SmartTranscript of House Transportation 2025-01-22

[Chair ]: Yes. So there it is. So good morning again. We're gonna pick back up here in the house transportation committee with our extended education piece on another portions of, the agency as we run through, And now we're into finance administration and audit overview. And our first guest, I believe, is Maureen or Dana, would you ladies, take it away. Wherever you'd like us to go. [Speaker 1 ]: Great. [Jayden Morse ]: So for the record, my name is Jayden Morse. I'm the director of administration and finance for the agency of transportation. I believe we just sent the sharing request over to to the Zoom. So as soon as that gets cleared, Maureen will bring that up on the screen. And, Maureen, I'll let you introduce yourself, and I'll jump right into the overview. I'll introduce Maureen. She's navigating the technical things. So Maureen Parker is our deputy director of finance and administration. So we'll be here with our team this whole day as we're going through each of the sections in the bureaus that report under our office. So to give you an idea of who we are, we have our eight hundred and thirty two employees across eight bureaus. This will be coming up on the screen shortly. And we have our chief financial officer, safety and emergency services, organizational development. Then Maureen oversees audit, civil rights, labor compliance, contract admin facilities, and our hearings unit. [Maureen Parker ]: I apologize. I'm having technical difficulties. So this [Speaker 4 ]: At first, [Chair ]: you seem to have that We [Heidi Quenneville ]: tried to assist with her. [Speaker 6 ]: I think she's on Zoom, basis. [Speaker 4 ]: There you go. There you go. There you go. That's the only Uh-huh. [Jayden Morse ]: So you'll see our org chart, and then you'll see the kind of what we are and what our mission is. [Speaker 4 ]: To plug this in. Well, If you are our mission, then [Speaker 7 ]: If you all did you ask to share that? [Speaker 4 ]: It's a second. Are you doing? Yeah. Everybody can say it okay? Yep. I'll see it. So let's go to [Heidi Quenneville ]: the next slide. We can go into presentation [Speaker 8 ]: order. Down to the bottom. [Speaker 4 ]: Thank you. Yeah. There you go. [Jayden Morse ]: Perfect. So these are the the teams that are gonna be in to speak with you. Apologize I'm sitting Of course. [Speaker 4 ]: Standing right there. Yep. Thank you. [Jayden Morse ]: And we'll be starting with Heidi as our product chief. So we have these are our primary functions of our overview. We provide support services for the agency of transportation. We also provide services that support municipalities, other agencies within the state of Vermont, and then we collaborate on [Chair ]: a local and national level and with [Jayden Morse ]: our other sister DOTs across the country. We work hard to promote our workforce. That's one of the major areas within our team, and you'll hear from Colleen Montague at a future date. And we also work on our financial and human resources. So we have liaisons with the Department of Human Resources, and they're not part of our team. And we really strive to look at how we can do our work differently and how we can better serve our managers through the work and the processes that we're performing. So hear about some of those from all of the folks that will be in to testify today on what they do. And so before I turn it over to Heidi, do you have any questions for [Speaker 1 ]: we're [Maureen Parker ]: back off your number. [Heidi Quenneville ]: For the record, my name is Heidi Quenneville, and I am here as the audit supervisor. Good morning, mister chair, not person that I'm [Speaker 1 ]: and welcome. Committee. I'd [Heidi Quenneville ]: like to share with you some of the work we do in the audit bureau. Our work is primarily broken up into three three types of work. We have internal performance audits as well as consultant financial reviews, and then we act as the liaison for ex external audit engagements. We are a team of dedicated professionals that are focused on supporting the agency's mission through promoting accountability and ensuring compliance. For the internal internal controls evaluation, we are continually assessing, assessing the adequacy and effectiveness of internal controls to ensure that we are in compliance with laws, regulations, and policies. Some examples of the internal performance audits and annual reviews that we do are invoice and contract audits, audit the, state purchasing card usage, physical inventory audits. Annually, we complete a self assessment of internal controls. We review equipment rates, the payroll load factor, as well as the Lake Champlain. Very total credit. We have oversight of all the overhead and indirect cost rates used by consultants for contracting. We also have oversight of the Regional Planning Commission annual indirect cost rate proposals. When we are reviewing the consultant financials, we ensure that they are allocating funds in accordance with cost principles. [Speaker 4 ]: Thank you. What do you have an example of the a regional planning commission annual indirect rate proposal. What is that? [Heidi Quenneville ]: Sure. So annually, the Regional Planning Commission submit financial statements as well as an audit outlining how they are allocating costs for indirect and direct expenses. Okay. So