 Well thanks everybody. This is the COVID transition team. Senator Westman, I talked a little bit this morning and what we thought we would do is have Ruth and Debbie and Alice go through their changes. I know I had a little difficulty opening. I couldn't open Ruth's document and I don't think Ledge Council could either. Could be because I tried to do it on my iPad and I haven't had a chance to do it on my laptop. But we'll just have folks go through their changes. Richie. I printed Ruth's stuff. I couldn't get it off from my computer but I printed it off from my phone. You guys I'm really sorry. I have a new computer and I don't actually have word on it and it's no problem. It's yeah sorry. Yeah no it's no problem at all. We just thought folks would go take us through the highlights of what they put in included and then our plan you know there might be a few. What we're trying to do of course I think everybody realizes this is that we want a document that we all feel comfortable signing and so there may be a few opportunities or a few of time we might either do a straw poll or have a little discussion but we certainly want to make sure everybody's comfortable signing the document. We also want to make certain that we don't lose sight of our mission which of course is to work on COVID-19 transition. So with that said unless Senator Westman wants to add anything. I think you did good Brian. Okay thank you. So Senator Nicott do you want to just start by taking us through the information that you sent and tell us a little bit about it? Certainly. Now does everybody have it now? Yes. You sent it this morning right? Yes yeah. Let me just find it please. I don't. You don't have it Rich I was wondering if you received it. Hang on I'm working I'm trying. I did three different emails to you. I don't have it. I don't see it either. Luke. Okay. Can you send it to them? Yep I'll do that right now Alice. Well let me. I don't have it either. All right so Anthony. Yeah I don't see it. You're on it Richie I'm not sure. I'll send it to you though. I don't see it. Check the legislative email Rich. I don't get my legislative email here at home. It's rawestman at gmail.com. I'm sending it to you right now Richie. Okay thank you. Good morning Mark. I apologize Mr. Chair so I was rewrites and I got swept up and didn't realize the time. Where are the cows Mark? Are they sheltered properly? Up under the old trees. Artie. They aren't some Latin version of camel or something. They're bovines we know that. Oh my gosh. They're not ratites. They're not ratites but I was ratites at my house I tell you. Camel. Ratites. Alice I should have been more prepared. Somebody was going to ask and I should have looked it up beforehand and I was rushed. You must have noticed that right. I totally did and you know I respect you for asking it and I felt so stupid that I hadn't looked it up. I thought I thought she was hazing you. For the new crop of legislators for next year. It was totally and you know the funny the really embarrassing thing is my brother is a class assist so he actually is one of the few people who really knows Latin and so I felt so embarrassed he would be so ashamed of me. You know I took a lot of Latin myself of course a long time ago and I think I've forgotten every bit of it but I never learned those words. Crossword people know them I'm sure. The state veterinarian I mean she was really one of the ones who changed that to make sure that Cervaday was capitalized because it's supposed to be capitalized so. Anyway should if you. Okay so I sent it to everyone. Hopefully they've received it by now. Do you want to start. Just go ahead. Right. Go ahead. Thanks. Simply read this. You know the part that I and John Rogers whom I haven't heard from were to do was on I thought local government and also the Forest and Parks the agency of natural resources the Forest and Parks and Fish and Wildlife and they right away Fish and Wildlife and Forest and Parks got right on things right away and there is a printed sheet of what they didn't have done and are doing in preparation for their own opening in compliance with COVID. I do have a printed sheet on that which I'd have to somehow I don't have the ability to get that to you unless I take a photograph of it and send it to you which I could do later but to talk about the the list I made because well here's what I wrote a summer early summary early on with regard to COVID-19 and before it became a pandemic the senate government operations committee started addressing the urgent needs of our local governments other senate committees followed suit addressing areas in their purview the senate works in a bypass partisan manner to accomplish passing multiple bills house bills that were subsequently received involving local government needs were also successfully passed so I've made a list of all I don't know if anybody's looking at it now yes so you can you can see the bills that are listed here and of course I don't have the facilities that I might have at the statehouse to use the computer right print and do all these things and quickly look things up but these are ones that I've been keeping track of even before you know we well before we kind of we were asked to do this I've been trying to keep a track of the bills so these are the ones that I and of course you'll remember most all of them I needed some more information to flesh this out with regard to the housing needs which housing bill was which one these are the housing bills we all know that they did you could probably I could probably flesh them out a little bit but you know it had to do with housing the homeless and getting those things in place also the allowing the rent to be extended and that kind of thing but the others the notary bill you'll remember many people were asking to do their bills and it was hard to get together with the notary and exposed to each other the emergency service as wellness commission we just passed that the other day 301 is this impacts town so I put this in repealing the sunset on communications tower citing and extending the authority to towns for another five years with with regard to granting the approval or not for site locations 344 is the temporary municipal tax rate provisions that we put in did go to some more information about these 348 the temporary election procedures that's the only one that was