 The Senate should be done with Senate Bill's committee, and House has done with House Bill's committee. Of course, almost everything we do has money attached to it, so they all come to the Appropriations Committee. And the job of the Appropriations Committee is to look at the, you've got a fiscal, we have a whole office called the Joint Fiscal Office, and they're numbers crunchers, they're accountants. Because we have a citizen legislature, I've never claimed to be particularly savvy about money. I used to joke that for years I was not on any of the money committees because they didn't trust me with money. But I'm on Appropriations now, and what it is is that we do rely heavily on the expertise of people who really are just numbers crunchers and accountants. And they kind of hold our hands through all this stuff. And it used to be, or at least theoretically it would be that the Appropriations Committee would look at each appropriation and decide whether or not it would be justified, and perhaps add money if it wasn't enough, reduce the appropriation. What we're dealing with for the last several years though, is that the people of Vermont are pretty clear that they really, really don't want to pay any more taxes. And the governor, I think, was elected largely on a no tax, no fee, or no new taxes, no new fees platform. And you've got your, I know a lot of people would look at the Democrats and the progressives as taxes spend left, you know, just too eager to spend money. But as a matter of fact, there's a, I think every one of my followers, and I count myself, is aware that we're in the business of spending other people's money. And that that has a moral responsibility to it. Also politically, it's, you get into trouble when you spend too much money. If you spend money that you don't have, of course, which a lot of states do, I mean a lot of states go deeply into debt. We've gotten ourselves into some trouble by not fully funding pensions over many years. It's a bad policy. And probably anything that costs money that we actually raise taxes for would be politically difficult, as well as sort of an affront to the people who, as I say, have been pretty clear they don't want to pay any more. What that means is that we have to work with what we've got and any money you spend on one thing is money you're not going to spend on something else. And so the entire budget is a balancing act. And the budget originates, we talked about this other times, originates in the House constitutionally. But it is, it comes to the Senate, the House is finishing up its budget this week and we will get it. But we haven't been sitting twiddling our thumbs away, we've been examining the budgets of every agency in anticipation. What we have done last week was to take various bills that have come to us because there's an appropriation. So we have taken the appropriation out of the bill and then advanced the bill to the whole Senate with no appropriation. And the understanding is that we will do the balancing act when we have all the elements. In other words, we need the budget in front of us. And then we will decide, okay, and everyone, it's interesting on the committee, everyone has their own particular thing they're advocating for. I am pushing in particular to make sure that we do adequate funding for parent child centers because I think they do important work. We hear a lot, we talk a lot about children having children and parents who don't know how to be parents. And there are folks, I hear from them all the time, who will say basically it's not society's fault that they're in trouble. It's not my fault that they're in trouble. No one told them to have unprotected sex. No one told them to drop out of high school. It's their fault. It's not my fault. Surprisingly, I actually agree with that. Where I disagree with people who say that, we think that one is, I don't end the discussion there. My view is it's infuriating. You're right. Now that that's settled, what are we going to do about it? And one of the things that the parent child centers do is they sort of take dysfunctional families under their wing and show them how to do this. And certainly the family plays down in, I think it's actually Norwich. It's right on the line between Norwich and Harvard. They do things like they tell people, when you go for the job interview, you have the right to have tattoos up and down your line. But maybe you want to wear a long-sleeved shirt. And if you get the job, you've got to show up. And if you've got to call in sick, you don't call in sick 20 minutes into the shift. Just basic things that people take for granted that a lot of people don't know. And you can't believe they don't know it, but they don't. And it's just that general guidance and it's not a matter of hand out. They're the old hand up rather than a hand out. And just sort of just nurturing. And it yields results. It actually does really yield results. So I'm pushing with that. The other one is, I think for all the issues we deal with, the overarching issue right now for the world is global warming. And while I would like to see a sweeping reform to really, really get into it, we have recognized that politically efforts on global warming are met with a lukewarm response from the public and from our colleagues. And certainly the possibility of carbon pricing in the last election. That was pretty much one of the big issues. It was even for a carbon tax. And so there has been a sort of a retreat on the part of global warming activists and decided to focus on a couple of achievable short term goals. One of which is weatherization. Which is cutting edge modern 2019 environmentalism. But it's also an old Vermont tradition. You don't waste. You shouldn't waste. My brother Kurt has become the chair of the transportation committee in the house. I was interviewed by Digger about him and his environmentalism. I said, well, our environmentalism comes from our Vermont born and raised grandfather. You know, you never know when you might need that. Don't throw that out. My grandfather was conservative with a lower case. He took care of stuff. He didn't waste stuff. And he pounded that into his grandsons. That you don't waste. And so that notion of weatherization. Seal up the house so you're not putting heat out into the cold. Which is just totally wasteful. Doesn't make sense. We have a weatherization program. It's for poor people. And one thing is to make sure that we have adequate funding for weatherization for the poor. But also there's an effort of foot to broaden weatherization to the middle class to make it easier for. You know, we do a lot for the rich can take care of themselves and we do a lot for the poor. The middle class is just sort of left on its own. And there's an organization in the Rutland area called Heat Squad, for example. And they do not just focus on the poor. They focus on getting energy audits to middle class families and arranging for credit. Which will ultimately save money. So I'm pushing for that. And on the appropriations we can identify it with certain issues. And weatherization, the other environmental issue, what we think is the achievable one, is to push for more electrification of transportation. That's my brother Kurt's initiative is what some of you are pushing. Not as all he invented, but he's trying for it. An angle on electric vehicles that I had not thought of. I've got a bargain on Prius, so I'm driving a hybrid now. And there is this sort of phony class issue with any environmental issue. The assumption that only rich people are environmentalists. And I drive the hybrid though, you must be doing better than I thought. Actually, we've got a real bargain on it. But in any case, electric vehicles besides everything else, besides being cleaner, and saving on fuel, they're far more efficient and engineering. If you step back and think about it, an internal combustion engine is an absurdly complicated kind of technology. Thousands of little explosions going on in these cylinders to cause them to go back and forth. And then the camshafts and back and forth becomes turned. It's a complex, and there's no reason that things go wrong with cars so long. And the electric vehicle is a far simpler technology and less prone to malfunction. So we've really got to be moving in that direction. In particular electric cars, because as people point out, mass transit, which is a far better approach than anything on transportation, we have a problem with that in a rural state. And we are the most rural population in the country. If you take the square mileage of a state divided by its population, Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, are far more rural on average than Vermont. But there are people who tend to be concentrated in population centers. Vermont has a population that is spread out more or less evenly throughout, not evenly, but throughout the state. There's almost no wilderness in Vermont. When I told my granddaughters how to get out of the woods, if you get lost. You didn't go up in the North East Kingdom. No, even there, here's a formula that will work in Vermont for a kid and will not work in Northern New Hampshire. And it's very simple, find water and follow it. Just go downstream. It'll lead to a brook, eventually it'll lead to a bigger brook and there'll be a road alongside the brook. Follow that road downstream to the first farmhouse and you're out of the woods. As opposed to you could get lost and starve to death in Northern New Hampshire. Okay. Hundreds of miles is nothing there. Billions of trees. Don't panic and follow the water. You can find it. But in any case, the answer that people often give on mass transit in Vermont is we're too rural. I think that first of all is an overstatement. There are routes that we probably should have commuter mass transit on. But a lot of people are always going to be using their cars. And that means better than the cleaner fuel-official cars. I got a lot more, I haven't even talked about health and welfare but I think I've talked more than my share so I'll hand it off. May I bring up the abortion situation, Oya? All right. Hello. You're the sort of the chair. A traditional way of functioning here is that each legislator takes a turn around and then we have to open the question. We'll talk the questions at once. So Alice would be next if you don't mind. Just coming in the door, the breakfast. I've been all the way up from 1 o'clock. Good morning. Nice to be here again. It's a great day to drive here today. Let's see. What have you already gone over? You'll have to ask Richard. I talked about how the appropriations committee takes the appropriations out of the bills and advances the bills and how we will be doing the balancing act. I talked about how each various issues have