SmartTranscript of House Gov Ops and Senate Gov Ops Joint Meeting-2025-02-14-1:00PM

[Chair Matthew Birong]: With us this afternoon. I think the members here have all met each other. We had one other joint meeting. If anyone feels the need to be reintroduced, please say so. Otherwise, we'll kinda get down to business here. So the secretary of state's office has provided each of us, and I hope you all have a copy of some of the suggestions and recommendations that they've come up with. Does everyone have that comment? [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Online? It is. I do not. We have [Speaker 2 ]: a service about our outcome. Official stage. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Yeah. No. I knew. I was. I was. [Lauren Hubert]: Hey. Thank you. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Okay. So, So, Lauren and Chuck, I don't know if it's helpful. You could certainly join us there and help us walk through this. Sure. I don't know that we'll even get to all of the pieces of this. It's a rather lengthy document. I have a feeling we're gonna get to know each other a little bit better in the process here. [Lauren Hubert]: I'm gonna just come free. So [Chair Matthew Birong]: welcome, and thank you. [Lauren Hubert]: Thank you so much. For the record, my name is Lauren Hubert. I will get the secretary of state and I [Chair Matthew Birong]: have a change. Sean, election strategies. Okay. Go ahead. [Lauren Hubert]: And thank you so much for having the joint committee meeting. [Chair Matthew Birong]: And [Lauren Hubert]: as the governor proposed to his education plan, the secretary of state, obviously, like, all the longer they're paying quite a bit of attention to what the baseline was gonna be or what the proposal was gonna be. And one of the things that immediately came to our mind for election nerds is, oh, this is gonna change a lot in the election space. And so there's a couple of considerations that we would really welcome your committees of jurisdiction to look at. And some of the things that we didn't see as items that need to be addressed are waiting for policy decisions. So as I walk through this memo, you will see there's places where, some things seem relatively simple to give a recommendation about. Other things, we really are waiting, and we we need to know what the policy decisions are. And other thing that I just really want to emphasize is we're here to help. However, we during this process, this will be significant change in the statutes, some in the education statutes, and some in the title seventeen, the election statutes. The best way to think about these new districts that are being created is they're taking something that was operating at our local municipality level and bringing it up almost like a senate senate race because it's gonna have multitude of towns. And depending on the number of participants and the size of the wards, these board members are going to represent more people than a senator or a house member. So these are just things to really think about. And because it's moving from a local level to a a a more of a state level, you'll see that reflected in some of the considerations that we have for you. So, probably one of the biggest things is the district lines and awards. The district lines right now, the initial proposal from the governor is five districts. And so those districts would be drawn. And what I'm about to say to you is really it doesn't matter how many districts there are. There could be five, there could be seven, there could be twenty. But the district lines need to be determined this session, and the number of wards per district need to be determined this session. So if we have five districts and within each district, there are five wards, just hypothetically, that would be good for this body to know, for Vermonters to know, and it really is necessary as we're starting to think about the first election, assuming the first election for this new school board, structure is in November of twenty six. Because the governor's proposal has the school board member's election on the general election ballot. And that does make some sense, to the secretary of state because these are gonna be multiple town elections. We run multiple town elections. We mail ballots to people to do multiple town elections. So assuming that November of twenty six is the the target, we definitely need to know initial district lines, and it would be best if the awards were drawn next session so that we could do what we do for every other the other race determination on what the lines are, we need to figure out assuming, again, assuming that the wards should be proportional. The districts should be relatively proportional, although that's harder, but the wards, hopefully, would be proportional. So that assuming there's a board member from each board that serves on the school board, they represent the same number of Vermonters. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Senator Senator Haskin. [Speaker 4 ]: Thank you. Are the is the current proposal for from the governor for proportional districts? Are the five districts population proportional? [Lauren Hubert]: I I don't believe they are. Okay. Not exactly. [Speaker 5 ]: Not districts. [Speaker 4 ]: Okay. But it is your recommendation that they should be proportional? [Lauren Hubert]: No. I we're not opining on that. On the districts, we don't we don't have an opinion on whether or not the districts should be proportional, but we do think the wards within the districts should be proportional. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Okay. So I have just a and I should have probably read this more intently. Can you delineate what award is? As I know what the district is. I sort of got back from the map that was presented, but I'm not really clear on what award would be. [Lauren Hubert]: So the way that I would best describe it is the district let's just make it analogous to Vermont. The district is Vermont. It's the like, it's Vermont, and then the wards would be each senate district in Vermont. So that the so each ward would have a board member who represents them on the board. [Chair Matthew Birong]: What so multiple schools could be represented inside a ward? [Lauren Hubert]: Absolutely. Okay. I don't think you would want wards that were specific to schools or municipalities. That would lead to a lot of minutetencies. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Sorry about that. [Speaker 4 ]: If the districts aren't proportional, how are the wards to be proportional? Would it mean that a district that is larger would have more wards and a district that is smaller would have fewer, meaning that the boards would be different sizes? [Lauren Hubert]: I mean, the the board would be proportional within the district, not across the whole state. So the the representation let's say that, hypothetically and this number is wrong. But, hypothetically, Chittenden District has twenty thousand people in it, and you divide it into five wards. Each ward would represent four thousand people versus Washington County District that has ten thousand people in it. Each ward would represent two thousand people. But what the importance is is the board member within the school district itself have equal, like, the same number of people that they are responsible for. But it I think it's understood, at least from the governor's proposal, that the districts will not be exactly the same because of a whole variety of factors. I mean and I don't know where this proposal will ultimately land. Someone could make an effort to make the districts exactly proportional to each other. But I think the important thing is that the rewards are as close to proportional as possible. Within the district. Within the district. [Speaker 4 ]: Is that constitutional under the idea that of rep? So back in the day when we had one town, one representative, that was ruled because across the state, people weren't representing the same number of people, but that was unconstitutional. We're now creating a system that would do that as well. [Lauren Hubert]: I have not done the analysis of that. I think you should ask pledge counsel. But I will say that currently, right now, school boards many school boards are the same size, but our schools are not the same size. [Speaker 2 ]: Okay. Can you flush out some of the reasons why the urgency is so important to the secretary of state's office? [Lauren Hubert]: The urgency is not important for the secretary of state's office unless the unless the proposal moves forward. If the proposal moves forward Yeah. We need to know how to run this election. So that's why it's urgent [Speaker 5 ]: to have So I think the under to underscore, I think, as as every secretary is saying before, it's kinda all depends off this proposal. The proposal shifts or timeline shifts. We can come up with other questions and considerations that are hypothetical to that. But based on this hypothetical, I think the the starting point was if there's going to be an election in November twenty twenty six, this is what we need to happen in twenty twenty five. We need to have the districts done in twenty twenty five. If the legislature, or policy makers decide that that November twenty twenty six is not the target that we're pushing for, then obviously the other pieces would fall. And I think we go throughout the memo. There's a lot of other pieces that fall along those lines to say if kinda based on the administration's proposal, if this piece of administration's proposal is going to happen, then these things seem to happen on these dates. If the proposal changes, then the the other piece change too. [Speaker 2 ]: Proposal will inevitably change, and that seems pretty impossible for us [Chair Matthew Birong]: to meet this timeline. If it's tough, we can edit this. [Lauren Hubert]: I think I think the district lines are drawn this session, which would be if the proposal moves, the district lines presumably would be drawn. Then the ward process could happen over the summer. We would hold a reapportionment committee, like, just like we do for the legislature. We want that authority and that support from this body, and we could help with a ward proposal that could be moved very early in in twenty twenty six. And then those wards would be established and drawn and and put it into our election management system, and then people could start to run for those races. [Speaker 2 ]: So this document essentially asserts which components we would need to tackle this session as opposed [Lauren Hubert]: to next session? The the piece that is most right to be done next session is establishing the works. Other pieces, we would recommend you work on this session. But that that is a piece that is involves maps. We need the the software to help us do that. Like, that's not something that we can do in a meeting room, you know, in a session. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Yes, ma'am. Let me [Speaker 4 ]: I know some of the people in this room sat through redistricting a couple of years ago, and that was quite a lengthy and time intensive process that really took up the majority of the work of the government operations committee in the house and the reapportionment committee in the senate. Would you anticipate this being math labor intensive next year? [Lauren Hubert]: I don't because if we're creating something new as opposed to changing something that already exists. So I think there is a difference there. And I think with with the goal of having the awards be proportional that, you know, there's there's only so many ways that you can split award to have it be proportional within a district. So it's a little bit more black and white than legislative funds. Senator Clarkson? [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Lauren, try to view a note of what this will cost us. It sounds like there's a software update, initial mail on I mean, my guess is you're beginning to create your own fiscal note on what this will cost the Yes. And I'll say [Lauren Hubert]: that we're at the very initial stages of that. I do not It will have cost. It would absolutely will have. Yes. A substantial Mhmm. Well, the work over the summer and the soft the board work, I don't know if I [Chair Matthew Birong]: can know off the top of my [Lauren Hubert]: head, the software work, we're we're creating a new race, essentially, as the new I mean, we almost like a statewide race, but it's it's mostly like a cyber race. So that we will create that in the software, and we haven't scope that with our vendor. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: There's the additional map. So those are the two [Lauren Hubert]: It would be on a there's no additional map. Okay. We would put this on the same ballot so you would see your ballot and even vote for your governor, for your secretary of state, for your house rep, for your senate rep, and Okay. School rep. Right. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: So the additional role will be primarily software and the time and effort that [Lauren Hubert]: goes into software. Yes. For the secretary of state. There's cost for it, like, oh, yeah. We're going to just mail it. Yeah. [Chair Matthew Birong]: At the [Speaker 5 ]: end of the memo, that's And as far as the separate ballots that the secretary said, it wouldn't be a separate mailing Right. Separate mail for for the district for the school district board members, but potentially from the other piece of the proposal about the the initial budget on it on that with regards to the memo that that consideration, [Chair Matthew Birong]: but we'll step back and potentially get another notice. Representative Hooper. So, Lauren, from what you just said, what responsibility will the secretary's state's office take for education of the education of the actual quota of what's happening and how they're going to receive a new election process. [Lauren Hubert]: Yeah. Well, the secretary of state, presuming that everything moves forward, would start voter education. Just like we always do about the general election ballot. The way that it's currently proposed here does not appear to be as primary component to school board elections, which, from the secretary of state's perspective is a good thing. And so this would just be a general election. So we would be doing regular voter outreach and education just as we do for general elections. So we talk about the school board district race as well, and then we would have that those candidates be part of our voter guides. But then I don't think we would be you know, at at least the way they saw the proposal is we wouldn't be the ones going out into the world to talk to Vermont just about the changes in the education system. We just see our piece as this technical government operations piece of running an election. And that's why I've been wanting to talk with you guys because we really want you to understand as the you know, there's a lot of policy things happening, a lot of conversations happening. But as we're watching those policy decisions, unfold, some in this committee, some outside of this committee, we just wanna make sure that the elections piece, is also heard, understood, and that we collectively are adapting as we understand the policy. [Speaker 6 ]: I think so in my other job on top work. So in doing this redistricting within the subdistricts, I think we have to be very careful as to how we divide those wards Yes. That that we're not interfering with senator lines in districts, for instance, those that cross Rotland Addison County, because what will end up happening is for the general election, you're gonna be in this ward, and then for the primary election, you're gonna be in this ward, and it's just gonna be very confusing for the voter. So when we are developing those wards within those new supervisory units or districts [Speaker 4 ]: or whatever we want to [Speaker 6 ]: call those five, we must take we really need to be aware of how we might be crossing county lines with Windsor, Wyndham, Chittenden, all of what I'm saying. So we must be very cognitive as to how we redistrict those wars within those new districts so that they're not interfering with the senatorial races. That's [Lauren Hubert]: I I think I hear what you're saying, and I I I believe that I agree with you. I think of it a little bit like Burlington, which is one municipality, has multiple senate districts within it Mhmm. Multiple house districts within it, and potentially could have multiple school board ward districts within. That's cool. And so we need to be careful. And, yes, and people, you know, should clearly understand that they're in this senate district and this house district. It's the same. Well, but the senate district now, and it's not the same as the house district because there's multiple house districts. [Speaker 6 ]: No. But when it comes to the school districts, you wanna make sure they're in the they would be within the same parameter because what you don't want is Milton and Saint I mean, you're you've got a multi county. I've got multi county, but I'm gonna be I'm betting to Rowland. I'm gonna be in the same district, but somebody that's in two different districts in the Northeast Kingdom or is anybody following me that where you're gonna be split? You wanna make sure that those that are split in the senatorial race stay split the same as in the split kick. Otherwise, the I understand wards. That doesn't well, the word ward doesn't scare me because some well, Burlington can have several wards, these several school districts, and whatever. But when we start crossing County Line for our senatorial races and those don't line up with our school district lines, then I'm just saying that's where we really have to be very careful that either then or we have to do redistricting for the senatorial races. So that we can don't [Lauren Hubert]: want to do. [Speaker 6 ]: We don't want to do. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Or we aren't able to do [Chair Matthew Birong]: it for [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: a while. Senator, the by house, we can. [Speaker 4 ]: Yeah. Well and and I I hear your point. I agree, and I don't know that there's any possible way to make that happen if the district and wards aren't proportional because senate and house districts are proportional. Like, this sort of brings me back to my initial concern about the districts not being proportional because I I agree with you. But my I have two questions. One of them is so if there's what the cost associated with the mapping expert and the mapping technology is, because I imagine it's not I mean, in the scheme of a nine billion dollar budget, maybe it's somewhat insignificant, but not insignificant. And we will need to work with a mapping expert with mapping technology. Is that in this memo? [Lauren Hubert]: It is not. Okay. What it says in this memo is we are trying to assess that and But we're at the beginning of it. [Speaker 4 ]: But And the next question I have, it may be for you. It may just be piece of information I don't have because I'm not on the education committee, and that is is is the proposal that these races would be partisan. [Lauren Hubert]: The proposal is that they would be nonpartisan. [Speaker 5 ]: No problem. [Lauren Hubert]: Nonpartisan and, as a result, we would, on the ballot, not put party designation as well. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Senator White. [Speaker 7 ]: Thank you, mister chair. And I so appreciate you coming in here and flagging these. As I read through your memo, it seems like a lot of questions that I too have been wrestling with. And I feel it is unfortunate that you don't have an office been thrown into this situation, having to raise the flag that elections need to happen when we had a proposal. We haven't really seen [Chair Matthew Birong]: a proposal on what that [Speaker 7 ]: looked like or how that would be [Lauren Hubert]: all about. So I appreciate you joining us and being on the fly. [Speaker 7 ]: I and this had two questions about, things that you agreed. The first is we note the need for the determination of terms Yeah. And how long those terms should be. And at least in our area, it seems like school board members usually alternate it two years or three years. And sometimes we even [Lauren Hubert]: have someone who comes in for a one year term. [Speaker 7 ]: So I'm wondering if you have an understanding of what the governor's proposal was in terms of terms, and do you have a recommendation on how we would decide what those terms would be? [Lauren Hubert]: Well, because we only have the general election on even years. Yeah. They the terms have to be two, four, or six or the US post. And you could make all the terms four years, but then for the initial establishment, make some of the positions to your terms because and we're saying that because we're assuming that you wouldn't want to reelect the entire board every two years, but that is the assumption that the secretary of state has made based on how the boards operate now. But but the this body could say every single board member except for election every two leaders. That that's that's a policy decision. But [Speaker 7 ]: your recommendation at the very least puts them to you on [Lauren Hubert]: leaders because that would just Well, I I hope and I'll come back to the redistricting timeline just because I wanna make sure that we talk about when just even past the initial process when it should happen again. But I just wanna emphasize this adds work to temp clerks. This adds work to the secretary of state. And so, yes, please do not have on your terms for the school board members because you would be adding another general election to the secretary of state and the town of arts. The general election [Speaker 6 ]: will be here. There'll be general election will [Lauren Hubert]: be here, and I will just speak for the secretary of state and as a microphone for what I know the town of arts said, which is please don't do that. But I decided to [Chair Matthew Birong]: say a good question, [Speaker 7 ]: which was, it seems like this would totally change the point of a lot of town meetings to move these school based education decisions out of town meeting day, out of the March fabric, moving into November, essentially, like, trumping because you're kind of defining the commentary and questions that folks would be able to pose about education. You're voting in March about your budget, but you're voting for the people who decide that budget, essentially, at a different time of year. And that is very concerning to me because I don't think it will let informed decisions happen necessarily. So if I'm thinking about it chronologically, if we have the elections in November, then it would be the next March that is when a budget is created. And then another year into November that they'll be supposed to be up for office with the March. So the March budgets would almost always fall the next one would fall after an election. Well, so I'm gonna skip ahead to bring up budgets, but [Lauren Hubert]: the governor's proposal right now has the school board members voting on the majority of the school board budget. So that will be done at the school board level, not at the local level. There is there is a question of there is in the proposal, there is, the voter budget vote, which is, like, a term we came up with, but, where there will be the option for a district to raise their property taxes up to ten percent. But it under the governor's proposal, it's for specific items or specific projects. It's not about how the district is going to spend the base allocation. That vote that the school board, budget vote on how to spend the base allocation under the governor's proposal is done is a vote out of school. [Speaker 7 ]: Oh, then that makes it even more concerning for me because you're voting for folks and then you're not the budget is like it's okay. Yeah. Thank you. That's all the questions I have. [Speaker 5 ]: And to clarify, you know, from that voting, the budget you're voting for is really how they're spend it's really voting on the expenditure, not on the raising funds because the governor's proposal moves to a foundation formula. So each school district is funded at the level of the number of students, of course, with all the waiting and everything there is now. But that's what their budget allocation is unless the deputy secretary says in the proposal they talked about, you can vote for that additional level or at least that base budget that they have is off the foundation formulas. The school district the school board will be deciding how to how to spend. [Lauren Hubert]: Mhmm. Okay. Very good. Thank you. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Senator Wojtkowski and then representative. [Speaker 4 ]: My question was answered in the course of answering senator White's questions. [Speaker 2 ]: You have no no others? [Speaker 4 ]: Oh, I'm sure that I do, but I'll let you. [Lauren Hubert]: So worried [Chair Matthew Birong]: about the answer. If you wanna I was gonna have a question, but Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Are are [Speaker 2 ]: there constitutional implications for changing the date of time? [Lauren Hubert]: Well, so the way that municipalities change the date of town meetings through a chart. So, yes, that would they they either hold it on the date of town meeting or they change it through the charter process. [Speaker 6 ]: I think town districts continue to have their town meetings in March, and the school districts would then reach out of one of their town meetings really. Yeah. I think Like, right now, they don't have the same town meeting. Like, most of them don't. [Lauren Hubert]: Yes. There's a whole section of this memo about the informational meeting or annual meeting of a school district, which is different than town meeting, but frequently coincide in communities. They're two different things under the law. The town is an