 Good afternoon, everyone. This is Senate Education. We are starting today as, let's see, Thursday, the 28th of January. And we are going to pick up our work today by looking at S37. And this has, we have the lead sponsor, Senator Polina with us. If you take a look through the agenda in general for today, we're focused on education financing on this really secondary education level, looking at a couple of bills, as well as spending some time hearing from VSAC. For those of you who are new to the committee, it'll be a great introduction. And even for those of us who are returning their overviews and updates are always informative. So with that, Senator Polina, it's terrific to have you in Senate education, albeit virtually, we, of course, would prefer to have you in the room, but I would prefer to be there as well. We're glad to have you. So we will turn it over to you for bill introduction. Thank you. Appreciate it. For the record, I'm Anthony Polina, I represent Washington County. We're gonna be talking about S37, which is part of an ongoing effort to strengthen our state college system and actually make the colleges more affordable. I'm sure you're gonna be hearing a number of other bills in the same vein. So you guys, you folks really know the issue in terms of what the problem is. I'll just talk about what the bill does as briefly as I possibly can. The bill itself does three things. First thing it does is it reconfigures the state college's board of trustees in an effort to engage more stakeholders in building the new system. So the new members would include faculty, staff, students, and others who would join the board in an effort to have more voices heard as we move forward. The board, the new board once established would do two things. Number one, it would design a new structure for the state colleges to creating a single institution and a single administrative team, protecting the individual personalities of the individual campuses, but a single unified system with a single executive officer and consolidating the administrative routes on the campuses and closing the chancellor's office as well. You know, it's interesting because in between, in recent years, we all know how enrollment is down. Faculty and staff have been cut by over 200 members between 2012 and 2018. And even with those cuts, even with enrollment down and the cuts of students and faculty and staff, the chancellor's office actually has increased in size from 29 members to 35 workers at this chancellor's office. So everybody's going down, the chancellor's office is going up. And right now, we're from, you know, the deans and upper administrative level employees at the state college system are costing the system about $14 million a year. Folks hope that we could try to cut that number in half, a state of up to $7 million a year by having administrative efficiencies throughout the state college system. The other thing it would do is this group would design a last dollar tuition program. You folks understand what that is, I'm sure you've probably talked about this already, but last dollar tuition program means that the state would pay for money for tuition after other state and federal monies are already allocated to the students. We also believe that one of the reasons what this would do is not only make the colleges more affordable, but it actually moved towards increased enrollment. We've seen states that have lower tuition or in Tennessee where they have a last dollar tuition program enrollment in the colleges there has actually gone up because it become more affordable. You know, we tend to think that decreasing student numbers are because of demographic occurrences. But I think there's a lot of evidence, we know there's a lot of evidence that decreased numbers are not just about demographics, but the related increased costs and more costs and more expensive the state colleges have gotten fewer students have applied to and went to the state colleges. And right now, 51% of our students go out of state to go to college. That's the highest percentage of any state in the nation. Of course, a lot of other folks don't go to college at all because it's too expensive. So this new board would design a last dollar tuition program to make the colleges more affordable, increase enrollment, and it would also have to recommend how to fund the tuition program. The initial funding would come from redirecting state need grants for the VSEC grants to in-state students only. You know, Vermont, we've been down this, we've had this discussion in the past, I'm sure you continue to have it, but Vermont is still the only state that allows all their need grants to go out of state. My understanding is that in 2017, VSEC sent to a $5 million of state tax dollars out of state isn't to help people go to college and other states. We understand what it's about, but no other state allows their grant money to be taken out of state institutions where Vermont's the only one. So in 2017, they send $5 million out of state that was about 25% of their grant funds. So in terms of funding, this tuition, last dollar tuition program, we would begin by looking at the $5 million that would be kept in state a year to keeping the VSEC money in state. $7 million or so in savings from the single administration effort. We would look at closing the chancellor's office, which has an expense that we don't need to encumber with anymore. We would redirect jobs, they would look at redirecting job training programs as well to see if any of them appropriately could be located on the state college campuses. They would be able to look at the marijuana tax and others. They would re-sgroup and then report back to the legislature on their plan to engage their plan to restructure the state college system without closing campuses, without undermining students' ability to take courses between colleges and reducing administrative costs. So I think that one of the most important parts about this, you'll hear other proposals about the need to lower tuition and free tuition and whatnot. This begins by reconfiguring the state college's Board of Trustees so that we have different voices involved in it. I don't think that you're gonna find too many of these other studies are gonna talk about reducing administrative costs the way this group would like to do. Now, clearly they