, consistently towards the goal of achieving the goals of the select committee and not just representing a particular interest or a particular group. So in closing, I think this is a really great piece of work and what I come back to is that all of this will depend on the quality of the people that we put in these positions. So let me pause there. Tom, did you wanna add something? There's a little known piece of trivia that at the Middlesex Archives building there's a room way out back that houses study reports. It's, you know, some day when you're got some spare time, go down there and you can, it's quite remarkable. Some of these comments, Madam Chair, are sort of in the weeds, but I'll give them as I walk through this one at a time. When I counted up the potential number of members on the committee, I got 23, not 22, and it was not more than that, but I got 23. On page one, line 15, at least in my draft, there's a representative of the VSC campus administration. And I want, that may be a term of art in the Vermont State College system, but it might be useful to be clear whether that means somebody who's definitely not at the chancellor's office, but from one of the campus level administrations, if that's the intention of the committee. We did actually, we talked about that at some point, didn't we? Because those are complete, in many cases, in many respects, rather, different dynamics. And then maybe my biggest concern is the relationship between the steering group, which you get over on page two and mentioned over the following pages with some very significant responsibilities. And then later on, the speaker and the president pro temp jointly select the committee chair. And it seemed to me a little bit of a disconnect between the role of this five member steering group, which is a very significant role in the proposal. And then the role of the chair of the committee, who is not necessarily a member of the steering group. So that may need to be clarified, unless I missed something, which is possible. It's kind of like the speaker doesn't need to be a member of the legislature. Yeah, that's the, one point on page three of six under subsection, subdivision E as in Edward. It's for clarity's sake in line seven. So the committee shall study the structure of the current higher education system in Vermont earlier on in the purpose, that's E powers and duties. Okay. Earlier on the creation subdivision, the high level agenda for the committee is the future of public higher education in Vermont. Here there's the references to the current higher education system in Vermont. I think the committee just should be clear that it wants it to be different in the different places for a good reason. If I remember just to stop there, that our focus is on public institutions bearing in mind that we're living within the context of also having independent institutions in the state. For the sake of those who are gonna be on the committee, make the portfolio of the committee as clear as possible. And then my last one goes back to, if the speaker and the president of the Senate are going to select the committee chair, when is that going to be? The secretary of education calls the first meeting by a certain date. And then the speaker and the president are selecting the committee chair, but was that maybe that'll get worked out when you reconcile the role of the chair and the role of the steering group. Those are my comments. Okay, thank you. I do want you to know when we spoke, maybe it was last weekend, I did take your, I did add something about reviewing previous. I saw that. Yes, that was compliments of you. And we all agree that one of the things we are very clear we don't want is another study that's gonna go to Middlesex. We're looking for, we're looking to use grab this opportunity that we have in front of us to actually create an action plan. Thoughts from the committee, you've just got a lot. I think just in reference to one of the things that Wendy talked about, the 18 month horizon does have phases in it. Understanding that some things are to be accomplished in different phases. And I don't know if that helps at all. This will at some point be accompanied by a letter that we will be putting together that's gonna flesh some things out. We decided not to have everything fleshed out in the, in the bill because we also don't wanna be limiting as we're moving forward. The expertise that we're expecting to get from the consulting firm that we have not yet hired as far as some of the other little legal issues that Tom brought up. I don't know if people know but Tom used to be in the legislature and chair the judiciary committee. I should have looked to you for that last time we were talking about Tom. Some of the issues that I guess we need to just reconcile our numbers was one. I count 22 still. So to me it needs to help us count. Okay. Well, we'll have Chloe do it. Okay, great. The last word, the last word, the word is a count. Other things that we're bringing up, you know that the appropriation, one of the appropriations chairs is retiring but I do hear what you're saying about making sure that we have people that are in a position to actually do something. We had quite a long conversation about putting legislators in at all. And I think being able to have legislators involved will certainly help us to have Ledge Council as well. Sarita, Austin, and then Peter Kahn. Yes, I just want to say that I also share concerns that were just shared. You know, I do feel the committee is too large. I think there's a lot of good current reports out there. I don't think a lot more study that, you know, I feel like after everybody's read all these current reports, like then what questions do they have? I was, you know, I do think who is on the committee is more important than the size of the committee. And I think it's, it will save time if people can come with kind of some background knowledge and understanding of what's going on. And also to kind of have a set of assumptions that right away they can rule out, you know, that there are certain assumptions that everybody can agree with and then move on. And again, the time limit is concerning to me because every day this problem is not, there's not a solution. It's costing the monitors a lot of money. So I just hope this, you know, it's very efficient and it's kind of laser focused on, you know, what the charge is and getting that resolved. So that's, those are my concerns. Do you have a solution? I think that the, again, the people on the committee, you know, the size of the committee and being very intentional about who is on the committee will make a huge difference. Let's take a look at the list and let's see if you have people that you would take honor off because we're now at the point where we're looking at that list. And while you're looking, I'm going down here. Again, I look at outcomes. So like what do you want the outcome to be of this, you know, report? And then who has to be there for that? Who absolutely has to be there at the table to reach that outcome in terms of skills and knowledge and background information. Again, I'm not so familiar with the players, but again, I mean, in my opinion, I feel like Sharish, he could just do it. I feel like he could just, you know, come up with a solution just from talking to him. I feel like, I mean, that might sound, you know, I haven't talked to the other people, but I just think he is a really good thinker of looking at very complex situations and having a vision of how, you know, where to head. So I do hope he's involved in this