 May 21st. And we are going to start the morning with H716, which is the hunting and fishing licenses for members of Abnaki tribes. And I know that Ellen did some redrafting. I think Emily has done some background work, which we'll also look at or consider. And Dan Dickerson has an updated fiscal note. The money hasn't changed, but the description of the bill has changed. So he wanted to update it. So we will look at that as well. So before we begin, let me see if anyone on the committee has anything they want to announce or ask about. Sam? Just, we didn't do, we didn't send the bill to the miscellaneous tax bill to the Senate. It's just not in the calendar for Friday. So is that just a calendar mistake? Don't know. I'll find out. Good question. I'll email Bill. I just, I was just like. No, I don't know anything about what happened to it. Okay, cool. Thank you. Nice job though yesterday. Was it just yesterday? It was great. Yeah, thank you. I like that you stood up. I thought that was good. So that's more energy. Yeah, exactly. Anything else anybody's got questions about what's going on? No, okay. Ellen, are we starting with you? Is that the best place to start? So I've asked Emily if she'll report this bill. So I'm kind of looking to her for also some guidance as I work through this. So I'll let Emily and Ellen tell me what order they want to go in. I can do a little bit of context setting and then Ellen, you can tell us about the changes. Does that work? That sounds great. So I was in touch with the chair of VCN AA, the Vermont Commission Native American Affairs yesterday, Carol McGranigan. And she clarified for us that every tribe issues licenses and issues licenses to folks under the age of 18 and that people can become official tribal members. And I'm sorry if a little, I feel very nervous about my language on this issue because it's not something I'm entirely familiar with. But that licenses can be issued at any point and membership can be issued at any point. And each tribe does it slightly differently, but they're all have the ability and do it for folks who are minors. And so in order to have the most clarity on this, we felt like just removing the section on minors made the most sense. And she was in agreement on that and offered to pull all of the chiefs together over, you know, after this passes, she's happy to pull all the chiefs together to have a conversation to make sure that there's a consistent procedure for that licensing, just to make sure that, you know, how this is administered, how this is administered is consistent, but doesn't see any need to hold up the bill while they figure that out, that things will be fine while it gets figured out and would like us to move forward. Okay, let me see if there's questions. Let's see any good. So Ellen, so why don't you go through the redraft? Sure. So draft 2.1 is posted on your website. So the, the only change. So there are two changes as representative Kornhider just mentioned. I struck in section one, seven B, which did, which was the section that referenced minors needing some form of parental consent or written notification from the parent. So I struck that that section entirely. And I also added the cross reference to chapter 23 of title one, so that we could be specific that we're talking about tribes that have been recognized by the state of Vermont. So the new language now reads, a certified citizen of a Native American Indian tribe that has been recognized by the state pursuant to one BSA chapter 23 may receive a free permanent fishing license or if the person qualifies for a hunting license, a free permanent combination hunting and fishing license upon submission of a current and valid tribal identification card. So I did confer with Damian Leonard in our office yesterday who is the, the attorney that normally works in chapter 23. So we just reframe the language slightly. And I think it is a little more clear. I think it's much better. And so appreciate that work went into that. I don't see questions. Is that I guess the other two changes are the two dates? Is that right that we've already reviewed? Yep. So there aren't any changes from yesterday's draft. We did change yesterday the date of the report pushing it out to 2024 and the effective date. Yep. Let me give Paul and Lewis who are our two guests today on this a chance to comment if they want. Paul, do you have any comments or questions for us? I like the changes to the better bill. Great. Good. How about you, Lewis? I know. Thank you very much for making the changes and heating the suggestions and I appreciate it. And I also appreciate Chief Stevens email and suggestions to you. So thank you. Great. So I don't know if there's anyone. I want to be sure that if there's someone else in the room who is interested, they get a chance to comment. George and Emily. I just wondered if we could go over to fiscal note with Dan. Yeah. Yeah. Emily, did you have a question first or you want to move to Dan? Yeah, I would write before Dan. I would just love if we could find some way semi officially of empowering the commission to pull together those tribes to figure this out. And that might be, I don't know if it's a letter from us or a letter from you, Lewis, or asking another committee, perhaps House Natural Resources to write a letter from, but so that she has a little bit of standing to bring those people together. I don't think it's necessary for it even to be in session law, but it might be a nice sort of semi official step to make. I don't know who is most appropriate. It feels sort of strange for our committee to do it, you know, to tell the four tribes to come up with something that's uniform just sort of feels like really, really not our world. Yeah. Paul, do you have any thoughts about it or Lewis or Jim? Can't hear you, Paul. I think you're talking. Yeah. I agree with you, Madam Chair. I think we should allow the tribes to go forward without trying to tell them what they should do as far as unifying. I think they are had a difficult time as it was as to who could speak for one another. And they were very guarded of their own identity. And so I would hate to infringe upon that. Yeah. Lewis? Yeah, I was just going to suggest maybe a letter thanking the chair, the commission, and taking her up on her offer from the three committees, General, Natural, and Ways and Means. I don't know how that could be received amiss to accept her offer that she made. But that's really for you guys to thank you. Yeah. I have not had conversations