 Tuesday the 28th and we're going to be looking at primarily at the issue of the sheriff's funding here in terms of COVID issues. So I think what I'll do is have did everybody get your email mark that you sent to me or did you just send it to me? Madam chair, I think I just sent it to you. Yeah, I don't think I have it. Okay. Can you tell me when you sent it and I'll make sure everybody gets it and then Gail can post it. 526-2020 at 10.48 in the morning. Wait a minute. Oh, it's easier to do this. Pardon me, but my voice is and I apologize for not getting this out before. I guess you're not Arc Anderson. If I send it to the Senate government operations email that's on the Zoom invite. Would that get it to everyone? It should, yes, except it won't include Betsy Ann or other folks at this meeting. But we do want it posted. Well, as Betsy Ann and then anybody attending the meeting can view it as well and the website. Is that accurate? And I also just sent it to Gail so you can post it. So I don't did everybody get the email from me about the fingerprinting that they're going to make some kind of an announcement tomorrow. Yes. I'm not sure what it'll be, but Ted sounded positive. It's got a big impact on some of the problems and stuff. I mean, it's they need to be addressing it. Yeah, I mean, it's more than anybody who gets needs their license renewed. Yeah. Okay. Do we have this posted? I know it takes a few minutes to get it posted. Yeah, it will take a couple more minutes. I have to go to a remote computer and it take as long as usual. Okay, so I will then actually forward to everybody just in case. So I just got it. I think Mark did. You make the font a little bit. How do you do that? Send it enlarged. I for the sake of one page, I reduced the font size. So if it would help, I can send a larger version. If you're looking at it on your computer, you can do the little plus sign and it'll make it bigger. Where do you see a plus sign? Are you looking on your computer? Did you open it? It's on my iPad, but I can see it. We can blow it up. Okay. With our fingers. Okay, great. Yeah. Okay. Would you like to walk, start walking us through this, Mark? Is anybody else here? For the purpose? What's up? No, I just asked if Bill Boneyack or anybody else was with us. Any other sheriff? I see Gwen. Sheriff Harlow's with us. Oh, there you are. Yeah, I can sheriff Mark who weren't able to. Okay. Mark, before you start, Sheriff Harlow, you've never been in our committee, I believe, have you? That's correct, ma'am, Chair. So we'll just introduce ourselves. We usually do it this way when we are in person, just so that you know who we are. I'm Jeanette White from Wyndham County. Ryan Collamore from Rutland County. Chris Frey from Addison. Allison Clarkson, Windsor County District. Anthony, you're muted. Anthony Polina, Washington County. My little mute button keeps going away today. Doesn't stay up there. I think it's part of the Zoom update. It's, it's the week our Zoom updates happened. And I think some of that is that. Right. And this is one of those things that they thought was an improvement, but it's actually a pain in the butt. Incorrect. Okay. So what we're going to do is turn this over to Sheriff Anderson and Sheriff Harlow and you can present to us and then we'll ask questions as we need to. Does that work? Okay, great. Take it away. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Mark Anderson, Wyndham County Sheriff. The document that I made, I asked all 14 sheriffs to essentially give us a 50,000 based on our financial data. We all use a uniform accounting system with statewide accounting manual, which we worked with the state auditor to develop. So in theory, these should all be as close to accurate as our apples to apples comparisons. There are some caveats that I will add to this and I will mention them as we come across them. But for example, one county, their information is actually going to be under reported because they are able to date it until the end of the month. So Bennington County, for example, their information is going to not reflect their payroll information that they just process until they get their statement. The top lies essentially the information based on what we've lost in terms of the time period for COVID-19. And then below we break it down by county. I guess the quickest information to share is that in the time of the state of emergency, combined all the sheriffs have lost $226,365. It is listed by county. There's a couple counties that because they are involved in things like setting up the alternate care facilities and providing security for it. While they did lose certain inputs that they were expecting, they also gained other inputs. So there were some counties that did see increases. But working from left to right, obviously the name of the county, followed by whether they reported or didn't report, the annual gross income is based on the income year to date for each department. So that is based on all income. It doesn't take into account any expenses, but it's to give an idea of what they were doing leading up to this. The net profit is showing with expenses accounted for where each agency was at. For the most part, agencies were all doing well. There's a few that did have vehicle purchases. So in terms of a net profit evaluation, or there's more appropriate terms, but I'm not an accountant. So in terms of the net profit, some of the, this doesn't really take into account things such as, hey, we made a vehicle purchase this year, which is about a 30 to $40,000 expense. So there are some counties that are showing some losses leading up to the day before the state of emergency. The second column net profit loss during the state of emergency just evaluates from March 13th to May 23rd, which