conversation. Again, I've spoken to some of that. He's done the list. I haven't spoken to others, you know, so I don't know, you know, their level of skills and knowledge, but that level, I mean, that kind of level of understanding kind of how the solution can be reached, I think is important. Yeah, well, thank you. Peter Conlon and then Kathleen. Thank you. I was interested to hear when these comments about size, first of all, which just so, everybody remembers, this is cut down in half from what we were looking at before. So it's a lean, mean committee right now. But I just, I wanted to, maybe after I get done asking my question, have the folks from Nebbi kind of respond to that. It was their suggestion to have a larger, more sort of inclusive committee. I think we need to remember that, you know, a large committee is really good because then you can, it's sometimes, because then you can have subcommittees that can take on discrete tasks. So that was just sort of one question. I'd like to get sort of their response to it. And the same thing about the length, Wendy Kitting made the comment that 18 months seemed long for an immediate problem and that maybe 12 months would be a better goal. I'd like to hear that as well. And then just a reminder, of course, ideas are great, but when you come right down to it, it's 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration that make things happen. Kathleen, Jane. Yeah, thanks. You know, I was just scrolling through, but in a way to sort of perhaps alleviate some of Saria's concerns, what's clear to me from reading this amendment is that the goal or the task of this committee is to read all the previous studies and come up with an action plan. So to me, action plan means action. And if the action plan gets delivered and then the state of Vermont or the legislature doesn't act on the action plan, that's not the fault of the committee, but when I see action plan, I read steps to do and here's the plan. So I do not have that concern. So we're at the point where are there, if we're marking this up, given the feedback we've just gotten, are there things that people would like to change? I just got note that I believe that it is 22, correct Tom? You did a recount? Yeah. Yeah, great. Kathleen, James. Only just thought that the idea of having somebody from a probes was a really great idea. I'm sad that ours is retiring. And our chair is retiring and Peter Fagan's nodding, but we do have, those are kinds of things that can be communicated verbally. Sarita, Austin. Yeah, me again. I don't know these people. You know what I mean? So I feel like I cannot make an informed opinion about really who should be on this committee or not. They're just labels to me, but I do think maybe there's a small group of people that do know this world and these issues, that probably would be able to look and figure out, again, look at the outcome and then decide what's a smaller group? Who should be there to come out with a solution? So, I wouldn't even begin to say who should or should not be on this committee because I have absolutely no clue. I don't think it's, for me, it's not like people need, I mean, I want to have people to have voices, but I think it has to be a balance between, again, skills and knowledge and people who can work together, maybe people who have relationships together and can really hit the ground running. Is there something that you would like to do to the bill? I would like to lower the amount of people in the group because I just, again, I think it's unwieldy and I think it's going to be tough to reach a solution in a timely manner with that larger group. I will remind folks about a couple of our conversations that we did have with Neve related to the importance of having stakeholder involvement, which is why we're including some of these other folks. Otherwise, it's you just did this to us and we didn't have a say in it. We do have access to the ability to reach out to other people in the communities to get their input is in there as well. And we also have the steering committee, which will basically be the thing that's driving this with access to this committee. So I think we tried to do that by having not only the select committee but the steering committee. Candice, do you have a response? I think you summarized what my response would have been pretty well. Just as you said, in Neve's experience, there's benefits to being inclusive in order to promote buy-in for the final product in a statewide fashion. However, and I think in addition to that, we've found that because people, a lot of these people, a lot of people that are named are busy individuals and our experience, not 100% of people can show up for every meeting. So having something be a little bit larger with the understanding that maybe only 75% of people will be able to attend each meeting was a consideration. And then lastly, that the steering committee should be composed of some of the most passionate and knowledgeable individuals from this group and should be prepared to make some of the decisions and recommendations that this issue deserves to be able to be more than just a shelf document as people have referred to. Did you have a thought on that? About the, I think the designee. Do we want to? For Scott, maybe for Scott. Yeah. No, I mean, I agree. I kind of go back to, and I think Candice is kind of echoing this that the bulk of that work is going to end up being done by the steering committee from a practical perspective. And with, it's not that, you know, I think that there are two strategies that one can, that a committee can engage in. Candice has described one where you've got members who are important and represent broad constituencies and who are busy. So they may or may not have the time to actively, you know, participate. The other model we've seen in which I think in partisan vision in this bill is the designee, you know, model. And, you know, I think that my observation would be that you would want the designee, if you're going to go down the designee path, you want the designees to have many of the same qualities or all of the same qualities that your principals have in order for this to be effective. So I think there's, you know, there's two slightly different ways of configuring these things. And we've probably each led both models. This bill largely envisions a designee model. And so I would focus on making sure those designees represent the quality and caliber of the people you want. And to the point that's already been made, really focus on that, the chairs and the steering committee. Peter Fagan. Oops, just muted myself. Thank you, Kate. As I had talked to you earlier, I need to get going. So I look forward to the draft that you are sending us. And if you would, with your permission, if Jim would send me the final draft over the weekend, I will, I'll take a look at it with your permission, Kate. So thank you. Be well. Thank you, Peter. All right. Yes, please, Jim. Just thinking about the numbers on this community here, obviously there's people who are on the committee and people who have input into the committee. So we have the collaboration section as well. If you look at the people on the committee who are actually making the decisions, on the workforce side, you've got the Secretary of Commerce, you've got two reps of higher education and workforce development, foundations, whatever. And then you've got three reps of the business community. And I'm just wondering whether one thing that you wanted to put on the numbers is moving those three reps from the committee to people to be consulted