advocates on the appropriations committee. Then I talked about my favorites, family place or marriage child centers and environmental. Okay, great. Sandy, have you already? No. You do the Senate first. No. Okay. So right now I'm in the midst of, I'm on the judiciary committee and I'm also on the appropriations committee and I'm also chair of the judicial retention. And that is this year, well, let me tell you a little bit about that. What that is, is by the Vermont Constitution, the legislature reviews all of our judges in the state every six years as to whether they should continue for another six years. The only judges that aren't elected by the, all the judges are not elected by the people except for the probate judges who are elected for a four-year term and the assistant judges or what used to be called side judges are elected by the people. All the other judges in the state are appointed by the governor after a process that involves many people sending names to the governor and then the governor selects the best candidate he feels should be a judge. So every six years all these judges come up for review including the Supreme Court justices. So it's on a rolling basis because not everybody's turn comes up at the same time. So this year there are eight judges who are for retention and one magistrate. Magistrates do child support and some other functions but they're not called judges although the majority of them are lawyers but they don't have to be. So maybe they do have to be now, they didn't always have to be. So anyway we have the eight judges and they undergo surveys. Anonymous surveys are sent out to lawyers who appear before them during the year to court staff they work with, guardian of litems, a whole group of people get surveys and are asked to report back anonymously. And then, and it's a, you know, it's like a computerized thing where you just put boxes on different aspects and you also can rewrite comments. So a few of the judges in the six years of course they've never had a job evaluation. You know, it's, it rolls around every six years although if someone fills someone else's term because they've retired or have moved up to a different position or something they, their terms come up quicker than six years. In other words the position is the term that position of a judge is not that everybody immediately starts at six years unless they're starting totally new in a new term that someone left. So anyways, a couple of the judges have only been there a few years. A couple of judges have been there almost five and others have been there six. So there's a, there are three judges this year who have a lot, not a lot but criticisms by the persons who appeared before them. And of course you have to weigh that as to whether they got a decision they liked or didn't like, that kind of thing. Although certainly there are people who comment that say, hey I got a lousy decision, I hate it, but the judge was fair. So that's coming up and it's been, it's had a lot of publicity this year. A couple of people, we have a public hearing whereby anybody, anybody can come in and complain and a couple of people did. A couple of young women actually. And their complaints were fairly substantial in terms of what they had to say and we also have comments from the survey. So this has been going on now for a while and when we get back to the legislation in January we start this reviewing all that came in. Dick and I are on this, Dick is on this too. There are eight of us, four from the House, four from the Senate. And we get all the materials that have come on in over December. They also submit financial information, they also submit health information, they also submit samples that they've done in the actual court cases and send those decisions in. So we've been reviewing all this material, it's taken a lot of time which is what the deal is all about. They make a fair and accurate vote when we come to voting. So the one judge, I have to think of this as it's a new age in terms of the Me Too movement, in terms of anti-bias, in terms of transparency. And some of these judges haven't recognized the three that have complaints are men and perhaps they haven't recognized some bias. And although some of it was, they thought anti-women, we've got a lot of them, the same judges as those persons, anti-men. He doesn't like male litigants, you know. So anyway, all the judges that have come up have all gotten this particular judge for. He had quite a few complaints about him. Nothing that would shock anybody, but how he perhaps acted in the courtroom. And also he had great ones. So anyway, we're going through that process now. Our committee, the eight of us have already voted and we voted for all the judges. One judge did receive one no vote. The three judges that had the complaints, two we asked to do a recommendation. What they would do to, what would we call it? Fixed. Fixed in simple terms. Yes, so they've written a contract and there's a Superior Court Judge, Judge Weirson. He's the Chief Judge for all the judges. And they've written agreements to be mentored by other judges to take training courses in the area where they had weaknesses and to have the judges who will mentor them and report to Judge Weirson, the Chief Judge, are retired judges themselves. So they're not just somebody coming in and saying, you know, I think the guy's great or I think the guy's terrible. So it's retired judges and they'll be recording back to Judge Weirson for one year and a half and seeing how they do and also taking some courses that they knew they needed. So we'll see. The next step is we're presenting them on Wednesday to the combination meeting of the general assembly members. The House and Senate are voting together and we go into the House of Representatives and we all vote there. It's a secret ballot and each one of us on the committee presents information about the judge and then the whole body votes. I think the plans that the two judges have written are well done, seem to cover everything. And we've had this happen before with other judges who have never had a job evaluation and this is the first time they get a lot of bad marks, so to speak. And then when they come back six years later, they've really matured into the job and also have corrected these flaws. So we've seen and I know some of those judges that have happened to have become excellent judges and really, you know, we're really very, very good with the system. One, we all vote against, with through his name, from being retired. So that's what's going on. Did you hear what's going on? Did you hear what's going on? Did you hear what's going on? That's it. Senator? Sandy? Good morning. So, as Dick mentioned, we're at the point where things are really moving. I counted up, I think there were 30 bills on the floor in the house last week because everybody's getting the bills out of committee and now they're coming to the floor. My committee finished its work on the child care bill. I think I talked about that a little bit. We were thinking about it before. I consider this the biggest piece that we've done this year. This is an issue. It's funny. I remember when I first came to the legislature writing up the absurdity of a program that had federal guidelines for what year you looked, which poverty chart you look at, whether you look at the current one or one that's 10 years old, and that's one way that you figure out who's entitled to a benefit and at what level, and then the actual rate is set with respect to a study of market rates, and I'll come back to that in a minute. Again, so both of those were way out of date. When I started, we had a program that wasn't working because we were using out-of-date poverty guidelines and we were using out-of-date market rates for child care. So if you get half of what it cost about 10 years ago, you're not getting anything that's very helpful. So the way the market rates are done, this is a little tricky to understand, but they call it the 75th percentile. So they do a study of what is it cost to buy, if I have a three-year-old, what are all of the providers in the area in charge of the three-year-olds? And if I get 100% subsidy, I should be able to afford 75% of whatever the market is in the area. So not the most expensive, but I should have a choice of places to go if I get 100% subsidy. So as I said, we've been in this place where both the measure of who qualifies and how much they get have been out-of-date. Right now, under current law, we did in fact bring up the rate for infants and toddlers to 2017, a couple years ago, because people just couldn't find any place to send their babies. People were having to leave the workforce because they couldn't find care for their babies. But once the child turned three, then we jumped back to 2008 market guidelines. So from 17 back to eight, and people would suddenly discover that once again they couldn't afford what they were doing. This has been on the radar for the legislature for several years. Every year you guys talk about it in appropriations. Every year we say, oh gee, we have to do something about this and they find a little bit of money and they do something. For instance, the bump for infants and toddlers. But there has been, you've probably even seen in the news, there's a group called Let's Grow Kids. There are various advocacy organizations. They are funded by a philanthropic group called the Permanent Fund. And they have launched an all-out campaign. So that's why you can see ads everywhere to try to raise public awareness of this issue and be trying to create some momentum for change in Montpelier. And the governor finally decided this year that it was time and he put a proposal in his budget. We had a number of people in the House, oh gosh, I think there were 60 who signed on to the plan that had been designed by this advocacy group that I'm talking about that was much more ambitious. And so all of those bills came to my committee along with four others. We had six bills all together that had various ideas about how to address this issue. And what we did was we went through all six bills and then we picked up a blank piece of paper and we wrote our own bill. And the goals of the bill that we wrote were to increase capacity because right now people are calling, are trying to get a reservation for their babies before they even are conceived. Certainly they do, as soon as they find out they're pregnant they call up and try to get on a waiting list and it still doesn't work. They still have to wait six months. So what I call capacity, which is just, are there enough places for the children who need care? Affordability, which goes back to the market rate thing I talked about earlier. And then the other big piece is workforce because childcare is traditionally