 technical difficulties with Zoom. We've rescheduled to 1.30. So I really appreciate all the work IT has done to get us online, that the work search has done with IT to get us online and everybody's patience in holding the time. I know it's been a little bit of a wait. So the reason we're meeting or the focus of the meeting today is the bill that we were working on. Most of the work we did before we left in March on school construction. And if the committee remembers, we were looking at a proposal that would have gotten us an assessment of school facility needs and school construction needs. And we had done some very preliminary work on a redraft that is what I'm hoping the committee will dig its teeth into a little bit today. And Mark is with us to give us a little bit of context just to remind us what there was some information about school construction needs and so on that got a discussion going in March. So he's going to do that. Becky Wasserman is here to walk through the redraft, which is very much in draft form. It needs more committee work on it. And also just to remind everybody, the bill itself is a bill that started in the House Education Committee. So it's a bill that that committee is certainly interested in having us move. And I think all of us were sort of of a mind that this was an issue that we needed to start to get our arms around. So before Mark starts, let me see if anybody has any announcements that they wanna make. I understand that my internet is freezing up occasionally. If I need to stop the video, I'll do that so that at least I can talk. But anyway, anything going on? Anybody wanna throw out there? No? Okay, Mark, you should go ahead. Okay, so good morning everybody. We have sort of been in the middle of this when the COVID-19 crisis hit. So I can just remind you briefly, I think where we were before this bill came up, starting in I think 2008, the Capitol Bill no longer provided school construction aid. The districts prior to that most projects had been eligible for a 30% grant for approved projects. Between 2008 and about up to the time we are now, there were primarily emergency projects that went forward. There wasn't a whole lot of activity. However, in 2018 and 2019, both Burlington and Rinooski went ahead with projects that totaled about $128 million. And South Burlington had been also considering a large project that ended up not passing. And so I'm not sure where that is right now. But what brought this to everybody's attention is, it looked like because of the outstanding need that existed statewide, school districts were starting to go ahead and finance school projects even in the absence of any aid. One thing that a lot of people haven't understood is that even in the absence of a grant out of the construction bill, schools that go ahead and issue bonds and begin to repay those bonds are actually receiving some money from the Education Fund. And that happens because the principal and interest payments on school debt that's acquired becomes part of the district's education spending number. I'm looking at confusion. Ask any questions if there's, I'm losing people along here, but the district would issue a bond. It would have annual interests and principal payments to pay on that. That would show up in their education spending per pupil number and affect their tax rate. But because no district on the homestead side raises all the money that they spend, districts were receiving some money to help with their school construction projects. One of the concerns was that the districts that were able to pass bonds and move ahead weren't necessarily those districts that had the greatest need. And in districts where even some health and safety concerns were raised, those districts were unable to get voters to approve a budget. So there was a concern about the amount of money going out and the fact that it would not have any state oversight on it raised a number of issues. Under the old system, if you were going to get a 30% grant, you had to come in and ask for approval for what you spent and you would only receive state aid for that portion of your costs that were approved by the agency of education. Under current law, there's no need for a district to come in and seek approval unless they're bumping up against the excess spending penalty. And the reason for that is that if you're hitting the excess spending penalty, you're able to deduct your debt service from your education spending per pupil just for the calculation of the excess spending penalty for nothing else. What's the logic behind that, Mark? I'm sorry to say that again, I'm not... What's the logic behind that? Behind what? Not including the debt repayment and excess spending. I'm not sure what the logic is. I guess it's just that that's a different kind of cost. I guess it's a long-term obligation that's not part of your annual operating budget. But I actually don't know the reason for that. There's a whole range of... There's about a dozen different things that you can subtract from your education spending if you're bumping up against the excess spending threshold. But the one by far, the largest of them is capital debt. And that's been excluded since the excess spending penalty was put into place a number of years ago. So does anybody have any questions on that? I didn't have a whole lot more to add to that, but... Right, so that the... I don't