not done by unanimous passage and then we just did that the other day with regard to voting by voting by mail and you must remember or I'll remind you as 349 this is a very good bill I think the local emergency government funding for COVID-19 related expenses this is available for cities towns villages counties gores fire and water districts and other things there's also technical assistance is available to lead or so or manage and provide assistance to the entities around the state from the local regional planning commissions and they the planning commissions spread out around the state will get 150,000 to do that and how this is calculated which is a little complicated is $25 per person as to what they can get based on their census or a cap of $5,000 there's $16 million allotted and initially if you were thinking back on this bill schools were included in this funding in another section but they have been removed from this bill and they have their and schools have their own house bills that we did age 555 pollution control funding we did that early on when we started meeting here's the other housing bill 739 and then age 947 extends the dates for municipalities that haven't passed budgets due to COVID-19 problems in other words with regard to warnings etc that they were unable to do because of the virus and there weren't too many of them age 948 temporary municipal proceedings provisions for quasi judicial boards such as design review planning planning boards abatement boards board of adjustment to meet remotely and to do the warnings online and such kind of similar to the one that was done for early on for town select boards to meet as a matter of fact I don't think I included that one here the separate bill 51 municipal emergency statewide tax borrowing this is to pay for short-term borrowing costs including interest including interest and fees independent school districts were also eligible for these for this money the example of that was north bennington which is not there you know there's the distinction between what's that are and a true independent district and brian maybe if anybody has a question you might want to answer that it's your north bennington so and there are a couple others the age 953 that's a good good one to keep track of that's the budget adjustment act number two and one of the needs in there there maybe a few of our municipalities are for municipalities are there's three million dollars for medical and services three millions for emt paramedic training the technical assistance to assist these services in other words the ambulance services and drawing down available federal funds which many services haven't been doing that's something we passed last year that they could do that they haven't been doing it due to a lack of staff or in some cases lack of knowledge the process of how to do it so there's technical assistance available to help them do that so they can get more money that they're actually it's actually out there in their title to it 957 is extending the deadline for lead testing in schools and for child care homes and facilities and you might say why in the world would that be good that is good because with the schools closed and the child care centers closed of course the testing wasn't done by the people testing it but it also needs to be done when the water is being used regularly in order for the tests to be accurate so that they have to be running it can't just be parked for the summer there are likely some more bills that could be added to the list and I hope if you have knowledge of some we could add them so so Alice yes my first question off should we mention the reopening of the judiciary um because it's a you know big part of government in the overall and um and they have really big issues opening they they do have big issues but they've I think they've all been addressed I don't think there's anything left out okay I mean the money is big time um but I think I have that I have that as well all the details really have been worked out although there's money in there's going to be money in the budget for personnel personnel a lot of money we're going to be hiring like 36 new employees which will be in the next year's budget you know the skinny budget that we're going to yeah that's in there and I you know they're looking they're looking at a lot of money there's issues with regard to the e-filing but that's kind of an issue that actually that may be a place where we put some money in um because there's a question about whether they can I don't know people are up to speed on this the courts have this been in the works for since 2013 that they've set up an e-filing system and it's got really going I think in 2016 and a committee has been working on it and the problem that came up right away when we saw what the agreement was they've hired a private outfit um Tyler technologies who's doing an odyssey system and every lawyer every time they file something fee of five dollars and 25 cents plus the bank fee and so that um criminal cases with regard to the poor are exempt I think all criminal cases are exempt now and also if someone is free then it won't be charged there's that's always been the case for court these there's a process for that but the in reading over the agreement which was like a 68 page deal I looked at it and they all they happen to have in there um you know last year last year the year before we did that um part where they can't force you to go to say Texas to mediate the um what's that called you can't you can't force you to go there to mediate something out of away from your own space we pass that and it goes back to October 1st of this year you remember that Anthony you were I remember I don't remember what we called it but you know you can't be you can't sign one of these agreements yeah so anyway the agreement that the lawyers have to sign has that in it and has a few other things you have to have access to somebody's social media and you can't file anything with the court by paper if you're a lawyer you're supposed to if you're a lay person you could march in there with the paper filing but if you're also a lay person doing a filing electronically you'd get caught up in the system so that's been a big brew haha that we've been having in Judiciary Committee and so to resolve that through the end of the year we may wind up putting in some money there