with under the collaboration section. Also, you've got two community members representing reasons in the state that are not otherwise represented. You could move those two people to the input part. So you have five people who are required to be consulted by the committee rather than having them on the committee. I only suggest that as a way of throwing that needle because that would decrease the number by five. And if the two optional or additional people aren't put in place by the steering group, you'd be down by seven. So there are just ways of thinking about that. One of the important factors of having the business community here, having participated in the higher ed and workforce development panel that Nebbi had done, is the incredible necessity we have to involve our businesses with the ability to provide internships and apprenticeships. So I'm struggling a little bit with it, but I'm open to conversation from others and wondering where others are with this. Nebbi or Sophie or Visak. I know that you guys at Visak do a lot also with non-degree credentials. So we need that community to be involved in some of that. So just wondering, feedback, if we were to cut it down, is this an area to do it? This is Sophie. Go ahead, Sophie. Yeah, I would say that it is really important to have those business community voices, but I don't have a strong opinion as to whether they're from what Jim is saying, whether it makes sense to have them is sort of you need to consult with these people and get their input versus they need to be on the committee itself. I don't have a strong feeling on that, but I do wholeheartedly agree that the business community should play a role with the committee and that that's a vitally important piece of the committee's work. I wholeheartedly agree with that. I think Sophie's right. I couldn't hear that. Who was that? That was Wendy. But after Wendy, I think I heard someone say a wholeheartedly agree. Yeah, that was me. OK. Caleb, Elder. Following up on this question of timing, I do struggle to see how this time frame can be really useful given the immediacy of the problems faced. I kind of see that the action plan would come in the end of 2021 as currently drafted. So that would be the second year of the coming biennium that potentially action could be taken on that action plan. And I may have this a little wrong, but it seems that that would be around the time of probably the development of certainly public school FY23 budgets and maybe VSC's budget. I'm not really maybe Dylan and brothers can fill me in on the budget development schedule there. But what's going to happen in the interim? I'm just trying to understand how does this dovetail with other relief funds that we discussed today on the House floor? And how does the VSC maintain a position over in the next or and UVM and any other schools included in the study or contemplated here? How do we know that the action plan is going to relate to the same type of institutions that we have now as what we have in 18 months? I'm just wondering if there's some flexibility for this group if things really change six to 12 months from now that this group could have the flexibility or that the consultant they would hire would have the flexibility of scope to assist in a previously unanticipated way. Anyway, it's just a little hard for me to understand that that would be helpful. Someone could kind of flesh that out of how that might work in time. Anyone want to respond to that? I would just say that we will be working at the Vermont State Colleges. We will be working on taking a hard look at what changes we need to be implementing. And we had touched on this yesterday. Our timeline is somewhat shorter. My hope is that there would be flexibility here that there would be communication back and forth between the work that we're doing at the Vermont State Colleges and with the select committee so that we're not headed in different directions and that the select committee knows what it is we're doing and hopefully can provide advice and input too as we go along. Yeah, we need to move forward at the Vermont State Colleges. We're not gonna sit back and wait a year and a half to find out what the select committee might recommend that we do because we don't have that kind of time to be making those decisions. So those conversations have already begun. They're already moving forward at the individual campus level and the system-wide task force is getting ready to start wrestling with some of those really challenging issues. Well, I'm really glad to hear that. I mean, do you feel as though, I guess it does make me concerned that this select committee will be redundant and we'll just sort of play and catch up to decisions that the VSC may be making anyway? Do you think that's a risk that this committee is just sort of watching and waiting to see what you do and changing their action plan accordingly to what you've already done? I don't believe it will be redundant. I think this committee will play a separate and important role. We exist for the benefit of the state of Vermont and I think it's beneficial for the Vermont State Colleges to have input from this committee in terms of what the expectations are for the state of Vermont, for the VSC moving forward. So I do believe this select committee is important. It has an important role to play. It can address bigger questions that are beyond just the VSC itself. But I do think that there needs to be communication about what changes we're contemplating within the VSC. I think the fact that there is a select committee also working on these issues will actually galvanize and help focus of Vermont State Colleges Task Force to move forward with its own work rather than waiting to be told. But that they know what we can do. We know how best we can do it. So I think it's helpful for us to have those conversations internally, understanding there's a select committee that will also be reviewing things. But I think the select committee has a broader higher level perspective that's important and that should happen and provide input to the task force that we have and vice versa. So I think these things can work together and hopefully they'll be complementary. For example, we have a committee of 14 to 15 people. The campuses have task forces with a lot more community, et cetera input. But I think again, we're gonna have a lot more people involved and input from these various committees and task forces. And it broadens the conversation across the state, which I think is valuable. The risk of course is that you're gonna have so many they're all moving in different directions. So again, the important piece here is gonna be good communication and making sure that everyone's, that there's some crossover there that they're not working in isolation from each other. But I do think it increases, again, increases the input from across the state in a helpful way. And I do think it would be beneficial to the Vermont State Colleges to have input from the state as to what the expectations are moving forward, what the state needs from the Vermont State Colleges. And I think that's above and beyond what our task force will be looking at, which will be much more focused on, how do we deliver what we do in a sustainable way across the state? So I think these things are complementary, not conflicting. And I think the select committee will be helpful to this process moving forward. Candice. Tor, I'm happy to comment a little bit more on the timeline aspect. I think you rightly state that some of the decisions related to the financing of VSC and the