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thank you for joining us this morning i'm karen horne the public policy advocate for vlct and with me is gwen zack up our municipal policy advocate i might have said that wrong but close enough um and uh we're going to discuss uh what's been going on or more likely what's going to go on in the coming week in the legislature i would ask that you you unmute yourself if you want to ask a question everybody is muted to start and uh you can also put questions in the chat lisa goodell and jim burke are helping us with the techno technological aspects of this today and um if you are not able to put something in the chat and have a question feel free to just break in that's that's good as well let's see uh please unmute yourself or raise a hand if you're going to speak in and you have that capability we'll monitor the chat for questions and then please do remember that you can monitor action at the legislature in any committee at their website and you can go to the agenda for each committee and at the top of the agenda they will have the link for watching live on youtube so with that uh gwen is going to go first this morning and discuss a few different issues and then i'm going to follow up with mostly some budget discussion thank you karen good morning everybody gwen zakhov here uh karen gotta write municipal policy advocate um i'm gonna go over three issues with you this morning a couple of them um you've already heard about and one's a little bit newer um first one i'm gonna talk about is liquor licenses um there's a couple bills that are in discussion in house general committee one is a bill that was dealt with last year but got abandoned after the covid uh pandemic began um and wasn't taken up again um in that committee it's sort of a uh miscellaneous updating to department of liquor and lottery um laws and um within it there is a provision and this is a bill h 3 14 if anyone or 3 13 if anyone's following um that would include a um increase um to a class three stand-alone license fee at the local level as everyone knows uh the towns and cities that administer liquor licenses get a portion of the fees that is set by the state for certain licenses and one that we don't get license fees for our standalone actually just class 3 licenses in general and so this bill would include a 50 administration fee to go to municipalities for these licenses to help pay for the um administration of class three standalone licenses um there is another bill 314 that i have heard will be um discussed and incorporate and possibly incorporated into 313 which um right now it's just a a bill with um no language in it um short form bill is what they call it but essentially what the title um proposes is that it would reduce the fees for class 1 and class 3 liquor licenses by 50 for the year 2021 it's an attempt to help local businesses um with the cost of um liquor licenses that's just applying to class one and class three we obviously have concerns that this would impact the local licensing fees um it is unclear again it's a short form bill so we don't know the substance of it but potentially if it's not worded correctly this could um impact how much towns get um in that split between fees so uh they're taking up testimony this week on this we're following it um i know the clerks and treasurer's association folks are also following these bills um and the uh part of the discussion here is it gets a little complicated so i'm not gonna get into the nuances or but essentially the department of liquor and lottery for several years has been um looking into doing online processing of licenses to make it less of a administrative burden for both the state and licensees and then for the towns as well there is word on the street that they are uh close to signing a contract with a vendor um to actually get this up and running finally it's been promised for several years um so that would be a huge um step in the right direction where um it would be rather than all the paperwork and the processing um happening sort of the old-fashioned way things would be done by clicks of a button through a portal that is set up by the states and that municipalities are sort of just incorporated into so more about that later but that's uh separate from the bill but essentially part of the whole entire conversation about you know fees and administration of liquor licenses so that's a liquor license licenses i hadn't talked about that one before that's um a new slash old one and for those towns that have those licenses it's probably important to follow those uh the other two issues are elections in cannabis i'll start with cannabis since um that's been the big hot item in a lot of towns over town meeting week and so there's two bills one that you're familiar with that i've written about and talked about which is s25 which was a bill that would have required like certain mandatory language for opt-in voting which is no longer on the table so that's not an issue anymore but one of the other proposals on the bill would um expedite the opt-in vote timing for towns right now there is no um drop dead date for towns having to opt in um to allowing or not allowing cannabis retail or integrated licensees in their communities what this bill would do as of now um the discussions in the senate government operations committee would be initially was supposed to be next year was a drop dead date but we advocated that pushing it out further would be much much better so right now i believe what we've heard is that the senate government operations committee will go back to the senate judiciary committee and say that march essentially town meeting of 2023 will be the mandatory date by towns having to put it on their ballot to have a affirmative vote or negative vote for opting in if a town does not hold a vote by march 2023 they will be presumed to allow cannabis retail and integrated licenses um so um it's not perfect but it's at least a compromise um it gives towns at least another year and a half more than a year almost two years to have these discussions and then by that time um they will actually be processing um licenses they potentially will have several operations actually up and running so the um communities will have a more um a more educated say in whether or not they want to opt into a cannabis um retail operation so as of now um the by the counts are sort of discrepancies about the counts and it's a little weird because some towns have put off their town meeting for later dates that