 Okay, welcome back to Senate Education Tuesday, Wednesday, May 5th, 232. We are now shifting gears on H106. But senators, I did ask Becky Wasserman to do a draft amendment on H426 that I will ask Jeanie to send to you to look at. Some of us may have time, some of us may gather tomorrow morning at nine, but those who cannot be here, I believe our colleagues from transportation, it'd be great for you to have a look at it. I realize that we're still waiting for information, but in short, what it does is it says schools need to do this testing by January 2023. We do have Mr. Nichols here. I spoke to Mr. Nichols during the break and I'm gonna have him weigh in on this also at some point before the end of today's work. Okay, let's get going with H106. Mr. Fisher, thank you for joining us. Committee members will recall that we had asked Mr. Fisher to speak with his colleagues about 106 as it relates to getting the agricultural markets up and running. And we know that there's $500,000 traveling in the budget. And as I recall, 60,000 of that was set aside to support the agency's work in getting that those markets going. And we had, believe it was the Committee on Agriculture as well as this committee had heard from Ms. Rosie Kruger that the $60,000 would work to sort of advance these. But Mr. Fisher felt and rightfully so, it warranted a check-in with Ms. Kruger not being around this week to see where the agency is landing on this issue. So, Mr. Fisher, if I'm leaving anything out on what your assignment was, please let us know and also let us know what you found out, floor is yours. Thank you. Good afternoon for the record, Ted Fisher, Director of Communications and Legislative Affairs for the Ramon Agency of Education. Very glad to join you all again on another rainy afternoon. So I just, I wanted to, I appreciate the introduction, Senator, Mr. Chair. I just did want to note that as part of the conversations ongoing, we, the Director Kruger has been very clear that there will be ongoing staff support needed for this. This was one aspect of a larger position. So my lack of clarity yesterday was whether or not we could, by focusing on one aspect, get by without an additional position. So after checking in internally and speaking to Secretary of French, he feels that this team is, has been doing really excellent work since the beginning of the pandemic and has been short, sort of at the low end of capacity for the work that they're being asked to do. And then we expect that not only do we expect this program and I know that there is intent on both houses and we share that intent to make universal meals a permanent situation in the out years. We feel that the position is therefore necessary to make this policy program, excuse me, workable. So Mr. Chair, some language was shared with me in advance and I see that it's in the most up-to-date version of the bill. Would you like me to speak to that immediately or wait for questions? Well, let's start with just getting a better understanding of where we're at. And by that, I mean, we're looking at this right now. This is, we're talking about the $500,000 is a one-time, one-year appropriation, as I understand it. And so I think that is where maybe, and I don't want to speak for Ms. Krueger, but the $60,000 coming off of that was again, looking at a one, to get this going for one year. And you're saying, no, no, we want, what do you want to get this going for a one-year period? What would satisfy the agency of education? I might ask to phone a friend in Jim, but my understanding is that this is an ongoing program. If that's been changed in the most recent bill, my understanding is that we were being asked to stand up a new local foods incentive grant program both this year and in the out years. So that would be why, that would be why we want to get it established with the position. Yeah, I completely agree that that's what we're doing, but I thought we were kind of looking at this as just, and again, I could be completely wrong, sort of getting it going. So, but we're hearing that right now, the agency of education wants or believes in needs, you know, a full-time position. So what would that look like to you? What dollar amount would have you all kind of satisfied that you can get a person and get this work up and going? Understood, and I really, again, I apologize for saying that I'm not 100% certain, but the gym has inserted a provision section eight on page 21, which has a dollar amount of $100,000 for salary benefits and operating expenses for this position. My understanding is that comes from a previous version of S100, and I'll just note that when we talk about sort of these sort of positions, there's two numbers that the agency tends to use, one is $100,000 and one is $125,000. Okay. I'm not an expert on the budget side of the house, but I believe that that has to do with the pay grade that we're budgeting for. So my understanding, and again, with no way to confirm unfortunately, is that this was language that was, I actually know that Rosie can make it work with this. I'm not exactly sure what it will translate to on our end in terms of the hiring and establishment of the position, but I'm going to say that for our purposes today that this number is sufficient. Mr. Demeray, would you remind us? Thank you, Mr. Fisher for that. Mr. Demeray, so you, the genesis of this language is? S100, as passed by the Senate, has the language in it, but it doesn't take effect until next year. So I just took the language from that and put it into this bill. And if S100 moves forward, we have to strip out that provision in S100 because you know it twice, obviously, and see if it goes. Okay, I apologize for my own confusion here. So Mr. Demeray, point us to the page that you have done this. So we have it, I'm looking at 106, draft 5.2. Yup, it is, I'm sorry, Ted, you had the page, all