while that is negotiated renegotiated with that company it's already started so but that's so that is a government issue but I didn't list that here is that what you were thinking of rich yeah I was just thinking um some mention of um because you know they there is the 32 employees there is going to be money in the budget some broad statement about the judiciary and the highlights of what they're looking for because the judiciary still basically closed they opened this past Monday for quite a few different things they're still working on you know setting up courthouses where they can have jury trials the big thing would be the jury draw where they have to have so many people present and a couple of courthouses they're able to do that in that have like two jury boxes and some others that are larger if you have a big 40 person jury draw and the social distancing it's a problem and of course they're way behind on terms of they're going to do children's cases first and they're going to do those persons in prison um were being held there haven't been able to get to a trial but there's masses of issues going on there okay they have a very extensive plan of how to address a written plan of how to address all of this we may not agree with it all in the end but I can send that to people well I have to take a photograph and send it okay okay rich and yeah Alice this is really great this really comprehensive list and it sounds like basically your conclusion is that things are pretty well taken care of in the area of local government and judiciary is that is that I mean I think in local terms of local government I think we have done a great deal and I think they're okay I mean maybe we'll find something else but I I mean they were right on the ball themselves and getting together with the local government with our government operations committee yeah I'm just wondering if instead of having a long list of bills we could just summarize and say in you know more in general this is what has been done and the working group feels that for the most part local government issues have been well addressed by our legislation and local governments themselves or something something like that rather than a list maybe I think the thing that the list does is if people if senators want to use the list and look up something if they get a question about something they can look it up themselves and see what was done in terms of they have the bill number and what it is which I which I always kind of like because you didn't see what what it does address you know somebody's calling me with a question yeah maybe we could do kind of a hybrid approach and do like broad you know headings and then some of the list of the specific legislation under it you know say Luke yeah there you go that's a good joke hey what any thoughts on that Luke that you could this is your letter so I'll help you write it but you guys got to make that decision yeah I mean they're all valid points but I think you need to decide how you want to yeah summarize those activities all right well let's think about that it would be my take on it so what your list is now to Luke Brian and I will take a look at it okay that would be good thank you so much Alice you're welcome thank you you know I just want to say this is not not to change what Alice has went through but the government operations committee is going to start working on a a bill that is going to incorporate all these things we've done this session to help local communities put them into a bill so that the next time there's an emergency or a pandemic we would instead of passing like five or six or seven different bills to help local communities there'd be one bill that would be on the shelf that would be passed that would effect that would take care of all the things we've done I can't tell you what's on that little we're going to basically start working on that um early next week so it's not like I can tell you now what would be included and I just want you to know that that's what's going to happen that's great I mean that that's awesome that is really great yeah it was great that your committee was able to do so much and work so hard on all these things yeah we were the vice chair of that committee I'm not sure I think it's me brilliant thanks it's actually it's a good committee we work well together yeah all right uh Debbie are you next okay so I tried to flesh out some of the some of the areas here um so everybody has everybody has has it up well I'll have to get a number where where is it Debbie um I I emailed every but I think didn't I I can't remember what I've done what happened it's it's a word documented I just separated out the healthcare part and so it's like three pin yep yep I'm gonna have to go get it from from another I got it but I'll be listening while you're speaking okay all right I'll go ahead then um okay so uh yeah so I tried to come up with some broad categories so I started with financial stabilization and uncertainty um because it's been very difficult for the hospitals and providers to lose um like the procedures is a big source of revenue and and then also make health and telemedicine and because the insurance industry has had to shift too to reimburse those at the same same rate and then the health reform efforts have been um greatly affected um from the ACO uh but we have tried to relax some of the uh regulations and the taxes are required um but then out of that comes four four recommendations um that the hospitals and providers start to um return to electric procedures and continue telemedicine secondly they continue health care reform efforts um the budgeting um would be particularly helpful with balanced perspective value-based payments um third um prevailing upon the private insurance carriers to maintain the provider payments um without raising the rate albeit their rates are locked in for a period of time uh so the rates for next year are already locked in but uh we don't want you know a huge spike in in premiums um moving forward um and then for evaluating extension of relief from the provider tax and other regulatory things some of these are sort of in in the works in terms of uh legislation we haven't we haven't most of this really hasn't actually been passed yet though so I think it's you know safe to finally include these you know yep um so secondly another second broad category