was the final cutoff day that we put on this report. The net profit last year today is starting at July 1st and going all the way to today. In another characterization, what I'll refer to that is what we basically have left as our runway for operating costs. The interesting thing, all but one county are considered a reimbursable employer. So because our government entity as you heard testimony when we were talking about S182, we did not qualify for funding from the SBA. And as this committee is very familiar, we also operate more like a business than a government entity. Very little of our government funding is actually tax based. Those being things such as the state transport deputies, the sheriffs themselves, and then county funding for whatever funding each individual county would give. So as a result, we are left in this kind of bizarre position where if we lay our people off, we're not able to get any revenue to come in because everything is a revenue based transaction as opposed to a tax based transaction. Because we're reimbursable employers, 13 out of 14 counties are reimbursable employers, if we lay our people off, we're going to be responsible for paying for them to reimburse the unemployment fund. And yet at the same time, we can't use them to actually make money working on things such as construction jobs, providing security, and the variety of things that we have normally done. So those are the four key metrics that are used by agency and also summarize them in the top left. The second thing that I did was we separated the tax funding, things that are actually tax funded and have continued into a column to represent the percentage that that agency receives. The theory held when I was creating this spreadsheet is that if anything that we could obtain from the CARES Act were a source of revenue, then we can't be supplanting funds. And so that column, the approximate direct tax based revenue, we tried to narrow down what was or what would be considered supplanting. And that's what that first column of percentages are. The approximate indirect tax based revenue, those are again our transactional services. So for example, I have a contract with DCF to help provide secure transport of children who might, let's say that they are a runaway or they are a risk to themselves or others. And so they are placed in the commissioner of the commissioner's custody. We provide for secure movement, especially if it's like a suicidal child. We have deputies who are trained to deal with deescalation. Those moves aren't really happening right now. And we know that as things start to loosen up, those things are going to continue. However, right now I don't receive any funding or very little funding to provide those things. So indirect tax based revenue is again those transactional services that do not take into account a consistent income. And then the approximate non tax based revenue, those are contracts with private entities, construction companies. At one point we provided security to Vermont Yankee. So that would be something that would fall into there. But ultimately the second two columns are what we think would be eligible for CARES Act funding. All in all, if things continue at status quo, we are expecting to need about, for what we've already lost about $2.5 million. And we expect to need about $225,000 for each month following July. Go ahead. What? Allison, were you saying something? Okay. I guess Allison. No, I'm sorry. I didn't see. Am I not here? Yeah, you are here. You weren't. Are you here? Mark was frozen and I was quite taken with how he was frozen. I don't, I, I see the 226,000, I see the 226,000 of laws, but I don't see the over $2 million figure unless you're just assuming that the other, the other sheriffs who haven't weighed in yet, it will be roughly. I think that's, I think it's right above in the box. Sarah Clarkson, you're correct that. So the 2.5 million is. Yeah. Right. The reported counties. That they are a fair representation of what all sheriffs will need. I did hear back after this submission, but it's not reflected in this. I did hear back from. Grand Isle County who. They're reflected as no data. They said that they have no loss. However, they do have loss in fingerprints and one other area, one other area that they don't need to pursue any funding. County was Caledonia. Who reported that. They don't do fingerprinting. So that business income hasn't ceased. And all of their other contracts have essentially continued. So they're in good shape. And I'll think they anticipated any construction work. So they don't have the expenses. So I think that's a good point. And then. Chris, did you have a question? Just wanted to check briefly. As in counties listed as no data. I don't know if that. Is really like no data at all or just that they're saying, Hey, we're pretty much good. So they're, they're not reporting out numbers. So the. They're saying that they wouldn't be able to compile the information and time to get it to, to the committee. I think the deadline was a Tuesday. Some people were their office staff were in places that were able to access the information. So there's a. Some of this is just because of the timing and short notice to be able to accomplish it. Okay. Thank you. So. Mark, do you have an estimated need? I know you have this estimated need for the whole year of 2.5, but the more compelling thing in terms of CRF money. For us is the stuff that you'd be eligible for under COVID under the COVID. Rises. And, and you have. You don't have an estimated amount for all counties. You just have the actual amount of 226. Do you have an, isn't that the money that you'd be eligible for from FEMA or from the CRF money? Not knowing the entirety of the rules of the CRF funding. And I