that goes through here? Yes. All regional planning. Yes. Okay. Yep. [Speaker 4 ]: Alright. Great. Thank you. Mhmm. [Heidi Quenneville ]: For the external liaison work that we do, we are the main point of contact for all external communication. We prepare the department for entering into audit engagements, and that looks like making sure that our policies and procedures are up to date and that we facilitate, you know, all the requests that come in and provide them with the documentation they need to complete the audit. We follow-up? [Chair ]: What honey, who would be some of these external who are these external people that are external groups? Are we talking about Federal Highway and this who are we talking about for external audits? [Heidi Quenneville ]: Sure. So external auditors, they could be a federal partners. But, for example, we have an annual single audit that is completed every year. The contracted firm is Clifton, Larson and Allen, and that is for the state single audit as well as the annual comprehensive financial review. Programmatic audits can also be an external engagement that we would enter into. So we are reviewing the supporting documents the agency is providing and making sure that it's clear and the external auditors have what they need to finish the review. If there are any recommendations or corrective actions, actions, then we see those through to make sure that they're timely and they are [Speaker 4 ]: in place. So I just you know? So anything in our white book that we have that may have deal with our own town highway system that we are getting money more for bridges, especially with [Speaker 1 ]: an audit [Speaker 4 ]: of that go through this [Heidi Quenneville ]: view? So So any audit will come through the audit bureau. Okay. It may be a state state auditor's office. [Speaker 4 ]: Okay. So not necessarily AOT for a project. [Heidi Quenneville ]: A project may be part of the funding Yeah. Source that is being audited. Object. Object. Object. [Speaker 8 ]: There's a lot there. It's very complicated. I'm sure. Is there a public website or anything where the results of audits? Where where would would we find the audits? [Heidi Quenneville ]: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So the single audit is pushed every year, the results as well as the findings for the entire state. And that's published in the state auditor's website. And agency of administration has the responsibility to make sure that that's uploaded in its entirety. Any internal audits that we do or or program audits, we have the responsibility to provide those to the state auditor's office. Okay. [Speaker 8 ]: So it goes through them? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Good. [Heidi Quenneville ]: So the partners that we work with, which I just touched upon, but they may be, you know, VTrans employees or the leadership leadership team, our federal partners at FHWA, or the Vermont City Auditor's Office, FRA, FTA, external auditors like Flipton, Larson, and Allen. That that is a high level overview of the work that we do for the agency. [Speaker 1 ]: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yeah. [Chair ]: I'll hand it off to the next. [20 seconds of silence] [Speaker 4 ]: I can talk a little bit about this. It's [Jayden Morse ]: also also time. So Christine Hetzel is our bureau director for Bureau of Innovation, Learning, and Development. And this is a relatively new bureau that was consolidation of a couple of other areas within the organization. And, the team behind me, this is our go orange day. So there currently are twenty positions. This was originally developed and over and Christine oversaw the V TTC or the VTrans Technical Training Center, which is a branch of our area that focuses primarily on technical training for our employees as well as Vermont local roads, which you'll hear from Todd Eaton shortly. And they provide training for municipal employees as well. So when we decided within the last a little bit over a year ago to combine the business intelligence and performance unit, those are some of our internal improvement data analysts and analysis team as well as our continuous improvement team with with the technical training center, Vermont Local Roads, and the workforce management initiatives that, Christine is responsible for. So with that, we we didn't create any new positions. These were all positions that existed within the agency already, and they've just streamlined the functions and the business processes that we perform on behalf of the agency of transportation in this particular area. So when I first started at the agency in twenty nineteen, business intelligence and performance and the continuous improvement unit, I came in as the supervisor for that team. So it's really exciting to see how these folks have been able to evolve as a group and to build the relationships that they have across the organization and to be able to really serve the needs of the agency and and promote innovation and continuous improvement anywhere from within a garage to have them begin to maybe analyze how a stockroom is sorted and be able to look at what are our ways that we can keep track of our first in first out of certain inventory items. How do we make sure that we're setting ourselves up in a manner that's conducive to the flow of business? So maybe, for example, we went in and we