is providing support services can I just make a comment sure you know when you talk about the private insurers and uh in that my car insurance company sent me a check um um back and in the same vein a lot of these private insurance companies haven't been paying out to hospitals because they haven't been in any operation to pay for so you know they better um they have a responsibility yes yeah you're right exactly yep uh so the next big area is providing support services to help care workers and the general public and again using federal dollars wherever possible so they're a whole slew of workers that really need support that have been doing you know human's duty during this time and um they're listed there um and then other ways that we could use federal dollars to provide support um um let's see um in this it has to do with like mental health counselors um ongoing links between the healthcare institutions and providers and treatment provided by the da's and the ssa's considering hero pay for families who supported their children with developmental disabilities that are returning money to families paying 50 percent of child cost i know this is center party favorite um private provision um allow the agency of education and the agency of human services to build behavioral intervention support services and then like linking the schools with primary care providers and pediatricians to help families and then uh the next big area is using the crisis to actually um as an opportunity to develop some of the things that we were thinking about before the crisis but um hadn't you know still needed work on so especially the healthcare workforce um that's a big um big area has been for us for a long time and so some of the things that we've done um like evaluating like the regulatory and licensing exemptions um and relaxing educational policies um and then really looking at our independent providers and their role in our system especially in the rural areas all things that we should really learn from this pandemic and then telecommunications this is you know as we've said the whole issue about broadband uh overlap touches many different areas so i just thought i'd throw in for healthcare it's um particularly pertinent to um rural areas being able to access telehealth and telemedicine final area there is um maintaining our public health uh prevention policies until we have a vaccine so um you know given uh deferring protocols like social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing all that sort of thing and then certainly doing testing and contacting until we have a vaccine can i just ask um one comment and it's a question so we the whole senate supported that emergency worker um which would have um get a bonus to healthcare workers nursing homes all of that and bring um other emergency workers up to the twenty five dollar it seems stalled in the in the um the house and nobody seems to be doing anything and we all generally support that should we in your section about the healthcare workers mentioned that issue yeah sure and and say that um you know i think we all continue to support that and you know that group of people who put themselves at risk and should would that be yeah yeah that's a good idea yeah yeah i'll add that yep i'm i i when i wake up every morning and i when i start off the day with a meeting like this i start off saying we're all in this together and um i don't know whether this committee or the legislature just says that every morning to itself or believes it but it's our goal of this committee i think is to chart away through this covis where we all come out together and your remarks about what we did for the the workers who have gone to work in in areas that are um dangerous um thankless and at risk to their families um they're not in this together with the rest of us they're pulling the weight that the rest of us don't have and um if we're all i always try and measure this discussion about if we're all in this together how do people that are all in this together behave and not dealing with those workers is makes a mockery of that that statement in that position so yeah so i think is that general agreement that we all think we ought to mention that you would in and you know the senate remains strong behind that yes absolutely yes okay well jim you were on that committee yes yeah i just wanted to i just wanted to mention that the word got out that the essential workers were going to get some kind of a present or gift or something emails i was receiving is they want it now now they haven't got anything it's kind of like not even mentioned anymore uh the folks are very disappointed and that's on all of us that's not just the house that's the whole legislative body that we were talking it up and i thought everything was going to sail through the house and uh and uh the other body and um it doesn't look like uh unless they're using that as a you know game piece later in the session i i don't know but disappointed that nothing was moved on that sooner which if if i may that this this particular issue is perhaps the clearest most straightforward most visible most understandable to this notion of we're all in this together right and when we get to broadband and healthcare and access to schools and those things it becomes that the connection becomes slightly less directed in our face and if we can't handle the one that is straight up in front of us to start with it doesn't it doesn't set a good example for how we're going to deal with the rest of these things yeah agree well and i i would i totally agree with that but i was also i hadn't thought of it this what jim just said we put it out there and now that's absolutely right and i think absolutely right i think we and i think that that would be a great place to mention it so so i'm just wondering do we know exactly what the issue is in is in the house is it that they don't believe it will be covered by covid money that's what i understand it to be i heard i heard that they feel like there are winners and losers and if we can't cover everybody we shouldn't cover anybody yeah they're having issues with that and there are some people who don't think it would be covered by the covid money but based on what i've heard from legislative council and i don't loop can weigh in if you want but it sounds like it would be covered to me so i i don't know what