a low paid occupation. You don't get people to come to sign up and you don't get them to stay very long when they do. And when they finally figure out what they're doing then they go into the public school system which pays a whole lot more. So there's been a problem with just keeping enough people in the center. So we have places now that have a licensed capacity of let's say 60 but they can only take 30 kids because they can't get a staff to take the other 30. So workforce is a huge problem. What I think, what I found most interesting about this process that I'm describing is that after we went through all of the ideas that had been laid on the table we discovered that the governor's proposal looked pretty good. And in fact the Child Development Division has a five year plan for how they're going to improve the availability, the quality and the affordability of childcare around this day. And so our bill basically takes most of their ideas for what to do in year one. And very specifically what that would do is it would bring current federal poverty levels and in our bill we would make that statutory. So it would mean that that's the presumption every year is that that's where you're going to start. Now I do have to remind everybody that one legislature can't bind another and so what happens is that in the legislature the word notwithstand is a transitive verb and we notwithstand things all the time. So we have lots of, we have, my favorite is the rule on the support for the Vermont housing and conservation. There's a statutory amount that's supposed to go into that and for I believe it's the last 25 years the budget has said notwithstanding what we said in 1988 we're not going to do that, we're going to do something different. So we can't bind a future legislature but we believe that by saying you have to use current poverty guidelines we at least create a presumption that that's where you start. So that's the first piece that it does. The second piece that it does is that it brings the market rate for those older children, the three year olds and up to 2015 levels we didn't have enough money to go to 2016 but we're getting closer. 2015 is way better than 2008. So those are there. In addition there's some money to upgrade the IT system for the department which is critical. Unfortunately most of the information technology that we have in the state is 30 years old. It's amazing that we're working with, I mean we are the only business in the state probably that doesn't have way more up to date information technology. It's always a heavy lift because there are huge capital expenditures and we just don't have, we never have the capital to do it right but this has some money in it to begin to upgrade this piece. In addition there's another chunk of money to work on workforce. So some will be scholarships for people who are taking courses, appropriate courses to become certified and to meet current state regulations about training. And another part will give some loan forgiveness to people who, what we discovered in listening to our witnesses was that there are lots of women, most of the women, who love working with little children. That's what they would really want to do but they have $30,000 in student loans and they can't afford to do that. So if we can, and they have many of them that have good training, some of them even have teacher certificates. So if we can pay down some of their debt instead of, that would come out of a different fund than their boss than we can make it possible for them to have those drops. So that's what the bill does and that was and our appropriations committee approved it last week. So it will be part of the bill, the budget bill is going to come to the floor this week. I don't know all the pieces of that as that I haven't seen the bill yet. They were still doing the final pieces of it on Friday afternoon and now it has to go through, has to get printed. So that's where the budget is. I want to follow up a little bit on the stuff that Dick was talking about. The parent child centers, the one that you may be more familiar with here is is the Orange Orange County Orange County Orange County Orange County that's between this and Tundridge. They have they have a great program because one of the things that they do is that they have a a child care program where kids come in and spend the day but they also have they also do pre-K. So they are the official pre-K program for Chelsea and Tundridge and in addition they have some kids that come from other towns including Bethel and one of the other things that we did in my committee, when we gave our feedback to appropriations on other pieces of the budget we pushed hard to try to make sure that they didn't lose any ground. It's interesting that there's I think there are 14 parent child centers around the state. They are allied and what they've been trying to do is trying to get their base funding increased. I've talked before about what I call our community partners the parent child center is a prime example of community partners. Government if we care about keeping children safe what we do is some of that we actually delegate to others and we do it with contracts but then we underfund the contracts and parent child centers are very much in that category. So they have some base funding and they have been asking to increase their base funding and in fact the governor's budget would have cut their funding from what it was last year. So we've been fighting just to try to keep them whole from where they were last year. I don't know whether we're going to be able to add anything to that and I think I'll stop there. We'll respond to Sandy. So Sandy mentioned the interesting word notwithstanding and of course people in this area might be interested because in notwithstanding the Vermont Housing the money that the Vermont Housing Conservation Board is supposed to get you know in a transfer piece of property sale, sell it whatever the money goes portion of the piece the money goes into the Vermont Housing Conservation Board and they never get their full amount but they also have been very generous in terms of helping out for instance in Irene their money can be used for land purchases and things like that and also to anyway during Irene I forget how many millions and millions of dollars they took out of that fund so it could be used you know for all the things that happened in Irene so it's been a great help morning Allison. So that was just all I wanted to say was how much that fund helped in the Irene month. You're just in time. Sorry we had a bit of a domestic meltdown this morning. Real life happens to real people. And this chair is like the dicey chair like with the next one here. There's one over here. It's okay this chair is a rocker. So follow the window. You know I'm going to hold on to you we're going to go together. We heard from our other senators. Have you heard from Sandy? We heard from Sandy. I have nothing to add they're all brilliant. We've had a very busy crossover time. I'm writing about it from my article and the amount of work that we're getting through the hose is a lot. And it ranges from transparency and hospital you know from Dix committee transparency and hospital pricing and emergency room surprise billing to clean up you know miscellaneous banking and elections bills to people's day firearm safety stuff it's been a lot and my brain is completely full of it. We still have another week of it which will end with the budget coming over to us. And then we get started with that. And then you get started with that and the rest of us deal with all the house bills that have been coming through right now. And the house even more bills. A lot of work is coming to us to address from the house. So it is a fulsome busy time. I have on the floor this week. We have two big housing bills one of which will be interesting to see how it does given what's happening with the bond market last week. I'm sure many of you heard the reports on the economy and some of the concerns about what's happening. But we have our last housing bond was so successful. As you know we have a dearth of housing affordable and workforce housing in the state. We could do with 5,000 more housing units a year. And we just and so there are two initiatives really that are going to hopefully boost and create more housing. One is the last housing bond we bonded for 35 million it ended up being 37 million as a result of all the work around it. And that is we hope by the time it's done we'll have created about 700 new housing units. The 50 million dollar bond that we're currently trading doing additionally this year we hope will create over 1200 new housing units. One of the things that's concerning us is the cost of housing. So we have a study going forward about why it costs so much in Vermont to build. And what are the challenges that we face in the cost of housing. The other housing bill addresses rental health and safety, improving rental code inspections, creating a uniform way that you know health. I think you're the health officer here in Bethel. I remember this. And that around the state that is mostly I'm sorry. I can't remember why. But it's we rely on volunteers to do some very contentious work with health and safety in rental housing volunteers having to go and deal with a whole range of issues that they aren't necessarily well equipped to deal with. And we put together the rental housing advisory board to address what we could do about that. They've made some recommendations. We're going to be implementing them and trying to consolidate it in the Department of Health in a more effective way. We're also to create more housing, we're also looking at a proposal the Governor has made to take a million dollars and create small grants, five to seven thousand dollar grants as leveraging incentives for vacant and blighted properties for rental units that are not online at the moment aren't being able to be used because they're just in such terrible shape. And this is for weatherization and for fixing them up and a percent I can't remember what it is would have to go to affordable the affordable workforce housing market group. I mean people who were affordable housing and then the oh I know, those are the those are the major ones that I'm just blanking on other ones. You have other ones? Well we can open up to questions. Questions baby a good way to start today. What everyone know that there is at least one seat here? No. I don't like saying we could put the chair there's a second chair we can bring it up there if you want. Somebody grab that. It would be nice if that chair could go out there and then Well I wanted to talk about this abortion it hasn't been brought up yet and it's one of the most emotional things going on in our state. Not