 Good afternoon. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are picking up this afternoon where we left off looking at the proposal to create an agency of public safety from various different angles and with various entities who would be impacted by this potential change. And so what we're going to do I think to start out with is invite Mike O'Neill who is the President of the Vermont Troopers Association to share with us your perspective on what the creation of an agency of public safety would mean for your members. Thank you Madam Chair. Good afternoon everybody. Again for the record my name is Mike O'Neill. I'm now the Executive Director of the Vermont Troopers Association. I retired a couple of years ago and now I'm working for the Union. So left state employment and went to work for our union and really enjoyed this job and there's a lot of significant opportunities to testify this year. I'm sure that I may see a committee on again as the year goes on. The Troopers Association represents the troopers and sergeants in the state place. The Lieutenant Steve Howard's organization VSEA still represents and we represent them on all collective bargaining issues, discipline, everything that any other union would handle. On this issue, I don't see at face value that immediately there is a major impact to our membership. It looks like most of the changes here are a matter of who's being brought into an agency of public safety and how those changes would go. So as far as how troopers and sergeants are impacted by this, I think it would be a matter of how some of the details of this have worked out if this were to happen. What I do see just from my own perspective is not just bringing some other law enforcement in but creating what appears just to be more bureaucracy between the management of each of these law enforcement divisions and the secretary. It looks like it's going to create at least two more commissioner positions and a deputy secretary position. I'm sure there's some reasoning behind that and some thinking coming from the administration on this proposal, but in creating a department of law enforcement. From what I see what it does is put the kernel of the Vermont State Police, who is the one that manages and supervises all public safety issues in Vermont. If you're looking at a very significant scale, another layer creates another layer between he and the governor's office when they need to have that communication. If I were creating this, I think I would have four divisions, a department of law enforcement and a department of state police, because the issues of the Vermont State Police are so much more, so much different than those of DMV or fishing game or liquor control if they're in, you know, those are departments that have enforcement related responsibilities that are very narrowly related to their function in their department. So, I don't know if there's much more I can add to that right now if you have questions I can answer but I think we're going to have to watch and see what happens with this and figure out what may impact our members and what position to take on that. All right. Thank you committee any questions for Mike from his initial comments. John Gannon. Thank you madam chair, and Mike thank you for testifying today. Do you have any concerns about the changes being made to putting the Vermont Criminal Justice Council underneath the what will be the agency of public safety. I've had some conversation about that put some thought into it and initially I think we're still preparing to learn what the changes made last year will do for the Council and how the Council will function with the addition of several new positions I think there's 24 members on there and I don't know that your intent was to have, you know, a role of secretary overseeing the Council or if you wanted the Council to remain independent, and it's not a question. I'm prepared to answer as far as our position on it. I think we have to really figure out how a lot of this will work. There is some benefit to the training Academy itself falling under an agency and another level of supervision above that but that's much different than the Council and how the Council will function. So I don't know that I haven't answered yet. If that if the answer is your question. No, thank you. That was a good answer. One of the rationales that we have heard in committee. The benefit of creating this agency and bringing different law enforcement entities together under one umbrella is the opportunity to share equipment, and I guess, I guess I just wanted to understand from your perspective of someone who's been on the ground and and had to use, you know, your state police equipment. How realistic is it that that that these various law enforcement agencies would be sharing boats and snowmobiles and trailers and and and thereby finding some economies of scale by being able to trade equipment back and forth. From the perspective of my time as a trooper, what I would say is the equipment is very specific to the department using it. It's all marked very specifically to either state police fishing game DMV. And there are people that are assigned to maintain and use that. There may be a necessity to help each other with that type of equipment. Normally the officer involved is going and helping and I think over the years we've always seen that fishing game is very willing to come over and help the state police on issues that we have in common so we work together frequently anyway. And I don't see that this would change that so I'm not sure that sharing of equipment really will, at least from what I've seen be an issue. I don't. I can't think of any specific examples that it would really change the way things are working now. Bob Hooper. Thank you madam chair here Mike. This morning we had DMV and and I asked a little bit of a question