right? Yep. Ted? Oh, Ted. My draft in front of me. Yes, and I had just actually scrolled up from it. It is page 21. Okay. This is the last section before the task force on universal school lunch. Okay, so here's page 21, the task force for universe. Okay, so are we start, where does it start and finish on page 21? There's a lot of changes on mine. It's just lines 10 through 17. Perfect, okay. So one full-time classified position, $100,000 salary. So Jim, is this taken out of the $500,000? That might be. No. Okay. So in S-100, you had this language. You have this language now, dental language. Okay. I'm just copying and putting it here because the other goes into effect for another year. Right, so I just want to make sure for an ideal apologize for my confusion. So this is not something, this is already in the big bill, this $100,000. Nope, the $500,000 for the program itself is in the big bill. Okay. Okay, the separate piece for this position is not in the big bill, it's in S-100. But S-100 being taken effect in July of next year, the timing doesn't work, so it's being put into this bill so that it would be available sooner. So, which all makes sense, but how do we make a budgetary change on this date at this time? Without taking from the $500,000. Well, you have to go through appropriations that were imagined outside of this position. Yeah, no, I understand that I just don't see and perhaps I look to our most senior member center lines at this stage in the game, but the house having the budget, the only thing that the Senate's position has already been represented. In other words, without this in it, committees of conference don't put new things in there. So the only way I see this going is with $100,000 if it's taken out of the $500,000 that's already in the budget. Does that make sense? Center lines, please. Well, I mean, it does make sense, but there's nothing that would disallow for the additional funds. I mean, the money is increasing and decreasing in the appropriations conference committee process. The issue is the position. The position is not there. That also has to be negotiated. So I think a conversation with Senate appropriations would probably be in order on this or the funding is left in. I mean, this would be post-conversation. If the funding is left in, then it has to come from the Ed fund or some other one-time monies. If it's a single year appropriation. Yeah, so the expectation, and I'm looking to Mr. DeMarie, that it wouldn't be a single year appropriation and that we're setting this up, this position up. It could be a three-year position if there are temporary three-year dollars available, ARPA funds. So I think that's a really good conversation to have with Senator Kitchell. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think, but it's good to know from Mr. Fisher that this is what it would cost the agency. Jim, is there, because we're looking at food, nutrition, are ESSER set aside funds available for this? In other words, no, they're not, okay. Not because of ESSER or so much as other federal law prohibits funding, I believe that's been confirmed by Rosie. This appropriation is from fiscal 2022 and the ongoing years is you include this in now and it's in our budget going forward. Okay. So it would be dealt with going forward. Okay. Questions for either Mr. DeMarie or Mr. Fisher at this point. Appreciate the clarity in the back and forth. I certainly understand a little bit better on how at least next steps, which mean as Senator Lines pointed out, a conversation with a prox and see what they have to say. I mean, they know that we're working on this language and that this language that they felt as though this is where the most appropriate spot would be on it for this issue to be handled. So I will contact Senator Kitchell. I mean, so let's just talk worst case scenarios here. Could we, if we needed to, could we say take the 100,000 out of the 500,000 for this one year to get this up and going, Jim? I think that's a question for, for you. It's really a question of how you want to spend the money, I guess, yeah. But I mean, certainly we could, from your standpoint, we could draft, we could draft whatever we want you're saying. We want it to be 100,000. If you took the 100,000 out of the 500,000, what does that do to the program? Yeah, no, it's a good question. What does it do to the program itself? Yeah. That would be kind of a last one. It might not be, it might not be enough. But we were about to take the 60,000 out of the 500, Jim. 60,000 was going to be, good question, how that was draft originally. I believe that it's coming out of the 500,000. And that 60,000 is not in this draft. So this draft only has the position, not the additional 60,000 for a contractor. Senator Hooker. So in the original S-100, the language was for a two-year limited position. So how does that factor into this? I don't recall being in the mid-two-year position in the original S-100. I have to go back and trace that. The draft's been through many iterations over time, so. But that, I mean, we were looking to pay for that position as a limited, you know, a two-year position. So when you talk about ongoing funds, you know, how does that differ from, or what does that mean with regard to what we had initially intended? Well, it was, sorry. No, no, please go ahead. Like I said, if it was a limited service position for two years, obviously it'd be a funding only for two years. So this version here has it funded ongoing, right? So there is a difference obviously in cost over time. I'll check S-100 as it reduces to see what it said right now. Through you, Mr. Chair, Senator Hooker, I don't know without checking back through the various versions to see which one it is. But I do know that Rosie worked with the Senate Committee on Agriculture for several weeks trading back iterations of drafts in order