their hold up is obviously everything has winners and losers you just have to move that well everything is don't um i know new hampshire gave um their nurses and their nursing home staff a bonus so i don't know why this would be different than what new hampshire did so um but i think we should mention again here what i mean next any other questions for debbie no if not uh we should move on to ruse okay okay i i sent out a pdf version so hopefully you guys can read that and and luke i can help i can get you a word version that you can use or not use in the regular document the pdf was clear thank you okay you can't in the pdf you can't see the track changes so i did go through at i don't know who suggested it but and edited the whole document to try to uh get the first part a little bit tighter um and and then hopefully provide balance with the later part so it didn't look like the only thing we cared about was broadband and then the rest of it was just after thoughts um so i tightened up the broadband stuff and there was also some stuff in there that i didn't understand and if i don't understand it most people are not going to understand it who are reading the letter because i think some people are in the weeds with broadband way more than the rest of us so try to get rid of some of the more technical stuff great you know i can look at that you want to just focus right now a little bit on educate on the and the sort of policy changes you made for added kind of thing yep so down after the healthcare i guess i don't know what page number set is but the education doesn't i believe um i added a lot more detail on the childcare on all of it so um the talking about the stabilization payments and why it's important to continue these now that childcare centers have opened they were paid out through the march through june 1st and then they just stopped um and childcare programs are going back to operating but at lower enrollments so they are getting the tuition revenue that they would but they're still expected to operate and they have much higher costs due to all of the protocols they have to file follow so just a recommendation that we continue stabilization payments in some form at least through 2020 um there's also a restart grant that was a six million dollar grant that was shared across all childcare centers that opened before july 6 as well as summer programs so that's a great thing that helps them restart but it's not sufficient and there are programs that will be restarting after july 6 so uh recommendation to have a second round of restart grants for those that start later and for those whose costs were fully covered can i just say to you um i totally your childcare stuff i totally um the stabilization grants continue could we just say stabilization grants or some other alternative oh yeah it can be called something else or whatever just yeah if they came up with something different you know i'm you know you know if it was a flat out grant to each childcare you know i just i don't want to be prescriptive about the way they would find the help but i wanted to find the help exactly yeah i i just used the term that was already being used but yes just funding um the workforce issues in childcare are huge um they're underpaid and don't usually get benefits so they're having a really hard time they're also a significant number who are older or who have health issues and can't come back to work so um trying to find you know maybe it's all just one big grant that's used for all of these things but more funding for childcare to be able to pay their workers better um and then um and then i did do a shout out rich to their uh tech technology issues and i saw that yeah they they their technology is really bad and they were not able to use it to track essential worker needs or anything so they just really need a technology boost so that's the childcare so k-12 schools um i added and this you know we can talk about more but i added in um uh information about the the problem right now is the education fund is about a hundred million dollars in deficits if in the current estimates revenue estimates as of as of earlier this week and the only way to fill it would at this point would be to increase tax property taxes fairly significantly which i don't think any of us want to do especially during this crisis so there are efforts to try to get the feds to allow us to use the crf funding to fill that hole short of doing that if they say no we have to come up with another plan to do it so basically what this lays out is an alternative plan which i've been working on debbie has seen it but um and um so this sort of describes what we would do in distributing funding um use school districts using the crf not just backfilling um what they already would have spent but using the money to distribute it to the school district they're going to need it the most based on the number of students in poverty um the number of special education students ell students which are english language learners and then very rural districts um it's based somewhat on the um waiting study that came out earlier this year which the education committee spent some time on and then also a grant that would school districts could use for ppe um and cleaning supplies and training for staff and students as they come back to school and need to know how what the protocols are um and um also technology these are greater technology needs school districts have had to buy a lot of chrome books um or technology so students can do distance education um the education committee has been working somewhat um on a proposal that would be provide funding to school districts that need to do building upgrades for their ventilation systems one of the issues is that there are some really old school buildings that don't have good age back systems and students they're literally school buildings were classrooms with no windows so we need to make sure that school buildings have proper ventilation so students and staff are not um you know just sitting in a little germ hole um in when they go back to school so providing funding for ventilation upgrades this summer um and then uh school food service um that is an issue because schools have been providing school meals hey rich to yeah good finish okay school meals and the those services are super stressed so um providing additional funding