about duplication of tasks on like the DMV truck inspection folks and state police. If they both came into the same under the same umbrella. You think that has there been any conversation about the duplication that might lead to the troopers unit being disbanded all the responsibility sent over DMV and the troopers being sent off on road for patrol or other higher priority sort of tasks. There is there is sort of a duplication right. In some ways in the past the state police had a truck enforcement team and that goes back. I think many years now so I guess I've been around for a while. The DMV does just about all of the truck enforcement that is their role. They are the ones that handle truck enforcement they help the state police at times with accidents involving commercial vehicles. But the role of DMV is primarily truck enforcement and the state police is all other enforcement. So I don't know that we will run into that issue. I think it depends. It's made where they're trying to pull one into the other. Would there be a push to take you know truck enforcement people from DMV into the state police and make them troopers. I think that's a lot of the questions that are unknown. And I don't see a benefit to that I've always said that taking positions from another department to bring them into the state police doesn't really give us more positions it gives us more responsibility and those same positions are still going to be handling the same enforcement. So I don't know that I see that there's going to be any change either on that level. John Gannon. Thank you. Mike, are there any positions opening in the Mont State police right now? There are always positions open. I think as of today we're somewhere in the ballpark of 30 vacancies or more. And it always depends on the training cycles of the Academy. Yeah, how many can we get into each class to try to maintain a level of staffing where we're not holding a high level of vacancies. So please don't quote me on the number I think it's around 30 as of now but I haven't asked that question in a couple of months of exactly where we are. Okay, and is that typically been the case that there's that many vacancies? It goes up and down depending on many factors. Retirements are always a big issue how many are coming at any given time. How many people do we lose to other agencies other jobs. There's been a bit of a spike recently in troopers looking at other employment and it's something I think is occurring around the country and law enforcement. Much of it is in part to what's going on with society regarding law enforcement and a lot of people are really asking them a question is this a profession I want to stay in with what's taking place nationally with some of the changes in attention on law enforcement. Would you be at all concerned that if you know there's large number of vacancies in the state police that there would be an effort to at least on a temporary basis, you know, reassign DMV officers to fill those positions. We would always be concerned about that as a union our position would always be that the work of our members the troopers and sergeants be conducted just by our members and I'm sure DMV would have the same concerns from their perspective. I think as a state that has collective bargaining in a supportive of unions we should always stick with that principle. And do you know if there are differences between the collective bargaining agreements between the troopers and DMV law enforcement officers. Yes, there are. There's a lot of significant differences. Compensation and benefits are different in each of them. And, you know, some may argue I was a better and I always argue they're different. And it depends on the job you're doing and what benefits go along with the responsibility of your job but yes there are differences. Can you explain any of those. The state police pay scale is different than the pay scale of the SCA, which includes the state law enforcement they're all in the non management bargaining unit. We have a pay scale that is everybody in state government has a pay scale with 15 steps. Our pay scale is one step each year until you reach the 15th step the rest of state government has a pay scale that is five one year steps, seven two year steps. And I believe three three steps. So it is a significant difference in the amount of time it takes to get to the top of that pay scale. The pay rates in them are also different hours actually is a little bit lower than the BSE a pay scale, but you accelerate through it faster. So there are some differences that are a little complicated to understand without really sitting down and going through some of them. Thank you. Thank you for being with us today. I guess I want to bring you back to thinking a little bit about the criminal justice council. And shifting away from training and looking more at the professional regulation of law enforcement. You, you touched on this briefly a moment ago about the, the intense focus of the public on law enforcement right now and the, and the challenges that that can bring to two folks who are serving as law enforcement officers. It has been the focus of ours for a while to improve the, the oversight and professional regulation of law enforcement and what we recognize is that, you know, we need to have a robust criminal justice council. We need to do that professional regulation right now and, and they are reporting to us that they need to have certain resources available to them. I guess, setting aside for a moment the conversation about how this executive order might impact the criminal justice council's ability to advocate for what they need to do that job. What are your members feeling about, about professional regulation in general and about the process that that they undergo if somebody alleges that they have acted improperly as a law enforcement officer. As