entity that holds its annual meeting, and the school district is an entity that holds its annual meeting for you and for convenience and for logistics and voting and all of the reasons, they're on the same day. But there's no reason in the law that they have to. As a school district can make their own annual meeting, they have more flexibility than the town in terms of when their annual meeting is. That's not like good news. So I just wanted to follow on the reapportionment redistricting aspect. Our recommendation is that it should happen every ten years based on census data, and it should happen the year after, the legislative reapportionment so that it's not documented with mammoth project. So, the school board itself. You know, right now, again, the administration's proposal calls for five member boards. This could also, like, the districts expand, but it is the secretary of state's recommendation that it remain in thought and pepper for obvious reasons voting. Again, a portion of the ward, and each ward should have one school board member. There is there has been talk about an at large member, but, we would represent that awards, elect and that there not be an at large for SDA question. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Yes. [Speaker 4 ]: Yes. If you're suggesting reapportionment the year after we do legislative reapportionment, would that mean we'd be reapportioning in an election year? [Speaker 5 ]: No. Sorry. It would be the biannual. So two two years. [Lauren Hubert]: Okay. He was like, [Speaker 4 ]: oh, that seems like a terrible idea. No. I'm sorry. So Okay. [Lauren Hubert]: Again, the terms need to be decided, but assuming that they need to be staggered terms and not a a reelection of all members of the school board, that's just a policy decision. There were need to be provisions for the initial setup of the staff rank. School board elections, the administration's proposal calls for elections to occur in November of even years with the general election. That is a universal vote by mail election. And as such, this would be something we would prepare the balance at the secretary of state's office, and we would manage that election in partnership with the town clerks. But, it it's a very it's taking an election that has never been within the secretary of state's space outside of giving advice and counsel. We help school boards. We help town clerks on school board votes, but we've never managed the election. But because this would be in November on that general election ballot, universal vote by mail, it would be a responsibility that the secretary of state would take on, just like we do house districts and each senate districts and statewide. We, very clearly saw that there needed to be a school district clerk, and there would need to be a way to determine who the school district clerk is. One idea that we had was maybe it's the town clerk in the largest municipality of the Detroit. Mhmm. But there could be a different process for determining who the clerk is, but it should be established in the law. There would be a petition process for this school board candidate, and there would need to be a determination of how many signatures someone who's running the school board would need to get. We suggest requiring one hundred voters. This is the same as the senate. The petitions for the process to work would need to be filed in early in August at the latest. We need to look at those dates, but we start preparing the ballots the day after the primary election. And the ballot that's a very, very, very tight window for our office because we need to turn those around. We have to get the ballots to voters forty five days before the election, and it takes significant time to prep prepare the ballots, get them to the printer, get the printer to get to print them, make sure they're going to the right places, and get them out through USPS. So, we would need the petitions probably we we we just haven't decided what date, but it's early August at the very latest. We would think that the petition should be allowed to be filed with the school district clerk or any town clerk in the ward, and you'll hear me say that a lot. We wanna make sure that voters in a town don't have to travel a long way to participate in democracy, that Canada wouldn't have to travel a long way to state in democracy. So, the school district clerk or a town clerk would be able to enter these petitions. We build a system so that either one of those individuals, could enter them into the system into our Vermont election management system, and that person would be on the ballot. Again, the governor's proposal doesn't contemplate a primary, and it's it's very, very important that the election management system being used with this school district election. That is the way that we prepare ballots, so we can't have that not be part of the process. And I see some questions. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: And I wanna ask you. [Speaker 4 ]: So my question is around signatures. These are significantly larger districts than a senate district. [Lauren Hubert]: And dependent on the. But yes. Okay. [Speaker 4 ]: So how many signatures do our county officials need to get for the petition state's attorney sheriff? [Lauren Hubert]: We'll get back to you. [Speaker 4 ]: Okay. Because I just it it seems It's [Lauren Hubert]: a big one. It's five Five hundred. Five hundred. But I don't know what it is for an county level. [Speaker 5 ]: I'm sorry, sir. [Chair Matthew Birong]: What was that question again? What you just assume it'd be [Speaker 4 ]: What's the numbers for county signatures for county, like, state attorney sheriff. Oh, gotcha. Because I just I I don't know this, but I sort of assume maybe the numbers of signatures aren't arbitrary and are dependent on the district size, and the districts seem considerably larger than than a senate district, so [Lauren Hubert]: I'm just curious. Thank you. [Speaker 6 ]: I believe right now it's a hundred. [Chair Matthew Birong]: It is a hundred. Okay. [Lauren Hubert]: For county. And it is for states' largest chairs. [Speaker 4 ]: Yes. I believe it [Speaker 6 ]: is a hundred. Right now, the school districts, the way they are being operated, it's about sixty depending on the size. So a hundred is not not bad. The my other concern is the school district clerk. I would hate to have the law say that it has to be the largest town. Because of the turnover that will be happening in the next few years with a lot of town clerks retiring. I would hate to see a new clerk coming in be the largest town, for instance, in my district. I'm the oldest senior. I'm not just say the oldest. I'm the senior clerk. So, therefore, I am the district clerk because none of the others wanted to do it. I'm not the largest town. Right. So I I wouldn't want that to say that it has to be [Lauren Hubert]: It was just a proposal. [Speaker 6 ]: Right. But I just thought So that need to be I'm just saying we don't I wouldn't want it to say that it has to be the largest town. It would be somebody within the [Lauren Hubert]: And it doesn't I think what the the thing that the secretary of state would want is that it's clearly put into the law how that's determined so that so that it happens. Right. And so that that it's clear who the school district is. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Was there a question on this side? Yeah. Yeah. I did. Very good. [Chea Waters Evans]: Good question. It's okay. Shay Waters Evans. So I might be getting ahead of you a little bit with your presentation. I apologize. But, like, it feels a little bit like we have to make this amazing meal, and we don't know what any of the ingredients are right now. You know, like, we're talking about all these things that are potentially gonna happen and what we're gonna have to do and all of this stuff. But I'm wondering if there's, not that if you have it already, but if there's a way for us to come up with a list of the things that we actually can do, like our our, like, a a bullet list or if you have it or if we can work together to come up with it because it just seems like it's a little not through your fault or our fault. It's just it's disorganized because we don't know what's gonna happen. [Lauren Hubert]: So the biggest thing is you need to know how many districts you have and what the district proposal is. But I wanna stress that the law around this, you could write it for five districts or seven districts. It's really the process that you were talking about. And but I if I were sitting in your seats, I'd wonder about the number of districts. Mhmm. And then there's some pieces a little further on, specifically around the local advisory councils that we I think it makes sense for you to know what is the power and jurisdiction of the local advisory councils. And we can talk about the implications of different policy decisions on those councils, but and what those councils would look like. But, that's the other piece that, before you start wrapping that law, I think you need some policy determinations. And then, of course, the money. Right? Money is always, like, a really important thing. So if if the proposal radically shifts around the board deciding what the school's budget is based on the base allocation. If that process were to to to shift from the governor's proposal, you may choose to do something different with how that vote occurs. Because right now, the proposal has the school board making the determination on that base allocation and and not having a voters vote at that time. And but if that were to shift, if the school board district were to make a recommendation to the voters and then the voters voted on it, then that's another election that we would have to build in. So just something to think about. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Jay, did you have enough? Thank you. [Speaker 2 ]: So I'm sure you're gonna set various timers as we consider the evolving components to this proposal as it takes different iterations, [Speaker 9 ]: and you'll continue to come [Speaker 2 ]: in and tell us what's doable this year versus [Chair Matthew Birong]: next versus and so on and so forth. Forth. [Speaker 2 ]: I'm curious. Do you know yet if we could simply adopt the senate map? [Chair Matthew Birong]: Or is that [Lauren Hubert]: So we would have thirty districts? [Chair Matthew Birong]: I think it's better [Speaker 9 ]: than later. Well, you would actually have less because you have less than their score. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what you're saying. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Right? Yeah. [Speaker 9 ]: Ish. I mean, no. I mean, right, this [Chair Matthew Birong]: is right here in this meeting. [Lauren Hubert]: I we haven't done a, like, an analysis of that, and I don't know, you know, someone because this is not just based on the there's because the money component is a really big piece of that Biggest. The biggest, and that is different than the way of FortuneMed per second. Right. So I I don't think we will ever be the ones who can answer that for you. I think that the ways and means and So we should probably And we shouldn't expect any proposals from your office? On districts? No. No. On on boards after the district lines are are made, yes, but we will not be recommending how many districts, what the district lines are. Okay. [Speaker 5 ]: I think it would defer to the end of the education, agency and and committees on this piece. But one thing I can imagine would be an issue would be if you think about existing supervisory unions and whether many of the towns and those supervisory unions cross senate districts, you know, that would be problematic. I would think for cohesiveness with the existing structure, they would want existing supervisor unions to stay in the future large school district. So that that might be a [Chair Matthew Birong]: question that may come up if you were to go right to senate. Well, Jenny, I think you were first. But I know you have a question to help me. I thought You have a question to [Lauren Hubert]: ask you to? Me? Yes. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Oh, but it looks like you had hand I thought you guys had hands up. Yeah. Yeah. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Yeah. I'm just doing this. Oh, yeah. Alright. [Speaker 9 ]: There's, like, a little bit of this going on also. So we're yeah. [Lauren Hubert]: You're right. [Chair Matthew Birong]: I did. Steve, we know you. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: But the plus of seven districts is it is to go to time's point. It is [Chair Matthew Birong]: proportional population. So, I mean, it's [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: just like all, you know, all of us each of us represents roughly twenty thousand people. So, I mean, it is proportional population. So, Jay, that's you know, we that would still reduce the number of districts, and it would do it by population. So would that be an indication? [Speaker 7 ]: The the sticker on it that needs to make Oh, [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: all the sticker on that. [Speaker 7 ]: So We [Speaker 4 ]: have we have multi number senate district. So the senate districts aren't fully proportional. I don't I represent almost seventy thousand people because I'm in a three member district. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Yeah. Me too. But around sixty thousand. [Speaker 4 ]: But a member in a two member district does not only represents about forty thousand people in a member in a one member senate district only rep so they're not proportional. [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Yes. Yes. They actually, that was our work that we did, and they're roughly each senator represents roughly twenty two thousand people. That's just rub a population or a partial representation as we do that. [Speaker 4 ]: But because you can have three senators in a senate district, that district now holds sixty thousand people, or the district holds twenty thousand people. Back. [Chair Matthew Birong]: So you can't [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: reach that. Yeah. [Chair Matthew Birong]: But it is proportional. [Speaker 5 ]: Cindy? [Speaker 6 ]: We're talking about cost here. [Lauren Hubert]: I do believe I'm gonna put my foot [Speaker 6 ]: in my mouth, maybe. That the Secretary of State's office should have money in the HAVA funds to help cover some of the costs of this so that it doesn't get dumped on the municipalities to have to cover some of this? So Especially when it comes to the reprogramming of the system. [Lauren Hubert]: To be clear, we would be asking for general fund allocation of this. Right. Just straight up, that's what we'd be asking for. The Hava fund, there's two things that are happening with Hava Fund. One, it's fairly committed. We have about six million dollars left in that fund. And the other thing is that we cannot anticipate that we will get a Hava fund grant in the future. It's better. It's better. And I do not anticipate that we will get well. And so the way that we have been funding elections, we testified about this in appropriations today. Our Black Tuesday vision is funded sixty percent by, federal grant, and, we have to be very clear, you know, in front of every committee that we talk about too, but I don't anticipate that we will get those federal grants this year or next year. And we'll see what happens, but but I don't anticipate that we'll get As for these numbers, just share what the account stands. The Help America Vote Act. And it funds a significant portion of elections, our system, our security, our training. [Chair Matthew Birong]: It's pretty important. Other questions? [Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Senator. [Speaker 4 ]: What is the numeric value of the federal money? I know you said it's about sixty percent, but sixty percent of what? Are we talking ten million dollars? Are we talking a million dollars? Are we Oh. The federal money that we don't expect to be continuing to get? [Lauren Hubert]: I can get a specific number to you. Okay. But, yes, the elections division has an annual budget. It ebbs and flows depending on what's happening. Certainly, and when there's a general election, we I mean, we have we have expensive years. We have cleaner years. Mhmm. And right now, we are spending more because we're building three IT systems. So that investment is a lot of money, and we are using the federal money to help with that. Mhmm. So basically, your I have this year's number, you know, but it's not it's not an annual number. And and it's we really have to look at a two year cycle. [Speaker 4 ]: Okay. But I'd I'd love to just Yeah. Start to wrap my head around the loss that we're anticipating in the elections division. [Chair Matthew Birong]: The other thing that occurs to me I don't mean to interrupt because I I know you wanna and I want you to get through as much as you can. [Lauren Hubert]: I I wanna answer whatever you may want to send. But [Chair Matthew Birong]: So we have until March fourteenth to have something leave a committee of jurisdiction, and we're only three weeks because one of those weeks is down meeting weekend. We won't be here. I'm just kind of curious the procedure here. Does that mean that there's language that will be available? Because I assume this is all gonna sorta have to go across to the senate or house ed committees to put in some sort of bill. I I can't see that the two government operations committees are gonna come up with a separate bill about this. It's all gonna sorta I I'm just confused as to whether in those three intervening weeks, whether we actually can can get a lot of this work done. It it even if we didn't do anything else for those three weeks, and we just talked about this every single day for three weeks, I don't know that there's time. [Lauren Hubert]: Well, that is a concern for us too. But I I have been we have been at the secretary of state envisioning a separate elections bill related to school redistricting because it is a substantial amount of language change. And as we're walking through this, yes, you need to know some key policy decisions made by the education committees of both chambers, but a lot of it is separate from those policy decisions or those funding decisions with the exception of district lines and the roles of the local advisory councils. So those pieces really that's really hard for you to do your work without clarity on those two things. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Okay. Representative. [Speaker 9 ]: Thank you. So these in the earlier draft of these bullets that we're working out on today, everybody, and I and the representative, Large Evans had a meeting with their friends over at the secretary of state's office with some legislative counsel, and they're starting to actually draft some language forms based on all of this. So we actually will have something to to deal with the whole form sooner than later. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Oh, that's pretty young. [Speaker 4 ]: See, your point, chair columnar, I it feels to that as as, representative Waters Evans said that we're trying to make something without known ingredients. And so if we were to advocate that the elections changes got pushed out to twenty twenty eight, would that free up time for the decisions to be made about districts and and all of that for us to do our work with known ingredients? Because it feels like these two things are moving simultaneously. We can't do what we need until they've done what they need, and we don't know what they're gonna do, and we're just in this [Lauren Hubert]: I I don't know that I'm the person to answer that question. Yeah. So [Speaker 4 ]: Which is from an election standpoint. If the election transition happened in twenty twenty eight, not November twenty twenty six, we would not need to make these decisions this year. [Lauren Hubert]: But that would have financial ramifications that I would not And that's fine. [Speaker 4 ]: I just I just want it from a from a pure elections administration standpoint. The the picking block is this twenty twenty six election. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Correct. [Speaker 4 ]: So if if we were to say, actually, we can't do this until you, the ad committees, make these decisions, which means we can't do this this year, we would [Chair Matthew Birong]: have to push that out to twenty twenty eight. [Lauren Hubert]: Yeah. Because I think we would need the law implemented in in odd year, the the majority of the law implemented in odd year, then we need to do the ward work in the summer of the odd year, then we need we need to put in awards and even year, and we wanna have the ability to fix any mistakes that we might have made in the odd year setting up the bill. Right? So, it makes sense to have a two year process before the election. [Chair Matthew Birong]: And I'll just add that we could always go to rules committees in both chambers and get extensions too. It isn't necessarily and perhaps I made that sound too definite that by March fourteenth, we have to be done. I was a shocker calendar day to look at it. Yeah. Well, it is. No. No. No. No. And there's a lot of other work that is still ongoing in both chambers, I'm sure. Yeah. Did you and then [Speaker 2 ]: Yeah. I was the first. I was gonna make a motion to take five, but [Chair Matthew Birong]: Give us five more minutes in this [Speaker 2 ]: Twelve legislative days. Hope we turn fifteen. [Lauren Hubert]: Oh, okay. Yeah. That's yeah. Work on those Mondays. [Speaker 7 ]: Yeah. Mister chair, I'm wondering, do you have a sense [Lauren Hubert]: of what committee will be starting this work? [Chair Matthew Birong]: I would assume the education committee. Yeah. [Speaker 7 ]: No. I mean, this election specific work, it sounded like potentially the house chair had a pathway, and I'm just wondering if we on the senate side should consider, since we're in a joint situation, deferring in the same way we do with redistricting to the house starting that process? Or There [Chair Matthew Birong]: are separate ones in the in the redistricting. The senate goes to senate, and the house does the house. But I'm certainly welcome. [Lauren Hubert]: Who who wants to be at the [Speaker 7 ]: back first, I guess, is my question. [Speaker 9 ]: Well, that's sort of, like, why we're here. Right? Having this conversation right now. [Chair Matthew Birong]: So, I mean, I guess we can do it [Speaker 9 ]: a couple of ways. We could sort of once we have these defined buckets known, we can break up the work and do it, you know, here, there, working coordination. One thing Sarah Calvert and I briefly discussed in our our weekly meeting was perhaps we had established this Friday as, like, a weekly standing one o'clock so we can work with the coordination of tandem of two committees of jurisdiction, you know, rowing them proverbial boat in the same direction. So [Chair Matthew Birong]: I'm seeing a lot of nods, so that's a good sign. [Speaker 4 ]: Yeah. So back to my my sort of previous questions around the process. With the two year process, the odd year doing, you know, sort of this ground laying stuff in the even year being warding, we would be redistricting then in an election year. [Lauren Hubert]: Or but not for the positions that are redistricting because the school board members wouldn't be [Chair Matthew Birong]: the same because it was yeah. [Speaker 4 ]: Right. But but who yes. People might I I don't know about anyone else, but certainly as I thought about running, there was a lot of decision making in it. And so if we are making these words in an election year, people who might be considering running don't know what they're gonna be or who they're gonna represent. Or [Lauren Hubert]: Yeah. That that is that is a downside of yes. That that that is true. The awards will not be known until even if everyone hears, you know, this time next year, because they'll need to come before one side of your chamber one chamber, and then it'll have to go to the other chamber. And that will take time, even if we put it on a fast track. But, hopefully, there would be agreement that the warts would move quickly through the body and that people would know the warts by late February or March. But that is a very aggressive timeline, and that would give people from March until August to decide are they gonna run and go through the petition process. But that would be to set up the system. It wouldn't be for the duration of time [Chair Matthew Birong]: in that time. [Lauren Hubert]: Right. I just [Speaker 4 ]: I can put the that first cycle out is gonna people we we are redistricting in a or districting in an election year. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Okay. So let me suggest that you have two more bullet points on the school board member elections, and then we can take our break. And believe [Speaker 2 ]: it or not, we're [Chair Matthew Birong]: not even halfway through the bullet points, but my my shoulders are already getting pretty sore from this lift, I think. But we'll take it. [Lauren Hubert]: The last two are relatively short. So if we just kinda ensure that election night reporting is done into the election management system so that we can do the the math the correct way and report it quickly. And then we would wanna ensure that campaign finance laws will require for these cases Just like for all other companies for us. And then pause, and then I'll come to district meetings. [Chair Matthew Birong]: Yeah. Is that okay with everyone? Mhmm. Mhmm. So let's move to I have one fifty six. If we took a ten minute break and I implore you to only make it ten minutes because I'd like to at least get through the bullet points today, and the sooner we do that, the sooner we can be behind the wheel of a vehicle on the way home for the weekend. And So, let's take a ten minute break.

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