with General Committee. I've talked with Amy Sheldon and I've exchanged some emails, but I haven't had any conversations with them about it. So, you know, maybe something that we can figure out, but probably isn't something we can figure out right now. Jim? Yeah. I think a letter would be a good idea if it's by three tribes or just one or who knows what. The phone's ringing, so don't. That's you. Okay. It went to answering me. I would request that how the, I would note that how it's worded maybe turns out to be important. And I would hope that it wasn't be to have the VCNNA limit their conversation with the four recognized tribes, because there are other tribes that wish to apply for recognition. I know some of them, but I know that there are others that I don't know just who they are. And I wouldn't want the letter to be used as a way of excluding those who are on the outside that wish to come into the circle. And there may be an easy way to do that that just doesn't circumscribe who can come in to this conversation only. It can be an interesting conversation. I know, for example, the tribe that I'm a member of, we have a way of recognizing members and issuing cards and I would suspect that our chief would want to be a quiet, not altogether quiet, a part of the conversation. But not the exclusive exclusion of anybody else. That's all. So my sense of this is that people are going to want to take advantage of this. This is a thing of value and that all the tribes in their own way are going to want to make it accommodate or make it possible for their members to demonstrate what they need to demonstrate to the department in order to get these licenses. So I'm not sure that we really need to tell them to do that. I think they're going to want to do it. Yeah, Jim. I just point out that the process of becoming a recognized tribe is not an easy one. Oh, I know. Yeah. And so recognizing that that is not going to change, I'm just talking about the conversation between... I'm saying something different. What I'm saying is that I'm not sure that I feel like we need to write a letter because I think they're going to try to do it anyway. Oh, that may be true. And I think we can tie ourselves up and not trying to write the perfect letter and create more problems than we solve. But that's, that doesn't mean that it won't happen. It just means that at this moment, I don't feel like I can commit to trying to make it happen or to make it happen. I think that's fine. I understand that Carol may want to get chiefs together anyway, and that's fine. That's good. I would think they'd want to. Dan Dickerson. I know you're here. Hello. Hi. Can you see me and hear me? Yeah. So as you previously mentioned, the only change that I made to the fiscal note is under the bill summary. I just removed the little blurb that I had made that mentions the sort of separate process for minors because that's no longer in the bill. I don't think it changes the money because minors would still be able to receive the lifetime license or, well, I guess they wouldn't, maybe they would get an annual fishing license. I don't think they would be able to hunt until they're a certain age. But I don't think it changes the money. So I didn't, anything under the fiscal summary wasn't changed. It was just the little piece in the bill summary that I altered. So that's it. Yep. Any questions? Anyone has? So we're still talking about 30 to 35,000, which is not insignificant given the fiscal situation for the department. And I want to say that although I'm not in favor of addressing those issues in this bill, I agree that we need to deal with them. And the extent our committee is involved in that discussion, I just want to, I want to assure those who are worried about it, but particularly the commissioner, that this is something that we recognize as a real issue. And we understand this bill has not made it easier. So, George. I was just going to note that the 30 to 35,000 estimate is just for the annual five-year licenses, but there's another five to 10,000 yearly for the lifetime licenses. So 45,000. Yep. Thank you. Anything else? Anyone has? Would a motion be appropriate, Madam Chair? I think it would be. I'd like to move that we report the bill out favorably. First of all, I think we need to amend it. I'm sure, yes. So Peter is moving to amend the bill as set forth in draft number, Ellen, what is it? 2.1. 2.1. 2.1. Thank you. 2.1. Is there a second to that? Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt draft 2.1 as an amendment. And if people are ready to vote, I'll have Robin call the roll. There she is. Okay. Good. Okay. Okay. People all set. Okay. Great. Representative Anthony? Yes. Representative Beck? Yes. Representative Brennan? No. Representative Donovan? Yes. Representative Kornhizer? Yes. Representative Maslin? Yes. Representative Shai is yes. Representative Till? Yes. Representative Young? Yes. Representative Canfield? Yes. Representative Ansel? Yes. 1010 on the amendment. Good. And now I need a motion to move the bill as amended. Sure. Why not? Second. Okay. It's moved and seconded to move the bill as amended, which is... Is that Jim and Peter again? Yeah. I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. So if the people are ready to vote, we'll go ahead and call the roll. Okay. Representative Anthony? Yes. Representative Beck? Yes. Representative Brennan? No. Representative Donovan? Yes. Representative Kornhizer? Yes. Representative Maslin? Yep. Representative Shai is yes. Representative Till? Yes. Representative Young? Yes. Representative Canfield? Yes. Representative Ansel? Yes. 1010. Good. Very good. Thank you, Kennedy. And thank you to all the people who are here to help. And Paul, particularly you and Lewis. Thanks very much. The debate on the floor and Emily, you're going to report it. So, you know, those of us on the committee who all be there to support you. So I am going to shift gears now to the just a review. I don't know, Sorsha, can you remind me what I had next on the schedule? Is it school construction or did I move to liquor? It is school construction. Okay. Thank you. I don't have a schedule up in front of me. Rebecca Wasserman is here. Okay. So what I wanted to do was just go over the school construction draft that we were working on when we left the building in March. I don't have any particular action in mind at the moment, but it's a bill that we spent quite a lot of time working on. And I think it continues to be a priority for the Education