know that that's a conversation that seems to be. Common. What isn't as uneligible. The 2.5 million is assuming. All 14 counties have a need of 226,000 226,000. Is for the two month period. Approximate two month period. The expectation on 2.5 million was. So that's multiplied by 14 counties. And it's also assuming through July 1st. Okay. Yeah, that helps me understand. Yeah. So it would be helpful to me. In presenting this, if. We had examples of, I mean, and we can. Figure out some of them, but examples of. What, where the losses were. With the direct tax. The indirect tax and the private contracts. I mean, I know. I think that would be helpful. I think that would be helpful. I think that would be helpful. I think that would be helpful. I think that would be helpful. I think that those are security at Mount snow. Those kinds of things. But if we had. Some. So that we could show that they really are COVID related. I think that would be helpful. Yeah. So the one. I can say for my county, there are several jobs slated for Wyndham County that were, we were told that we're going to be happening. And. All of a sudden they just disappeared. And so. It's a two year project. They started last year. We talked to the company and they said, we don't know when we can work. Speaking with several of the other sheriffs. There were several who they were, had deputy scheduled to work on road jobs. I forget the, the dates of the. The other sheriff, but on say Monday, when the deputy was supposed to start working. And they said the job was canceled and so those were six week long projects. We've done hiring to. As we normally have to do to anticipate the upcoming. So there's costs associated with hiring retention, recruiting, which basically that's the cost that we bear upfront. And then we get the, essentially the revenue back after they work that season. And then it takes about six to 12 months to recruit higher and train a person to be able to actually work this stuff. So there's a significant upfront investment. Then there's some sheriffs do have. Staff who have taken their. The COVID related leave. Either people who are immune compromised or concerned about their safety. And so those are people that are essentially on the payroll of the state. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to have to do that. We're going to have to do that as well. But there's no revenue to come in from that. I'd be happy to supply numbers specifically from my agency showing the $100,000 loss. That's essentially all of our income stop, but none of our expenses did. So are some of the law. The direct. The direct tax losses. And so that's what we're going to do. And so that's what we're going to do for those, whether you're doing them or not. Both prisoner transport and DCF transport. So the prisoner transports as related to the executive director's office. Those have. Come to a complete halt with the use of video arrangements. The deputies are still funded though. And so most of them are out on patrol. And the various counties. The. The, the per diem side, we have no income from that. I would arguably say that's not necessarily a loss because the amount of income that comes in, it's usually less than the cost of the deputy. So we end up subsidizing the state anyways. So effectively it's not really that's not a loss. And that funding will be there. As things do continue to pick up. The DCF, Department of Corrections, Department of Mental Health, many of those transports stopped. And I'd be happy to supply numbers for my agency of the reduction that we had. But we were, I'd say, on average, providing probably about 30 to 40 of those transports a month. And now we're doing about five a month. And those are the most serious cases that need immediate hospitalization and require a secure method of transportation. Most of the hospitals aren't really bringing people in. The Browdrow Retreat is about the only place that I'm transporting people to, which from a dollars and cents point of view, that's a 15 minute ride for us. So while we're doing five transports, it's also 15 or times 15 minutes. It's not a significant revenue stream. And then in terms of corrections, there's not a lot of work that's done with corrections. They do have their own stuff that they do, but we also provide some services to them. But prisons have essentially gone into what I'm going to refer to as a modified lockdown, not a traditional lockdown of a prison, but they're controlling the movement of populations for obvious reasons. And I'm sure you've heard from the commissioner on the efforts that a DOC is taking to keep the population safe. And again, just our construction jobs, those are a significant portion of our revenue. That's usually what purchases our vehicles and shares that we can pay for the variable. Another thing that also is a significant, at least in my agency, a significant detriment to my budget. We provide a communication center, a dispatch center, to three different agencies, but generally that's at a loss. And the reason why that's at a loss is because these other jobs that we do during the summertime generally offsets the costs that we need dispatching for deputies who are working during the summertime. So some of the funding that comes in from the road work and everything offsets our dispatch operations costs. So I need to have a 24-hour dispatch. We provide emergency communications for law enforcement for three agencies. If I shut it down, well, you call the police, you're not going to get anything. So that would obviously be bad, but I don't have the way to offset the cost because there's no funding source other than contracts. How about serving papers? Service of papers has continued. The problem with service of papers, as you're aware, I think it