have an interest. This bill came out of an effort that you probably are familiar with, I hope you're familiar with it, but it came out of the labor task force from the state colleges. So I don't know if you've seen the report or not, but they put out a couple of reports. I assume they testified for the committee or at least a little bit. Yeah. So this bill is based on the assumptions and the research done with those folks. And I think it's really important to give them a seat at the table while we have these discussions. I think they're more likely to take seriously the need for administrative efficiencies, cutting down the higher paid administrative staff, the deans and whatnot, really taking a hard look at the value of the chancellor's office and why the chancellor's office continues to grow while the enrollment continues to shrink. So I think we'll get an honest appraisal of how to go about building a better system with these folks at the table. So that's what it does. It basically reconfigures the state college's board and then instructs this new board to design a new single unified system and find funding for a last dollar tuition program. They would then report back to the legislature, of course, it would be our decision as to whether we're forward with these things. But they would, so they would report back to the legislature in December, I believe this year. So I'm gonna throw it on and even for longer. I mean, that's basically what the bill does. Very, very helpful. Committee, questions. I'm going to, if you don't mind, just kick it off. How would, so how would this interact? Would this sort of negate the work of the select committee on higher education or not negate, I mean, this is sort of saying, listen, you're doing some work, we know, but we're also taking the same, a similar step, if you will, simultaneously. Yeah, I was gonna say, it wouldn't negate it, but it would basically be focusing a different set of eyes, a much different set of eyes on the same problem. I mean, they're gonna talk about reducing costs. They'll probably talk about, I haven't read that in a while, but most of the reports we've seen, I've talked about the possibility of closing campuses. I think these folks who don't wanna close campuses. And I don't think any of the reports that I've seen have really talked about taking a hard look at the chancellor's office and the high administrative costs that the colleges have. We've talked about high administrative costs, but not in the same way that these folks would in terms of really trying to do away with the higher cost administrative personnel. I mean, $14 million, this seems like a lot to like, in terms of deans and high level administrative staff. I mean, we put, let's say, colleges together. How many students are we really talking about if you put Northern Vermont, Castleton together for VVTC, I mean, it's not a lot of students. There's a lot of colleges and universities around the country that are larger than that that rely on a single unified system. There's no reason why we have to have so much redundancy in a state college system. So I think we could, this would put a different set of eyes on a similar problem. And I think come up with a more direct inclusive response which would say, this is where we can cut costs. We know this because this is where we work. This is our lives. Senator Hooker. Yeah, thank you. Senator Polina, do you have any numbers as far as costs for the last dollar tuition? Well, I don't, I mean, the report does, you can take a look at the report that the folks put together. They talked about, I could take it out but I could also send it to the committee but they talked about about $4 million a year to begin the program to be, you know, the first year would be about $4 million to cover the last dollar tuition. And that's what, that's about the same or it's more than less than what we could save by keeping the VSEC money here in the state of Vermont. Thank you. Clearly that all needs to be looked at more closely. I mean, I wouldn't say that's a be all and end all. I think, you know, your question is pretty valid. How are we gonna pay for this? So one thing I'm wondering, I'm sorry, Senator Hooker, did you have a follow up? No, okay. Have you had an opportunity to look at what the competitors are charging? In other words, you know, I've said this before in committee, you know, where I live, it's the intersection of you have the Albany area close by where you live in Valley Community College. Cuomo seems to be lowering costs all the time. Charlie Baker also, you know, right over the border you have North Adams and then you have Keen State on the other side near Brattleburg. Do you have a sense of what they are charging and I have to say I do have some of that information and I'll forward it to the committee. I just don't remember the numbers off the top of my head. It was submitted to me by Chase Dobbs and who's doing a little work for me. I honestly don't know the numbers, but I do know that they've been doing the best to cut tuition costs, particularly they focus in New York, I think depending on the family income, certain people get the benefit of going tuition free. But what's happening is these other states are beginning to move quicker than we are, obviously in this direction, which means we're likely to lose more students to those states. So it's like we put off solving the problem and it's just gonna get worse. We have a habit of doing that here in the state of Vermont. No, and I think for me, and we're going to hear from the state colleges a little bit later as well, just getting a sense of what this actual cost looks like, you know, for us to become competitive, honestly, I'm also curious to know what students are graduating with now from our state colleges, CCV, what does that average debt look like? I know that there are many institutions or some in the state, I think everybody tries to keep it as low as possible. In other words, we don't want kids to have debilitating debt. I am concerned that we do have students that enter institutions, they don't finish, they get pulled in by an attractive concentration or major that ends up not being what they want. So it's, you know, the financial issue is an important one. And I agree with you that, you know, to stay competitive, a lot of it's about cost. The other piece of