Committee. So I didn't want it to just fall by the wayside. And that said, I also want to mention Renner Rebate, a bill that we spent a ton of time on early in the session. It's gotten sort of lost in the shuffle. I did talk with the speaker a couple days ago and said, you know, we would like it on our priority list of bills that we'd like the Senate to spend some time on and turn their attention to. I think I had an email exchange with tax that they're good with it as long as we postpone the effective date. They're not sure they can stand up the program given the time constraints and what's going on in their world and in ours. And I said, I thought that would probably be fine, better to enact it with a later effective date than to start from scratch next year. So I hope that's agreeable with everybody. But I also just wanted to mention it because I don't know about the rest of you, but in all that's been going on, I had sort of forgotten about it and wanted to put it back on the front burner again. So with that, Becky, you're going to walk us through this. And when we're done with this, we're not going to take action on this, but when we're done with this, we're going to look at the liquor bill that we got a day or two ago. Okay. Hi. Good morning. I am going to walk through the House Education Amendment to H209. So that was a strike all amendment to a bill relating to state aid for school construction. So Becky, before you do that, didn't we do have a redraft that we had put on the table? Or did we not? I think there was discussion started about it, but I don't believe the committee ever saw it. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. So in this version from the House, there, so as a reminder, there's a moratorium on the state aid program for school construction that dates back to 2007. So this bill is trying to address how to deal with a lot of the school construction that needs to be done. There's a big sort of capacity going forward. And so it's addressing this in a few different steps. So the first step is in section one, which is asking the Secretary of Education to work with Vermont Superintendent's Association, the State Board of Education and the Commissioner of Buildings and General Services to update the school facility standards. And that would be due by January 15th of next year. And that update, it says, shall reflect modern educational requirements and opportunities. And then together with that, the State Board of Education by January 15th of next year is tasked with updating and adopting a capital and outlay financing formula. This formula was part of figuring out the costs for what the state would pay for certain costs for school construction under the old program. And this is a State Board rule that's in place right now, but has not been updated in a number of years. So it looks at establishing maximum and minimum square footage parameters by school size, grade range, or square footage allowance for student or program, and also establishes an allowable cost for square foot of construction. And so I think the idea with the step one is figuring out what are the standard sort of facility standards around the state. And then the next step is step two in section two, which calls for the Secretary of Education to work with BGS to do an RFP for our school facilities condition analysis. So that would be looking at statewide school facilities needs and costs. And this would be due February 15th, 2021. The RFP should be issued by then. And so it can be informed by the standards that are due a month earlier. And the analysis would include both review of school facilities conditions and space needs. In subsection B, the Secretary of Education would contract with an independent third party to conduct this analysis. And that analysis shall be completed on or before June 15th, 2023. So that's that gives the third party some time to complete that analysis. And in subsection C, there is 1.5 million appropriated from the Ed fund to conduct this analysis. And in subsection D, there is a definition of schools. So this, this is trying to figure out who would be captured in this conditions analysis. And the definition that was chosen was to stick with the definition that's used right now for the school construction aid program. So what, what they had been, who had been receiving aid under that program. And then finally, section three is looking at funding of school construction. So by December 15th, 2023, the Secretary of Education would work with the state Treasurer and the Bond Bank to submit a report, if you can scroll down for a shot to corrections and institutions and education and the Senate side, institutions and education with the following information. So there would be an analysis of the challenges and opportunities to the state of any funding school construction program projects, recommendations for funding source, if any. And that should be linked to inventory needs and conditions of all Vermont schools. And then it would also look at how other states are funding school construction projects. Again, on line 10, there's a definition of school in here that mean has the same meaning as is in statute for the state aid for school construction program right now. The effective date in section four is July 1st, 2020. Peter and George. I'm just going back when I read this this morning, trying to recall whether there was a consensus to sort of hit the pause button in light of the potential exposure of the Ed fund. And I'm reading the bill and I can't tell whether the moratorium is repealed. It seems to say so. And I thought the sense of the committee was to hit pause until, in fact, the inventory was done. And some clarity about prioritization happened. Indeed, schools can go on their own, but there wouldn't be state participation unless and until we we had done that kind of study inventory and prioritization, but perhaps I'm misremembering. So this language does not repeal the moratorium. That is still in place. I think the the idea of section three is to come up with if if the state decides to do some sort of funding scheme to come up with ways that it can be done. But it is not suggesting that the program continue. And this program has not been operational since 2007. And even I think if the agency wanted to continue right now and the legislature wanted to just start it up again, I think that would be difficult administratively because I don't know that they would have the the resources to do that. George and Robin. So I think that