sustainability of the institutions need input and feedback on a shorter timeline, which is why we put that into the phase one activity. Which would put an interim report on those topics, I believe, around December of this year. But that the success of public and generally higher education in Vermont also requires studying things like how well institutions are able to address students' needs today, but also their future preferences for education and training, how well the K-12, pre-K-12, higher education and workforce training systems are working together to increase the attainment of in-demand knowledge and credentials. And then of course, relatedly, how education and training is bolstering Vermont's economy, meeting the needs of employers and supporting a sort of innovative environment that offers family sustaining wages too, of course. So I think that there are so many important elements that go beyond just the important, the short-term financial considerations that have to do with the long-term success and sustainability of higher education in Vermont that warrants a bit of a longer timeline, but of course it's up to you folks to sort of decide what that timeline really is. I think we certainly remember from the presentation that you gave us and I have it here in front of me, the future of learning and earning. It needs to be learner-centric, workforce-connected, future and talent-focused, and it needs to be stakeholder-engaged. And then how are we going to do that with our state colleges so that we are addressing those factors that we know are what is being called on? Particularly, Tom, little, yes, please. Just a couple more thoughts, Chair. Not to beat this one to death, but the- Go ahead and beat it. We do that in our committee. I've had a little experience. The issue of designees, there may be a way of crafting some language other than the standard name the person or his or her designee by using some language that captures this committee, the Education Committee's sense of urgency for this work. And it might go something like, this position is the president of the University of Vermont or the interim chancellor of the state colleges. And in the event that he or she is unable to attend a particular meeting, a designee may be sent for that meeting or just something that indicates that the principles on this committee are really expected to be personally involved and to stay engaged throughout. If the feeling you get from reading this is, oh, well, then the person who's named can pass this off to someone and basically never go to a meeting, that's not a good thing. And I'm not suggesting any of them would, but it might be possible to add a little bit of language that adds that additional level of expectation. And I also think that the appointing authorities, and this isn't something you put in the bill, the appointing authorities can themselves make it clear what their expectations are from the people who were appointed to serve on this. And the last next two comments and my final ones are on a smaller level. I would think if you asked the committee to report out quarterly, you would require them to develop, to get moving faster and develop and maintain some momentum faster. These are only interim reports, but if you wait for six months, that may be maybe too long. And finally, and I think Madam Chair, this is something I might have sent to you by email. I've never been a big fan of calling something a select committee. It makes me ask, well, what's the other kind of committee? And I might just call it an advisory committee. We actually got some good feedback on that from- Whatever you do, don't call it a blue ribbon commission. What I wanna say now is we're now kind of at a witching hour. And I think that, and our committee is so good at wordsmithing and getting things perfect. I'm afraid we're gonna lose the ability to move it forward. And we're voting something out, we're making specific agreed upon amendments right now. We're holding it over the weekend and meeting on Monday. And so in terms of Peter Conlon, this is the time Peter comes in and sorts it up for us. So Peter, go for it, we need you. Sorry, I was actually gonna back up to a couple of points that were made, but I guess in general, I'm with UK we are at a time where we need to wrap this up. And I think we need to be careful about getting ourselves twisted up in knots over things over which reasonable people can disagree, such as the committee makeup, because we can do our best work, come up with something that most of us feel pretty good about and it can get changed in the Senate. And that's just to say that this is gonna go through another iterative step when it goes to the other body and potentially even before that one, it's in front of appropriations. So just let's not get real twisted up over some of the smaller minutia. I kind of had an opposite feeling about the designee issue. My concern is that the named person or whoever it would be would say, oh, we then say, well, could you go cover the meeting today? I can't go, can you go cover it? I'd rather have them designate somebody. If they don't think they can make a hundred percent commitment, I'd rather have them designate somebody to think about the Secretary of Education who fell a lot on his plate and may not have the expertise and were he designate somebody specifically to be the point person for the agency on this committee. So then I was also thinking about the timeline issue and Candice really reminded me that we had these interim reports and that actually makes me feel better about an 18 month horizon. I do worry given the abruptness for which the Chancellor proposed closing three residential campuses, that 18 months from now, we don't know what we're gonna have for a state college system, but I think the interim reports will be allowed the committee to pivot. But anyway, I just hope we don't get too caught up when we know this is gonna go through some more iterative steps. And regardless of what happens with the structure of the months from on state colleges, we still have people who are gonna be needing access to education. So, okay, I need to know it's the witching hour. Do you want to just keep the committee as it is or do you wanna reduce it? Let me put it this way. Okay, Dylan, good, Dylan. I was just gonna say that at this point, we've gotten some really good feedback today. We've deliberated on this for quite a while. I think that the makeup of the present configuration will be a good model. We actually got that feedback from Representative Fagan, which is really important to know that the Appropriations Committee with him as the person conveying this information said that we did a damn good job. I believe those were his words. And I just feel as though this strikes a good balance and it will start the conversation. There are additional stops as this moves through the process, but I've taken it to heart what our speaker in the pro tem said been a month and a half ago where they said, we need to have a broader look at higher education in this state. And to me, this model is one that would work quite well. So I would certainly be supportive of advancing this as it stands without changes right now. Knowing that other more possible changes or sort of working with that group or some of that language can happen in the Senate and can be, as we say it, take it to the other body. Could I ask, so let me just do it this way. Let me just do it this way. Who would like to keep it as it is and move on? So we're just gonna do it. So let me just ask committee members here. So Dylan, you