this, I would say, Senator, and we haven't had much comment on that is what are people offering? You know, it's great to have low cost, it's great to have, you know, minimize administration, but what is it that our institutions of higher ed, particularly as we look at the state colleges and CCV, what are they offering? And I think that's the other piece of this that again, we're not gonna really pull into, but it's interesting in all of these reports, few times, you know, you don't hear much about that. It's about savings, it's about this, it's about that, but it's not what the opportunities that are being presented are. And I think part of my fear is that we're as a solution to the economic problems we have with the state colleges, the more they cut programs, the less attractive the colleges are gonna be to students around the state. So I think that's something we need to avoid. I don't remember exactly, but I do know that, Vermont, that's one of the higher debt, not what you call it, debt ratios of other states in terms of students coming out of state colleges. And I went once to, when there was a report that came out that showed that we have highest kind of debt toward income ratio. In other words, considering the debt that people come out of college within Vermont related to the kind of salaries and income that Vermont families have, we had one of the more high debt ratios relative to income in the state. So, you know, we have to not only make sure the colleges are affordable, affordable, relative to other states, but affordable, relative to the folks who live here. Yeah, good point. I think other questions, comments. If I may, just one other thing that we're gonna be hearing from VSAC later, and you did mention that, you know, we have about $5 million that leaves the state and goes with students to other states for higher ed. Again, it's something that I continue to personally struggle with, but again, looking at my region where for some students, the biggest opportunities really are in probably keeping the VSAC money in, I don't think would make a difference in terms of the incredible offerings just because of the size of the states and the amount of dollars that they're able to work with over the borders in New York and Massachusetts. You know, as I've said, Hudson Valley Community College, you can become an undertaker or you can do a reciprocal agreement with RPI. It really has become a large, I'm guessing, 50, 60, 100,000 students university. And those opportunities for some kids, it's just having these VSAC dollars is what they need. And for Mass College of the Liberal Arts also, again, just going over the border also because some of these institutions can, because of their financial capabilities, give these students more money to make it more affordable. I would say two things. One, at one point, we talked about, I know others who were on the committee at the time, but we've had this conversation for a couple of years. We talked about the possibility of keeping the VSAC money in the state of Vermont, unless you were going to a college that was within 25 miles of Vermont or something like that, in other words. So it would apply to Albany as an example. I assume it's 25 miles, but something like that. Yeah, actually, that's a really good point. I'd forgotten about that. I remember you came to Senate at when I was on this committee prior, and that's right, you did put the mileage piece in there, which I think was helpful. You also have to consider that fact that if people are going to a private school, let's say in New York or Massachusetts or any other state, Ohio, wherever they might wanna go, if they're going to a private college and it's gonna cost them 30, 40, $50,000 a year, you could argue that $1,000 from VSAC isn't gonna make that big of a difference to whether or not they go. But if you're a Vermont or from the Northeast Kingdom, trying to go to the Northern Vermont University, trying to come up with $12,000, from VSAC may make a really big difference between you going to college and not going to college. So you have to look at it that way as well. I mean, what kind of impact does that relatively small amount of money have on somebody who's trying to go to a state college as opposed to a private school out in Minnesota or something? It's a really good point. Yeah, it's a good point. I just noticed Senator Perchley just had his hand up. Oh, see. Speak for you, but I can see you all. Well, I always feel honestly that when you're in the room, you're representing all of Washington County, no matter if Senator Cummings or Senator Perchley are here. But we will take a question from Senator Perchley, please. Well, I just wanted to point out to the committee that we did a lot of work. The committee last year, and I see Senator Hardy just joined us on basically trying to come up with a committee approach on the last dollar tuition program that Senator Polina is part of this bill. And JFO created a really nice spreadsheet that kind of gave it different examples of different proposals and how much they cost and how much the different grants are now. It was one of those great things that Jeannie always had in our folder when we went to the room. So we might wanna see if they're still in the folder from last year or ask JFO to recreate that because it was a really helpful way if we're gonna do the same work looking at different options. Yeah, that's a really good point. I'm glad you raised it. Jeannie, would you mind emailing that around to folks if it still exists? I can always leave that for you. Can you repeat that, please? I can talk to you offline, Jeannie, about what document I'm talking about to send out. Great, thanks. Senator Polina, any other comments? This has been very helpful, very generous of you. What is your afternoon committee? Government operations. It's just right down the hall. But we're talking about it. We have a whole menu of election issues we're taking up today, so. All right. The room's gonna be packed. I'm sure it's gonna be packed. But I do, I know you, I'm sorry. No, please go ahead. I was gonna say go overturn Citizens United for us, please. Yeah, an easy lift. Now, it's just as I know that you're gonna hear different proposals this year about state colleges and something we've grappled with for years and it's one of those Groundhog Day kind of