potentially will have opt-in ballot language um but as of now um there's about 24 towns that i am aware of that have decided to opt in to the um cannabis retail marketplace um again this is going to be at least a year before any licenses or even or even applications for licenses are even put out to potential licensees that's not even going to happen until um early of next year 2022. so lots of time between now and then um still waiting for the cannabis control board to be put together obviously lots of rules and regulations there's a lot of big question marks actually the biggest thing that's happened since this law has passed is actually those votes that happened last week that's you know the first thing that's actually happened is those votes so um municipalities i guess leading and um in action and um the states and the legislature kind of struggling a little bit to get things up and running the way they had anticipated with s54 from last year um so that's the status of s25 there is also a bill um that is up and so that bill's um in senate judiciary and um seneca ops is also you know taking testimony on i believe they're going to be finishing testimony this week at least that's what we've heard um and s 94 is another bill that's dealing with cannabis that was introduced about two weeks ago or early yeah it must have been to end of before town meeting weeks when it was officially introduced in the senate and so s 94 is a bill that would deal with taxation issues as it relates to cannabis so essentially what this bill would do um it proposes to distribute an amount of the cannabis excise tax so you know we have um as it's set up now through last year's bill there is the sales tax that six percent sales tax that there is um and then there's the um 14 um cannabis excise taxes new this newly created state tax and as of now municipalities get no part of that um the bill would actually say that part of that um 14 excise tax an amount equal to two percent of the taxable retail sales so it's the way it's written it's a it hasn't been walked through in the finance committee yet it's gonna get um taken up either tuesday or wednesday but essentially what it would be is uh the way i am reading at least would they would pool all of the money essentially that's gathered from retail um and that an amount equal to two percent of the taxable retail sales for a municipality that hosts a cannabis establishment would be distributed to all communities that have cannabis establishments this wouldn't impact towns that have local option taxes they would still be able to administer their local option tax as is um but this would be a way to pool the money and redistribute it to municipalities it would also um eliminate the fee the cannabis control board setting the fees um it's sort of a double-edged sword here as it's written it says that a retail and um integrated uh license um will be set at 140 at the local level it doesn't say anything about other licensing um which presumably then a town could set those licensing fees although it's not very clear right now um but at least um it would be taken out of the cannabis control board's purview and put um in a more um transparent um view so those are it's a it's a again it hasn't the bill hasn't been walked through yet um i'm i'm personally curious to see how ledge council sort of presents it to the committee to get the understanding of the nuances of it um but at least it's back on the table we're talking about the cannabis tax issue as it relates to you know towns and cities and it would be better than what we have now which is only uh fees um and no local taxing um revenues going to towns and cities that host establishments other than those that have the um current one percent local option sales tax um and then the last best so that's it for cannabis i'm we're taking questions at the end so save your questions for them or in a chat um and the last one is an elections bill that is up for discussion that's already been voted out of the senate government operations committee it um was voted favorably and it is on the calendar for tomorrow on notice so it'll be up for um second reading on wednesday um if anyone's really wants to nerd out on the details of that i did write about it um and our legislative report from february 26 before town meeting week but essentially what the bill addresses and i talked about it at the last um advocacy chat was that it would address um enabling authority to local communities to um make permanent certain elections procedures that were allowed temporarily during this pandemic things like outdoor and drive-up voting uh ballot being able to mail out ballots for local um elections um standards and enabling towns to set up drop boxes for um for ballots and and uh ballot curing so that's more of a statewide thing but also impacts you know local communities as well but essentially now i'm having voters being able to correct ballots that are essentially deemed defective by um statutory standards so those are the highlights on that one um we support the bill because most of it pretty much all of it is enabling authority it's not necessarily mandatory it's up to communities whether or not they want to use these um these tools but it required but it allows for greater flexibility for towns to um conduct elections in a more flexible flexible way so that's it for me i'm gonna hand it back to karen okay thank you gwen so uh firstly um i am i'm unmuted okay so uh firstly uh i want to let people know that this week is crossover week so on friday every bill um has to be out of the first committee of origin unless it's a money bill so you're going to see a flurry of activity this week on a whole bunch of different kinds of bills if it's a month if it's a bill that that has money attached to it or that's like the appropriations those kinds of bills um they have an additional week to get those bills prepared and out so that also applies to the capital bill which is always of interest to local officials there are two bills that i wanted to mention to you around the budgets the governor signed h138 the budget adjustment bill on march 2nd they uh are the legislature is holding back on spending or reallocating coronavirus relief funds pending guidance about how they're able to use it through the end of 2021 and as you recall the the way that you were able to use those dollars up until the end of 2020 was really quite restrictive so they're they're hoping for some loosening of the requirements from the u.s treasury department and they are the