work with Central Garage pre flood, and we said, how many times do you walk back and forth from your truck to get a piece of equipment, from your truck to get another material, from your truck to get, you know, the next item that you need? And how can we help organize how can we help you envision how you would organize your workspace so that you can minimize the downtime that you have when you're repairing a vehicle? So it might not seem like a whole lot, but they went through and they said, okay. Well, you know, the stockroom's way over here, and I have to go through three doors and maybe fifty feet around a couple of corners. If I just knew what I had, I could get my materials and then come in and put my materials by my space and then learn how to very quickly, navigate what they might need, put their tools all closer to them, and we can help them understand maybe a different way to set themselves up. And that was an internal innovation that was promoted by the innovation team in the continuous improvement team and bureau of innovation learning development. And Christine is [Speaker 4 ]: here. So And I'll I'll take [Jayden Morse ]: a sort of question or we can transition over. [Chair ]: Really appreciate that. We had opted to take responsibility with a little bit of the agenda change and our committee assistant being out today and a little bit of communication wise. We had asked it looks like we had split your time up to ask for some little follow-up testimony on some stuff that we had had yesterday, which is why I think that maybe some of your crew thought we weren't until a little bit later that we were gonna interrupt with some information on new vehicle sales from [Jayden Morse ]: We are happy to unselect and find it open. [Chair ]: And then and then I've then come back and finish before We [Jayden Morse ]: love to [Speaker 1 ]: do that. [Chair ]: So my apologies. And with a few a little bit of absences and change, I think that that's I apologize to the to you that knew the schedule, and we're off, and I didn't interrupt it the right way, I guess, to really look to training, some follow-up testimony. That's We're gonna come back to your group after we're gonna transition. And I apologize for that, to you and all of the witnesses. We're we need to get a section in in order to respond to the budget adjustment act, and we have some additional testimony on what has happened with vehicle sales based on yesterday. So I apologize for inserting it into the, agenda to respond to some of the members and some of the information that we needed. And Jenna and I weren't able to communicate today, so I apologize for that. And I appreciate it. [Heidi Quenneville ]: I apologize for your fault. [Speaker 4 ]: That's not your fault. We [Chair ]: had people out. It was unexpected, and I I really appreciate your [Speaker 1 ]: your use to my I appreciate the flexibility of your team, [Chair ]: and my apologies for that. And if we could move over, I guess, briefly to follow-up on or not briefly, but to follow-up. Matt Coda is gonna join us. Vermont representative of Vermont Vehicle and Automotive distributor association. So we're gonna we've got a half an hour for this part if need be to follow-up on yesterday's portion. We get related to electric vehicles and incentives and sales and also to introduce the group a little bit. I appreciate your flexibility. This is something that ties in where we were yesterday. I'm sorry to split up your team. So, again, that's the risk you take when you hire committee chairs by height instead of experience. [Matt Coda ]: No. No. No. It's So [Chair ]: thank you very much, representative. Do we [Speaker 8 ]: do we have this presentation? Website email or not? We don't need [Speaker 4 ]: it now. Verified. It should I was told that everything should already be posted. [Speaker 8 ]: But maybe not this one. [Speaker 1 ]: It's I need to speak with a committee assistant about how it's such a large file in terms of I need to figure out what's the best one. I can't email it. It's too too large of a file for mine. [Speaker 4 ]: So So we'll see. Yeah. [Speaker 1 ]: That's Yeah. But I but it will absolutely be. For the record, Matt Coda. I'm with the firm Meadow Hill Consulting. We're a nonprofit trade association management firm that provides advocacy services. One of my clients is the Vermont Vehicle and Automower Distributors Association, which represents a hundred and fifty three different Vermont companies. Ninety three of them are franchise auto dealers, new car dealers. And we publish Meadow Hill Media publishes the Vermont vehicle index every month, and I'm pleased to present information as it helps guide policy here in your committee. Okay. Just some background. The vehicle index is used with data that we subscribe to from a company called Experian Auto Count. And and so that's the source of the information. It's incredibly granular. You can go into details about luxury SUVs versus economy sedans versus, you know, what dealer, whether it's a lease or it's a loan. It's just a high level overview, but I wanted to provide it as it helps this discussion. When it talks about new and used vehicle registered in Vermont, we're talking about first time. So we're not renewal of my car. It's up for the three year, four year renewal time to renew it. This is a vehicle that is either new to you, the person registering