wanna keep it. Caleb? I don't have any strong feelings about the committee's size. Yeah, the makeup, I don't have any more input there. Okay, and would you wanna be on, and the other thing I will ask is this is a draft right now that has all of our names on it. Would you want your name to be on it? My name is not on it and will remain off of it. Okay. Sarita. Yep. I would like my name on it, but I would like to cut seven people off of it. I'd like to cut it down to 15. And I like the idea of having maybe one representative, let's say from the business community and then be bringing people in for testimony. I don't, I can't bring people in for testimony. You can't, you don't have time. You can't do that. It goes to the Senate. Yeah. I think Sarita's talking about the committee bringing in testimony. Right. The select committee. Oh, yes, okay. Okay. Yeah. I was confused there for a minute, but I like that model better. Cause that, I feel like you have like a solid body that can work together and bring in whoever they need to talk to to get voices in. So that, but I will support the bill. I mean, whatever the committee decides. Okay. I'm sorry. We're just sort of at that witching hour here. Chris Matos, you're good. Do you want to be on the bill? The amendment? Yeah. Okay. Lynn. Yes. I like it the way it is. And yes, I want to be on the bill. Casey. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yep. Okay. I'm having a little issues. I'm in the basement. Yeah. I'm going to end my name on it. Okay. Jay. Yes. I'm with Sarita. I think if we can, if we can slim the thing down to 16 members or something around that number, that'd be nice. But I'm also okay. Like Dylan is. If it doesn't change, it's fine. I'll keep my name on it. It has another station to go. Who've I missed? Kathleen, we'll get to you. Did I, Kathleen? Yeah. I'm very satisfied with it. I think we've heard from a lot of experts. I like having a broader group of stakeholders. I think that it's an action plan. And I am happy leaving it up to those experts to figure out a way to work effectively with more voices in the room. Okay. And Peter Conlon. To put it succinctly to what Kathleen said. Okay. So what I'm hearing is I've got 10 of you. I know that Copley wants to be on it. 10 of you that want to be on this, I've got 10 of you who are okay with the number and one that would like to change the number. Are you changing the number? Are you accepting it? If it's a matter of, Serita, you're okay. Okay. All right. Are there any other changes then? Or are we there? I will accept what the committee, you know, the majority of the committee decides. I'll go with you with that. But I just think it's unwieldy, but I will go with the committee's decision. I hear you. Yeah. I will entertain a motion. Were there any correct? I'm sorry, Jim. Were there any things that we needed to correct in that? No, we don't. I can't hear you, Jim. I'm sorry, Joe. No, you don't need to vote as a committee though because it's an individual bill. So you don't need a motion to pass it. I'm sorry. Say that again. You don't need a motion to pass it because it's not a committee bill. Okay. Right. So I don't need to take a vote on it and because everybody's name is on it, except for one. Okay. I can't. I just want to, before we close this, when we took on this task, my idea was what the hell are we doing? I never thought we'd pull it together, but I just, I do want to recognize the fact that you have spent a lot of time pulling people together, pulling in testimony, having conversations. And I think when you get the member from Rutland City, a corporation saying it was Dan's good work, we'll take that compliment. I want to thank Nebbi so much for helping us with this. I am so sorry that it took me so long to bring Visak in because you're actually on it. And I hope that's okay with you. We got hit with this less than a week ago and have been working on it sort of diligently since to try to get this right. Not taking all the testimony we should have, but such as it is working under pressure in the middle of a global pandemic. With that then, okay. I guess we have no more changes to make to it. Kathleen or Peter, do you want to be reporting? I'm happy to open it and do an intro and one of you present it. We'll find it out over the weekend. Okay, I'll do it. Just going to say something similar. We'll discuss that offline, draw straws. Okay, Tom and Scott, thank you so very much. I think you're both my constituents. And I appreciate your work and your voice on this is really critical. So we appreciate having you part of it. Thank you very much for coming in at the end and for your participation. And Sophie, thank you also for your incredible flexibility on this. And with that, we can end this part of the conversation and move on to how we're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of COVID relief fund dollars. Oh, thanks very much. Before you leave, actually, Wednesday. Can I lose you? Go in here. Yeah. Send me some thoughts on COVID relief spending. I will. Yeah, I'll have something for you on Monday. Okay, thank you. Yep, thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Sophie, I'll send that to you as well. I have been given a task of spending some money that's COVID releasing. And I have some... I can come up with something. So I've something that's just designated to education and it's not delineated for me, whether it's higher ed or lower ed. For K-12. Right, right, right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. And Kate, this is Scott in that regard. Maybe I should send you some materials and appropriations asked us for. Oh, please do. Thank you so much, Scott. Thank you for coming in at the end. And Candice, I don't know what we were done without you. She's gone. But we do have Brad and Chloe for our next order of business. Another thing that we got hit with sort of late in the game here. Let me just see if I can find those notes. And wow, we're starting even on time. That's an amazing, amazing thing. So... I'm sorry. I've got like 15 documents opened at the moment. So we're now gonna switch our conversation to talk about use of CRF funds. And I've been given a task. The speaker spoke with Larry and Peter and me. We've been given the task related to getting the COVID relief fund, CRF money out into the hands of Vermonters. And in our case, that's really into the hands of our schools. And we are to consider what is really, what is most time sensitive and important in a first order of priority. And we're to then think about second order priorities. So last week, we started outlining some of some priorities and Jim put together a list. We were looking at things like the cost of addressing learning loss, which we heard quite a bit about, cost of implementing remote learning, professional development and health and safety issues that will require equipment or structural changes like HVAC systems and things like that. Given this, the numbers that I've been given, I think the secretary went through, was looking at us then 210 million the other day and he talked about putting 100 million into a continuance of learning and 100 million into facilities and 10 million into social emotional issues. We started, Larry and Peter and I had a conversation with JFO today, with Chloe and Mark, just because the tasks seemed really overwhelming. We were to, we were given the task of, we were given, let me see. It's not there. 250, 275 million, here it is. 275 million apparently has already been allocated through the joint fiscal process, budget adjustments and transitional budgets and municipal lending bills. 