to get it to a place where it would be implementable on our side of the House. So that might be a change that came about as part of that. We are concerned that if we would need to sustain this program over years that we have the staffing and capacity to do so. So again, I apologize to be caveatting everything but my assumption is that that change was made during that process. I know that there was a couple of weeks of intensive work between her and your neighbors down the virtual hallway. Good to think to clarify, in S-100 as introduced by Senate Agriculture, this position was a permanent position. It was not two years, it was permanent. And secondly, out of the $500,000 appropriation in the as-induced version, 60,000 could be used to retain a contractor. Senator Hooker, I'm wondering if it's possible you're thinking we did a limited service position. There were a lot of conversations around that as it related to literacy. Literacy. And also I think even something else, but my instincts are we keep it as is and we take Senator Lyon's suggestion and we work with our colleagues down the hall to see if it is indeed possible to advance this as is, which would give, as Mr. Fisher requested, $100,000 appropriation to that position. Other questions or comments were either Mr. Fisher or Mr. Demeray. It might not feel like it, colleagues, but I think we are getting somewhere, we really are. I mean, this has been, I think, a heavy, but speaking for myself, a really important lift, not only for more nutritious meals, but also creating these local markets. And I can only speak for myself, but down here, young farmers, I think it's going to benefit immensely if we can continue with this direction. And so with that, Mr. Fisher, anything else from you or the agency? Please, I see that your hand is up. Perfect timing. Oh, no, I'll just say I really appreciate the opportunity to join you and I'm looking forward to joining you again in person, hopefully next year. So, but I would want to say I need to, I'm a poor vessel for this today because I was unfortunately out of the office this morning, but I think, Mr. Chair, that Deputy Secretary Boucher has reached out to you or to Jeannie about some of the other provisions, the community schools provisions of this. I think she has some additional concerns or feedback to share with you. So I just wanted to note that, unfortunately I don't have the specifics I've been sort of trying over the past hour to see what exactly they are, but I don't have them at this moment. So I just wanted to note that for you. Did you say concerns and or compliments or just concerns? I think I know that she's worked very hard with you. I'm sure that she has some feedback. I think she has some feedback. So Dr. Boucher has been an incredible partner in this and I owe her a phone call and I did see an email from her and please, if you do talk to her, apologies for not getting back to her yet, but I will have a conversation with her. And we will not move this forward without hearing from Dr. Boucher again. So great. I will pass that along and you folks have been doing a lot of work. So I appreciate the opportunity to join you. Well, thank you, Mr. Boucher. We know that you've been leading the, you've been managing so many different fronts as it relates to COVID in our school. So thank you for your work and thanks for pinch hitting, if you will, at this point. So I appreciate it. Hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Great to see you. Good to see you all as well. We, as you know, I reached out to you and Mr. Nichols, great to see you as well. Mr. Nichols was following our work and was in touch with us about a language change which he emailed us last evening. And I know that it was, I believe it was a language change that you actually proposed, which led me to calling committee members, Mr. Robinson. And knowing that this committee, we want to get everybody on the same page working together. I have to thank Mr. Nichols and Mr. Robinson for taking the time out of their day to work together. I think we're getting closer to resolving this and making all parties, if not happy, satisfied, moving forward. So with that, I wonder if I may start with you, Mr. Robinson, if you would just bring us to the section that we are discussing and tell us what your thoughts are. Yes. If that works best for you, if not... Absolutely. Yeah, let me just find it in the draft that everybody was just had open. So this is specifically related to the definition of the site-based leadership team that Jay spoke to yesterday and... And senators, if you'll just take a look, it's on page nine, section five. Correct. Yeah. Yes, yes. So I provide, I emailed you all some comments this morning recognizing what Jay spoke to yesterday around and trying to make sure that this doesn't become duplicative or overly burdensome. Obviously, we provided testimony, Vermont A provided testimony earlier about the importance of this to the integrity of the work. So Jay and I had some back and forth, a good conversation. And basically what you will see with some caveats that Jay and I will speak to in a minute or I'll probably pass it to Jay to speak to specifically is that there's language in there that says the site-based leadership may include the then enumerated parties, right? And then it makes it clear that they're sort of consulted in the process of supporting the program, right? The original language that Jay and I came to agreement on and shared with Jim had a different sort of clause at the end there that I will, if it's okay with you Senator Campion, I'd like to pass it, have Jay speak to that section and the import of that section to this. But what's exciting, I think here is that we're able to keep this language while also respecting and respecting the integrity of the program, the role of the site-based leadership team will