was S-333 that was the moratorium on evictions. I think that was a bill from this committee, but the, so, the moratorium effectively stopped us from doing a ritz of possession and evictions, which it's not a significant amount of the work. The attorney's offices weren't open. There's been a significant decrease in the number of processes that are coming to our office, but we do continue to serve them. I'd be happy to get actual numbers of what it is. However, the talking with a few of my area attorneys, part of the issue is that their expectation is that we're going to see a significant increase in the number of processes as credit cards stop getting paid. Rent processes will continue to move forward, and there will be documents that we will need to serve in that sense. Car loans will be paid. I hope that we're not serving too many divorce papers, but it's possible that we'll be serving divorce papers. And probably I was told 45 days and that was last week. So we're expecting probably somewhere around June to July that we'll start to see an increase. The interesting thing on civil process, and this was actually an initiative that we were trying to start before COVID-19 kicked off, is that we haven't seen a fee increase on civil process service since roughly 2005. And so just if we took into account the cost of living and the cost of gas and the cost of insurance and healthcare and everything else, we've seen what is effectively a loss of $15 per service, which is again something that we end up taking on the chip. So we know that, or we highly anticipate based on prior events such as the 2007, 2008 housing prices, 9-11, we see increases when the economy goes down, it makes sense, but we, similar to the post office, we can't raise the, we have the increase of cost of service, but we can't raise the costs of the stamp. And I, Mark, just for your information, I did check with the governor's office about that because he's been pretty clear that he doesn't want any fees or taxes or anything increased this year because most people are in pretty dire straits. And I know that impacts you, but I did check with the office just to see and kind of explain the situation. And I really think that if we put it in any place, it would tank the bill. I think he's pretty clear about that. That was a fear that we had, but we also understand and I mean, we've been doing it for the last 14 years. I think we can make it one more year, but we do need to take into account that this is something that ultimately is a problem and if we continue to lose money on it without having funding sources, then we stop operating, which was part of the discussion on the 182. Yeah. And I think that one of the things that we've talked about is that if, if at least putting you on even playing field with the constables because constable, the, and I don't know if everybody remembers this or not, but when the sheriff serves, they charge $15, but then they have to pay 15% of that back to the state. So they're actually paying back 750, I think is what it amounts to for every service they do. So they're getting less than $50 when the constables also charge $50, but they don't pay anything back to the state. So it really isn't an even playing field at all. Yeah. Now, leveling the playing field ought to be one of the things we try and do. Yeah. And I'm not sure where we would do that or how we would do that this year. I think that this is a conversation that needs a lot more discussion. And last time we tried to do it, the housing market in Brattleboro, the landlords just went crazy. So I think we need to, this is going to take a lot of discussion, but I'm sorry about that. But I did try. Oh, thank you. So if we assume that, oh, I'm sorry, Chris. Just a quick question. You know, we've, what you were just saying about not being able to address an ongoing issue, which is a little frustrating. We understand why it's hard to do right now. Are you, however, formally or informally putting together a list because we've had the same conversation, excuse me, several times over in the last two months. I'm just thinking that if we were all reelected and returned to this meeting, we would have a bit of a to-do list on day one when we got back. And I don't know if you're composing that as we go. Yes. The answer is yes. Or whoever happens to be back here and on this committee. I would hope we're all back here and all in this committee, but that's the decision of those way beyond my pay grade, the voters and the committee on committees. So if we kind of tried to break this down and put a little narrative to it around where the money is being lost and the lost money is used to hold up the other services that are needed, we could give this to the Appropriations Committee and see what they might want to want to do with it. Because in some of it, hopefully could come from CARES monies. I think that I don't know of the issue around the reimbursable unemployment. That's, there are a number of people that fall into that category. And I think that what I heard was from appropriations that that's, there's not much they can do about it because I know that we heard the victim's compensation, the Center for Crime Victim Services falls in there and the state colleges, UVM, I don't remember who else. Does anybody remember Mark? Yeah, so we actually have had the conversation with unemployment's general counsel as well as a few other people, including our legal counsel. And as as silly as it sounds, it will cost me the same or more to lay my staff off than to keep them working. So until, until we reach a point of insolvency and bankruptcy, it makes more sense for us to actually keep our staff on and then claim bankruptcy, lay them off, and not pay back the the fund which that I'm a business