400 million is being held for budget holds and 575 million is for first tier committee priorities. This is according to what the speaker is looking at, which results in the 1.25 billion dollars. So for our committee, what she wanted us to look at is what are our first tier priorities to use $50 million? I mean, I have to deal with this all the time. I know all of you do in your own finances. Like how am I gonna spend the next 50 million? The second tier priority would be 75 million and that would be after, perhaps after we've taken care of first tier priorities. She wanted to make sure that this does not include the 150 million that we looked at that's missing in the Ed fund. We're actually looking at maybe finding a way to free up Ed funds for what are really valid COVID related expenses that can help free up some of those Ed fund dollars. So our task was to look at, what is some of our first tier priorities for $50 million? And I have to say sort of went down the rabbit hole of how much for HVAC, how much for PPEs, how much for professional development. And that was a really awful way to go because I don't have the brain for that. So we met with Chloe and Mark today and they had a different way of looking at this that might be looking at what districts have been spending on COVID related activities and how we might instead view it instead of outlining in the first tier what you should spend it on. Let's look at what you have been and we'll be spending it on that are I can be identified as COVID related. What I understand, we've got Brad in the room, we've got Chloe in the room. What I understand is school districts have been starting to code their COVID related expenses. Is that correct? Can I talk to Chloe and Brad about that? Is that what I understand, Brad? Yes, that is correct. We asked them to start coding to a COVID code several months ago when this first started. And it was apparent that this was going to be taken off and happening. Okay. Brad James, Agency of Education, just for the record. Yes, thank you, Brad. So that helps us in a way in terms of what our first order priorities are, that we have districts that are hungry for money. We're telling them, don't spend your Essar money yet because that doesn't have as many strings attached to it. We want you to spend it on CRF, we want you to use CRF money, but we're not sending any money to them. So what can we do to speed up the spending of that money? May I interrupt for a second? I think what the school districts really need right now is to know that they're going to get CRF money for the dollars that they're spending right now, this current year, but they've been spending since early March up through June that they will be spending. Because there's kind of been a silence from everybody from AOE, from everywhere for them. They're not hearing that, yes, we are going to be reimbursed money. I think we all know they are, but they're looking to see how it can be done. They're also coming to the end of the school year where they have to close their books on June 30th. So they're in that process right now. So what they really need is some type of acknowledgement that these funds are coming to them so they can at least book these costs or these revenues as a receivable of some sort. Okay, great. Chloe, we had an interesting conversation on how we might do this. Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure, so Kate and I had a meeting this morning sort of discussing the first tier of funds that have been allocated, which is this $50 million that we're discussing now and how to, like Brad was just saying, schools are already incurring costs. And so the question is how can we get these funds to the districts? And it's important to really differentiate between the fact that this is gonna be to help them with the new direct COVID costs that they have been experiencing. So as Brad was indicating that they're coding as COVID related, we have talked a little bit about different fund flexibility and the CRF money is pretty much the only thing that you can use it for is these direct COVID expenses. So it works well. And the conversation that we were having is how to get this money out to the districts, like as Brad was saying, sort of as quickly as possible. And so maybe that means not putting as many strings on it but saying that each district is going to be allocated a certain amount of the $50 million. And whether that be allocated based on enrollment or square footage or whatever, title one, that can be a decision that goes out. But each district will, we're gonna say, you get 900 K or a million dollars, there's 151 districts. So if we're talking about $50 million, you can imagine that an average district might be getting anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million. And then we will say to them, use this money for your direct COVID expenses that you have incurred. We understand that this might not cover it or it might be too much, but you will track your expenses that you have used this money for. And then there'll be some sort of auditing process that will have to get worked out, but that will sort of provide that immediate relief for schools and sort of, right now a lot of what the legislature has done so far is sort of this weight till August so we got some more information. So this doesn't really change that broad game plan. It just gives districts some money for those expenses that they are already incurring and are already experiencing. And it's just gonna be a start. So that sum it up. I think it does. Then we were trying to figure out how do we, how do we, and what do we base this? So that we don't have one district that's just gonna go get a whole bunch of money and another district that is a little slower to action. How do we account for different sizes, Brad? I'm sorry I wasn't in this conversation this morning. And I don't care where we go with this, but it seems to me that with the cost of their incurring, I'm seeing this as two parts, not as two parts, but as two pieces to the same pot of money. I'm seeing it as FY20 and FY21. And it seems to me that for the FY20 that we should make this FY20 a reimbursement because they've already incurred these costs that they did not expect. The money's sitting there. We should be finding that to them. I don't know how much it's gonna suck up. I could make it a guess, but I'm not sure. We can talk about that a little bit later too. And then I think what you're talking about for FY21, then what Chloe was saying makes a lot of sense to me is saying, okay, you're gonna get something based on your number of kids, whatever. Again, the ESSER money's going out based on the title one percentages. So that's another option. There are all kinds of options out there for that. So ESSER one, ESSER one, it's the CRF that we have to include. Which one do we have to include independence? And Kathleen, sorry. The ESSER money is going out under the title one appropriation and that's the one that has the independent schools in there for eligible services, or not eligible equitable services part of it. Okay. Kathleen, did you have something that you wanted to say? I had a question. Yeah. So just about the sort of process, Chloe, that you were describing or yeah. So schools have been coding their COVID related expenses since the get go. And were they given a clear, I guess clear guidelines about what counts as a COVID related expense? Because what concerned me about that process that we just described was the idea of districts kind of winging it on what's a COVID related