one of the senators who was part of writing the bill talked about it. So it's a very serious issue that the state should really take a look at. I talked to people in Bethel, Rochester whether they're Democrats, progressives, communists and this House 57 bill is barbaric. Since Roe and Wade burst each other technology has outpaced what I call the coat hanger. Okay these are just five examples each coat hanger representing technology of choice. The first one is pro-abortion before the heartbeat. A woman can make a choice of contraception IUD or whatever the heck it's called the pill the day after pill she has and her partner has so many choices to make before the heartbeat after the heartbeat I think it's premeditated murder you heard the governor of Virginia speak about leaving behind a baby born a botched abortion and they leave the room and let the baby die comfortably so my question is this if the abortionists can leave a room with an infant left to die how about the mother that accepts the child and goes home with a child and decides she doesn't want it and she takes it into her garage and lets it freeze to death and her neighbor finds the baby would that mother be accused of murder this is barbaric it's 2019 and we're still allowing this kind of barbaric god awful murder again I believe and I truly in my heart people get into trouble they make mistakes I get it but the mistake of taking a child after the heartbeat under God's name is murder and the question is there is no question the question is I would like to ask each one of you senators how you're going to vote on this bill yes or no are you pro your pro choice the house voted 106 to 36 have you looked at mr mergers case down in alabama I'm not dealing with alabama well it's a precedent if you're asking a question then we'll answer it well wait you are about a half an hour late okay but you just haven't asked the question yet do you said do we support it you support abortion after the heartbeat absolutely there is no provider in remand that does third term abortions and absolutely I support as well why would you ask majority a bill that allows late term abortions you keep saying they don't do it we are codifying what is currently practiced in remand well it's sick it's been there for four years though so has the devil has it been done why write a rule it's an obsolete rule and it hasn't been done for 40 years I talked about this extensively last month as everyone will remember and the yes is correct what the bill does is propose to codify existing law it happens that in remand there are no providers who do abortions in the third trimester because there are so few people have to go to Boston or some place where there are specialists and why does anybody want to have an abortion in the third trimester reasonable question it's because of catastrophic problems with either the fetus or the mother they are every single story and there are not a whole lot of them every story is an individual tragedy and we heard about a couple of those you asked about the status of the bill it was passed in the house and it is now in the senate and I believe the senate will take it up as we've been talking about crossover the way we work is that we work on our own bills into the crossover and then after crossover we take up the bills that came over from the other body so you know on the house side we'll be starting to work on senate bills and on the senate side that will be starting to work on basically we deal with the house where the house stands we go one senate I serve on the health and welfare can be focused on appropriations earlier but I serve on health and welfare H57 is on our wall which is to say is pending I don't know if we're even going to take it up because we passed this last week we passed an amendment to the vermont constitution to establish reproductive autonomy as a constitutional right under the vermont constitution and the reason for doing that is we had thought that a lot of questions were resolved by the rovers' way decision but the American the United States has elected as its president Donald Trump who very repeatedly and clearly promised that if elected he would appoint supreme court justices who would be over so it is a very reasonable thing to anticipate in particular one of the justices who supports rovers' way in her 80s and battling life-threatening illnesses rather heroically it's very likely that rovers' way will be overturned or more likely will be interpreted in ways that make it less protective of women's autonomy and so vermont is a pro-choice state and what we are proposing is that we express that in the state constitution we have a long tradition in this state of privacy good fences make good neighbors and of respect for one another's private domains the idea is that if privacy means anything certainly autonomy over your own body if the government can't search your house without a warrant to talk to some of the extreme cases the wording of the amendment has it that the state can interfere in reproductive decisions where there is a compelling state interest which is a term of art that's a legal term the example this comes up in the issue of guns is the same kind of thing people have constitutional rights but I have a right to organize a protest march I don't have a right to have a protest march on I-89 and similarly that the agree probably this amendment would allow for outlawing truly egregious behaviors but even there when you're talking about extreme situations generally what we have done is regarded these heartbreak the fetus has no brain that kind of thing has no upper brain has the brain that controls heartbeat and breathing but no there are grotesque heartbreaking situations that we respect that's up to the person the citizen and the doctor it's a medical decision and you don't want the government mentally in personal decisions and medical decisions so in any case what will happen with that amendment I don't know I voted for it in committee I'll support it on the floor I expect it would pass the senate I don't know if anyone has actually counted had some kind of votes yet should H-57 come up as well there is agreement that H-57 will be taken on there is agreement from leadership that we will be addressing about the constitutional amendment and H-57 they don't tell me any who owns the body parts the body parts after the child is aborted does anyone the child comes out the fetus who has control and security on where those go do you know that can those pieces just be packed up and shipped to stem cell research who controls that part of it after it's all over and the mother goes home we've got a little bag with the fetus in it what do they do they wash it down the toilet they're the questions that maybe you people should think about before you start writing votes we're all concerned about how to store our trash and make sure our plastic goes here and our glass goes there how about a baby thinking about those things is part of how we write bills we should think about it before we write bills yes what we do is we spend most of our time taking testimony and reading documents and debating back and forth and trying to resolve and bills are rarely passed in the form in which they're introduced I would suggest everyone that's involved in writing the bill should get the paperwork that the mother signs before she goes in for abortion and understand what those all the legalese going on within that form she signs off before the surgery is done and I agree with Sandy I agree with Sandy with regards to late term abortions for God bless the mother or a child or both who are ill I totally agree with that I agree with on the pro-abortion before the heartbeat for a healthy mother but again it comes back to modern day choices that a woman has before they even decide to have intercourse I mean don't you think other people should have the right to ask questions I haven't heard anyone else I haven't heard we haven't heard from Alice so it's Alice's turn okay so I was an adoption social worker for 27 years for the state of Vermont I have dealt with incredibly sad situations whereby someone is expecting a child that may make a plan for adoption they may not I don't have anything to say over that they came to me and I provided a service so I certainly have seen a positive circumstance that comes about and I also did adoption of older children and people who weren't able to care for their children at all also children who were abused and there are all kinds of situations that occur in Vermont and elsewhere of course but I think the thing that is I certainly saw situations where abortions were the best option for a person not that I was going in that direction but that's their choice so with regard to these bills I do support abortion I don't support there is a law about you can't have a partial birth of a law for abortion which is not a partial birth that's what the federal law says and done in my committee so partial birth abortion that is forbidden under federal law but in terms of an abortion to save the life of the mother it has to happen sometimes I agree I agree with that but casual abortions just to eradicate something they don't want I agree with you Alice with a serious health issue or something like that but not recreational sex and all of a sudden the girl is pregnant there are no casual abortions it is a tough decision for every parent for the father, for the mother it is a huge decision and nothing is done casually nothing how many cases do we deal with about this particular problem in Vermont? thousands, hundreds I think the number I had all this last month I'm sorry in the 2016 is the last year that we have health department statistics and it was 1100 total of Vermont residents nation life is 881,000 and that does include California I think it's Maryland in New Hampshire 881,000 it's a lot where do they all go? who knows I feel you're spending an enormous amount of time and money for 1100 people or 1100 names or whatever where there are more problems more burning problems in the state than 1100 people the first one is the elderly people it's a lot more I don't know how many times we are capable of walking chewing gum at the same time I don't doubt that why are you dealing with this we're not dealing with it it's among the things we're dealing with it's believe me but it seems that these are the things that surface and the most important things a lot of people are not dealt with anything but they are dealt with the idea that we're dealing with this instead of dealing with other things it's simply not true how much taxpayer money is going to pay for them I want to answer I want to follow up with Nick yes you're right there were 1100 women in 2016 who actually got an abortion but in fact I've heard from lots