an organization, we actually were one of the first involved in the process of creating Act 56. I worked closely with the director of the Academy at the time Rick Gauthier, who was the former director. And both of the government operations committees both your committee, and in the Senate, we supported changes that brought professionalism to Vermont law enforcement. Our members have always been held to a very high standard, and there aren't many situations where I believe the council would be acting on certification to remove somebody's certification. And that person was still employed by the Vermont State Police. So our members support this because they know that if you're in a situation where the council were to be taking your certification. Probably or most definitely would have already lost your employment with the Vermont State Police anyway. So as a bargaining unit, I think it was an easy thing for us to accept, because we know the discipline within the Vermont State Police is probably in most cases, much a much higher level than the council would be holding people to for certification. Thank you. Any questions from committee members. All right, I hope you'll stick around for a few minutes in case we come back to you and have any other questions for you. Okay, thank you. So Steve Howard. I would invite you to share your thoughts on the executive order proposal generally and and get specific in whatever areas you'd like to. Thank you Madam Chair, if it's all right with you and with the committee. Since I suspect between now and may you're going to hear from me an awful lot and probably get sick of my voice. I actually know something about this matter. John Federico is here with us John is a member of the VSE a leader in the VSE a career law enforcement officer so if that's all right with you I think I will defer to him for our testimony on this issue. Thank you Steve. John welcome to the committee. Very nice background you have there. I appreciate you inviting us to speak to the committee today. For the record my name is John Federico I am a commercial vehicle enforcement inspector for the agency of transportation department motor vehicles division of enforcement and safety commercial vehicle enforcement unit. So mouthful I know. I have six years going on seven years of experience with the DMV and I've served in law enforcement in Vermont since 1990. I'm also the VSE a new VSE a representative on the VC JC and the lea B. I'm here today, testifying on my own time representing my views and those are the vast majority of my colleagues. To that end, nothing I say today is intended to assert or imply that the administration has anything other than the best interests for monitors and mine, and we are not questioning their motives. I am a member of the VSE a and I understand that the breadth of the executive order may affect many VSE a members but I cannot today speak for all of them. The DMV enforcement and safety divisions mission includes protecting for monitors by enforcing highway safety regulations meant to protect for monitors lives, protecting for monitors highway for months highway infrastructure and protecting the integrity of DMV systems for titling licensing registration and more. We have the resource for DMV staff and for law enforcement statewide as the subject matter experts and what we do. How do we continue helping them and maintaining that expertise. One step removed from the DMV. Perhaps now the institutional memory will serve us, but will it in five 10 or 15 years. We would agree that modernizing policing and endeavoring to form the best public safety delivery system for monitors are indeed laudable goals. We believe we can have a fair and equitable, efficient and responsive system of policing at the state level without creating a large cumbersome police agency with multiple priorities, albeit under the umbrella of public safety. We would oppose the governor's executive order and we asked the House representatives to object. If the legislature feels the idea warrants further consideration, we would ask it and include the rank and file and any legislative study committee. We asked the BSEA to serve survey all of sworn law enforcement officers in the state of Vermont, not including the troopers represented by the VTA. The bulk of sworn officers are made up of DMV inspectors and investigators fishing game wardens and liquor control investigators. 87% of the officers surveyed or against a move to be absorbed into an agency of public safety. We oppose this order because of our concerns about mission creep and our concern that critical highway safety mission may be diluted by the larger demands of an agency of public safety. We oppose this order because the importance of maintaining the priority of our mission and how it ties to federal highway funding. Connecting AOT from the federal requirement required enforcement provisions will create difficulties and not efficiencies. Not at least without a purposeful transparent and vetted process for how they will be accomplished before such a reorganization occurs. We believe in the demand for fair and impartial policing and accountability for police officers. We believe that a smaller unit supervised as it is today lends itself to greater accountability and support for police officers than the structure of a super law enforcement agency. We oppose this executive order because of the lack of information and real discussion about how this will impact our mission and our work and the absence of a detailed plan for execution. We believe that a 90 day rush to consider an issue this large is too short and too compact a timeline for us and for you, given all we have on our plates in this pandemic and in these challenging times. There are too many unknowns that deserve a full and thorough discussion. The impacts are unclear. The impacts of a singular