legislature plans to allocate some more of those crf dollars when that guidance is clear the budget adjustment bill does use crf dollars coronavirus relief fund dollars to match fema funds for emergency food hotel leases for the homeless security and general covet 19 responses it continues to fund the everyone eats program through the end of june this year and it authorizes the secretary of administration to allocate up to three million dollars from the crf fund for emergency response to issues affecting public health safety and welfare i will say about that that this bill passed and was signed by the governor obviously before the u.s senate passed the american american rescue plan yesterday i believe it was yesterday or saturday evening so that may color what the what the legislature here in vermont does going forward h315 is the covid relief bill it's passed the house and it's now in the senate appropriations committee and that would include 10 million for gaap economic recovery grants to small businesses 10 million to assist those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness to enable compliance with covid 19 public health precautions it would allocate 300 000 to the department of mental health for emergency outreach mental health services 150 000 for training and wellness supports for frontline healthcare workers to help them meet vermont's current mental health needs and then 1.3 million to the vermont food bank to vermont to pay for vermont farmers to families uh food box program in january and february so um they're they're paying expenses that have already been incurred and 2.2 million to further support broadband line extensions and community resiliency again that's going to be colored by the the progress on the american rescue plan at the federal level i'm told that on tuesday the house is supposed to vote on that bill again in order to reconcile um or agree to the changes that were made in the senate the um representative peter welch has said that we vermont may be um receiving as much as 900 million dollars from that american rescue plan and that was the house version before it went to the senate so those numbers may have changed somewhat um across the country there is 65 billion dollars in direct data to municipalities which is huge so um there will be a list coming out of what the allocations are to local governments in vermont uh both both uh cities towns villages and some accommodation for counties because we don't really have active counties in vermont and then 65 billion i believe also to states so as well as a long list of other issues including broadband deployment unemployment continuation support for food and feeding people who are in need and homelessness and and a whole range of other issues so there'll be a lot more coming about that in the next few weeks as that bill gets finalized and as the treasury again puts out guidance on how that can be spent i did just want to mention a couple of other bills so there have been a lot of bills flying around that address housing and we've written about most of them in the legislative report s79 is the bill that would transfer responsibility for rental housing inspections from the local health officer to the ire safety division at this state except in those instances where a town wants to retain that authority and there are seven or eight communities around the state well actually i think it's more like 14 that are doing that now so that bill is going to be um coming out of the senate economic development committee this week maybe as early as tomorrow s 101 is a new bill that was just put in that would address or encourage hopefully housing in smart growth areas what are called smart growth areas that probably needs to be defined a little more clearly and then the there's a draft also in the senate economic development committee 21-0090 that encourages towns to amend zoning regulations so so as to accommodate more housing choices and and capacity to build housing at the local level and and to assure that the zoning regulations are not the impediment to that that bill will also have a number by the end of the week and will be coming out of that committee and the other one that i wanted to mention there was s33 that's the project-based tax increment financing bill we're hoping that gets out of economic development in the senate and it would allow for um tax increment funding for smaller projects so if you just had one project and there's many uh examples around the state but for instance if you wanted to put wastewater facility into your village so as to promote um growth and and private investment and economic development then you would you could use this this instrument to do that the bill once it gets through the senate which i think is pretty likely we'll go to the house and eventually we'll land in the ways and means committee where we will have discussions that we've had for many years now about whether tif tax increment financing is an appropriate mechanism for local governments to use or not the h.360 is the number that's been put to the community broadband bill that the house energy committee has been working on all session thus far and it would provide significant more investment significantly more investment for uh broadband build out which i think along with the um funding that's coming from the federal government that's dedicated to that purpose may really finally um help vermont jump ahead in terms of getting broadband to the last mile the only other one that i wanted to mention is the ways and means committee in the house has been between legislative staff people for a few weeks and so they've not really taken up the tax structure commission report in any substantive way mark perrault who's the joint fiscal staff person for that committee and uh particularly on education funding issues is coming back uh starting tuesday and so after that the chair has said that she'd be a bit more comfortable taking up that report and doing a deeper dive into it we have endorsed many of the provisions in that report including moving the homestead education tax from a property-based one to an income-based one but there's lots of detail to be gone through in in that report so i think that that's uh that sort of summarizes the the issues that we've been focused on i would strongly urge you to read our report this this week which will on friday which will have a list of bills that are moving uh that we're going to have to keep a pretty good eye on for the rest of the session and we are we just had half time