and lots and lots of women who are much younger than I am that they want to see this right preserved so we are not talking about something that only affects the people who actually in the moment say that they're going to do it because a lot of people who say they want to have the right when the time comes will say you know what I think I'll just have this child that happens a lot but having the choice is what people want and I have heard that loud and clear and what I think was most interesting to me because I grew up in the years in the days of back alley abortions and I know people I had a friend who had a flight of Mexico and she happened to be in a well-to-do family and she could do that poor people didn't have that choice so some of the poorer people just ended up dead and what we have now is we have a huge generation of women who have never known the law to be different they believe this was part of the of the America that they were born into and they want to see this right preserved and some of them are like oh my god I can't believe what might happen with the Supreme Court so those are the people that we are protecting and it's way more than 1100 In reference to 169 that's in the judicial committee in reference to the 12 hour waiting period you are the vice chair and since we are talking about life issues you had some deep thoughts in that discussion with Joe Benning that you both voted recently no in the committee and the subject matter was well if Vermonters wanted to commit suicide a gun is a good option now who said that who said that that was part of your discussion well that's how it was reported by John Walker you've never said a gun is a good option absolutely not it is an option I'm sorry for using good let me clarify where that was what came to my mind was our right as elderly folks to be able to have a healthy assisted suicide if that's our choice what is a healthy suicide is the 12 hour waiting period not to have it run down by a gun stick in our mouths below ourselves against the wall and who's complaining or do we have the right to a healthy assisted suicide but that subject came involved in deciding if you're going from a 24 hour to a 12 hour and as the end of the result 48 hour to 24 no to 12 hour no we've ended up with a 24 hour well 24 hour but it does but in that subject matter the suicide issue came in glad you have a question so in our committee was I don't remember the number because we were told by the name of the bill so there was a bill to have a 48 hour waiting period and there were several other gun bills in the committee so the decision by the committee was to combine all these bills into one not my decision but anyway they all were combined into one one was the safe gun storage was with the waiting period and also what got combined with that was a very sensible piece that had to do with last year with regard to the gun was a ban on bringing a certain size magazine into the state and in fact what that did was prevent the police in New Hampshire when they come in to assist like Carl Drake of the situation farther north that they wouldn't be able to bring their magazines bigger than that in with those guns so that so hey this is crazy because the police are being called in to help Vermont in a situation or chase somebody into the state to be able to have that gun with that magazine but anyway all these bills got combined what I did say was some people in other words we do have medically assisted death with dignity or what's the new name that it's called medically assisted death with dignity in other words you're on your last legs and you have the right to go and get a prescription by going to two doctors to take that peaceful death that passed a number of years ago so that in effect that really is suicide too we don't like to call it that so what I would like to say about that is that I've known several men in my community three of them who were in the very late stages of cancer they had guns all of their lives they've been hunters, they've been comfortable with guns and I know three people over the years and I've lived there a long time now and one very recently like a man my age who decided that they would end their lives they've had all the treatment they could get this fellow guy who quite well decided on his own he wasn't going to go to two doctors anymore he'd been through every doctors, he'd been through every kind of treatment he went to his favorite fishing spot and he shot himself and so that was his choice and I have absolutely no problem with it if that's what the fellow was facing the death of dignity piece or all of that stuff he wanted to be where he was comfortable and his life the way he felt he should and so I don't have any problem with that but that is considered suicide of course and so the anyway so that's that so you do have a right already to kill yourself and so the 48 hour waiting period down to 24 was a compromise with the people that wanted the 48 Phil Peruth who put in the bill was in our committee the other thing is I voted against it not that I didn't like certain parts of it not that you might not be able to it was for handguns only, it wasn't for rifles in the act that's the compromise one it was for rifles originally so it got down to 24 hours for a handgun anyway I voted against it I was not comfortable with what happened in the house last year there were four gun bills I voted for three I didn't vote for the fourth and the reason I did was it got amended on the floor with all kinds of things and including that piece that New Hampshire or New York State anybody that had officers coming in to help you would be able to bring that magazine with that gun into the state it also has to do with if it had been my thought was if it had been studied in the committee in the house there could have been a compromise that could have worked but it wasn't, it was amended on the floor it wasn't studied the piece is about the magazines I mean I don't, you know, the great big enormous magazines you know collectors do have those and should be allowed to have them they have special permits to have them but as it turned out a Glock 9 I tried to remember this from last year which the police usually have there's a lot of gun manufacturers surprisingly in Vermont there's about 54 or so and the issue was with regard to, because it was done on the floor it put in place a clip that goes with the Glock 9 a clip that ban on the number of bullets in the clip was at a number that's not compatible with the Glock 9 I think that's 17, maybe someone here has more of knowledge about this because I forgot some of this stuff and they put in a 50 and it needs a 17 they made a huge problem in terms of gun manufacturers selling in Vermont or when they have a contract let's say out of state company that's the number that they want so they could manufacture it sell it to them, but they can't when they have a contract with the police they usually take back all of the guns that they have and they were replaced with these new guns so it was a lot of information that was available last year which escaped some of us since we've got a lot of other stuff going now so that's the deal so I voted against it I didn't want it to be amended on the floor of the house that way and that's the process and that's likely to happen and I think this bill that did pass will very likely be changed in the house so I'm done with that thank you my concern was just the philosophy of using a gun for suicide maybe the state should look into the education of if that's your choice for suicide it would be a good idea to have someone there to clean up the mess afterwards well I'll tell you something an old guy dying of cancer who's been using a gun all his life and decides to kill himself he doesn't need education I was referring to that I was referring to if people are going to commit suicide with guns maybe it should be appropriate education wise it's okay to let other people know you're going to do that they take your guns away they take your guns away probably you can't do that no if you decide on suicide by gun I can also know families who have taken guns out of their home and they thought that they're a person with cancer going to shoot themselves since how we're on gun bills I wasn't aware that we were going to have new gun bills this session because I was thinking that everybody thought that they had covered it in previous session I was however happy about the tremendous amount of testimony that we were able to give and get a chance to speak on it this time around versus last time there wasn't really the opportunity to have as much public speak and I'm also pleased with the amount of consideration that was put in and compromise into the bill although I still disagree with the bill and I think that there's some other issues that maybe they may even be able to amend in the house when you changed it to from a 48 to a 24 hour waiting period on handguns only my thoughts would be for a first time buyer only why restrict somebody's rights that's already purchased guns has guns and their reasoning was suicide somebody that's not a first time buyer they already have the access and the weaponry if they wanted to do that that they could so it was just it would protect more law-abiding citizens rights by if it was a minute to only first time buyers which would be a violation of their rights but not so much it was hard to calculate and enforce that came up and was discussed at length because anyway when they run a background check it would determine how many whether they purchased previous firearms or not they know how many you have and how many you don't have on the new laws today so I was pleased with the amount of consideration that was put into it and the compromise and stuff I was happy with as I would still be against the bill so Lane was talking about we had our traditional committee held public hearing in Randolph at Vermont Tech I think that was two weeks ago you know everybody was invited to come in it was very well attended it was BTC did a great job of setting it up and welcoming people I think security in case there was a problem oh and anyways back to my question I know where you stood on the bill where you voted on it I just would like to know the rest of you I was one of the sponsors of the 48 hour period and safe storage I have sadly a lot of experience with suicide by firearm was of course our beloved professor from our law school Cheryl Hanna who as we all know suicide can even with people with deep depression who have managed to wade through tough times before when firearms are involved they're far more likely to actually make that suicide attempt fail I mean and Cheryl is I think the suicide that is had the biggest impact in terms of firearm ability to buy it and then