control and philosophy of one law enforcement agency are unclear, and the impacts of the enforcement and safety division civilian educational unit investigators and support staff is also unclear. This disorder because DMV and DPS law enforcement officers already can and do work together. We already are all state of Vermont employees DPS and DMV officers have things that we already do or can easily do together today, or one phone call or radio call away from asking one another for assistance at any level. We are already quite capable of an amenable to sharing information DPS is currently set to adopt the same records management system and deep and dispatching system that we currently use, which will increase that capacity. We can offer one another joint training opportunities we coordinate and cooperate and special operations and when needed and with the right person to give a cent. We can share resources and all this without a drastic change in the organizational chart. As DPS, we too are required to abide by all the same policies that the legislature has and may deem essential for all Vermont law enforcement officers to follow, and to accomplish any similar mandatory training. We're concerned that the executive order is a solution and search for problem, at least as far as the incorporation of the enforcement and safety division is concerned. To be sure, the current way of doing things is neither the only way, nor necessarily the best way. At the end of the day, this isn't about us. It's about Vermonters. However, we believe it is a way that works well for Vermonters. It is in fact unique, like for months unique. And that's always been a good thing. Thank you. Thank you john I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us. Any questions from committee members. John Ganon. Thank you. And john, thank you for testifying this afternoon. You know, Commissioner Sherwin said he reached out to talk to a lot of people in putting this executive order together. Did he reach out to DMV law enforcement officers and discuss the order with them to your knowledge. No, not to my knowledge. Rob LeClaire. Thank you madam chair. Sorry, I'm having some internet stability issues here so hopefully this will help. Good afternoon john. My question I have is, can you tell me, I understand a concern about being coming part of a larger super agency where what's the benefit of remaining part of DMV as we currently know it for what you folks do. Thank you for that question. I think that, you know, we understand it's that our mission is is most is more closely aligned with the Department of Motor Vehicles than it is than it is anywhere else. So, while we talk about potential streamlining and efficiencies on one side of the coin on the other you're sort of taking away those efficiencies and and streamline opportunities. When you remove us from the network of the DMV. When we talk of our, our work and and just a, I can't even imagine the amount of legislation that's out there that interconnects our mission with all the, the title 23 motor vehicle laws and the things that the commissioner motor vehicles is responsible for It's a great question for your legislative council exactly. How is it that things can continue to operate smoothly if you simply change the title of commissioner motor vehicles to Secretary of Agency of Public Safety, does it doesn't work that way. We're very concerned that how that will all work if, if, if they separate us from DMV, but yet the bulk of our work responsibilities and missions continues to sort of be at the core of DMV. Very good. Thank you, John. Mike McCarthy. Hi, I'm chair. John, thanks for testifying today I served a couple terms on house transportation before coming over here to go out so I'm new here and might know more than some of the other members about how integral the work that you do is to, you know, not only preserving highway safety but also, you know, making sure that the folk who are paying the their taxes, you know, through the apportioned system that we have for commercial vehicles are complying with all of the if try and the various laws there and one of the concerns that came up for me when I was considering the proposal and bringing DMV in under the larger agency is that, you know, we, we fund and kind of keep the transportation funds separate in large part by, you know, having, you know, DMV transportation being over there and then there's only a little bit of a transfer of money from the transportation fund that goes into funding the state police for their portion of highway safety stuff so I'm wondering from your end, you know, do you see any sort of mixing of the transportation and getting away from having the the dedicated enforcement and making sure that we're, you know, collecting the, the, and that there's compliance with the various apportioned fuel tax and other apportion payments that commercial vehicles use if we bring DMV in under the agency. Yes, sir. That they're all very good questions and and I think they fall under the challenge of the unknown without a roadmap. I don't think you we can answer those questions. We know that they work where we are today. And I was, I was really struck by the by the what I felt was a was a pretty good endorsement of what we do by listening to the gentleman's comments today from industry. You know, you hear that from the actual people that you know you you regulate you go out and you you stop them and you, and sometimes you give them tickets and you put them out of service and you know and but but to have that and still shake hands and smile and and and at the end of the day, I think speaks volumes for where we are. So, I'm, I'm sort of the new guy. I still consider myself the new guy at DMV. And since coming here. I think a lot of what we do is to, is to, is to make sure that we're keeping industry all in the same playing