also maintaining continuity of leadership inside our schools as well. Great, Mr. Nichols. Hi, Jay Nichols, Executive Director of VPA speaking on behalf of VSPA, VPA and VSA. So, yeah, Colin spoke to our concerns. We had a language that we both agreed on. I think, and Jim, please feel free to correct me. I think Jim was from a legal mastermind like he is, was worried about the word school district. And so I proposed some language afterwards that Colin agreed to that would say school districts, then a, you know, asked inside of a parentheses so that it could be plural and or supervisor unions and so that it could be plural. In Title 16, many places we have school districts, supervisor unions being used interchangeable all the time. We just wanna make it clear that the school district or the supervisor union is a governing authority over whatever goes on. That's our only intent here. So we think the language that we agreed on with Vermont and the A earlier today is in terms of the field understanding is the best language that we could use or something similar to that. Mr. Demerick, any comments from you? Yeah, that's fine. It's a little clunky just for us that way. But the reason I raised the issue is in this draft based on your testimony yesterday, you wanted to expand the L's for recipient definition to be school district or two more school districts working together or two more students working together. So who the recipient is could be a variety of combinations. So referring to a school district didn't really make sense in terms of how it's been framed. We can add in references to all that stuff or maybe we can use the definition of L's for recipient instead here if that would be okay. That works for me. I'm looking to Mr. Nichols and Mr. Robinson. Yeah, that would work for me too. I think it's more clunky to have by the community school coordinator and makes it like that role has more authority than it really would. So I'm fine with Jim's suggestion. Colin, how about you? Yeah, we'd be comfortable with that. And I think it clearly points to the enumerated eligible recipients. Right, right. Committee, I'm seeing committee members nodding. Okay, great. I don't think there's any way I'm gonna be able to convince anyone to present this on the floor. So it's likely gonna be me. And I'm good with it. So, okay, great. Anything else, gentlemen, from either of you as we take yet even another step closer to passing universal or community schools with some center perspective, please. I'm assuming the answer is yes, just from the agreement on that language. But I assume both Colin and Jay were listening to the testimony yesterday about the kind of multi-district approach or that might not have the same kind of configuration of a coordinator. And just if you guys were supportive of the approach that was proposed yesterday by the people that provided testimony. Gentlemen, did you have an opportunity to follow yesterday's work? I only got to see a little bit of it. I got some phone calls from people who thought they were in crisis over wearing mask with sports. So I had a pretty busy afternoon dealing with that whole thing. But in terms of the flexibility piece, Senator Perslick, I think that's the key. Make it as flexible as possible. So schools have the entry point that makes the most sense for them. To preserve Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources right. To waive it's right. Okay, well, we learned about A&R. That's right. I will say no problem. You know, Jim, I'm just always relieved when it's not me. So it really doesn't matter who it is or that it even happens. So please, no problem. Mr. Robinson. I'll have those moments. Thank you, Senator. So Senator Perslick, I did listen to that yesterday. We were comfortable with that notion. Obviously school districts collaborate on many things across many components of the work. And it makes sense to make sure that is not prohibited by the language in this. So I know just a broadly speaking, wanna thank the committee for digging into this. Important bill and exciting serve demonstration grant. Right. Anything else now as well, we are on 106 with Mr. Nichols and Mr. Robinson. We will certainly be hearing again from Dr. Boucher and we'll also be looking at final language. But anything else on this before we shift again to back to 426 while Mr. Nichols is here? Okay. Mr. Robinson, thanks a million. Good to see everybody. I'll stick around to listen. Okay, great, great. Let's see, Mr. Nichols, thanks so much. Really appreciate you jumping in on this issue at the last minute. Senators know that I may have already mentioned this, but I did reach out to Mr. Nichols around lunchtime about us moving in the direction with an amendment that would require schools to test for radon and asked him if you'd be so kind to carve out some time and talk to his colleagues, Ms. Siglowski and Mr. Fan, or not Mr. Fan and Mr. Francis, which he's had an opportunity to do. And let us know where that group of individuals is on this particular issue at this point. So if you don't mind Mr. Nichols, the floor is yours and we welcome your thoughts. Great, thank you. So specifically to radon testing, the three executive directors had a conversation and we basically have all made statements in the past around unfunded mandates and I know all of you know that. So that's something that we feel that we have to be consistent about. Even if we think that the program is a valid program and obviously we think this is something that's valid and we appreciate you're looking into it, the safety of our students and our staff members is paramount to all of us. So our big issue with it would be around unfunded mandate. And for us, we've tried to be consistent if the unfunded mandate was on menstrual products, which I testified in favor of and supported, I did put in my testimony, it was unfunded