go immediately kill yourself we know that suicides if that firearms just make them that much more lethal and we also know that most people survive suicide attempts and go on to live full lives when firearms are involved almost never just might and let me just finish and I'm very disappointed they didn't address a safe storage I also have been involved with teenage we have one of the highest teenage suicide rates by firearm in the country and was as with my colleagues we were made aware and introduced to a case up in Burlington area where a teenage suicide a teenager who with teenagers can be very impulsive had had a really tough day at school knew a family whose firearms were of not law went in and and took a firearm which he probably shouldn't have done obviously but he did and killed himself for me safe storage most gun owners are really good about keeping their guns safely stored I'd really like all to be good about safely storing their firearms and we prevent more tragedies and hopefully fewer domestic violence incidents as well so I you know I feel strongly about safe use of guns in the state and most of our gun owners are very good about that and are well educated because we have very good firearm training and education courses as you know and we are our job is to protect for monitors and this is to me an extension of how we protect and care for each other yeah now you say that firearms are more fatal in a suicide but there's a lot more other options I think that recently built a fence to try to keep people from jumping off of it and my thoughts on if somebody is so distraught that they want to commit suicide that would you rather have them doing it in their own home or would you rather have them I would rather not have them do it as well yes but somebody was to get in a car and head on a whole another family that had nothing to do with their problems then you're taking more lives in alternative methods if somebody is so distraught that they want to do it they're going to do it one whether it's with a gun whether they cut their wrist whether they hang themselves whether they jump off of a bridge or building or whether they head on into a cliff ledge or something there's multiple ways to do it we're going to keep banning bridges automobiles knives obviously yes but why do we keep attacking the firearm because I just if you would listen I did share with you when firearms are involved suicides are 90% successful as opposed to other suicide attempts where people can survive and go on to lead healthy good lives once they have the mental health challenge they're dealing with 90% of them would have lifelong effects from a failed suicide attempt like if somebody was all broken up from jumping off of a bridge or broke their neck trying to hang themselves and didn't finish the job or if they cut their wrist and bled out a bunch my committee got to hear the testimony about the Quiche Bridge a couple years ago when that came to the floor and one of the studies that was cited related to bridges in Washington DC there's one right by the zoo was a favorite spot and they did I don't remember exactly what they did there to make that no longer possible and somebody said oh there's another bridge that's just a half mile up people will go there it didn't happen they actually cut the rate of people jumping off bridges in that neighborhood so it's not necessarily the case that because this is important I'm going to go find it somewhere else it doesn't happen that way it's an impulsive decision and the more time you can put between the impulse that this isn't worth it and the follow through the greater the chance that they will think better of it and I think there are also statistics about people who have survived and who say oh my god I'm so glad I survived so it's that's what the studies got to answer very briefly and I had been asked during the campaign did I anticipate any more gun regulations this by any and I said that the general practice in the legislature is to not do the same issue to by any in a row that having dealt with the issue once I doubted we would bring it up again that was not a promise not to do it it was a prediction that probably wouldn't happen but it became clear to me afterwards what people would say to me that a lot of people took that as a promise for me that I wouldn't support any more gun control and by pointing out that I didn't actually do that that sounded to me a lot like what's called weasel words politicians can sometimes just if you pick your words really carefully you don't say what they think you said and it's a way of deceiving people to be a good guy so I did not introduce any legislation this year I did not co-sponsor any of the bills and because I just didn't want people to feel I had I knew that they disagreed with me and they were angry with me I can live with that I didn't want them to think I had to see them but when the bill comes on the floor and you're sitting in the senate you are obligated to vote yes or no and so at that point the question for me is is it a reasonable proposal or is it not and it is a flaw there are contradictions in it you've articulated some of them but on balance just tipping the scales I thought this policy will do more good than harm and I am convinced that the constitution allows for reasonable regulation time, manner, and place and so I voted for the bill but we haven't even settled our last gun bill from last legislation through the courts to determine how that's going to roll out on constitutional rights and here we are presenting another bill so I also feel Nick's frustrations with we have more worthwhile things that we could be helping people with like our elderly that want to live the rest of their healthy life and that have contributed to society here without our elders so I would think that it would be more important to maybe try to help some of our elders get through their final days instead of make them feel like they are getting an entitlement when it's their money that they paid in and stuff and we should be more considerate of our elders because none of us would be here without our elders I agree with your remarks about the elderly but as far as the idea of doing one thing instead of something else we can chew gum and walk at the same time and the same thing I brought it up last year by the capital gains tax and here's again I'm not referring to you or you or you doing this but the regulations of the state you work all your life, you save some money and now is the time to use this money to take care of your sick wife or yourself I don't know on top of that you have to pay taxes recently almost a thousand dollars and this year it's a capital gains no matter what explanation you have I didn't use that money to go to a cruise or whatever pay medical bills and to pay care for Heidi playing it clear like that the state won't accept that excuse Nick as you know there's an active discussion about the estate tax I didn't know that there is because the governor had proposed and we're in the estate tax and I believe they have chosen to keep it the last time we went there maybe it was so as you know Vermont's exemption is lower and there's a fairly large differential between what is now allowed by the feds and what Vermont taxes the state and I believe we're slowly coming up to where the feds to the feds level we're taking 8 million out of the estate tax for clean water what the governor proposed what they're proposing doing is the land gain that's actually in my committee we are not making action on the land the land gains tax which means the profit it was designed to it was a conservation move and the proposal is not as well considered as we thought it needed to be and so we have chosen to not take action on it it's in the ways and means of the moment and I don't know what ways and means it's deciding to do about it so there's not that much money anymore that comes on you mentioned about the debt by gains that's young people how many have done because of overdose I don't know I don't serve on that on a committee where I would know that I don't know if we know those statistics I think we do but I don't have them in mind but not necessarily intentional overdose but certainly some are you asking about intentional or how just both ways I'm a health and welfare and I can't pull the number off the top of my head it's a lot and obviously it's too much I don't think they said I haven't seen numbers that separate kids the total is a high the total is terrible terrible yes I'd like to continue this is a pretty interesting discussion I thank all the senators and representatives for all their hard work Friday the 15th you had a couple hundred now they're making some pretty serious needs being spoken and it kind of relates to why young people might consider suicide might consider why they consider drugs or take a gun to themselves they need to hear from us from you that you're serious now in March of 1936 state of Vermont said okay you can't handle it in Mount Perilier you voted statewide to prevent the Green Mountain Parkway that was done by the people of Vermont not by Mount Perilier is it going to take the people of Vermont to shake up Mount Perilier on the fact that we want to see some real action on climate change because those kids came to you they marched all over the state as people may know and left their world and demonstrated about a call to action on mitigating conflict I would have liked to have seen you guys go to the microphone and do some serious talking but I don't care where you are I don't care where you are they were not in school we were not invited to speak as a matter of fact I know I know but you can speak I'm just saying that what they're seeing is highly critical and they're looking for leadership I'm going to end it there thank you I'll just say the legislature like the government in general has failed miserably on global warming there are various degrees of denial there are people who simply deny the science on global warming and thus left the discussion but then there are people who acknowledge the science but don't really embrace the seriousness and that's a kind of denial as well and as one of the co-chairs of the climate caucus and as a co-sponsor of Senator Clarkson's of global warming Bill Carterville I've got to say that it is terribly frustrating for me because it really this is and I use this term every week when I invite my colleagues to the caucus lunch and I say this is the overarching existential crisis of our time and I've chosen my words carefully I don't think I'm being pretentious with that it is overarching nothing matters in comparison to me and it is an existential that had the climate's ability to sustain life as we know it is being compromised and people say why Vermont? Vermont