we should change the title of this. Instead of just the school facilities condition analysis, it should be and construction needs related to COVID-19. And get the money to come out of the CARES fund of 1.5 million rather than the Ed fund. Because there may be some things we really need to change related to the virus when schools restart. Yeah, I mean that's it listening to Becky. I realized that this draft was written a couple of centuries ago and in terms of the way things are feeling. We had had quite a lot of discussion about sort of a different approach here, which is not reflected in the draft. And I thought there was a draft that reflected some of that. If there was, this isn't it. And I know Scott, you and I had talked a bit as well. But even that, so that work isn't reflected here. But the new world that we're in with all the challenges and resources is also not reflected here. So my goal here was just to say this is what we have in front of us. And is there work that we can do in the time that we have that moves this issue along. And George are absolutely right. If we can figure out a way of using CRF money, we should do that. Because a million and a half right now in the Ed fund would be a big deal. Robin. Thanks. So first, I totally agree with George's idea. And so I think that's great. And secondly, Representative Anthony's comment reminded me that I know I thought we also had talked about figuring out some way of prioritizing. And that seemed important. And that is also not reflected in here. So yeah, I don't think there was a consensus on includes including prioritizing in the bill. There was some discussion of it. But there are issues in doing that. Have to do with local control and a whole bunch of other things. Right. Doesn't mean that it shouldn't be discussed. I think at one point we ended up maybe saying that the concept of prioritization should be in the analysis, you know, should be addressed in the analysis, but not to do the prioritization in the bill. Right. Yes. So even that is a little bit fraught, just so you know. But that's so that's a but yes, we did have a discussion about it. One of the other things we discussed was having not having the agency of education do the analysis, but having joint fiscal do it, or do that do the contracting. And I know Mark is here. And Chloe, I think Catherine is the one who was most involved in that discussion and, you know, how we can sort of make that go forward. So the other issue that we never really fully discussed, but I'll throw it out. Another very fraught issue is to if we decide to invest this money to do this analysis, does it make us make sense to put a pause on new construction during the period of the analysis until we're able to act personally? I think it does. But I understand that that is not an easy discussion. And that doesn't mean that you wouldn't allow, you know, when you've got health and safety kinds of issues, you need those need to go ahead. But a new facility, you know, sort of a major capital project is maybe it maybe needs to have a, you know, better information and before we before we go ahead with it and a way to fund it. Yeah, Peter, you're muted. You're still muted. There is authority to the Secretary to go ahead if there is some sort of imminent danger, emergency authority, whatever you want to call it. And I, instead of making this more fraught, I thought the idea was to say that at least state participation was going to be on hold. Schools are well, well able to go ahead on their own. But it's the state participation that I thought we were referring to. No, state participation is already on hold. Oh, okay. The spill doesn't change it. Okay. Right, Becky? Yeah, there's, there's, well, there's no state participation in the form of capital dollars from the capital bill. There is, I suppose, state participation in the form of education spending from the education fund. So when a district bonds locally, that is part of that is supported by education funds. And to change that would be the, may raise Brigham issues. If we, if we allow local voters to vote on their own grand list to do something in terms of facilities, there may be Brigham issues with it. I don't know. Mark, you're listening to us. Do you want to weigh in with some thoughts on that? On the, on a moratorium? Well, the question about if, whether, whether it's possible to say that you can't use ed fund dollars, but, but you can go ahead and vote for construction outside the ed fund. That, that outside of the ed fund wouldn't work because it would be a Brigham violation. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. And the other thing is, I'm just, just a thought, but I mean, in the current environment, I imagine a large school construction project would be a really hard sell at this point with voters. True. You may not need to do a moratorium. Yeah. Good point. But yeah, that would be a Brigham to go outside of the education funds. But right now, there is nothing to stop a community from doing that if they want to go ahead and do it. So I don't know if people have more questions for Becky or for Mark or Chloe, but I guess my question for people, if you, if enough of this is coming back to you, if you want to do some work on this now, now, you know, we're going to be in session in August, I think no matter what, maybe July. I'm not sure exactly what the summer fall schedule is. Like maybe it's not July. I'm even looking at me. No, it's not July. August. You scared me. You were planning a trip around the world. No, I was just planning on going to work for more than one day in a row. So I don't think we need to need to act on this right now. But and there are other things that we need that are more significant that we need to act on more quickly. But I guess the question I've got for the committee is this something you want to continue working on whatever the time frame is? George and Scott. Yeah, I do think that I want to continue working on this. And the time frame might be affected by the timing of the CARES money that we have to use. Yes. Can I can I just add to that because this other committees have talked about CARES Act money for school construction. The guidance from the Treasury suggests that, you know, it is it is possible that it could be used for some sort of health and safety that is a COVID-related expenditure or something. Right. But the the interpretation of when the expenses have to be incurred is that the project I think would have to be completed by the end of the