know if it's Mark, if it's you or Becky. And if I'm freezing up, can somebody just flag up and tell me? The bill that we were looking at was not gonna change the way we finance capital projects or even really put any controls on it. It was really an effort to get an assessment of what the capital needs were and really doing a statewide assessment so that we would have a better idea of what kinds of expenses we're gonna be coming at us over the next decade or two, really. So that was the... I think that's what the bill that came out of education did certainly was the conversation we had in our committee. So... Yeah, I'll just confirm that the bill was not sort of opening up any aid again. And in fact, it just had the treasurer looking at sort of the opportunities and challenges for funding and that wouldn't happen until 2023. So it was a few years out where you would even get to the step of looking at funding sources. So Becky, will you walk us through the draft? And I don't remember whether this got presented to the committee or not. I know I'd worked on it. I think Scott had seen it. I think George had seen it. I'm not sure if the committee did. So... Yeah, I don't believe I presented this to the committee. This is new for most of the members and I'm having to get my memory refreshed on what was in it. So, okay. So this draft is... sections one and section two of this language is the same as what came out of house education. So I don't know if you want me to just go over those quickly again. I think it'd be good because I don't know about everybody else's memory but mine's a little hazy. Sure. So section one is looking at the secretary of education coming up with facility standards and also the state board coming up with a capital outlay financing formula. So in subsection A, the secretary of education is tasked with working with the executive director of the Vermont superintendents association, the chair of the state board of ed and the commissioner of buildings and general services to update the school construction facilities standards and the update should reflect modern educational requirements and opportunities. And that would be due on January 15th of next year. It's actually kind of that last sentence is sort of interesting in the world that we're in right now. What we were talking about for modern educational requirements and opportunities might have been very different in March than they are today. Yeah, that's a good point. A whole new zoom world. Subsection B is looking at the state board adopting a new capital outlay formula. So currently there is a state board rule 6124.1 that has a capital outlay formula and the state board under statute is required to update this annually. Because this program has been on hold for a number of years, the formula has not been updated in a while. So this is just asking the state board to update this rule. So that establishes the max and min square footage parameters by school size and grade range through a square footage allowance per student or program. And the formula also establishes an allowable cost per square foot of construction. And that would be due January 15th of next year as well. Section two of the draft is looking at doing a facilities condition analysis of schools statewide. So the secretary of education would do this in coordination with the commissioner of BGS. And the first step would be issuing a request for proposal for a school facilities condition analysis to inform AOE of the statewide school facility needs and costs. And it would be looking at both school facility conditions and space needs. And that would be issued by February 15th of 2021. Subsection B has the secretary of education contracting with an independent third party to conduct this analysis. And the analysis would be completed on or before June 15th of 2023. So that is a bit of time to allow for the analysis to be completed. And then subsection C appropriates 1.5 million from the Ed fund to the secretary of education to conduct this analysis and contract with that independent third party. And subsection D defines school. So to sort of clarify what schools would be part of this statewide facility conditions analysis. And the definition that was chosen here is the same one that is used in the current school construction aid program statute. So it was just staying consistent with that. Do you need to go check on somebody? Sorry, I just had an interruption. So section three is the new language that was drafted for this bill, for this version of the bill. It is asking JFO to come up with a report. And this is a little different from the house version which have the state treasure doing something similar although looking what they're looking at is the report will have some different information. So honor before December 15th of 2020. So this year JFO would submit to house education corrections and institutions and ways and means and then on a Senate side education finance and institutions, the following list of information. So that includes an overview of the recent history of Vermont school construction funding and analysis of the challenges and opportunities to the state if any of funding school construction projects, a review of the experience of other jurisdictions and then finally some options to address school construction needs in the state including funding oversight and setting priorities. Subsection