field so that so that everything is fair. Everybody's, everybody's doing things the right way and, and Vermont infrastructure is protected and, and, I think it works well today, we're well supported, both in the funding arena and other arenas. And I just don't know how that will, will change. And, you know, I, on top of the comments that I've heard, you know, I would say, we, we, we could maybe be assured of that today. But as administrations change, you know I just don't know what assurances down the road. Any of us can be given about those things. Thanks. Any other questions from committee members. Well, I'm waiting to see if anybody dives in to raise their hand. You mentioned that you are the BSEA representative to the criminal justice council. Yes, it's a brand new position that we were afforded. And so I just participated in one or two meetings thus far. And what's your sense of how well the newly constituted council is coming together and getting up to speed to take on its tasks. Well, I've already gotten my first subcommittee assignment. I'm very excited about it in my previous to DMV career. I did a lot of recruiting for my former agency and, and so I'm going to be working on updates to entrance testing requirements, both the written test and the physical fitness test and that those kinds of things to bring them up to today's standards. I'm really looking forward to that. And I, you know, I think the fact that we've expanded the committee may mean that it has the chance for a lot more work to be done. And, and I, and if I can put a plug in, since, since you asked the talked about it earlier, the funds that the Academy is requiring, you know, we would, we would support that, you know, I see the very benefit and the need for the, for the things that they outlined. And I think they're important. Did you also mention that you are on the law enforcement advisory board. Yes, that's correct. And how long have you been on the board. Just, just recently again they those, those, the position that the BSEA was afforded just started in January. Okay. And have has the board met. We had two meetings with that board and I'm on a subcommittee that working on the body worn camera policy. Perfect. We're going to come back to this issue tomorrow afternoon, just to hear a little bit more about the progress that's being made with the newly constituted board but if you have any thoughts on the higher level. Thoughts that you can share with the committee we've got a couple folks here who are brand new to the legislature and a few more who are new to the committee here in government operations so what is the law enforcement advisory board focusing on in addition to the body cam policy and and what do you think would be helpful for brand new legislators to know about the the work of the board. I could speak a little bit more intelligently about that, but really given that that I've only, I've only participated in two meetings and they have largely surrounded the issue of the body worn cam policy that that I think, I think we're trying to make sure it gets done, because I believe the, the, the ask is that the LAB, the LAB handed off to the, the larger council for their consideration. So really the push has been to get that done and so my, I'm straining already my memory to see what else, what was next on the on the block for them to consider. But that's, that's what the focus is on really at the moment. Yeah. Well, I've totally put you on the spot there. Didn't pass up the opportunity to get your perspective on. I know we have other priorities. Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions from committee members on DMV law enforcement perspective on the executive order. I see none so thank you so much for being with us john and Mike and Steve thank you for for being with us as well and you know where to find us if you have any other thoughts that you want to share with us after after you leave the meeting and we look forward to talking with you again. Thank you much appreciate it. All right, committee. Here we go. We have amaran with us to do a walkthrough of, of our boards and commissions bill. And I don't know if john or Rob want to just sort of give us an orientation to what is in this bill, where it came from, why are we considering it and then we can let amaran take us through the actual language of the bill. Sure, I can provide a brief overview. So, two bienniums ago, this committee passed legislation to create the sunset advisory commission, which is a commission made up of both house and senate to house and senate members each, and to two members appointed because there's a total of six people on it. And our responsibility is to review all the boards and commissions in the state with the purpose of identifying one should some of them be terminated because they're no longer serving a useful purpose. So, two should some of the them have their statutory language be modified because their their role has changed or should be changed. And also to look at making per diems consistent. The standard per diem that a volunteer to a board gets is $50 a day. But when we started this process. They were, they were all over the map somewhere $30 a day somewhere more. So we want to be sure that we're being fair with how we're treating board members with respect to their funding. And this we've been meeting in the off session in the summer so this was the third summer we met we have one more summer to go before this whole process is over. We've been working our way through all 250 plus boards. One of the challenges is every year the legislature meets it, it approves a new board, some of which we take a look at. So that's what we've been doing and the good news is that we've been able to repeal many boards because either they're not serving a useful purpose, or having met in a long long time. Unfortunately, boards just