for food for packaging there's a high probability that cafeterias will not be open in the fall and schools will need to provide food in the classrooms so they need to be able to package that food and deliver it to the school to the classrooms um and that will take additional funding for that those things as well as staff so just sort of making sure that we take care of school lunches and maybe move to universal school lunches right debbie that's right well actually um I want I supported debbie's bill so um can I just um yeah one comment that I had in and this just goes out to the I had a number of people that were in um the my school lunch programs that are in the face of people coming in to um get their meals and they were um they felt that in the bill that we passed that emergency worker um that they should have been considered emergency workers yeah I made I made the case for them I I sent an email to the committee and asked that school lunch people be included in that bill rich so I completely agree and we could put that in there and in fact the ag committee is working on a food security bill right now that would include um some type of hazard pay for school food service workers I I think if you're handing hundreds of families meals um and you've been doing it throughout COVID yeah absolutely and there's apparently talking to the agency of education food school food uh director she said there are huge morale issues right now and retention issues um we're trying to get money for them to be able to do summer lunch programs and they might not be able to get the staff because of that they're they're burnt out and feel underappreciated and are certainly underpaid well maybe pass that in yeah I think we should mention it um thank you and then higher education um you know I have a just sort of intro about how colleges and universities were the first some of the first organizations to respond to COVID and close down and send students home earlier than almost anybody else did because they're in a residential setting where the disease could have spread extremely quickly like we saw in nursing homes and as we know college students are not good at social distancing um so um they had they have taken a huge hit to their operations both their delivery of education but also their finances um so um one thing that I put in here is the need for a statewide coordinated plan for all Vermont institutions of higher education there are efforts to do that I've been talking to in fact I have a call this afternoon with Rich Schneider who's the former Norwich University president who's heading up these efforts um so there are efforts to do this I put a link in here to the Connecticut plan um because it's pretty comprehensive and was written in large part by the former president of Yale University and it provides a good template for the types of things that university colleges will need to consider when they reopen but hoping that our states can just have a coordinated plan across all institutions okay gonna ask it just a side question on that yeah will you ask Mr. Schneider when you speak to him today whether Norwich University was closed at this time 50 years ago just historical okay do you know because all other you had almost every college in the United States was closed and the students had been sent home 50 years ago during the Vietnam War following a Kent State massacre and the invasion of Cambodia made for you know made for stuff okay just be curious to know about that college all right I'll ask him um let's see um and I talk about the the financial crisis among higher education just in general last year for independent colleges closed in our state and this year's we all know there was the proposal to close three campuses of the state colleges so just in general higher education is stressed so um I don't have anything specific that I recommend but just that we need to provide financial support to higher education across the board yeah sorry to kibbit so much oh you're fine but um I think we need to mention that the it's expected that most colleges across the country are going to see a 20 drop in students yeah and it's going to be a transition issue of getting from here to maybe a year or two from now to some stability so how are we going to deal with that drop in student and help them over this boat yeah that's good that's yeah I'll add that in I don't know I didn't put a dollar amount on how much we should provide because it's a huge number and I I don't know especially with the Vermont State College things still up in the air I didn't have a specific recommendation but and we already provide some money but but here's my quick is it a question of we need to help our schools market themselves better to do that is it do we need to give aid to needy students to convince them that they can they should take the chance and go back to school early or is it just that we we should expect to fill the hole if we want them there two years from today I think kind of all of the above I mean you know I think that there's so much that needs to be done and on our state colleges in particular the the facilities issues are huge they're enormous um but but should we mention that yeah okay I can yeah I think so facilities marketing I do mention um scholarships and and the way that I do I know might be controversial with some people so you know obviously in all of this we may not all agree on so I you know I'm just putting it out there my personal opinion is that our late scholarship money should be directed for exclusively students who decide to go to college in Vermont we still yeah I'd like that hold actually I'm just reading through I think to be honest I know it's it's going to be a controversial thing it's you know I look at people on some you know I live right on the border I know Brattleboro folks do there are dollars that go to King there are dollars that go to mass college of the liberal arts um you know now with online things how are you going to sort of start to to determine you know if it's best for somebody to do an online class that they need to get a nursing degree or whatever somewhere else I get it but I personally don't think we should jump I think a broad statement around scholarship is fine but this is something I think we've had a debate in around in the center for a long time and I personally don't feel comfortable kind of