B allows JFO to have the assistance of Ledge Council, the state treasurer, the Vermont bond bank and the agency of education and then any other state agency or department as needed. And as part of its work, JFO would also consult with the school board association, the superintendent's association and the Vermont board of education. Subsection C, this is I guess a decision point is appropriating money to JFO of not more than $30,000 for consultants or study expenses for the report and the source of funds needs to be filled in there about where that funding would come from. And section four is new and this is also new and this is addressing the issue of, you know, this work is being done in the background but in the meantime schools still can do bonding for school construction projects. So this is sort of putting a halt to any new projects for a certain time period. And again, this needs some work as the dates are not finalized but the language right now says that beginning July 1st, 2020 and ending at some date, the school district shall not approve a bond for school construction project unless the bond is not more than a certain amount of money. So if the committee wants to leave this in that would need to be decided. And then finally, section five is the effective date. So this would take effect on July 1st of this year. Alrighty, let me see if there's any questions from committee members. I guess the first thing I'd like to gauge is the committee's interest in pursuing this. If we're gonna pursue it, I think we need to come to some agreement on it pretty quickly. The other thing I wanted to mention, something that George mentioned the other day, but if we can write this in such a way that it might be eligible for CRF, at least in part, if not entirely. And I go back to that first section which talked about modern needs and so on, seems to me that it's possible to rewrite that a little bit and add a subsection that talks specifically about the remote learning challenges that we've had and maybe kind of wrap that in there. But Robin, George, I'm sorry, did I take your issue? You were okay, thank you. I gave you credit though. Robin and then Scott. Thanks. Yes, and I like George's issue also about- Great idea. Yeah, so I think this is a good idea. I like the idea of rewriting where we need to to address the new world. I am wondering about some of the dates and whether, especially the nearer term dates of December and January, whether it's given where we are, whether those need to be changed. But otherwise I like the concept that we're working towards. Scott, you've had your hand up and I don't see it up anymore. Did you wanna speak? I'm not speaking. Jim, Nassau, we'll get back to you. Yeah, with regards to Robin's or your comment, both of your comments about remote learning and the challenges, yeah, we should put some words in there, not too complicated if we can put them in. I'm aware and maybe many of you are aware too that there are teaching issues with regards to teaching learning that the schools are working through. And it doesn't go in this bill because this is bricks and mortar, but we should be aware that those things are out there. And as I heard from one head of school, they found that some teachers who weren't the best classroom teachers have turned out to be remarkably remote learning teachers and others that were excellent classroom teachers are struggling with remote learning. So it goes, you know, but it's just something that we need to consider. Thank you. Yeah, no, I think it's a good point. Scott, you're back on. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm in and out. I had scheduled something for this afternoon, so I'm multitasking right now, it's okay. Regarding the language at the end, there's a block in there for calendar dates to exclude this type of spending. I thought at one time we had had something in there that said that a school district could if it was for health and safety reasons or something that, you know, really needed to get done or we just couldn't educate kids. Did that, was that my imagination or did that go by the wayside? No, I think, again, this is, this draft is very rough at this point. And I really am using it as a starting place for us to talk. I think that, I think you're right, Scott, that if we were gonna do any kind of moratorium and the committee has not really discussed that, that's a big decision. But if we were gonna do that, I think we were looking at exceptions for health and safety kinds of things. So I don't know how open to doing a moratorium people are. George, did you do your hand up again? Did I miss it? Well, I was just gonna say that, yeah, Scott's absolutely right. We did talk about it. It may not have made it into the draft, but we absolutely discussed that we would want that exception in there, yeah. Right, yeah. The other thing that I thought the smallest group of us that were working on this were gonna do that's different than the draft. I thought the joint fiscal office was gonna do the contract, the RFP and the contract for the assessment. I didn't think we were gonna ask the secretary of education to do it. So that maybe was a misunderstanding, but I've just sent Catherine a note. So, okay. And she wants to discuss that. So open question about who does it, I think, and how that gets done. My own preference would be to have the joint fiscal office do