things where it never seems to go away, but I really appreciate the fact that this committee is gonna take it pretty seriously. And as I said, I think that this proposal, which is not that different from some of the others we've seen, but I think restructuring the board of trustees will make a difference. And I think taking a really hard look at the administrative costs will make a difference. And I think that we could have a single unified system with a single executive officer. I mentioned last thing is that the vision is that the single unified system would be run by a single executive officer, which will be located on one of the campuses. So you could shut down the office in Montpelier, which isn't at an expense as well. Why we don't really need a nice office in Montpelier for the chancellor staff, although their staff continues to grow, which is kind of ironic, since enrollment is down and staff and faculty, we've lost 204 faculty and staff positions between 2012 and 2018, but the chancellor's office actually improved by six members. That doesn't make any sense. Right, well, I can't personally comment on that, given that I'm not sure with the organizational chart at the chancellor's office is, I would certainly hope that if it is growing, it's looking at issues related to philanthropy, admissions, helping the institutions out there that are on the ground trying to recruit students and raise dollars. But again, I can't comment on that. Sure. Other questions or comments? Senator Polina? Thanks for having me. Do good work. Anytime. Don't forget to get up and stretch once in a while. Thank you. Good to see you. Thanks a lot, appreciate it. Mr. Demeray, would you mind seeing that Senator Hardy is here and I'm sure she is working on pressing issues in finance, would you be comfortable if we were to move to Senator Hardy's bill introduction and then you take us through both S37 and S29 after that? Of course. Sure. Great. With that, Senator Hardy, welcome back to Senate education. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Campion. Great to have you here. It's very exciting. Very exciting. It's great to be here and like half my morning committee is here or more than half, so it feels like home. You're on health and welfare? Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. And it's great to see Senator Perchlich, the last man standing from last year and hi, Jeannie. I can't see you, but it's good to see you, your name and Jim, you too, of course. I miss Senate education. And in finance, I left while they were talking to the Tax Structure Committee about education property taxes. So I'm a little antsy and eager to get back there. So we're looking at S29 and ACT relating to the creation of the BSC Tuition-Free Scholarship Program for Vermont. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, I'm Senator Ruth Hardy from Addison County. I really appreciate that you're taking a look at this bill. We did quite a bit of work on it last year in the previous version of Senate Education Committee. I'll just give you a few talking points and highlights from my perspective. And then I know Jim knows the language really well and can walk you through the details. So this bill started out as a bill that was specific to CCB and providing a scholarship, full scholarship for students to attend our community colleges of Vermont. That was my focus last session after a previous version of the bill that Senator Polina introduced that would have been for all of state colleges had a fairly big price tag. So I tried to narrow it down to just focus on CCB. That being said, this year, I widened it out a little bit to include associates degrees and certificate programs at the Vermont State Colleges. So as it's currently drafted, it would include both CCB programs and some state college programs. They would have to be for students, both full-time students and part-time students who are pursuing an associate's degree or a certificate of some kind for some kind of professional certificate. So it wouldn't be just for the casual student who's taking a couple classes here or there. They would be full or part-time students pursuing a degree or a certificate. And they would need to be Vermont residents. As it's currently drafted, it would include students whose full family income, as defined by the financial aid sort of parameters, would be up to $100,000. So that's obviously a lever that you can pull to make it less expensive or more expensive or cover fewer students or more students, but that's where it's at right now and how we had it last year. Can you all hear me? Cause I'm getting a weird internet. Okay, okay. Students would have to be in good standing and this would be defined by the institution. So it wouldn't be something we would determine. It would be good standing with the institution and that would both be academic good standing and also behavioral good standing. So they couldn't, you know, rob the bookstore and still get the scholarship or whatever. That's a bad example, but you know what I mean. It would cover tuition only and it would be a last dollar program, which is what I heard you just talking about and Senator Purchlick's right. We went, we spent a lot of time talking about the differences between first dollar and last dollar and sort of something in between. And that becomes very complicated and students would have to apply for federal financial aid and fill out the FAFSA form in order to get the scholarship. As you may know, maybe you've heard in testimony, as a state, we leave quite a bit of federal financial aid on the table because not all students apply for financial aid. So this would require them to do so. And I think there are movements at the federal level to make that application easier. So hopefully this would help in that way too. The definition of full versus part time is outlined in the bill and it would be for a limit of 60 credit hours, which is essentially what the estimate is for two years of a program. So it would cover an associate's degree. You'd get 60 credit hours through the scholarship. And we subtracted out the early college program and the dual enrollment program. So if students had participated in early college and dual enrollment and gotten credits through those programs paid for by the state, that would come off of this program. So they couldn't