giving that kind of direction at this point okay um I put it out there because we're seeing our our in-state institutions struggling right now and if we're sending five million dollars out of state um that's just giving money to other institutions right but think about the single mother in Bennington Ruth who who are closest place to go really and the most convenient is the mass college of liberal arts or the Brattleboro person that's really struggling economically and the closest place they can go is Keyne State I really think we want to keep our lowest income brahmaners in mind around this and I I think that for some folks those are the closest institutions and I think if we start to limit them I think we really get into a tricky position well the lowest income people will will qualify for federal Pell grants and we'll be able to find uh financial aid through the institutions they choose to go to but if we as Vermont send our money outside to support other institutions then we're we're sort of setting up our our in-state institutions to have less support and fewer students I think that's my opinion but I can leave it out of here but that I think that that is part of the scholarship solution but so we're one of the only states that does that does that and really three consultants tell us that we send five million dollars a year out of the state and no other state does does and it's mostly for people to go to more expensive colleges to kind of supplement the rest of their financial aid package so and and I um I say this up front I work with the college savings program at VSEC so I want to say that up front um I think the bigger issue here than all of the other is um and I'll just take our mental health workers over 50 percent of our mental health workers now that go on to school are doing online classes through um southern New Hampshire University and a lot of the people that are working and um and a lot of these people work during the day they feed their kids at night and then they go take their online classes how do we want to deal with that and what havoc would it do in the short to do that I you know we very well might come to a place where we want to limit any grants going out of state but the world is changing underneath us and I'm not sure how that affects real people in their real lives online work drives me crazy so for mental health well also I mean I think our institutions in the state are trying I know in my conversations with UVM I think they only have about fewer than 10 percent of their courses are available online and they realize that they need to bump that up um so that they're working on getting more online options as our state colleges right now CCB is the institution that has the most online courses in the state um as a percentage so they were able to pivot much more quickly than the other institutions were and more or less have just continued with regular operations except with a few exceptions so that I can also put in here is that you know the increased you know pivoting toward more online education for our higher institutions I would absolutely agree with that absolutely okay I can soften the language on the out-of-state I understand I put it in there because I just want to throw it out there but I will take it out because we're obviously not a hundred percent on that Ruth may also ask you to go back up to page four I'm a little concerned that we would could lose some folks also signing I understand what you're saying we should we should also suggest that the senate continue efforts to increase the minimum wage implement a paid family leave program you know those are things I voted for but I think those are I can see the connection to the COVID-19 transition but there are also people on this committee that didn't vote for those I want everybody's signature on this I think I realize they're important things but I would also recommend you you pull those out well these are just my edited suggestions as I went through the entire document I was uncomfortable with the section on workers and I wouldn't have signed on to that just to be fair yeah so that was not a balanced I didn't think it was balanced toward the direction of where I fit sit so I rebalanced it toward my and and we can all have that conversation great great that was just it I was just reading you know I didn't get the letter I couldn't open the last one so I was just reading it now and I just again I know there's going to be some massaging on all these fronts but I just wanted to raise those those two that I think we need to and I think there are also things that we are working on and and feel as though you know they're not quite they're not holes if you will in terms of they're not on people's minds or not being worked on I think they're being worked on in committees and we've had votes on them well that brings up but you know when I was reading through the document we're also working on a lot of the things that are mentioned in here and so I wasn't sure where the lines were I mean and I think you know we are working on a lot of the healthcare stuff and we are working on broadband and we are working on these others I wasn't really sure where yeah there's definitely going to be some sort of massaging and making sure that we're all we're comfortable and I think maybe what the next step is uh is uh in Senator Westman correct me you want to do do a different do it differently but perhaps now we've we've all had an opportunity to weigh in uh some additional information is there I think we've all suggested different edits maybe we all uh Richie and I can work with Luke to get a another draft that maybe we could all sort of get close to and get it to everybody uh let's see it's almost eight third get it to everybody probably maybe Saturday night Sunday morning and then we give everybody 24 hours to look at it something like that Richie what do you think yeah with the goal with a goal maybe of getting the letter um delivered to the President Pro Tem's office on Monday yeah that would can I just I did also in there's a little paragraph on arts organizations at the very end yes yeah I like that right yeah co-chairs yes one of the things that's been clear to me today more than any one of these meetings is that there's almost nothing that we are talking about today that has not been going on for the last 20 30 years it's all happening