year. So I think that adds a complication in terms of construction related projects that receive funding that it definitely creates a more difficult timeline. Mark. I just want to say that this though is Becky, this isn't construction, right? This is only a study. Yeah, it's CARES for the study. Yeah. And so we did kick this around a little bit internally at JFO and we thought that probably you couldn't justify all of it, the entire $1.10 million, but it's likely that we could identify some portion of that that would be COVID related and we could use CRF money for that. And as long as that money goes up within the first six months of the year and we have to develop an RFP and send that out, then I think that would pass muster. Yeah. That makes sense to me. Scott. Yeah. I would just add on to what George was saying. We have no idea what federal dollars might become available in the next 12 months and what they might be available for. So I think we should definitely pursue this and be ready for whatever comes. Good. Okay. All right. So as I said, obviously we're not ready to vote on anything and we'll work with Becky on getting a redraft that sort of moves us forward. I'm going to put a high on the priority list, but not first, just because there's other things that we have to get done. But and if there are a couple people who want to work with me and with Becky on it, I'm happy that I'm looking mostly at George and Scott, I think is likely culprits. Are you willing to do that? Okay. So we'll work on getting another draft out there. Great. Thank you. Liquor. Now we're talking about liquor briefly here. Damien is with us. Good morning. How are you? Nice to see you. It's good to see everybody as well. I'm fine. I had a crash course in this year's liquor this morning, but I already talked to you. So I don't know the status of it. All I know is that we just got it, right? Yeah. So I think it passed out of House General, but it does have a fee in it. So it has a bunch of things that affect fees, even though they're, you know, affect permits, which then affect fees. So that's all I know. I was asked to look at it and see whether I thought it needed to come in the committee. And I thought probably it was supposed to, so it did. But Bill McGill said it was coming in here anyway. So yeah. So it's, I think it basically, this is its last stop before it heads to the Senate, assuming it passes the House. So yeah. But good news for us is it's only eight pages, so we should be able to get through it quickly. All right. So you're going to walk it, walk through it. And do you know, I'm guessing that there's probably not a fiscal note on it at this point? Not that I'm aware of. I'm not sure that there would be a significant change to the state finances. But you can judge for yourself whether you want a fiscal note. Well, we typically get them when we vote a bill out, unless it's completely unrelated to anything having to do with revenues. So that's maybe Sorsha, you could get in touch with whoever it is at Joint Fiscal who would be doing it. Yes. Actually, Dan Dickerson is looking at it and he's listening in on the call now, but there is not a fiscal note right now. Good. Great. So I can work with Dan after we get off the phone today to answer any questions. Right. So Sorsha, are you able to pull up the document? Yes. Give me a moment. Okay. All right. So if we can scroll down to section one. Okay. So the first section here, what this is addressing is, so this is the fee section in the liquor law. And it doesn't change the fees for a third class license, but what it allows is a municipality to assess an additional $50 local processing fee on these licenses. And the reason for this is typically most establishments that have a third class license, which is a license to serve spirits and other hard alcohol. They typically have a first class license as well, which is a license to serve beer and wine. And the locality gets 50% of the first class license permit fee. So that covers their processing costs. Historically, third class only licenses went through the department. But in recent years, that processing has switched to the local level, which allows for some local oversight. But they haven't been getting any fees to cover their processing work. So this allows them to assess an additional $50 processing fee. There are very few of these establishments that serve just hard liquor, but they do exist. And so this is basically addressing that issue. Are there any questions on this section? Just so I understand it's to treat the standalone license in the same way that you would have if you had a first and third. Is that right? Exactly. And it's covering the local expense of processing this license for the few instances where this occurs. I don't know the exact number, but my understanding is that there's very few of these third class only licenses across the state. But they do exist. And the municipalities that process them have asked for the additional processing fee just to cover their costs of processing the permit. That has a question. Thank you. Damien, on the typical restaurant would be a first and third beer, wine, liquor, correct? Yep. Yeah. So a lot of restaurants may just be a first class only beer and wine. And then the restaurants that want to have a full bar would get a first and a third. You do see third class license only. I can think of a couple places in like Burlington where they serve just like craft cocktails and spirits. They don't serve the beer and wine. Okay. Yeah, I think there is one in Burlington. Are we creating another category for one or two places statewide? When I first read this, I kind of thought that do they even exist? And I guess there are one or two or maybe more. But I was going to say, I don't think we're creating a new category because it's already occurring. What we're doing is allowing for some of the fees or for a portion of the fees to go to the municipality. And it does mean that these businesses here instead of paying the combined first and third fee, they're paying a third class fee. And then if the municipality elects to impose the local processing fee, the additional $50. So let me give you the comparison on the cost here. So Damien, I think I thought I heard you say that that part of the fee is going to go to the municipality. I thought this municipal $50 is additional. The $50 is additional. So the way it works right now is if you have a I'm pulling that up. Sorcha, can we scroll down just slightly to subsection B here? This