sort of hang out there even if they're not meeting or not serving a useful purpose and this way, you know we sort of eliminate some of those boards and commissions. One of our final tasks is to try to come up with a process to organize all the boards and commissions so the governor's office who has the major responsibility for appointing members of the boards. But you know anybody who's looking to serve the state has a database that they can go to to identify all the boards and commissions. There was a former state employee auto trout who some of you may have heard of who voluntarily kept the list of all the boards and commissions in the state. There was no official list of all the boards and commissions. So that's been part of our responsibility to. And so, you know, we are still working with the Secretary of State's office. So with respect to that, especially the Sarah about trying to compile a database that will have all the boards and commissions, so that we can keep track of them. So the bill in front of you basically identifies boards and commissions that we think need to be repealed, or some of their language to be modified this year we were a little more. flexible in some cases, in not making a formal recommendation in the bill with respect to to a border commission but in some instances sending memos to chairs of various policy committees to consider making changes to some of these boards and I will highlight one board that we will discuss that's in the bill which is the commission on women. And as Sarah knows, Jeanette, Senator White and I sent her a memo, asking us to specifically look at the lobbying language that is currently in the language around the commission on women and whether that should stay there. And the reason I'm highlighting that is, it is the only border commission that is prohibited from lobbying. And that may be a unique because of how the commission on women was created it was originally under the governor by executive order. And then it went into statue. So that's something that, you know, it's, you know, obviously the chair decides whether we take that up or not. But that's one thing that we asked that this committee discussed. Any questions about the process I'd be happy to answer now or offline. I think it has been a productive commission in eliminating a lot of boards and commissions that really serve no useful purpose. Rob, do you want to add anything. No john you did an excellent job of reading everything I will tell him for you. No, excellent job my friend. You're great. Thank you for your great work on this and john thank you for setting the context for what we're about to look at. And now Amron I think we will go to you and I believe you have provided the bill to us on our committee page. It should be there yes. I think we will look at it on our secondary devices and would love to follow along with you. All right, for the record this is Amron average LA legislative council. I'm going to do a walkthrough of H 121 22. This is a bill that proposes to amend statutes relating to those states boards and commissions. In this review within this bill we have the National Forest Lands Board commission on women, the toxics technical advisory board, the champion land transaction citizen advisory council and the working group on conservation easements, beginning towards the bottom of page one, and I should note I've been having some connectivity issues today so if I disappear, I will try and log back on and go from there but I just wanted to warn you. Section one starting with the repeal of the National Forest Lands Board. This repeals an entire section here this is a section that states that the consent of the state of Vermont is given to the acquisition by the United States by purchase gift or compensation with adequate compensation of such lands in Vermont with approval of a board, consisting of the governor lieutenant governor attorney general commissioner of forests, parks and recreations and secretary of agriculture, food and markets, and the section repeals that board entirely it leaves other sections within this chapter 13 jurisdiction of the United States alone so all of those still stand in terms of the other operations of land transfer between the state and the United States government. Now I'm scrolling down to page three in section two. So these are some conforming changes to specify that the lands that we're talking about our national forests within the state of Vermont. So that is section two and section three. I'm going to go back to section four. This is a section which adds chapter 70 to title three. As representative Gannon was mentioning this commission on women was originally established by executive order, and it was placed within title three under chapter the governor's chapter. This proposal would move the commission on women into a new chapter 70 within title three. And I'm scrolling down to page four. There are some changes in here to the to the appointment process and perhaps composition of the commission, the commission would still consist of 16 members. However, it eliminates in subsection one here, it would lift the restriction that not more than four of whom shall be from one political party for the governor's appointments. And then for the eight members that are appointed by the General Assembly, it keeps the structure that for would be appointed by the Senate Committee on committees and for by the Speaker of House. However, down here in subdivision be it does essentially increase the number of legislators that may be appointed from two to four in that each chamber may appoint not more than two legislators. And if a chamber appoints two legislators, they shall not be from the same political party. It specifies in subdivision C one that not more than four legislators may serve on the commission at one time. Moving on to page five. This is kept