it, not to do the assessment, but to do the RFP, flexible about timing. But, you know, what happened, my observation is if they don't do it, we tend to just go to them to assess it anyway, to assess what we've gotten for better or for worse. I think mostly for better. Those are the people that I feel most comfortable depending on for guidance. So they've earned the extra work in this case. I hope Catherine's listening to that. And I'll just add to that to something to consider is that I think there was testimony from BGS on this in house education that they have an RFP that they've done recently for state building facility conditions assessments. So the idea was to really work off of what was already completed by BGS. And that's why the language had coordination with BGS on that point. Yeah, I think it'd be really important that BGS be involved and that the secretary of education be involved. It's just, oh, Catherine's now joining me. Did you wanna speak Catherine? Sure, well, I appreciate the vote of confidence. That was, you know, it's not an area that we know much about school facilities. We don't have a relationship with them. We can talk about, we can keep talking about this. And I'm also worried about given everything that's going on with this session going on forever, putting out an RFP is a lot of work. So, let's keep talking and try to figure it out. But I do understand, I appreciate your. All right, flattery will get me everywhere. Yeah. So let me see what else is. So Mark, also just speaking of multitasking, which is actually very helpful. The timing issue is such that we would like to push it out in order to give the people who are doing this enough time to get it done. On the other hand, if we use the RF money, we have to have it spent before December 31st. So we've got a little funnel to get through there. But it's a fair amount of money. I mean, it's not a lot when you look at the education fund, which is so malef, but it is a significant expenditure. So if we can figure out a way to use CRF, I suppose if I had to make the choice, I probably would do it later and do it out of the education fund than to do a rushed job and try to get the CRF money. I don't know if other people want to weigh in on that choice. Yeah, Mark. I mean, the way the administration has interpreted the CRF guidelines, they're indicating that when the services are performed would be the deadline. So if these guidelines hold, they're suggesting that the entire project would have to be completed by December 30th, which seems unrealistic. I don't understand you, CRF money. Yeah. Okay. All right. Of course, some of those guidelines may change. Who knows? Hard to know. Anything else? Committee's sort of general interest in seeing another draft. Whether we're trying to get CRF money or not, I think the first section should be written so that it encompasses the issues around remote learning that we may be having to deal with for a period of time. Really hard to know. Sam. I was just gonna say that I think it's worth pursuing because this problem isn't gonna go away no matter what. And even if it's postponed a little bit, it has to get started for it to get done and it's important. And we should move forward. Okay. Good. So, Emily. Two things about including the remote learning. I think it's helpful because it creates possible space for IT infrastructure to be part of school buildings. And I really appreciate that because that's a huge problem in, well, I guess we all know everywhere now. And then the second piece is what I can't get my head around is if schools are hypothetically reopening this fall, there's a lot of physical changes that will need to happen to the infrastructure of the schools. I don't know if they would rise to the level of bonding or something like that, but certainly things are gonna need to shift. And so I don't know how any of this can fit into what's gonna need to be a little more quick and adaptive than you're generally capable of or a study is capable of. Yeah, I think there's probably no way that it's gonna impact what happens in the fall. I don't know if there is an identifiable need that we can articulate that should be included in the bill that will facilitate opening in the fall. It seems to be an appropriate thing. It's beyond the assessment, but it may be something that we ought to be thinking about and it may be something that the House Education Committee can do some work on. And I guess we mentioned the exception for the health need and that suppose any accommodation around COVID would count as a health need. So that would fit under that. Yeah. Peter and Joey, did you wanna jump in? Oh, no, Peter. Just following Emily's observation very wise, I would say it may be that accommodations for the fall that would be eligible for funding and that have been revealed in the experiment this spring might fit under health and safety, but I almost think that some of the new understanding of learning techniques under these extraordinary circumstances will likely long survive the disappearance of COVID-19. And I think Emily's right, what we need to do when I realize this gets close to the issue of prioritization, but we ought to make some space for those physical facilities that clearly could not accommodate any of the novelty that schools have embraced during the odd spring in which case they ought to get some leg up, so to say to be able