might help clarify things for folks. So if you have a third class license, you see here with the third class, 55% of that fee goes to the Liquor Control Enterprise Fund and 45% goes to the General Fund. With a first and a second class license, it's a 50-50 split between the municipality and the Liquor Control Enterprise Fund. And so the municipality is getting with the first class license that is $230 license. So the municipality gets $115 of that. With a third class license, currently the municipality gets nothing, but in most instances, that restaurant has a first class license. So for processing the combined application, they're getting $115. So if it's just a third class only application, the municipality would see none of the $1095, but they still have to process the application. This adds a local processing fee if it's just a standalone third class license. So it means for those restaurants, instead of the $1,325, they're going to pay $1145 for just the third class only. And $1,325 is the combined first and third. Does that make sense? So can I follow up on that? Sure. So I get that. I guess it affects very few establishments, sounds like. But anybody currently with a first and third, the municipality is getting a portion of that. And this would not add another $50 onto a first and third license. No, this is just a standalone third class license. All right, thank you. Emily. I just want to fully understand the examples here. So if a distillery had a connected bar that was just selling liquor, is that a whole separate license process? Is that a fourth or something? Sorry, I don't know my liquor law very well. Yeah, so distillery can get a first or a third or both at their manufacturing facility. So they could get, yeah, so let's use the example of of sort of two different places. We'll take, I'll take two places here in Montpelier. So, and I don't know actually if Bar Hill has a full bar, but I think they do. I'm not a drinker. So I haven't actually been over to Bar Hill since they opened up here in Montpelier, but there's really a light there, not just liquor. It's like very airy. I would recommend. Yeah, my wife has liked it, but yeah. Anyway, so let's assume that they just serve liquor at their facility there. So they would get a third class only license. They would, okay. And if that's assuming they don't serve any beer and wine, and that would cost them 1,095 right now, the city of Montpelier would process it, but the city of Montpelier would just pass that fee through to the department of liquor. I understand that, but I just wanted to know if distilleries are in a fifth category or would be included in this category. They're not. One thing that this bill does is it eases the food service requirements for distilleries in that right now in order to get that third class license you have to have basically a full kitchen. Yes. And so that's been an issue for smaller distillers and wineries, particularly ones that are not in downtown Montpelier, but are further off the beaten path and just don't see that kind of food traffic that justifies that. But that's later in this bill and we'll get to that in a second. Can I have one more example? So if a caterer gets a temporary liquor license to be in a different site and is just selling liquor, is that a third class or is that a different class as well? If it's just one off? So a caterer has two licenses. The first is their caterer's license, which is just sort of a general purpose license where you basically say, I'm a caterer. I do events. And then for each event, they have to get a separate permit. Yes. So that is a totally separate category. Thanks. Yep. Okay. Damien, thank you. Thorough explanation. So we're on section two. Yep. All right. Scroll down to that. And so sections two and three are related to each other. Section two right now, all of the licenses and permits and certificates issued by the department expire on April 30th, which is a problem for them because that means that they literally have thousands and thousands of licenses, permits and certificates that need to be renewed on April 30th every year. And so what this basically provides is that instead of renewing all of them in one batch on April 30th, they get renewed a year after the date of issuance. So this does two things. It allows the department to space out its staffing, and it also allows for a new business that's opening up. Say you open up beginning with the holiday season. Under the existing law, that first license you get is only good for five months. If you opened up on December 1st, now you'd have a full year on that license. Does that make sense to everyone? Okay. And then section three is just a transitional provision for 2020 and 2021. That allows the department to any permit and license and certificate that was renewed on April 30th would remain valid for one year or until a later renewal date designated by the department. This basically allows the department to stagger those licenses out over the coming year in order to space its own workload out. That seems actually like a fairly big change in terms of workflow and cash flow. It's a tremendous change that the department has been asking for for a long time. I'm just noting it. Not a lot of words for a big impact. No, it has a huge impact on the department's workflow. And cash flow, right? It's going to affect the licensing fees, which are, I mean, the taxes into the department are the biggest chunk of their cash flow. But this is going to space the cash flow out over the course of the year for renewals. And that's thousands of licenses. Right. Bill has a question. Canfield? Yeah, Damien. This says the liquor and lottery may extend the expiration date. They're not going to cut anybody short. No, this doesn't let them cut anyone short. They have to remain valid for at least one year or a later renewal date designated by the department. So it allows them to extend people out and give them extra time on their license. I don't know how they're planning to do that. But yeah, it does not allow them to say, well, you only get six months this time around. Right. Thank you. Yep. Okay. All right. With that, we'll move on to the first class license provision in section four. So if you scroll down, sort of just a little lower, so the underlying language is at the top of the page, I think we'll be able to see everything together. There you go. Okay. So typically for a first class license, again, this is your beer and wine, you have to be devoted primarily to dispensing