so we're halfway through this legislative session uh we'd be happy to take questions or here and i we have a few coming in um so i'll i'll get started um we had a question about how many towns had opted out of cannabis retail at the lux at the um last week's town meeting um again i have heard conflicting reports but as of what i've seen and done some verifications it appears that there were three communities that opted out um richmond opted out the opt-in motion lost by 63 votes in newport it lost by 44 votes and in linden it lost by 20 votes um we know a lot of other communities are putting it on the ballot for um later for a later date so um more more towns will be added to either the opt-in or opt-out list um soon over the coming months and longer the other question we had um was a more of a question about what's happening in maine with liquor licenses uh they're apparently um allowing for greater outdoor dining and community events and um loosening their liquor laws to accommodate those sorts of things to promote the hospitality industry and um and dining and service industries um there has been whispers about this more in the hallways i haven't seen any legislation um about this um i wouldn't be surprised if it's added into this uh one or more one of these liquor bills that's moving forward um in the house right now again like karen said things have to be out of committee um but we have like again half time as well so we have many many we have a few more months ahead of us as well so anything that's germane so anything liquor could be added to on 313 or 314 or whichever bill moves forward out of the house um and so that's a potential but right now there's nothing on paper but um i wouldn't be surprised if something like that were um considered that being said vermont tends to be pretty conservative with our liquor laws um but um we'll see how how conservative they are with um making things a little bit more um bendy and loose moving forward um karen can you read through the chats because there's one about um which is relevant to what you were talking about overlap funds versus non-overlap funds um that are going to communities do you know i i don't know the answer to that question that may be something well um i i think that that is an old list i think that we haven't gotten the list that um pertains to the senate pass legislation so uh i can't really answer that question definitively right now but it may be moot once we get the new list and we're hoping to get them from representative welch's office at least in the next couple of days or as soon as that bill is finalized in the u.s house steve mckenzie you had um written a question i'm having a little trouble um reading it could you unmute yourself and maybe uh yeah uh my typing came through is a foreign language uh sorry about that yeah my question is on the funds that eventually will get distributed to miss municipalities is there any preliminary guidance on how that can or can't be used i did see the other list that was just referred to and that was one distributed by um rebecca ellis quite some time ago and i'm sure that's going to be updated but yeah it's in the overlap and non-overlapping about any guidance preliminarily on how that might those funds might be able to use views by misspelling so there isn't any guidance yet it's something that we're talking about um quite a bit at the league of cities and towns and what kind of assistance can we provide to local governments around staying within the the whatever guidance comes out of washington so i'd say a lot more to come on that particular issue steve but we don't have guidance yet um it is going to be more expansive than the uh cares act was the the us congress has been very clear about that um and the other thing i i just wanted to mention is that i believe the direct date um at 65 billion this time in this bill is about 4 billion less than was in the house proposed legislation so there will certainly be a new list coming out hopefully fairly soon yeah hopefully there hopefully there will be as much latitude as possible for municipalities use that money the way they see fit for their own municipality but that remains to be seen well the way it's been it's written pretty loose right now so you would think what's interesting and we were on a call with nlc karen remember when they were um talking about some of the provisions and when they were asking because you know they're pretty good about making sure that the treasury and the guidance will correlate to what they think that the legislative or the congressional intent is and um on all accounts so far it's been kind of the most liberal interpretation um so i think that's really encouraging um and so at least now um there it seems to be much more broad and much more open in terms of what what can what can be done with the money but again like karen said the details we won't know about until that sounds great let's hope that it bears fruit thank you so i believe paul ferlenza has his hand up did you have a question yes um on h 360 which is the broadband bill um is that money going to be allocated through the communications consolidated districts which have been set up by i don't know half a dozen counties yeah well i think there's actually 14 of them now i could be wrong about that but um uh the the objective of the bill at any rate is to assure that the money um if it doesn't go through the communications union district formerly formally it is spent in order to further the plans that the communications union districts have put together so um for instance if you're if you're an electric utility um or a private company that you would be doing a project in concert with the communications union district and um that's how you would uh be able to get the money so that money will be used to actually build out broadband um well uh not not every cent of it because some of it would be to continue to build capacity um you know most of the communications union districts are uh volunteer operations right now and they're doing a tremendous job but uh it's a very very heavy lift so there's going to be some of that also i i think um and now i'm hoping that i'm recalling correctly but uh i think there is also going to be some additional funding to the public service department to help with technical assistance for utilizing those monies i'm on the addison county uh communications consolidated district and you're absolutely right it is a huge build-out it's a huge challenge it's it's up mountain if you will uh but i'm