mandate even though we think it's a great program. And it's something regardless of the amount of money that's involved, we wanna keep putting out there. Several years ago, secretary, actually commissioner, Hocom at the time, did a report where she showed how much money was being spent in school budgets that really maybe shouldn't have been in school budgets and she came up with a figure like 76% of the school budget stuff was school, really school connected. And a lot of the rest was mental health or health services or something that really probably should not be necessarily considered an education fund. And when you do that, you're constantly showing your education fund going up and people keep saying how much money we're spending. And we just wanna make it clear that a lot of that money is not spent on academics or traditional schooling for students the way that it is in other states, which drives up the per pupil cost. So we just have to keep mentioning that. The other big point here and I wanna be really clear on this is the Vermont School Board Association actually has a resolution that their membership signed on to saying that they would not support any unfunded mandates. So their organization is in a position where they have to, on any issue, have to state that. I think those are the real big things. Do we think rate on testing is important? Absolutely. Is it gonna be really expensive? It doesn't sound like the testing itself is gonna be really expensive. Can we pay for it out of S or three funds? That remains to be seen. And then the other point of this whole thing is if there are mitigation issues, if at school, at any town elementary school, we find there's a mitigation situation, who's gonna pay for that cost? And obviously we would be pushing that it's a public health concern and should be paid for at the state level. I think that's pretty much it, Senator Campion. Subject, any questions, anybody in mind? That was terrific, very helpful. And as we've been talking, Mr. Nichols, and you probably have heard us, I think number one, we feel without a doubt we can't keep kicking this can down the road. There are teachers, children, staff that need to know the status of the buildings that they're working in. I may be exaggerating here, but I think if this were a private industry situation and an employee was concerned and for something was found, absolutely it would be a big deal. And we need to take this as seriously as we possibly can. I completely understand where you're coming from with regard to an unfunded mandate. I'll just say, and I think, I mean, you know this, I think you would agree with this, we would be delighted to hear back from the federal agency of education that these ESSER funds can indeed be used for testing for radon. That would be the ideal situation. Less ideal might be, what we're talking about is having schools and school districts do this work recognizing that with their ESSER funds, they may have out there projects that they had in some ways budgeted for, but now they have ESSER funds and in some ways they're giving some relief to some perhaps budgetary issues that now they might have a few extra $1,000 to do the testing. The other side of this that I've been thinking about a lot, I know the committee's been talking about a lot is, you know, we just keep hearing that the Biden administration and Congress is going to be coming down with what we hope is a strong infrastructure bill and getting us ready for that is key. And to me, that's why all these things are coming together and the timing seems like this is the right time to do it. But I completely appreciate your very thoughtful comments and certainly realized and know that you are as committed to student and staff health, that health as we are. Committee, any questions or comments for Mr. Nichols at this point? Please, Senator. Just a comment that as we were talking about the elimination of radon, should it be found in testing? And testing is a lot less expensive, as you said, that the whole issue around HVAC improvement and replacement will also go toward radon, could go toward radon elimination. So it might be a two-factor, not a trifecta, but we could do two things at once. We don't wanna kill birds, so I won't say it. But so there is an opportunity here. It's not, I don't think any of us like unfunded mandates, but seeing how less expensive it is to test and then maybe there's some serendipity out there with infrastructure funds might be able to accomplish some elimination of radon. So we're just keeping our fingers crossed. Yeah, great. Mr. Nichols, I'm sure this is not gonna be goodbye. So this is, we still have a couple of weeks, but thank you for coming in and thanks for always being at the end of the phone. And we may see you again as early as tomorrow or four o'clock this afternoon. Don't hesitate. Thank you. We really appreciate it. Thanks. Very grateful, thank you. Okay, committee, I will ask Jeannie to share the edited version of that amendment. One thing I want to be perfectly clear on is, and I mean this, if anybody ever wants a different order in terms of names on amendments in any way, you just let me know. I do mean that usually we go with the chair and then alphabetical, but I don't want to tick off Taranzini and have him out there announcing the chair because he's in the T's. How did you know this, what I've been doing? Well, I saw some kind of go fund me thing just pop up to replace me. But listen, at this point, we'll just go with it. Okay, so I think Jeannie will send that along for everybody to review. We have Michelle Childs coming in at 3.30. So again, I apologize for the clunkiness, but we do want to start this work with Ms. Childs and she's going to be the one to take us through and give us the background on H183, which is again the sexual violence bill that we're working on for this year.