guy, it just this is blowing my mind that that's the logic, but the rules that were based off of entirely different system, it's based on federal rules, it's it's just it's illogical 100%. Did either of you sheriffs, just else not get you in a minute, did either of you sheriffs think that when you went into law enforcement and you thought this was a calling for you that you would end up also having to juggle entrepreneurship and business accounts and So I did, the my background, I actually have a bachelor's degree in business administration from Dyson Berg School of Business. So I knew very very much about how this is supposed to look. I had a mentor who was very good, Sheriff Clark put me under his wing and taught me about the operations. I've been with the sheriff's office for 15 years. It's the business side of this makes sense and the $158,000 that that we had grossed up to March 12th. Unfortunately, I was not too impressed with 100,000 that resulted in keeping our staff on when I don't have any work for them. Jennifer, I definitely was not. I am do not come from that have the same background as Sheriff Anderson. I have been a road cop, a detective for over 25 years. So coming into this, the sheriffs, I've never worked for a sheriff's department before. So coming into this has been very new to me. I was just newly appointed in January. So I've had a lot to learn and I'm grateful for my fellow sheriffs who've been helping me along, but I did not see myself here or in this position. So it's very new to me and it's a lot of learning. Well, we do have a very bizarre way of funding our sheriffs in this state and it is something this committee has been looking at and will continue to look at. So Allison. So Mark, I'm just curious because there you as a law enforcement agency, despite how oddly you're constructed under under our statutes, are you not also eligible for FEMA money? I mean, aren't there other pots of money you can be looking at other than the CRF money and they, you know, are there other pots you've explored that your work would be eligible for? So this is one of the things that you've been more bizarre. We do, we are able to apply to disaster fund for FEMA. There's, I think there's one other place which I need to go do a little research on, but at least at a 50,000 foot level doesn't look like that'll be eligible to us. So the disaster fund, there's some rules about it. One of them is that you have to reach a certain threshold, which we're now we're near reaching. The second part is that because it's basically what it's trying to do is refund anything that's not supplanted, they look at our budget as being a fixed tax-based budget and the problem with it is that really all that covers would be our transports which we aren't losing any money on and our civil process, which effectively that's already funded despite it not being correctly funded. So from the perspective of FEMA, we're doing okay there and then I'll talk about the law enforcement portion that many sheriffs do provide. When we provide law enforcement to a town because it's a contract, we're actually not the ones facing the loss, it would be the town. So it's actually the towns who are applying for it, but they have no interest in applying for and following through the FEMA process for on our behalf. So it's actually a really really bizarre set up. That's brutal. Yes it is ma'am. Chris, did um no I was just uh I was just coughing. No no hand was going up. Be careful what you're doing here. All right where are we here? Is there anything else? Brian did you? Thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to make clear in my mind the uh the money here. So the 2.5 estimated eight counties would in essence get you all whole again as of July 1st, correct? That's estimation yes sir. Okay and then um the $226,000 monthly cost after that if I did my math directly comes out to about 2.7 million on a yearly basis, but there probably will be some changes along the way in terms of other hopefully potential revenue for you to come in. So does that 226 assume that what we have now as a landscape is going to continue that way? Yes sir. So uh one thing I didn't note the 226,000s based on the uh one, two, three, four, five, the six counties that provided full data. Yeah. Take into account the county's work. Just hold on one second Senator Brake we can't see you sneezing but we can hear you. Please mute yourself. And don't die. Thank you sorry Mark. No problem. Yeah sorry about that. I turned off the video so you wouldn't see me choking to death here but I forgot about the microphone. No worries you just continue over here in the corner while I expire. So 226,000s based on the actual loss part of this is trying to use a crystal ball to forecast what we need which was kind of the question I was asked to answer and so I wanted to at least get a foundation of what we know we lost what we are as a diving board to what we anticipate going forward. I would be permissive saying that all 14 chairs are losing 226,000 dollars times two when it's based on on six counties because I do know that two counties said they're pretty much okay and they just haven't heard actual data from the other. So the 226 is for those six agencies that reported and that assumes that we are operating under no changes whatsoever. So that's what the citrus parabas means in latin is all things being equal. So we do anticipate as the governor continues to turn the spigot that we will start to see things return. I'm anticipating having to do a whole bunch of fingerprinting based on the list that we've been amassing of people who we've had to turn away. So there are things that will lessen that. I'd prefer if we are asking for money from the CRF fund that we'd be able to do it based off