double dip and get two plus years paid for. And that's a way to sort of chip away at the cost of the program as well. The other really important thing that the bill does as it currently stands is it includes four full time equivalent positions for the Vermont State Colleges that would serve as academic advisors and mentors for the students who qualify for this program. When I was creating this legislation, it was sort of in the off session, pre-pandemic. And I worked pretty closely with CCB and the Vermont State Colleges and also the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation, BSAC to come up with what would be considered sort of a best practices bill. And one of the best practices when you look at programs around the country that have been successful are programs that provide academic support and advising for students, particularly students who are first generation or low income students or don't have any kind of steady history of higher education in their family. So those students really need the extra support and advising in order to stay in college or to stay through and get their associates degree or to get their career certificate. So that's why this includes those four positions because that is considered a national best practice for this type of program. And so as I said, I worked with those institutions to come up with what would be a comprehensive program. I read a lot of national sort of evaluations of other programs. And there was actually a session at NCSL the year that I was putting together this bill about quote unquote free college programs around the country and what was successful or what wasn't successful. So I talked with a lot of people in other states. And one of the states that was early into this and has a pretty successful program is Tennessee and they have a full mentoring program that goes along with their scholarship. It's actually run by private sector but it's pretty comprehensive and it's one of the reasons that they've been able to successfully do this program. Let me see. I expanded it to include the state colleges this year because obviously this committee knows better than most that the Vermont state colleges are in crises and it's a big issue and wanting to support their efforts to become more viable and to attract more students. I believe that the draft report that came out in December and I don't think the final report is out yet. Maybe it's due in a few weeks from the commission on the future of higher education in Vermont or whatever fancy name we gave it last year. It recommended that we include at least $5 million in additional student scholarships for Vermont State College and CCB students. Last year the fiscal note on this bill was just about $5 million. It has been expanded this year. There's not a new fiscal note as far as I know although I have alerted JFO to it. So I feel like this could be a nice piece to include in the larger package that this committee and the full legislature may be considering for how we look at Vermont State Colleges and the situation. I also encourage you to hear from all of them. Obviously UVM was also very supportive of this bill last year as it was because they have articulation agreements with CCB in particular. So CCB is a big pipeline for UVM for students for Vermonters to go to UVM and they find that if students are starting at CCB or the state colleges and then moving to UVM they tend to have greater success in retaining those students once they get there. So UVM was also very supportive of this even though it didn't directly give them scholarship aid. They may have changed their tune but that's where they were last year. And I just highly recommend that you also reach out to if you haven't already, you may have already done so but to the McClure Foundation. The McClure Foundation as some of you might know gave, did a program last fall where they gave a free class to any 2020 graduate of a Vermont high school. And they have a lot of data on the success of that program. And because of it, CCB bucked the trends of the nationally where community colleges were seeing a decline in student enrollments last fall because of the pandemic and instead CCB actually saw an increase in their enrollments. So the McClure Foundation has kept a lot of data on that program and I think it's very relevant to this bill and efforts to increase student access to our state colleges and our community colleges which are majority Vermonters that go to these more than far more than 90% I think of the students are Vermonters who stay in our state to get their higher education and then fill some really critical jobs in our economy and are just the kinds of students that I think are most critical that we reach with scholarship aid. So that's my passion, my high level overview and I'm happy to answer questions. Terrific. Thank you, Senator. You know, the McClure Foundation we did have Joyce Judy in I think now twice talked just a little bit about it. The one number that would be interesting to see is we did hear that, yes indeed, a lot of students took advantage of that one year that one class. What we're still waiting to find out is how many went on after that. And so if hopefully the McClure Foundation has been able to do a little bit more digging but I, yeah, no, I certainly applaud the bill, the idea, I don't wanna speak for the entire committee but I think we are certainly looking to try to do something in this regard, whether it's state colleges and CCB, just CCB, two years for enrolled students or just to get students out there and into a class but that was very helpful. Committee, questions. Looks like I think we're going to allow you to go back to finance. Okay. Thank you, Senator. Good to see you. Yeah, thank you for having me. Good luck, everyone. Take care. Mr. Demeray, would you mind taking us through the two bills? I don't think we have to go into too much detail but an understanding of both of them so that the committee can make an informed opinion. Okay, which would you like to start with? Why don't we start since it's a fresh one? We start with Senator Hardy. Okay. And do you know if I can show this thing? I guess I can. See, so can you see that? It's pretty small. Yeah, it's pretty small. Let's see, does everyone have access to this or do we want to have it? Mr. Becker, increase the view on here. Zoom. Still