is so small it doesn't matter five of our most important economic five of our most iconic businesses in Vermont are in jeopardy if we get any warmer mitigating climate change in Vermont is essential for us to keep the way of life we treasure to keep the forest products industry alive to keep tourism to keep skiing snowmobiling you name it most of the businesses we treasure and the way of life we treasure with agriculture and a working lands landscape based economy is in jeopardy if we go any further in climate change so for me it's a huge economic development issue and one you're absolutely right I think that leadership is having a hard time figuring out how to incorporate we're ways and means just took a huge step to add to double the fuel tax on heating fuel to finance much more weatherization we have to do much more in everything and it all has to happen at the same time changing our culture we are a fossil fuel and we have to it's a big turnaround as you know turning that ship for example you mentioned snowmobiles by the way you should be talking about the state being super aggressive in creating electric snowmobiles why? because we want that recreation but when I hear you say snowmobile I cringe because the first thing that we all recognize is that we have to eliminate recreational fossil fuel burning that goes with the marine industry in Lake Champlain those need there the technology is here we need to convert to electric propulsion systems it is something we can be a leader in so when you say snowmobiles no no no but you have to hear that little difference you want to support back story is that you want to do that but we're not talking about what it's going to take that pales like a person to like all of the same they didn't know that well they're all they're not they're all problems I want to mention just another problem with global warming that I didn't know about so last week the efficient wildlife is trying to do away with the lottery from moose hunting because the moose population which was growing is decimated by a tick that was not native to Vermont it's not only in Vermont oh right no all over the state they're reaching the area we're up in you still have your hand up oh yeah sure I don't know if it's protocol but I would love if people said their names when they said things but I'm Wiley but to speak to everything that you were saying earlier around climate change but I was wondering about H-4787 representative Gonzales she put in around carbon charging but the heat constant weatherization a few all supported that I know that sometimes other things get added to bills but I was wondering Gonzales is brilliant and she's articulate no that's a good bill again what we realize that the climate caucus realized early on is that a really significant massive effort was not going to get a lot of enthusiastic support in this session and that we zeroed in on two achievable short term goals well first of all three really maintaining weatherization for the poor expanding weatherization for the middle class and supporting electrification of transportation it's interesting how it breaks down 4% of the cars in the road are electric now for me when I found out that statistic my reaction was wow we better up our game only 4% that's terrible let's get more but Dick Mazza who's a good guy he's a friend of mine he confronted me he realized only 4% of the cars in the road are electric meaning they're not a factor we shouldn't be worried about electric electric cars the exact same fact leading to completely opposite conclusions we are not on our way to 90 90% by 50 in fact we're losing ground we're actually introducing more carbon than we were before so actually that in the senate the bill that is about to be introduced is requires that our goals be be requirements so they're not no longer will be goals but will be required so every department and every agency will have that as a requirement but they have to achieve these things by those days and I am recasting Deanna and Sena and I have been working on these carbon pricing bills and I am in the process because we've had a bit of a challenge but the number of bills that have been introduced this session our legislative council has been a little overwhelmed so the senate some of the senate bills have been are slower to come out and I am recasting that exact carbon pricing bill as an economic development bill and will hopefully come into our committee in economic development so I don't know where Deanna's bill is at the moment it's in natural resources yes and I do not believe it will be well it can't it can't pass this year because we're passed but helpful for the biennium but I see Deanna's bill as one of those things that is like raising the awareness all of us have worked on things that took multiple years to pass and that is one of those things where you get the idea out there and you get people first they say oh no way and then they say well I'll think about it and then they say well maybe and then finally you get to yes and that's the process that we're on and it is frustrating for those of us who want to see want to see it move but I'll be really honest with you the business community pushback on some of this stuff is intense and the cultural pushback I mean yes it's not I don't know I would love to be able to afford to move off fossil fuels we're not able to do that work which is really frustrating I think many of us would like to do the right thing but our culture has completely embraced functioning on fossil fuels and it is a huge cultural turnaround to move heating systems transportation systems housing I mean it's a big shift and we're we have to do it to survive and how we can afford to do it and how we can create yesable options for people creating yesable opportunities for business and individuals to help turn this shift is what we have to be able to do and I'm hopeful that we will be in a better place at the end of buying remember it's a two year process so I'm hopeful that by the end of next year we'll have made more progress no problem at all okay my name's Wayne Townsend for everybody but anybody that doesn't know me I'm going to shift my attention back to taxes and struggling for moners and my question is going to be for each of you that represent us in my career this legislative session you suppose that if we cut spending instead of spending money that we don't have because I was reading that for months 200 million in the behind right now that maybe we could stop adding new taxes I don't know how you read that through these bills it's probably more because it's civilians with the unfunded health care pensions and retiree health care and pension benefits yes it was 200 million beyond what we have assets to cover I believe is what I just read in the true north but however if we cut spending that maybe we could light in up taxes so that for moners wouldn't struggle as much and that maybe that would cut down on some suicidal financials a big reason for a lot of people's thoughts on that instead of spending $50 million on a dwindling population we're paying people to move to this state that maybe if we lighten up some of the rules and regulations and let Vermont grow a little bit in industry that maybe people would want to come here and build houses with their own money instead of putting it on to the taxpayer and using tax dollars to build houses for people to come here for our free stuff nothing's free and after nights have like I have to be back and work stuff so I mean Wayne that's a big question and it isn't some of that's accurate you're actually right about the pensions we have some serious pension work we need to continue to do but I think we're on the right track the money was not put in the retired teachers having a boom time the money was not put in so every year we have been putting a ton of money in millions every year to try and catch up and it is fully funded in terms of the current situation and has that for several years now so we're back underfunding for what's killing us in terms of interest on that money David I think it's great that everybody's talking about electrification of cars transportation heating but I think you're putting a car in front of the horse because we do not have a good way to produce electricity we do not have a good way to dispose of solar panels when they reach their maturity there's hazardous waste in those materials and I've asked many solar providers what are you going to do with that oh I don't know that's yours we're going to take our money and then that panel is yours you'll deal with it so let's find a good way because A&R was very much involved we cannot damn the rivers we cannot cut the forest down transmit electricity all these things we cannot do okay so and then with the solar panel find a way to produce electricity safely economically and enough of it before you say you've got to have this many cars you've got to have this many buses and you've got to have this much kind of electric heat blah blah blah let's have electricity first a good safe source I've got to go we just want to say one thing in nineteen hundred thirty-eight percent of the cars in Vermont were electric yes that's what we were we were in Vermont one thing much fossil fuel solar radiation my son Peter said what did you look into putting panels in your house well the price I got was twenty thousand dollars plus the story whatever the state will provide so it was twenty thousand dollars and still it wouldn't provide 100% of the electricity I need it would be 80% and Peter the genius says you know how long it's going to take it to recover that money what I'm trying to say is everybody's pushing the let's do this let's do this tax this let's make some money like two percent of fuel tax that came up and then how are we going to do it by taxing only we're not getting anywhere and the other thing too is new people what is the program to bring new workers in the state they come in and you know I heard that personally they tax you for the registration for the cars is too high the fuel tax is too high and the pay is minimal compared to what I was doing in another state before everybody comes with those grandiose ideas and we do need workers you know that I'm sure everyone knows that so you can attract it by taxing them I take that as a statement more of the question I take your point I want to answer the comment about cutting spending cutting spending in the abstract doesn't really tell us anything I need to know what it is you think we should cut and I'm all ears believe me why should you spend $17,000 per student for a Southropin high school $18,000 I'm $77,000 she's $75,000 our taxes are $8,000 a year my son moved to Tennessee 11 in Tennessee he bought a brand new house $350,000 house four bedrooms, three