all of the same language that the commission had previously moving into page six. Again, all of the same statutory language will be kept. And the same is true of page seven. And now page eight section six is going to be some conforming revisions to make sure that there are, if there are references to the commission on women that they be redesignated with section 5025. And that the Office of Legislative Council needs to revise any of the statutes that have an outdated cross reference. Section seven is a repeal of the toxics technical advisory board. Which occurs down starting on page nine subsection E. And this would repeal the board in its entirety. You'll see all of the duties of the border outlined on page nine. Moving into page 10 and into page 11. And I'm going to skip down to page 12. Section eight. This is a repeal of champion land transaction citizen advisory council. This would repeal the statute, eliminating the council in its entirety. And the council duties were to function as a form to hear an attempt to resolve concerns involving the so called champion lands that are brought to the attention of the council regarding ongoing use and management of state lands collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and public access to the public and privately held lands. I'm now on page 13 for those of you that are following along. The council also functions as a source of information to persons interested in learning about the transaction, including its legal conditions or about the ongoing use and management of the land. So moving from page 13 into 14. This is more elimination of the statutory provisions regarding this board. Beginning on page 15 section nine repeals the working group on conservation easements that was established by the act number 118 from 2012 in section nine. And in section 10. This is the repeal and transfer of duties of the pre kindergarten dash 16 council is that pre kindergarten to 16. So a couple things to note about this the the duties are being moved from this pre kindergarten to 16 council, which is currently residing in chapter 99, which is the general policy chapter in the education title to the Vermont higher education endowment trust fund, which is in chapter 90 and chapter 90 is funding of post secondary education. The pre kindergarten to 16 council was created to help coordinate and better align the efforts of the pre kindergarten through 12 educational system with the higher education community. You'll see that there is the composition of the council is included here which has 17 members. The council develops and regularly updates a statewide plan to increase aspirations for and the successful completion of post secondary education among students of all ages, and otherwise advance the purpose for which the council is created. I'm now moving on to page 18. There will be more striking of language for this council, moving into page 19 at the top of page 19. I will note that this council currently does have duties in connection with the higher education endowment trust fund, which we'll see further down in this bill. So section 11 is the amendment to chapter. To the Vermont higher education funding chapter. And within section 11, I'm going to scroll down on to page 20. There are some conforming changes here to note that the council is now being created under subsection, each of this section rather than within subsection to 905 of the previous chapter. The name is true for those edits in subsection E. Moving on to page 21. This bill would create a new subsection H, which is creating the Vermont higher education endowment trust fund council to perform the duties set forth in subsections D and E of the section. The council will be attached to the office of the treasurer for administration purposes, and shall be composed of the following members. You can see those members listed here one through seven, a couple of things to note while there is a repeal of the pre kindergarten to 16 council and transfer of some of the duties that you see in subsection D and E. You'll notice there was a lot of language that was stricken from the pre K to 16 council that is not being moved over here so just pointing out some of the differences when we, when I mentioned earlier that the, the council was going to have a statewide plan about furthering the work those sections are not transferred over here. In terms of the composition of the new council, it has seven members listed here rather than the 17 that were listed in the, in the prior version of this. Although I will say that these seven members are part of the 17 that are currently listed for the existing council. And in terms of some other minor language changes that the committee might want to look at here. The, we have, for example, number one lists the president of the University of Vermont. In the current council, it specified or design for all of these. For all of the appointed members, I would recommend either saying personally, or by design for each of these that it's clear whether you actually are requiring the president of the University of Vermont personally or whether a design is sufficient for purposes of the council. And then also, I did note that in the, the pre-k to 16 council. When we're talking about a member of the House and of the Senate, there was a sort of term restriction on how long they served in the council in the current pre-k to 16 council, which is that the member of the House or Senate would serve until the beginning of the biennium immediately after the one in which the member is appointed. So just while it is labeled a repeal and transfer, I just want to point out it is not a transfer of everything from the pre-k to 16 council over into this new council. There are some differences. And then lastly, the effective date is that this shall take effect upon passage. Thank you, Amron. Right. Any