pretty small. Why don't you just, we can all use our iPads as best we can and why don't you talk us through it if that's okay? Okay. So for the record, figure if I can, we are reviewing, we are reviewing S29, which is Senator Hardy's bill. And Jim, if you don't mind just taking it off the screen, that way we can monitor people have questions and. Or take it off the screen. Yeah, since it's not really working. Okay, okay. I'm not sure why it's not working, but okay. There we go. Okay. So do we have it open first? Yeah. Okay. All right. So for the record, Jim Danway, that's console. So this bill is Senator Hardy explained, creates a project program. And it begins with a number of definitions. So on page one, and I always will post, post-secondary institution means any of the romance ecologists. Page two, and I always will post-secondary program means a curriculum of course, that is leading to a certificates for associate's degree. So definitions of what kind of student gift a part-time student, quite, quite obvious here. So I want to read through those in a semester. Under C, so on page two, line 17, I says the corporation, the corporation is VESAC. The VESAC is through the program. And it says to qualify for a scholarship, the student must be a remote resident. Complete the program application for each year of enrollment. Complete the fast, fast, fast, fast, step one, which is the federal student aid application. So that's why it means test. So the family or the student can't have income above $100,000. And then has to maintain good academic, sorry, good academic and behavioral standing at the school and be seeking either a certificates for associate's degree. This is not included, so I already mentioned a four-year certificate degree. So just a two-year degree or certificate. VESAC can make exceptions to these requirements as they feel appropriate. On page four, the top, the scholarships are awarded for a maximum of 60 credit hours. So as mentioned, that is about two years of school. And that can be spread out over a period of two to five years. So you can do a part-time over five years, you do a full-time for two years. And then it says in BLI-8 that if a student has attained a certificate under the program, that same student can see that associate's degree as well provided that the student doesn't exceed 65 hours on scholarship. And then VESAC's allowed to make the exceptions to accommodate students with medical or personal leave or students with a learning disability. The scholarship covers the cost of tuition at the school up to one academic year. So scholarships are yearly, so you apply each year and it'll cover up to one academic year on a full-time basis. Charged at the resident rate, probably some of the last dollar basis, and VESAC pays the scholarship funds directly to the college. So it's not to say that VESAC can adapt to all C's and procedures and there's no penalty. So if a student is on a scholarship and does not complete the coursework, there's no requirement to pay back scholarship money. And then there is reporting. So by November 15th of each year, it has to be a report to you on the effectiveness of the program. And then page six, going on to the funding and there's a ESC scholarship fund being established here to fund this scholarship program. As standard terms for establishing a fund, line 13, 14 talks about the appropriation, which is for fiscal year 22, $6 million. And the next one is the inflation factor for the appropriation going forward. Lastly, the bill on page seven actually about staffing at VSC. And there's appropriation from the general fund for fiscal year 22 of the amount of $400,000 for four-time positions, specializing in student academic support and mentoring, particularly for first generation students and other students in need of additional assistance. This act could take effect on July 1 this year and scholarships will begin to be granted for the 22, 23 school year and thereafter. Thank you. Questions. Seems pretty straightforward, comprehensive overview. Okay. Seeing none, let's move on to Senator Polina's bill, which is co-sponsored also by Senator Perchlich. Okay, so that is S37 and does everybody have that open? One more time. Yeah, okay. Okay, so on S37, reconstitutes the Rolex College's Board of Trustees and asserts them to develop a research plan and the tuition program for VSC. So looking at session one at the bottom of page one, the VSC, the corporation currently has a Board of 15 trustees. There will be increased to 19. Page two is happening here is the Governor appointees, Governor appointees four, and those are being taken out. So the Governor would not have any appointees on this Board. There will be four trustees who are 15 members of VSC. And that would, sorry, first of these would be faculty of VSC. Doesn't make sense. So sorry, this is, this should say first of these shall be faculty of VSC. I believe. And those are for your terms. And then currently there's one student trustee and that would be increased to two. And then on the next page, page three, line five, we have currently four legislative trustees, they will remain. And then there are four self-perpetuating trustees chosen by the Board that will remain. And then one trustee would be a librarian and two would be appointed by the AFT, the union. Two would be appointed by the Vermont State Employees Association. I'm confused by those, the corporation in this bill means the Vermont State Colleges, not BISAC, sorry. So I'm confused by those, I'm used to that term. So in this bill, corporation means Vermont State Colleges. So with that. No problem. And then the governor, on the next page, section two, the governor is a member as well. Currently, the governor would be taken off the board as well. So the governor would not be on the board or have any questions on the board. So that's the new constructive board, it's 19 people. And then there's a transition provision in terms of having people exit and come on. And then section four deals with the restructuring plan and tuition benefit program. So it requires that the Vermont State Colleges Board trustees on before December 15th of this year prepare a report for you. And that would take into account the report that certainly I mentioned, probably the United State of Vermont. This is the labor task force report. And