appreciative yeah they are set up and that there's money to it thank you and karen it's i mean not like it's relevant to this well it's kind of relevant to the bill but you know with the federal funding coming through they specifically carve out broadband as a an allowable use for some of these monies so um it's not going to go to the cuds directly they're going to be monies that are going to town so um towns can probably be pretty creative about how they help um fund broadband initiatives within their regions um and so that should be an added you know an added benefit as well so there was a question there's a question in the chat about uh asking to for us to let you know where the list is of monies coming to municipalities i can um point you to the uh list that came out from representative welch's office in the middle of february when the house was talking about it but as i mentioned it's not correct anymore so it might be better to wait until the new list is out and we will certainly post that on our website uh and and make that available we'll also put a link in the legislative report when as as soon as it's available um we had a question from tim in brattleboro about h.200 which regulates which is a bill that proposes to regulate short-term rentals um and within it um there's a provision that has a residency requirement um so you have to be a resident of the state of vermont in order to run a short-term rental um or something along those lines it's been a minute since i read the bill um we karen i don't believe we have a position on the bill yet we haven't been asked to testify i don't believe it's been up for you know serious discussion um there's definitely been some um uh conversations about it i think folks are pretty um have a pretty strong reaction to it one way or the other um and so i believe if they do take it up as a serious proposal it'll be a very um it'll be a very loud and very opinionated conversation um but as for as far as what our position is i don't believe we have put forth a position on the bill yet we um that's correct uh the the housing choice bill the one with the draft number 210090 it does have some language regarding short-term rentals in it and the ability of local governments to regulate short-term rentals and it would require short-term rentals it may also be an s79 the rental housing bill because it that bill would require short-term rentals to register um with the rental housing registry i i'm i'd be a little curious um if they say that you have to be a vermont resident to have a um airbnb sort of thing and if that would run afoul of interstate commerce seems like that i'm not a lawyer but it seems like that might be an argument that um would carry some weight well i if you don't mind i just want to point out something as far as i read it i just i don't think most people are aware that there's a the residency requirement actually requires that um you may not offer all or part of a short-term rental unless you're in your primary residence um that's being rented so that's the way i read it which is is pretty interesting it would wipe out quite a bit of short-term rentals in the state so yeah so it'd be even more restrictive than just yeah yeah yeah i'm yeah enough said thank you um there was a there was a question about um the elections bill and whether or not um and i i i apologize i did gloss over the statewide impacts of the bill i just focused on the local on in terms of the the s15 impacts to state elections um i don't have the bill in front of me i could take a look at it again but as far as i remember in terms of statewide elections that for every general election um the secretary of state would be sending out um ballots i don't i'd have to take a another look at it to um look at uh i believe it's also i believe it's state and federal primaries as well but i'll double check on that and get back to um julie about that one but um those would be mandatory at the state level it wouldn't be optional like it would be for the local elections karen karen you're muted um okay just back on short-term rentals for a second uh because much of the discussion in the senate economic development committee and other places has been that short-term rentals pull long-term rentals off the market that i i think that that's not necessarily true there might be short-term rentals that don't wouldn't be available as long-term rentals but there are also particularly in the resort towns um pretty significant numbers of of short-term rentals so as queen said that is an argument that is going to continue to rage we've got a couple more hands here um paul oh that's my hand um art pearlman did did you have a question yes yes thank you karen my name is art peterson i may be the only rep on here i'm not sure i don't see any other names that i recognize um i i'm i'm new and i'm here to listen in but i just had a comment on on the um on the the elections bill uh if if we start to allow early election and what that could do to candidates for those elections um you know select board school board type candidates need time to campaign and i worry that by um doing a mail-in a ballot for all elections all the time can significantly shorten the time a candidate especially for these local officers have to make the positions known make themselves known get out there in the cold of vermont in the early part of the you know january february to get known by towns folks um and and so i i just throw it out there uh i was a candidate this past time uh for the state legislature and it definitely shortened it was due to covert and there was a good reason for it but uh people start you know when they're starting to vote in september for a november general election that definitely changes how a candidate has to has to campaign and i really feel it could have an effect for the for the local elections it's just just food for thought thank you okay thank you uh paul did you have another um question yes i'm sorry maybe i missed it yeah do you know what the difference is between in the american rescue bill whichever version it is between overlap and non-overlapped funds i don't quite understand because they're different no i don't know okay i don't know we're gonna have to find out for you all right thanks uh are there any other questions if we're pretty close to our time in any case so if not i will thank you all for j ining us again and um we'll see you in a couple of weeks and it will be spring and mud season will be over thank you very much karen and gwen thank you all yes thank you thank you