baths his tax is $1,300 a year he said I can't afford to live in a state well they're trying to pass an 11 million dollar budget right now there's petitions all the way down in Royalton the taxpayers have had enough and the percentage of students that are being taught just doesn't matter and then bringing up all the health care child care and then not even all that money we're putting in goes right to the top goes to the Board of Education National Education I'll add to some of them areas like back to the question of like what Dave was talking about with solar panels and stuff we're using a lot of taxpayer dollars to fund solar and push green energy onto everybody and then we're not even sure how toxic that is who's going to be responsible for it there's a lot of areas that could be cuts and spending going back to about 30 years ago when the town of Randolph packaged all the used batteries put them in a box and sent them back to the battery manufacturers and these were Chamber of Commerce guys doing this they swore in environmentalists I've always gone with the principle your product, your profit, your problem and I think that probably to be fair would apply to people with solar collectors solar panels are going to be like asbestos right, exactly you've got an electric car, wonderful that's a hot person we had a Chevette diesel back in 1980 52 miles a gallon and you've gone backwards what are your cars getting now for fuel mileage, is it old Dix is getting some I got about 52 I know we want to wrap up I do have a quick question and I'm Lisa Campbell and I'm here covering this for the paper as well I'm interested in the bill about wanton waste that was in the house and I know that it primarily addresses things like coyote killing contests and crow killing contests and that kind of thing and I'm not targeting hunters and I think most of our hunters are local they are very responsible but I think these contests and people I don't know if you've looked on facebook at all but there are people, hunters out there who sit in front of a a dozen dead coyote carcasses and brag about how awesome they are and I worry about destabilizing the populations and what that does overall to the circle of wildlife in the state and I'm wondering about is it still in committee? it is still in committee so it won't be voted on this year because it didn't make it over across so we address it next year maybe and I say that's the colloquial we that's not me personally but I'm just wondering about where you guys stand on that kind of thing and I realize it's a tricky balance protecting the rights of hunters and yet addressing this wanton waste I mean they're just killing them for the joy of killing them so I'm wondering about where folks stand on that personally I'm waiting to see what the committee does with it it's hard to have an opinion when you don't know what the final bill is going to look like I get the concept and I agree with the concept but as with everything like that the devil is always in the details right are the hunts still going on? no we banned contests but privately we just don't go out and spend a day in the woods killing coyotes which destabilizes the pack which afflicts people's livestock at risk all that kind of thing I actually don't know where I stand yet because the idea of the honest hunt is something noble and decent as part of our traditions the idea to sort of recreational is sort of disgusting however I've also heard from farmers tell it to my chickens tell it to my tell it to my cattle the coyotes are not their friends so I I'm not sure I don't know what machine this is can you talk about it I'll ask Robert over there our reporter left Mason Wade the other one Sandy with House 531 you have to tell me oh the childcare yes adjust market rates and benefits a lot was basically talking about how we're going to increase taxes are we talking about how to integrate education into being a part of this why aren't high school kids involved with programs to learn about childcare by aiding in this how do we start blending the younger people involved in the work force again it used to be the young people worked on the farms maybe it's time that the young people started getting more involved with apprentice jobs that actually will maybe encourage them not to have kids and have a little better understanding about relationships and that now when we're spending the money that this gentleman spoke about for education what are we getting for our product so I believe that was a question the question was are you considering other ways besides tax dollars to make a difference in the result there are actually programs whereby young people in school work at childcare centers should we increase that because what I'm hearing is taxes are going to be increased when I hear discussion of adjusted market rates and benefits that is code for get ready folks taxes are rising so the apprenticeship programs actually have a cost and I mentioned the scholarships and that's a piece of it and there are programs through the area technical centers and through the community colleges so all of those so that is part of the bill it's not free we're already paying for education it's as a retired teacher an early education teacher who spent a lot of time in preschool environments not only at the school level but also in community partner programs it's very complicated you have a lot of dedicated young folks who would love to spend their entire careers in childcare in preschool and it does not pay enough it just doesn't and $13 an hour and that's not where most of these people start is not enough to survive and these people have their own families and their own bills to pay and they do move on because they see an opportunity to better their lives by an increase in salary and we have to invest in them they want to be there, they want to stay and we have to invest in them because they're good for our children and we can't talk on the one hand about limiting abortions and then talk on the other hand about not supporting those kids who are then born and also I just want to add as far as the abortion thing I'm also an adoptive parent there are not enough homes in our country in our state for the children who are waiting in the system for homes so we can also talk sort of abstractly about limiting abortions but we need to support the children who are then born and we do not do that but here's an example going to your point you know I've heard this up before okay here's the deal the supervisory union rents a building over on the dump road they're spending almost $60,000 a year the supervisor lives in New Hampshire and he can jump right off the highway meanwhile in Rochester we have an entire school that's empty we have schools everywhere with space why could not the supervisory union be housed in buildings that are laying vacant and we're I just don't get so let's call it $60,000 just say they magically jump to Rochester and their rent would be included in whatever over there $60,000 and say okay take this to Randolph or here in Bethel here's $60,000 for young mothers or children how do you guys want to spend this money that's just one supervisory union spending that kind of money so if you added up across the board with all this school consolidation and empty buildings if you just took the rent of the supervisory unions across the state I guarantee you're going to come up with but there's two things about building being in Rochester first of all you're going to have to pay for the building to be open and heated and all that kind of thing but also our school system the center of that is not Rochester so if you're sending all the administrators over to Rochester we're going to spend three times as much sending them to the various schools where they have kids which is also going to increase our bills well that's an interesting point so it could be in Bethel logistics are valid but there isn't an empty building in Bethel but ok here's the other thing if you add up the number of employees I asked the supervisor to send me the whole list of salaries you should see the numbers and there's 26 people over there doing all kinds of stuff meanwhile we can't afford to pay our taxes the supervisory union across the state I think should be split by 50% just like we're consolidating the schools the system the upper system should be consolidated we don't need all the supervision we need education we don't need supervisors coming into school and telling teachers how to teach like they do in Rochester if you looked at the budget of the supervisor union across the state your hair would flip I've done it and I've got so tired of looking at it because it just keeps going there the tax money just keeps going there's a lot of children who have special needs and who have a high price tag for tax payers but by paying that price tag you're supporting my child becoming a functional member of society that requires a certain amount of administration because he's really really complex but he's going to be functional he's going to have a job he's going to do all these things it's a worthy investment as far as the administration goes probably but I also think that we need to be really thoughtful about that and how that how that impacts the kids who are then in the schools later some amount of supervision is necessary I think if we really streamline it and focus on God bless you for being an angel on earth with your children well to do what you're doing I believe you are but what I'm saying is if the legislatures could really really truly streamline the supervisory just that section and focus on children of need like yours I'd pay more tax I mean there's just too much waste going into that level of quote unquote education at the supervisory level the question I would have and I'll and then I know you guys need to go but it would be interesting to have some figures around how much of that administration is administering federal guidelines on testing there's a ton of that going on there's a ton of energy being put into complying with these tests to the point where teachers are putting this really terrible position of almost having to teach to the test instead of how we'd like to have children be taught and I think that that I think we could look into that because I think that there's a level of that that's happening that educators would like to give up that teachers would certainly prefer as I'm sure Dick can contribute to because he's been a teacher of this kind of stuff you'd rather teach to the facts and teaching how children how to think than how to take a test so that you're successful though that your school doesn't lose funding I mean there's lots of trickle down in that and so I think that's worth looking into and thank you guys all for coming as always