expense and then getting money based on that and then an audit process that happens later and everybody trying to kind of clean up their books or square up their expenses and finding out that everybody was counting different COVID related expenses. If I describe that right. Yeah, fair. Brad, you would be looking at this. Yeah, well, not necessarily, but yes, to answer your question, the guidance that we put out there when this first half was not at all clear because we didn't know what the guidance was. And the guidance has subsequently firmed up a bit since the law was actually written, since the money became available and since US Treasury and US Education also put out their different guidances for the different, two different pots of money we're discussing. I think that what we told people when we said suggest they start coding this because we knew they were gonna be asked or we're pretty sure it was going money to reimburse people was that any unexpected expenditure that came up should be coded as COVID because I mean, certainly if your boiler blows up, that's not COVID related. But everything else that's coming up that is clearly COVID related, we said make sure that you code it that way. Whether they coded people's times at different time points now, I don't know, they could have for certain things, certain people. So, I mean, there's information to be talked about. I don't know if Chloe has talked to them in more detail with the superintendents. I don't have talked to business managers too, Chloe, but I think there's more information that we can certainly glean from them, but it needs to be done fairly quickly at this point. All right, one last thing. I don't, I think if to address your point of having to square up their books, I think if we come up with what the guidance lines are right now, they will be working on that because it's quite a bit of money for them, I think this year, it'll be even more money for them next year. It'll be obviously easier to do next year. Because I can't, I mean, I would defer to the experts, but there would be that balance you'd wanna walk between getting the money to the districts quickly because they're, and wanting to say like, okay, clean up your books and then we'll get you the money that's correct. I don't know, I'm just tossing that out there. No, no, no, I understand and I don't necessarily disagree with you. I know that some business managers have asked questions of a variety of us at AOE. Is this co-related or not? And we, as best we could tell, based on the guidelines that we're answering. But again, as I said, pretty much anything they're coming up with that they were not anticipating is pretty close to co-related. Perhaps not everything, but I think most of it is. Peter, come on. Yeah, the guidelines are, of course, the most important part. Ultimately, who's gonna decide what isn't the COVID expense? I think we're going to have to be. Well, I'm not 100% sure. I guess it's gonna depend on who really puts that money out. And I haven't had any conversations anything about that either, is if the money comes to us and that the money has then run through us, then I think it would be our responsibility to decide that this is a COVID expenditure and this is not a COVID expenditure. So you don't foresee basically an audit of the state government by the federal government to make sure that you weren't handing out the money responsibly. I absolutely do see them doing that because they said they're going to do that. So it's something that we can't take lightly. The last thing we want to do is be giving money back. Okay. I mean, one of the challenges we have as an education committee, dealing with school districts and education expenses, it's not like a state agency, like the agency of human services where they know what they spent with education. It all depends on every little district and the decisions that they made. Which is why this seems to make a lot of sense where you would take the 50 million first pay all the back expenses out of it, then take what's left over, issue it to school districts based on some formula, probably enrollments. So they got the money in their hands quickly, let them sort of expense against it using the guidelines provided by the agency of education and then basically anything left over gets caught back. See, that gets the money out there quickly. It takes a burden off the agency of education to sort of administer like a reimbursement program. So it seems like it's a good way to deal with a problem where we don't have to make a list of HVAC improvements that qualify as COVID related. Right, that's what we're trying to get away from. You lost me a little bit there though on, oh, that's right, Chloe, you had a thought of how we could avoid having the agency have to go through all the little reimbursements. Okay, we're doing it. The idea was is just give the money based on a formula. But let's say there's $40 million left over after the expenses are reimbursed from FY 20, FY 20. There's $40 million left for FY 22 before December 31st. The idea was just grant it all out based on enrollment or some other formula, let the district's expense against it. So they aren't having to go to the agency of education for reimbursement and then just chew it up at the end. I have a question about that. Yeah, I know the money has to be spent by the end of the year. Does the AOE sending it out to the district's count is spending it or did the district's, oh, gosh. The districts have to spend, the money has to actually be spent. Out the door. Out the door. By the districts. Okay, so that's my current understanding, yes. So we don't really know how much, we don't know how much the districts have spent so far. I mean, I'm supposed to deal with this number 50 million. I'm also supposed to keep in mind the 150. And think in the future for 75 million. Oh, and by the way, remember how you're at. So it's my little brain's fried on that one. I feel like next. But so, I mean, I would really, I think your immediate focus is definitely on the 50 million. Right. Which is really money that can be seen as sort of above and beyond what the district had already budgeted for, which is why it's very applicable for CRF funding. So this is, you know, you have $50 million to say, okay, like how can we best get this money out to help districts deal with direct COVID related expenditures that they are experiencing above and beyond their budgets. And then the next level is preparing for the opening of school. Right. Yes. I think based on the last time I asked business manager for a rough estimate, which I think was for this committee, having heard from a little over half of them, I think they're around $3.6 million, something like that. I looked before I came on. So I think, I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry, the total that they've spent so far? A report to me were $3.6 million, a lot of caveats and a lot of them were, we don't have the numbers in yet on some of them. So that's a low ball figure, I think. It also is not for all the SUs. So I think you could easily say it's probably $7 million, probably going to be approaching 10. I'm not 100% sure, but that would be my guess based on what business manager told me. Because they still had the, when I asked, they said six weeks of the year to go. They're also looking, some of them are also looking at purchasing equipment for the opening school out of this year's money. Some are trying to do it for next year's money. It's kind of all over the place. I think, go ahead, I'm sorry. We had talked about how you might account