meals to the public and have adequate and sanitary space and equipment for preparing and serving meals. The reason the adequate and sanitary space and equipment is underlined is just because it used to be in its own subdivision. And it got bumped up with this. And we used to give an exception for clubs here, which are like your local VFW or American Legion, Elks, that sort of thing. We're now extending that exception on the devoted primarily to dispensing meals to the public and having adequate and sanitary space and equipment for preparing and serving meals, basically a commercial kitchen that meets health department standards to manufacturers and rectifiers. And this will allow them to get a first or a third class license to serve full pours at their vineyard, their brewery, their distillery, which has been an issue. So this has got a pretty convoluted history, but the basic issue that we're solving here is that right now they can get a fourth class license, which allows them to serve samples, but not full pours. But because of some ambiguity in the statute and guidance, some of the manufacturers in the state were serving full pours and then were notified this past year that they could no longer do that because they were supposed to be serving the samples under their fourth class licenses. And so this allows them to get a license to serve full pours without having to take on the added expense of adding a commercial kitchen and getting all the certifications they need around that because that was cost prohibitive for a lot of our smaller manufacturers. George has a question. Yes. Excuse me for a stupid question, but what is a rectifier? A rectifier is, so there are two examples that I can give you here. One would be, are you familiar with like a fortified wine? So right, so you make a port or any other fortified wine by taking all the wine and before you finish fermenting the wine, you add in a spirit, typically brandy, and it kills the yeast. And so that's how you get the sweet taste in your dessert wines, but that's rectification. It's where you're mixing one liquor with another. Another example is a lot of our maple spirits will take a base spirit that the manufacturer doesn't actually make. So they may import a vodka or a whiskey or some other spirit and then they add maple to give it that distinctive maple flavor and then sell it to folks up here. That's another example of rectification. I want to note the time. It's almost noon and I'm okay going a little later. I haven't checked with the rest of the committee if people are. I don't want to go much later because I've got other stuff I've got to get done. Is it okay if we take another 10 minutes or so? I feel all right with that. Thanks for me. So let's try to move along though a little quicker maybe in terms of all the great information we're getting. Sorry, I tend to get a little long-winded. Okay. So we need to have the information. So I will speed up. So that's the bottom line here is what this allows the manufacturers to do is serve full pours without having a full commercial kitchen or restaurant operation. Any questions on that? Oh wait, I've got to get my participant list up here again. No, I'm good. Okay. In section five, we're doing the same thing with third class licenses. So if you scroll down to the highlighted language there, again, we're basically adding manufacturers. Oh too far. All right. Perfect. Right there. We're adding manufacturers and rectifiers to the exception for clubs. So you don't have to have that commercial kitchen. All right. I will skip on the section six here. This is festival permits. What this is doing is this is addressing an issue in the statute where we had these festival permits. And in a fashion that's very typical for our liquor laws, there was not clarity about what a festival was. So the question had come up particularly with the current leadership at the department has been very good at kind of identifying ambiguity in the statute and asking questions, you know, what is this meant to cover? Things that in the past were just kind of left ambiguous. And so the question came up with this when we're talking about festivals. Is this just, for example, the Brewer's Festival that happens in Burlington every year or some of the other Brewer's festivals around the state? Or does this include something like the Jazz Festival or the Do Good Fest? And the answer was this is meant to cover the Brewer's Festival and other alcoholic beverage focused festivals. So that's what this language is doing here. It's clarifying that the primary purpose of the festival permitted under this section is the service of malt beverages, vines beverages, fortified wine spirits. And then it's providing specific limits on the alcoholic beverages you can serve. If you'll scroll down to line 13 at the top of the page, Sorcha. What we're basically doing is limiting it to roughly five to six standard drinks, which is it's a drink containing six tenths of a fluid ounce of alcohol. So a combined total of 3.6 fluid ounces or 84 grams of pure ethyl alcohol is the combined total here that we're going for. And this is language that the department asked for in part because historically a lot of these festivals had been done on kind of an ad hoc basis and this is designed to put everyone on standard footing that everyone is aware of when they're going in and designing this. So for example at the Brewer's Fest you could now get a ticket tickets for five 12 ounce beers. So any questions on that? Nope, didn't look like that. Okay great. So we'll skip on to section seven. Here's section the remainder of this section is just existing language that was moved down. So the promotional tastings for licensees this does two things. The first is it removes the requirement that the staff doing participating in the promotional tasting be off duty for the rest of the day. The reason that this is being removed is two reasons. One, practicality. Oftentimes it's very hard to get staff who are on their day off to come in for a promotional tasting and two, the amounts are so small that the concerns about staff becoming intoxicated are fairly negligible. So the department has agreed this is something that was requested by folks in the restaurant and the beverage industry and the departments agreed that it's okay here. And then the second change here is if we scroll down there it used to require two days written notice to the division of liquor control. That's being taken out because oftentimes these are