of actual numbers as opposed to say I need 10 million dollars and only need five. I think that even just the optics of that would be bad and probably the auditors later would also frown on it. So the talk about the 2.5 million I guess one thing I failed to point out look at the estimate of the annual gain and loss that takes into account all reported with one county being an estimation of approximately a hundred thousand dollar loss which was Windsor County. What that does is totalizes to 1.4 million the actual number that we're estimating for those eight counties and so what I did was I just used that to estimate the 2.5 million for all 14 counties. So the some of its fuzzy math and estimations and I want to be or make full disclosure that yes we're trying to predict the future but we do know that we've lost about a quarter million dollars over the last two months and we anticipate that being we're going forward without our jobs picking up in the summertime. Thank you. Do you have any of the sheriffs had to make use yet of the emergency county reserve funds? I am not aware of any entering into it. I don't know if Sheriff Harlow is aware. I know everybody is fighting very hard not to do that because again looking at some of the the funds that are out there it becomes incredibly difficult to replenish the county and we we're trying to be respectful of the assistant judges and the funds that they've established to take care of the responsibilities they have. So in short no but I'm not aware I can ask the question. So Senator Bray are you with us or should we worry about you? Or contact Drew? There you are. I know you were worried about me before the meeting even started but uh no I'm fine thank you. No we weren't we were applauding your good work on the Senate floor but we almost always worry about you. Yeah. So I think we'll try to put this um I will work on this some with Mark and Jennifer whoever else wants to and try and get this into some format that we can then forward to the appropriations committee to look at whether there would be appropriate funding available to make people whole. It's going to be harder to to look at going forward just because I'm not sure that will be in the the regular budget I think and I don't know where they Allison. I actually have hope that if we get another chunk of money from the federal government because it will address municipal and state needs that this may fit into into some of that need not that we I mean we can still make our ask but I'm hopeful that there actually may be more specific money designed for making up these kinds of losses. I would hope so that my fear with um I mean we'll and we'll definitely try the problem with the federal monies and when you're talking about state and municipal and county is that for example we had the huge problem with FEMA when they were giving out the money that it has to go through a county um system or county government and we don't have county government we have the side judges and that's it but we don't have like county councils and county whatever you call them like the equivalent of a town manager and they had to make a special appeal to allow the regional planning commissions to act as the the county entity so when the feds talk about municipalities and the state and stuff I think they don't think about the way our counties are organized in Vermont and so we need to be aware of that and make sure that we don't let that fall through the cracks. Okay I'll try and do some work on this and send it to Mark and I apologize I had meant to do this before and I just um I don't know why but I feel more overwhelmed than I did when we were meeting in session. Me too me too I'm right with you it's overwhelming it's partly because we don't have any distance between our our mods and it's all kind of just all consuming. Yeah and and I did I tell you this about the Myers-Briggs test that on Myers-Briggs it's a personality test and they so there's one section there that you're either an introvert or an extrovert and it doesn't mean that you are outgoing or not outgoing it means where you get your energy from and I fall right on the line so I get my energy from me internally and I get my energy equally as much from others and the only others I have contact with right now are my family and I love seeing you all there but it's very different that kind of flat um so I'm not I'm not getting your energy like I usually do right that's very true and we give you lots of energy we give you lots of energy no I'm sorry I don't care I think I'll I think I'll skip my question never mind I'm gonna ask if you could test it uh Senator Clarkson to find out where she fell on the same line I'm off the chart I I am an extrovert off the chart you get no energy from yourself not as but I do get some but I get most of it from others so I had a feeling thank you okay Madam Chair yes um if maybe we could make you feel better we'll sing to you as we when we adjourn we'll stay you know have a little community sing in the committee thank you you name the tune we'll practice have it ready for Tuesday okay I will I will think of a tune over the weekend and I want you to practice well uh Senator Caldmore has a professional background to help us oh the musical the musical requirements well when um this guy Steve West down here used to have his radio show and he would invite people in to talk with him and whenever he um there's two songs there's a song about Jeanette and then there's Nadine and he would use those as the introduction when I came on so are we are we wanting to stay on you too I don't know that we need to stay anywhere if we're did we have something else we are going to do today I don't remember no I don't think so so I do you saw that the um election bill is on