for that, how you might account for funds related to safety and health and buildings, perhaps related on square footage, looking at what's related to student learning, perhaps based on enrollment, or the whole thing that's on enrollment. Then we actually, we went through ADM, we went through waiting, and we kind of ended up with a concept of enrollment because then you get to know who's actually in the building. Yeah, and the staff is going to kind of follow with enrollment. It's going to be roughly proportional to it. Yeah. So if I'm a sending district, it's really the receiving district that gets the money because they're the ones that are actually educating the students, that's what our thinking was, who wants to mix it up. Sarita. I'm just wondering, since kids have been out of school, probably now it'll be five months since March when they enter back in September. And I think we have no clue in terms of remote learning, if they were able to acquire the skills, the grade level skills that they needed. Could this money be used, and it would be directly COVID related. Could it be used to assess kids and then get teachers resources to bring kids up to grade level due to the learning that they lost due to being out of school due to COVID-19? I would imagine so given that it's really COVID related that they lost ground. Right. Just being able to measure their reading levels and their math levels, let's say, and then get substitutes or parent educators just for a short amount of time to work with kids that really fell behind in terms of their skill development and their learning. Yeah, I would agree that certainly progression is gonna be an issue that's COVID related. And I'd really like it to go to helping kids advance in their learning, like directly go to kids. I think that's- I'm just wondering if that would be- Absolutely, I think that can definitely be related to COVID. Me too, I do really. And no one knows where these kids, all these kids are in terms of skill development at this point. I don't disagree with you at all. I don't know as whether the federal folks would accept that as a cost. I honestly have no idea. I understand exactly what you're saying. I don't disagree with you. I don't know what they would think about it. I'm sure they're gonna hear this from everybody. Chloe, I don't know if you and JFO folks have it in it, your treasury to ask. I don't think we haven't in quite yet, but I definitely think that that is something that's worth discussing. But I do wanna maybe just sort of pull it back to this idea that right now, we're talking about sort of like immediate cost that these districts are facing. And we have $50 million to give out, which I know sounds like a lot, but when you split that up between 115 districts, it's not that much. So a district might get 500K to deal with, at least to start off with. So I don't think that in this particular tier one package, you're really thinking about like that. That is definitely something that we're gonna have to think about and account for. But at this particular moment, I think the focus is sort of assisting districts with expenses that they've already had to incur and will incur immediately over the summer just to get school open for August. So is there a way to find that out? Like in the next round of money, is there a way to kind of start beginning to explore that about being to assess kids and then address their lack of skill development? I think like Brad was saying, I think every state is trying to figure that out right now. And that sort of brings to question this like broader question of the education fund and there's $150 million shortfall that we have and how much federal funds can we provide to the schools and in what manner? I think Brad and Chloe that the superintendent, I know that the superintendents and a couple of folks are interested in meeting with you on Monday. I need to have some, we need to have some things prepared that the committee can address. And I don't think this is gonna be done well on the committee time, but actually to do some background work to get something ready would be, I think it would be a better use. So if something would happen on Monday. One thing I can say is that when Secretary of French was on yesterday, I think it was when he came up, oh, am I on mute? Nope, I had a trial. Okay, one thing I can say is that when Secretary of French was on I think yesterday, maybe I'm losing track of time yet again, when he was talking about his placeholders at $210 million that you referenced early at the beginning, he is working on fleshing that out into more detail. He's thinking that he will have something for, certainly Tuesday, maybe Monday that he's working on. That's the message I got when I asked him. Thank you so much. It's not like saying, what is the transportation need that we're talking about? What do a whole bunch of little cottage industries need? And how are we gonna set what the priorities are? And I think we're pretty much thinking, seeing nods that addressing the immediate expenses of these districts is a priority. I just want the committee to understand that we're talking about the $275 million. Right, please. What is somewhat envisioned here. And when I say here, we kind of within the discussion of the house and house numbers is 150 of that would be set aside for right now, with hopes that the federal government will loosen the restrictions on it, and we can use it towards revenue replacement in the ad fund. So when the secretary talks about a plan with $210 million in it, that concept is not part of it. So there's a little bit of a difference in philosophy here. Is that, do you know, that was one of my questions to him, I think in the thing I said. The numbers don't add up otherwise. No, no, they don't. And the numbers that he came up with, where he just sort of out of thin air, just for a place where I think I have a much better idea of the reality of what he's thinking on Monday or Tuesday when he comes up with what he has. I think we'll just have to get to the picture. We're always clear that there might be a difference in opinion as to whether we should wait and see what the federal government says about the money or we think we already know what the federal government says about the money. That answer is no. So just for everybody to keep in the back of their mind. And in the meantime, the request that we're hearing loud and clear from the districts, we need money. At least they need to know that money is coming for this year. Excuse me, yes. Okay. So that will happen on Monday. We're getting together on Tuesday at noon and hopefully we'll have something organized by then. Brad, are you joining that meeting on Monday? Yes. Yeah, okay. And we will go from there. I thank you. And I'm realizing I just sort of threw this at the committee too. I have to say I've thrown it us too, so here we are. Once again, any thoughts? Any more thoughts? Are we ready to start the weekend or whatever that means? Lynn is saying ready to start the weekend. Okay. Thank you so much. Very much appreciate the ability to have this conversation. We obviously are, Peter and Kathleen, if you can dupe that out, that would be great. Kathy, why don't we hang out and maybe Kate you too when we're wrapped up here to hang out a little longer. Okay. Sounds good. Logistic issues. That's great. Sounds good. Okay. For everybody else, let the wild rumpus begin. It will. Nice background, Jay. Thanks, everybody. Have a great weekend, everybody. Thanks, everyone. Thank you for your patience in this. Henry, don't wait to take this off. You too.