ad hoc and it's hard to get two days written notice into the department. So this is easing that requirement again because the amounts being served are so small. The concerns about the department doing a drop in sort of audit or inspection during one of these tastings are this is not something that my understanding is this is not something where they feel they need that two days prior notice like they might for a public tasting event or something like that. Where beverages are being served in larger quantities to members of the public who might then be getting in their car or where there might be underage patrons and that sort of thing. Any questions on that? No don't see any. Okay the last section here section 8 this is revising a sunset provision to give the department and the manufacturers an additional year to try to work out a compromise on this issue and basically the issue that came up was around again ambiguity in the statute that had resulted in the department permitting a couple of manufacturers to get a licensed operator a first or a third class license establishment away from their manufacturing premises and this came back to the legislature last year. The legislature clarified that the intent was that manufacturers only get licenses for their manufacturing facility to operate that sort of establishment but then grandfathering in the off-premises locations that were currently there and some of these off-premises locations were also using special events permits which are a short four-day duration permit allowing allowing them to serve beverages but the way that was worded allowed you to just get I think something like 90 of these permits for the year for the same location and basically operate a first or a third class location without actually getting the license. So this is basically extending the the effective date for those two sections and grandfathering in the current manufacturers that have been taking advantage of that. Questions? No, it doesn't look like there are any. Quick question. I know somebody's working on a fiscal note but I think, Sorcia, can you remind me Dan is doing it but what the status is? Yes, it's Dan and he's on he doesn't have a fiscal note right now but he'll be working on it. It does not. Dan, can you weigh in? I'm sorry? I'm just seeing if Dan can weigh in. I see he's still on the call. Can you hear me? So when this bill was being worked on in House General it didn't have a bill number and there were a few different provisions that are no longer there so I'd weighed in on the things that aren't there anymore and I haven't seen the things that are there. So my hope is you know I can get a few hours this afternoon to work on it and maybe tomorrow morning I'll have something ready. That's fine. If something were ready I was thinking we might be ready to vote but we will wait and do that on Tuesday which is when we meet again. Okay. The question I've got for the committee it doesn't seem as though there are any changes in the bill. My consensus is that we're probably most likely to vote it out as is. Am I incorrect about that? Has somebody got something that they want to throw on the table and look like it? So we need the fiscal note before we send it out there. Question for the committee do you want the fiscal note before we vote or before we report it? Anyone care? Somebody want to make the motion? George? Yeah I would say that it appears that there's very little is going to impact the revenues of the state and I don't I don't personally think we need to wait for the fiscal note. I'm happy to entertain a motion to vote the bill out. We won't report it until we have a fiscal note so it wouldn't go on. Second. Moved and seconded to vote. I don't remember the bill number. That was my question. Do we have a bill number for me to put in the roll call? No. This is just to do. H956. Thank you. So it's been moved and seconded that we vote H956 out favorably. Is there discussion? Was that Peter who seconded it? Yes. Thank you. I need to call the roll. I am now. Okay. Representative Anthony. Yes. Representative Beck. Yes. Representative Brennan. Yes. Representative Dunnevin has left. He had to leave. Yeah. Okay. Representative Pornhizer. Yes. Representative Maslund. Yep. Representative Shai is yes. Representative Till. Yes. Representative Young. Yes. Representative Sanfield. Yes. Representative Ansel. Yes. 10-0-1. Good. So first of all I want to thank Damian for getting through this quickly and with not a lot of notice ahead of time. Very welcome. Appreciate it. And Dan, we will wait for the fiscal note and I'll check with the speaker about whether she wants it to go in tomorrow's calendar. That would mean it would be on notice tomorrow and out for action Tuesday which I think would probably be fine. But I'll just check with her. And Damian, it's we don't need to do anything even though this looks doesn't have a bill number on it. This is what the bill H956 says, right? Yeah. So that it's yeah H956 was yeah it's as introduced by general and so I think you're just yeah you're you're reporting it without any changes. Good. And Dan you'll send to Sorcia so she can distribute to the committee the fiscal notice and as it's done. Yes, I will absolutely. Okay. Very good. Anything else anyone has on that committee that was a lot of good work. Can I ask who will be reporting this bill if you know? I let me I'll let you know. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Great. Thanks everybody. See you soon. I guess. See you again. Bye. Janet. Yeah. Ending the live stream now. Thank you. Janet. Yes, Bill. The governor is going to make an announcement tomorrow about beauty salons and barbershops. I'm going to be squeezed on Tuesday between this. So if I could be ahead of schedule knowing what our times are, it'd be great. It's the same time that we had this week. Now this morning we were supposed to start at 10 but I got pulled to another meeting. So we started at 11. But the times I have scheduled are the Tuesday. Tuesday at 10. So she's going to help me. Wednesday at 930. Is that right? Or 9 to 1030. And then Thursday at 10. I've asked to see if we need more time to see if I can get another hour in there. But I haven't figured out when that would happen. But what I'm hoping to do is to we've got two charter things or local option taxes. And then I want to get the thing moved, although I think with the work that we did yesterday, we're getting closer on that. And that's what we're going to do with the educational bills.