for it got put on notice today or tomorrow um I will not be on the floor tomorrow because I have to drive bill for his final post-op thing and he he can't drive himself afterwards because of what they do to his eyes so we're going to take it up huh so we're going to take that up on Tuesday good got any yes Brian so I'm serious about this time um I will note that the governor has just announced along with DFR that the dentists have uh been allowed let me just read the press release um if I can find it the dentists were partially opened yeah Governor Scott and Department of Financial Regulation Commissioner Mike Pichek announced today the approval of a premium relief plan submitted by Northeast Delta Dental Vermont's largest provider dental benefits in total 2.89 million dollars in premium relief will be provided to about 70,000 Vermonters after the suspension of most dental services due to COVID-19 so I find it hard to believe that there couldn't be some sort of intersection with services above public safety in the same regard oh good thinking I like the way you think they're calmer it's just in other words what you did go ahead no go please well to dismiss out of hand that any of this could come from COVID and then it would have to be delivered out of the general fund I think there might be a way to piece certain certain things together that would qualify under um COVID relief that's all yeah maybe if we can see the way they did the dentist thing we could um kind of pattern it on that sadly public safety unlike dentistry isn't tied to a for-profit sector there are fewer for-profit pockets that are associated with public safety and most public safety except for equipment is is not uh I mean it's a great idea and and let's think about it because it would be my hope was the FEMA money which I I had understood was an alternative particularly for people like for for businesses like public safety or anything involved in for business partially a sheriff Anderson pointed out the threshold to meet those needs hasn't been met and I hope they're not um quite frank and we really can I think make the case a bit that our sheriff the way we fund sheriffs in Vermont it really makes them a business a small business and it is they are a for-profit business because they have to they have to produce a profit in order to subsidize their their other services that they provide at a loss Mark yes and we either have to enable them to be that business or we need to bring them properly under the Department of Public Safety and make them part of public safety so that they aren't having to be that entrepreneurial let's really um I'm going to call on Mark but let's be very careful about saying bring them under the Department of Public Safety that's well but I mean and I know I that is a conversation but I think we need to be really careful that we don't start getting the sheriff's panic enough when we start messing around with them we don't need them panicking over something that we haven't talked about yet Mark I just wanted to clarify one thing while we do operate like a business we are not a for-profit business I just wanted we're not doing this to make the money for the quote-unquote shareholders we're doing it to better our communities so while we're technically not a for-profit or not profit under the banks regulations 100% we are revenue funded I shouldn't say 100% we are revenue funded and we rely on it and without it right and we are our precious balance all right um right okay so Brian will you send me that will you forward that to me I will let him through right now all right okay so I don't know that we need to do anything else today we can all go out and I have two floor reports tomorrow yes oh what I wanted to bring up I'm sorry I forgot this 588 I um when I went to the rules committee meeting yesterday um 558 dick 558 um dick maza said um has the press been involved in this and that um Mike Donahue had called him three or four times about that bill and they very much object to the way we passed it so I got a note from Mike Donahue and um I am not sure if the the major objection is creating another exemption or if it's this particular exemption but I did say that we um notified him and John Flowers and Wendy and Wendy joined us and we came to a resolution that she thought was fine and he wants us to bring it back into committee and take it up again and I said no just so you know oh thanks good to know yeah I'm fine I was very curious about why he would call senator maza about this bill instead of calling us or or you're just showing up that's what I meant huh we're just showing up yeah or call and say is this going to come up we have concerns about but why senator maza I don't know but anyway I wanted you to be prepared for that thank you I I will and I will send you my response to him cool thank you okay anything else we need to do tomorrow we're going to walk through the other bills that we have and see if we want to take any of them up yeah then on Tuesday we're going to um uh hear about an update on the burn pit legislation we did and I think we decided that was all we were going to do on Tuesday did we yeah I think so okay then we'll do the rest of the week um Gail we talked about it some before but I don't remember it now Madam Chair I did notice that Gwen has been with us I didn't know whether she wanted to testify or whether she was just in sort of a listening Gwen are you there Gwen oh there she is hi no I'm just on listening mode it's been um just tuning in to see what the progress is so no I don't need to testify okay well anytime you do you know if I can't see the whole screen and you have something to say don't rely on one of us to see you necessarily but just speak up sounds good okay all right committee I think