to prepare for longer-term accommodation under distance learning unusual circumstances. And in that sense, it's a priority, although I realize that raises a whole host of obstacles going to prioritization, but I think space ought to be made for that. Whether you call it health and safety is maybe just a semantic issue. George. Yeah, if we're talking about projects that reopen the schools in the fall, those things should clearly be within the COVID, the care's money. They should clearly be able to be charged to that. And I don't know if we need to make that clear in this particular bill or not, but I think that's a no-brainer. So that reminds me to share what little bit I know about what's happening in the Senate on, I don't know if it's happening just on the Senate or Senate House on the appropriation side with CRF money, that there's been quite a lot of conversation about sort of putting a fence around is sort of the phrase sufficient money to backfill the education fund, not knowing exactly how we're going to do that, but I know they're actively working on it in the Senate and they may well be in the House as well. So the hope is that once we identify that money and set it aside, we can, and as we learn more about what the Treasury guidance is gonna allow us to do and what other states are doing and so on, that we'll find a way to put that money in the education, have a flow through to basically what it would do is it would net against education payments so it would end up in the education fund. We've been talking around that for quite a while, but the plan is to set some money aside for that purpose and if we did that, then the changes that schools are gonna, whether we do it or not, the changes that schools are gonna have to make in anticipation of opening in the fall are gonna fall within all that no matter what. That's just a question about how the money gets accounted for and where it resides. So other suggestions for Becky, I guess, as she goes to do a redraft for us, anything that people particularly wanna see or don't see. Becky, do you feel like you have enough information to do another draft or are there questions that you would, I think there's a big question about that last section, whether we wanna do that kind of a pause on school construction, it may be that given the economic situation it's gonna self pause, I don't know. George, did you wanna jump in? Yeah, I mean, the last two parts, you know, the prohibition against the budget and also if we, I didn't feel like we actually resolved who would send out an RFP. We didn't have to talk with Catherine. We'll see how successful I am. I think the only thing I would ask a question on for clarification is that section that sort of puts a moratorium on bonding. I don't, I think unless there was some sort of special vote I don't see that impacting any construction that would need to happen in the fall that's COVID related because it's, there's just not a lot of time for that. So. It's gone anyway, really, yeah. Yeah, so I think that would, so in terms of making an exception I could see perhaps for health and safety issues in the future, but I think for the sort of COVID related infrastructure needs that need to happen that would likely be more CARES Act funding or other funding perhaps even statewide bonding that could be done. But I don't know that it could be done at the local level at this like short notice. That makes sense. Peter. Back to Scott Beck's recollection which is mine also namely nothing, no limit that we put, I'm talking about the final section whether it's in money terms or some kind of soft moratorium would not short circuit any kind of immediate and emergency situation. I thought we had when we had this discussion earlier we were pointed to some authority that the secretary had to essentially move along an emergency situation for health and safety at the local level. And I guess I just would say it would be neat to have some exclusionary language saying, but for health and safety, whatever limits we have at the end would apply but would not prevent some kind of quick action to remedy a safety issue. Yeah and to that point there is language every, there is an appropriation every year in the Capitol Bill for emergency projects. So I'm not, I think the agency would be able to talk more about how that is sort of administered but that is done now. If like a roof collapses out of school there is some money for that. George. Yeah I think though that in this year's Capitol Bill that was a pretty minimal amount of money. I remember it was like $50,000. Yeah it is, typically every year it's about $50,000. So that it's not, that is not addressing the sort of needs going on right now. That is just annually that has been allowed about $50,000 every year since the moratorium has been put in place. Yeah and I have to admit that I'm a little uneasy at doing a pause on new bonding. On the other hand, if we don't do it, I'm a little uneasy on what might happen. So I don't really know what the right path is on that. I was a little alarmed along with everybody else at the amount of money that was potentially on the table this March. It was a lot and it would have made a big difference basically to the entire Ed Fund. I like having a whole new school district in there. So I don't know. I guess what I'll suggest doing is that Becky can do another version of it and we'll look at