and the COVIS is not the cause of this meeting but it's been this has been an opportunity for us to look in detail about things that have been going on for quite some time and I I see this as a reflection of the Tuvermans and what and how the Tuvermans are progressing and how you can pull them back together and I see it it's a reflection of the growing in equity between people that have plenty of resources and people that have less it's if you simply look at those people who work online get education online and do not go to colleges do not physically take college courses but do it online who are they and is there a pattern here where we are educating one group of of our Americans and one group of our Vermonters to learn one way and then we have a different way for others to work that is more in the management and running things style and the other is learn your facts and and follow I'm getting too philosophical but but this this is is starkly helped us see that this idea that we're all in this together we're getting example and example example example of Tuvermans to societies that are going farther and farther apart when this virus has hit us and this has been a great exercise but our solution is going to be to do more of the same or to change some course to try and pull things back a little bit thank you so before we go to you Luke um can Ruth finish her last paragraph on art because I would like to like I like it you're muted Ruth you're muted you're muted um yeah the arts organizations I just I included in a paragraph they seem to be not included anywhere specifically nobody was really working on it early early on I reached out to Jane and said hey can we put a little paper clip here to make sure we do something for arts organizations a lot of them had to close and close their entire seasons and a lot of artists are really struggling because the arts organizations had to cancel things so I just they are super important as an economic development tool as a vibrant thing for all of our communities as a just good thing just in general art is good and I just want to make sure we don't forget about them and I haven't seen them explicitly mentioned anywhere so wanted a shout out to them as a member of the the VSO the Vermont symphony is in financial um has a whole financial issues and we've had to cancel most of the whole season so um I totally support yeah and I just picked the ten million dollars because it was a round number I don't know exactly what their needs are I haven't I haven't specifically seen a request from arts organizations on mass but I just picked that number um but we have to do something a lot of these organizations are going to go under absolutely go under in hard times yeah I think I saw in the um several of the emails that have come from people in the arts that they want 55 million of course wow that's a lot that's a lot that's a lot that's a lot that's a lot but there right now they're getting nothing so they probably be happy to get 10 they might be getting something um personally you know from something that's coming their way or in the governor's bill that I haven't seen myself um of course has money for small businesses so if they have a business yeah doesn't ever go I just think that they tend to get sort of lost in the shuffle and there's all this rush to help quote unquote you know for profit businesses that nonprofits get they get lost and I'd rather see something very specific for arts that we are making sure that they are getting the assistance they need great yeah okay uh Luke so thank you everyone I think the text that was sent in by you folks was really well written what I would suggest and please correct me if you disagree is I'll put it in a new draft so a lot of this can be taken put in new draft all you know um I'll sit a little bit but then everyone's working off or the coaches are working off one document sometimes that makes it easier and then you can let me know what changes you want to that does that make sense to everyone so I think what what Brian and I suggested was that um we get a draft put together sometime by saturday night or sunday morning Brian and I um with you Luke will have a combined document and we'll send it out to everybody and then um monday morning we'll all meet again um but we'll get that document out to you at least 24 hours before monday morning so you we are you folks working off of do you want a new version that puts everyone's suggested changes in one document yes you folks rewriting it no we're going to we're going to have one document that every and Brian and I um with your help are going to have one document and get it out to everybody okay so I will start to put the bed of that new draft that combines what people sent in then you can further modify is that accurate that's right yep so if you want to do that and then send it to us and then uh rich and me and um rich you and I can can talk after this or you know we'll talk this evening and work on the the next draft and then get it to everybody on uh over the weekend so that just to be clear that the edits for example the rich that you suggested in my area will you guys put those in uh if I don't do you want to take a stab at it or yeah I I just don't want to work off too many documents so why don't you put together what you have and then we can uh I don't know if Luke was taking notes or anything but maybe you can add it in I I just want to make I think that's a good idea Ruth why don't you're right we if getting multiple documents why don't we wait until uh Rich and I finish this next draft and then we can kind of we can look at what I would say is on the higher ed piece the where we talk about the 20% and then I think you have a pretty good idea of what um I brought up to you and I would feel more comfortable if you took a first stab at that piece okay I can send something to you guys later today paragraph on the higher ed piece um and Luke were you able to is the pdf sufficient or do you want me to try to get you a word document the pdf was great I could see the track changes and I had it converted to word anyway so I think we're just fine thank you thank you thank you and I I like to two sentences uh to address what you talked about in mine and so I just uh a new version to everybody I saw that too so thank you thank you we're getting there okay thank you everybody thank you thank you