committee members have questions sparked by a jog through the bill. Mark Higley. Thank you. If we could go back up to page four, line nine and 10 on the commission on women talks about it's striking out no more than four of whom shall be from one political party. I guess, I guess why would that be stricken that that to me allows it to allows the governor to choose eight members that could be from the same party. Am I correct? John, do you or Rob have, have thoughts on why it is drafted? I have to go back and look at my notes on that. I know there was a good reason why we made those changes. But I'll check my notes. Okay, thanks, because that that seems a little concerning to me that's not usually the way things are set up, but just I would like to know why I guess. Thank you. Chair, could I venture a guest that might jog represented Gannon's memory. Yes. I'm looking at this and this first I've ever seen of it so I might be totally wrong, but it sounds like those eight appointees aren't legislative. They don't necessarily, they aren't necessarily elected officials. And in Vermont since we don't register our party affiliation how would you know what party they affiliate with. If you were correct, I will double check my notes. I think that was part of the consternation with respect to that. Right, I suppose the governor would then have to ask in order for him or her to know whether an appointee was of a particular political persuasion. Any other thoughts questions from committee members. John. So, if we go to, I just want to highlight the lobbying language so that people can take a look at that. That is on page seven starting at line six. We're still in statute but we did receive a memo from the sunset advisory commission as to whether or not this language should be struck from statute. As I noted earlier, the commission for women is the only commission or board that has this type of language in it. We had Kerry Brown testified before the sunset advisory commission. She's the executive director of the commission on women. And not only is the lobbying language in these in this thing concerning but it also impacts contracts that they may have with other people because it applies to anyone they contract with. It can be difficult. Like if you're contracting with a law firm. They may, you know, not as part of their agreement with you but they may be lobbying for other purposes. So she did testify about the concerns about that language, but it's also, you know, why is this the only border commission that has a restriction on its ability to lobby as most people know many organizations, boards and commissions come into our committee rooms to serve as subject matter experts and testify. This, to some extent, you know, brings into question whether the commission for women can do that and I mean they put some valuable information together about the impact of COVID-19 on women and unemployment. So I just raise this as, you know, hopefully a starting point for discussion about what to do with this language. I appreciate you bringing that up. Mark Higley. What's the difference between lobbying and testifying on a particular matter. Does lobbying get into, you know, getting behind a individual campaign and allowing them to contribute. Is that is that part of the lobbying. So lobbying goes to advocating for a specific position on typically being paid to advocate for a specific position. So it so it doesn't go as far as, you know, being being allowed to lobby for a particular candidate in an election. I want to double check to VSA chapter 11. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Amron for for giving us a walkthrough on this bill. We will need to spend some time as a committee getting a little more familiar with the toxic technical advisory board and what it did and why it's no longer necessary. A little blast from the past on champion lands and even further in the past, I guess, as we look at section one on acquisition of federal lands. So, if the committee doesn't have any other questions. Oh, how's got a question go right ahead. Thank you, Madam chair. John, you mentioned from earlier that there, there is a database in the works and very much needed. And what responsibility will that be. And, and any sense of when that might be coming online. That is the project for our final summer before the sense advisory commission sunsets. But the secretary of state's office and more specifically this are would be responsible we've been taking testimony from Tonya Marshall with respect to how to create it she has some ideas. I don't know how to do it because other states have tackled this process because we do want to have a transparent way for monitors to see what opportunities there are to serve in government. Right now it's not always transparent what positions are available and who appoints them. Now, typically the governor points the majority of members to boards and commissions. The licenses the speaker and the Senate Committee on committees also appoints people to a variety of boards and commissions. So, one good thing about doing this was all this data would be collected in one place. The governor does have some sort of database on this. But it's not totally accurate as we found in trying to hunt down some of these less active boards and commissions. Thank you. Great. All right. Well, thank you, Amron for for taking us through the boards and commissions bill and thank you for the context, john and of course Rob for all of your contributions to preparing those remarks. We will come back to this in many, many different ways I'm sure to take a look at each of the boards or commissions that is contemplated and so I believe that is all we have on our agenda for today. All right. Any other questions committee before we sign off. All right. See you all a bright and early tomorrow morning back with Amron on the OPR bill.