it again and you know, if the committee is comfortable with it, I'm fine going along with it but I can understand discomfort with it. It's a little bit different from what we normally do. Anything else? Becky, did you have other specific questions? In terms of dates and whether Joint Fiscal does it, if it's okay with the committee, I'll work with Becky and with Catherine on that and then we'll come back with whatever we come back with and the committee can look at rather than try to figure it out right here. That's okay. Good, okay. So thank you, Peter. Just would not the Ed committee have some insight into language that would stop short of saying, no, you can't do this, but at the same time, leave the door open for some situation where we really have to say, can't you wait a year or two because this other problem is more immediate, more pressing and if we don't do it more injurious, I just figured they would have some insight into language. Okay, great, thank you. Becky, thank you. I know you had a crazy day. So I appreciate you being here. So I just wanted to touch base about a few other things. H9 59, I was told that there was gonna be an amendment which was having to do with the waiting study from Laura Sebelia. I don't see anything in the calendar, haven't gotten the amendment, haven't gotten the language. I don't have anything for the committee to review. If it does come in, I guess it's our committee and the education committee that would need to look at it. Maybe issues on whether or not that's germane. So I don't wanna take a ton of committee time until I know that we're actually gonna have to vote on it. But just be aware that that may come up tomorrow. I think it's tomorrow. Scott, do you know anything more than I do on it? Or are you? The Emily on the H716, we have the Bob Helm amendment and the Pat Brennan amendment which it's the Natural Resources Committee that's gonna take a position on those two amendments. We've talked about both issues in our committee. So I think members of our committee are probably more familiar with the issues, but we're not gonna have a formal position out of the committee on those. So as far as I know, that's up tomorrow. Unless Emily or Pat know any differently. I think that's what's happening. I'm still hearing tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow, yeah. And then the two charters, that's Bill and Pat, is that right? Not Bill. It's Joey. That's right. The woman who loves TIFs. Yes. That's right. My local option, whatever. She loves something. I don't know. So those two charters are up tomorrow. And either if you need anything from Sorsha or anything before we do those. Okay, good. And then one final bill is S339 is the annual DMV bill. And I looked at it at 66 pages long. I asked Pat if he would look at it as well. It does have a couple of fees in it. So it may come in the committee. If it does, I'm hoping that we can move it back out. But Pat, have you had a chance to look at it at all? Yeah, yeah, I did. The only thing that I see is a $6 processing application fee in section four. And then in section 32, 33 and 34, there is a 200 minimum, 400 maximum fine. It looks like it's underlined, so it's new. But it follows, they must have, I think they added school zone to the fines for texting. And so it's the same fine, but they added a zone. Right. And we don't review fines. Even though we love, yeah. But we do fee. Yeah, and I have to admit, I was feeling a little sensitive since the transportation bill should have come in here. The discussion on the floor was all about revenue. Yeah. And I'm thinking, I think actually we should have had that bill. I know we're thinking the same. Yeah, so I was actually, so I did say something about it in the chairs meeting. And so now everybody's being careful about making sure that we actually get the bills that we're supposed to look at. And so I think probably this bill, even though the fee, the revenue impact is small, I think it probably will come in. But if there aren't, you know, big issues or even small issues, there aren't issues. We should be able to get it right back out. At least that would be the hope. And it's a Senate bill, so it's been through one body already. Yeah, thank you. That's all I had on my list. I think anyone else have anything? Good. Thank you all. You're good tomorrow. I hope that there is an amendment. How will we know about that? Will we try to get together before the floor session tomorrow? If it, I'm never sure when the calendar closes anymore. It seems, because everything's remote, it seems like it can be open indefinitely. So I don't know, I'll check it tonight. And if we know in the morning, we can gather for a few minutes before the floor, but it may be that we don't know and or it may be that it gets offered before third reading or something. I don't, I know what the language is. I'm not sure that it's germane anyway. So, you know, I don't wanna spend a lot of committee time on it if we're not gonna take a position on the floor. So, so I'll do the best I can. That's, yeah, I don't have a better answer at the moment. And I haven't heard and I haven't heard if there's anything else coming. So, but if anyone here is, please, you know, please let us know just for purposes of scheduling and managing our committee time and sources time. So, thank you everybody. I can tell that Catherine, Catherine, this has a,