the board will make the following recommendations to you. First, how to increase access, collaboration, administrative efficiency and innovation through the development of a single unified system of public post-secondary education that has a single executive office formed by the consolidation of executive and upper level administrative operations across the colleges and the elimination of the chancellor's office. The recommendation shall assume that the wants to college is showing me independent of UVM. Secondly, to design a last hour tuition program for Vermont residents and how that program should be funded. And the funding recognition shall include the requirement that BESAC sees providing scholarship tuition for our state colleges. That's what we call portability. And also would require that administrative savings from the board's restructuring recommendation would be used for tuition. And then the funding recognition may include a portion of revenue from taxes on canvas, redirect appropriations for workforce development programs and include other funding sources that are on the board. And this has to take effect on taxes. Thank you. Questions. My only question really, if you don't mind, Senator Perslick, you were on the committee that passed out the select committee for higher education last year. And you're one of the co-sponsors of this bill. I'm just wondering, are there things that you're seeing from the select committee which I assume you supported, but correct me if I'm wrong, that you're not seeing done or if there are ways that we would communicate, for example, if we weren't to take up this, are there things that you're not seeing that this bill is doing that you would like to see this subcommittee do? Or the select committee? I mean, they seem to, there seems to be some overlap. Oh, yeah, no, definitely. And I think when sponsored this bill with Anthony and Senator Polina, we hadn't seen their report yet. We just kind of maybe their interim report was out. So I think it was just an effort to have a different perspective but on the table to consider two different ways. The select committee is deciding to recommend a combination of all but the community college and this is a recommendation that includes combining the community college. And this one coming from more of the labor perspective is trying to get more of the staff and faculty on the board and that's not something that we don't think we even challenged them to really look at that or that the select committee is looking at those kind of issues about board governance issues. So it's looking at it differently. And the tuition part of this bill is just something that Anthony has put in several bills about free tuition over the years. And so the idea was well, those bills never went anywhere. So maybe if this committee could come up with a proposal that would be a way to get some support for it. But it's, I don't think, so you'll notice I'm a sponsor of both that are Hardee's and Senator Polina's bill. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. It's both are just efforts together with the select committee's board to do something to improve the affordability of our sustainability or our state college. Yeah, committee, I mean, we can have a longer discussion after we hear from today's witnesses, but I'm hoping as we hear from people, you'll be considering what you might want to do or might not want to do with regard to broadening access as I see it to our state colleges, including CCB. You know, the work that the McClure Foundation and the generosity of the McClure Foundation I thought was incredible last year certainly showed that, you know, making it accessible, people will take advantage of it. And, you know, even though I keep asking the question, you know, what happened, you know, did students continue on, even if they didn't, to me, just taking a class, I think is great. You know, for that, for some people it might have been exactly what they needed for a job or for, you know, their own interests, et cetera. So I mean, I put my cards on the table. I think for me, you know, giving people more access to higher education at low to no cost, quality education is something I'm interested in seeing us do something on. And what that looks like, if it's continuing sort of the work that the McClure Foundation started or expanding it, we can certainly have that conversation. Senator Chinden. I was just gonna say yesterday, I feel like I jumped the gun by offering concerns and then we took a lot of testimony. So I'll reserve my remarks as I think you just suggested hear the testimony and then maybe reflect more on some of my pause points at the end. Does that make sense? Sure, I mean, you're welcome to, you know, one of the things that you are allowed to do, which I do constantly is change your mind. So please feel free if I, yeah, I have a, so please feel free to just discuss or use this time in any way you'd like. Senator Termsini, please. Thank you, Senator Kibben. This might as well not be the right time, but if we could we look at Senator Hardy's bill for a moment, I have a question about that one. Absolutely. I'm very familiar, very comfortable on the intricacies of municipal government funding. I'm still at a kindergarten level as to how we fund state government, all the intricacies and where the money comes from and goes to and all that. So I apologize for my very basic question here, but you look at, I believe it's page six or seven on Senator Hardy's bill. And it says for fiscal year 2022 and each fiscal year after an amount of $6 million shall be appropriated and transferred from the general fund to the fund. That $6 million to be appropriated, that would come in form of we'd have to raise, in other words, in my mind, unless I'm completely wrong, we would be taking that $6 million applying it to this and then we have to raise that $6 million to put back into the general fund or that $6 million has to be raised by taxes or the taxpayers of Vermont pay for that $6 million, correct? Jim, do you want me to take that or is that something? I'm happy to take that, but it's, yes, you have to raise revenue, obviously taxes otherwise for the general fund or cut other costs. Right, and that's the only thing I was gonna add was or cut something else would be the way to do it. The only thing I'd like to add, please. Go ahead. No, I was gonna say, I guess my thought process, this bill we're looking at in the scope of the state budget of billions of dollars, $6 million is to some a drop in the habit. To me, I look at it as, boy, $6 million is a lot of money, especially in light of the pandemic and everything else we have going on. So that's just how sort of the bill I interpret initially, and I'm just putting it out there, but I guess I'll just, I appreciate the answer, Jim, and I'll just hold my thoughts because I could ramble about this, but I see that number. I said, geez, that's gotta come from somewhere and I don't know if I'm loving the idea of it being right now. No, it's a great point, Senator Perchlik. Yeah, and you'll notice, and Senator Hardy mentioned, I think she did, maybe I'm getting confused with Senator Polina's testimony, but the VSEC grants that go out of state are around $5 million. So when we were looking at it last year, we were trying to find a program that basically we could afford, and whether that be some of the cannabis tax money or the VSEC Portability Grants, we were trying to find the money to match up with our goals. Cause I think last year we started with one of Polina's bill that was just free college, which I think had a price tag of like $30 million. And we said, well, we're not gonna find $30 million, but maybe we could find $5 million. And even though we talked a lot about where the money would come from, in the end we never sent the bill out, but you would send a bill out and it would be appropriations that would decide whether we could put $6 million in there, but they could just take it out. In fact, they will take it. Yeah, and just so new senators know, if it has any dollar amount, it's gonna go down the hall and they're gonna have a look at it and they could make edits, if you will, and the same with finance. So oftentimes committee bills, like if we were to take this up, they have more than one stop. And for example, if we were to vote this out today, which we're not going to, it would go down to a probes and it would go to finance. It's possible, another committee might economic development could say, hey, we wanna have a look at this because it's related to economic development. There are all sorts of, so it can be a long process. I just wanna remind people of that. Yeah, I think these are questions that I have that I think, and I fully support us being remote for health reasons, obviously, but I think these are for freshmen legislators and maybe I speak for Senator Chittin as well. These are questions I probably could ask in the hallway or the cafeteria or in between breaks. It's just stuff that I don't, I think I'm at a learning disadvantage because I'm sitting in my basement, you know. I'm right there with Senator Taranzini. So can I just pick up on what you just said, Chair Campion? Sure. Did I hear you correctly that if we were to pass this today, if we as a committee were to move this out, it wouldn't go to the floor. It would by default, you would send it to finance and then ways and means and they would have to get through their committees and then to the floor and then it'd have to go through the house and then the governor would have to sign it, right? Yeah, so it would be on the calendar and then, but it would be sent right to either finance or appropriations and then there can be just so new senators know, there can always be a, let's say there was something about a health class in there. I mean, for what, you know, Senator Lyons could get up and say, I want to see this bill. I'm the chair of health and welfare and it's something that's important to me and my committee and people would generally, I think when a colleague wants to see something they respectful about it. So yeah, that is the process. And please, I really do hope you'll both continue to ask these questions. It's great for all of us and I think you're right. It's, I too support us all being remotely, but a lot of this stuff would be settled, or asked, if you will, in different settings. And for some of us, we're still, everybody else, we're still learning, you know? So ask away, Senator Lyons. Just a quick comment. So what you have identified are the weighing the, weighing all the goods together and then making a decision about which ones and how much to fund. So if this, if we have a recommendation to make for a workforce development bill through our colleges or institutions of higher learning, we just need to make a very strong case for it because in my committee, there might be a bill on childcare and in natural resources, there might be a bill on environmental cleanup that each one having a fund. So it's a balancing of which good we put forward when and that ends up smack dab in the middle of appropriations. And what we have in the Senate is something called Rule 31. So whenever you see a bill coming up on the floor, so it could be this bill or another and John Bloomer will say, or the Lieutenant Governor will say based on Rule 31, this bill is referred to the Committee on Finance or APPROPS. So that's what intercedes in any good thinking that we have. And I'm happy to say on the record, it drives me crazy when we do send a bill to those committees and they do something to it. It's, there's, there is. Yeah, they're not supposed to pass the policy. Yeah, Senator Lyons and I were, we were on finance together. And when you're on finance, you love to mess, but when you're not on finance, you don't. That's right. You don't, like people do those kinds of things. So, great questions. And just to take it one step further, when we don't agree with the House on something and at the end, when there is a Committee of Conference, when the Senate sending reps and the House is sending reps to kind of hammer things out, sometimes those people are from multiple committees. So if we were doing this bill right now, it's not as though, I would say, Lyons, Taranzini and Hooker are going to go represent us. It might be that appropriations would want somebody there. It might mean that finance would want somebody there as well representing the work that all of the committees did. Great. Okay, if people don't mind, we're going to just take a 10 minute break. Why don't we stretch and come back, well, why don't we just call it 15 and come back at 245, a little less than 15 minutes. Thank you.