it Mhmm. Or it's new in general. More most vehicles sold, registered in Vermont with a green plate on it, or purchased used. Sixty three percent are used vehicles. Hundred and thirteen thousand four hundred sixty two were the total vehicles that were purchased and registered in Vermont last year, all of twenty twenty four. How does that compare with the last four years? Well, it's about average. Twenty twenty one was a banner year. Twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three were down. We're up based on those. But we average about a hundred and ten thousand new and used vehicles registered in Vermont. Could be purchased in New Hampshire, could be purchased in Florida, But they have they have the green plate on them, and they have paid the purchase and use tax for the state of Vermont. The most popular car in Vermont is not a car. It is a SUV, CUV, or wagon, or truck, or van, CUV being the small sport utility vehicles that that are elevated. If you back out, because you can get into this granularity, if you back out the minivans and just think about the vans that you might use for the plumbing company or electrical company, and you back out the CUVs, which are the smaller SUVs that kinda seem like wagons or wagons, we're still more than half the vehicles registered in Vermont every year are either a truck or an SUV. If you look at just twenty twenty four, new and used vehicle registrations, again, putting in the used vehicle data, you see that we're about six percent are battery electric or plug in electric vehicles. The reason why I separate those two or put those two in the same category is because those are the gasoline hybrid models. The main source of power in those vehicles is gasoline. It has a battery, and it has an electric motor, and that increases the miles per gallon of that vehicle dramatically. But it doesn't have a plug, and it has to have a plug in order to account for something we can talk about now or later, which is the advanced clean car standard. In order for manufacturers to get credit for delivering electric vehicles into Vermont, it can't be a gasoline hybrid. It has to be either a pure battery electric or a plug in electric hybrid, so it's gotta have a plug. New vehicle just focusing on the new vehicle registrations. Twelve percent. We're now at twelve percent. The top twenty, again, I'll have this information. You can look at it. I can even go into more granularity, but these are the top twenty new vehicles by make registered in Vermont. Toyota, Subaru, Ford, year after year, continue to be the top three performers. When you look at battery electric vehicles and plug in hybrid electric vehicles, So, yes, a gas, but primarily electric vehicle with a plug, Nissan Tesla and a four g. And five thousand two hundred and twenty five were registered in Vermont last year. Again, when I say registered, could have been purchased in Florida, been purchased in California, but were brought to Vermont and registered here as a new car or as a with a green flip. New and used vehicle registrations, here's just another another data point to look at. But I'll get to the the punch line here. Used vehicle registrations, again, mostly gasoline. New vehicles registered in Vermont by month. And here's where we're getting to. I'm going this quickly because I know you're short on time, but here's the rolling average from gasoline vehicles registered in Vermont. And here's new versus used electric and plug in gas by month. But here is what we're looking for. The new vehicles registered in Vermont, twenty twenty four, percentage of EVs. So take electric vehicles, plug in electric vehicles, and then everything else. Gas hybrids, gasoline, ethanol, diesel, biodiesel. Put all those in the other basket, and we're at twelve percent for the year. But the big numbers that I think that formed the discussion, which is where were we when the money ran out for the drive electric programs? So that happened, at the end of September. We were notified. The dealers were notified at the end of September, beginning of October, that these programs are gonna run out in about ten days. And when that happened, sales actually counterintuitively went up in October. And they stayed fairly steady. They went down in November, December, but we're still at twelve percent of sales. There's a lot of reasons for that, and I would hate to say that there was one reason or another. For instance, a specific manufacturer may offer very attractive lease deals on they do this in gasoline. People still have been doing it forever on certain mod makes and models because they wanna turn over to the next model year, and and some of these attractive leased deals have an effect of moving the market, moving moving vehicles. But we didn't see, in my opinion, studying this data, a tremendous drop off in sales of electric vehicles. They stayed fairly constant. And in fact, they stayed at in November and December where there were no drive electric rebates the same as they were in prior months in the rolling average at twelve percent. This is the big chart. This is the one that that has a lot of Vermont local Vermont dealers up at night and thinking about how they're going to comply. So Vermont adopted on the recommendation of the Vermont Climate Council, which I also serve as the fuel sector representative. The Agency of Natural Resources in September twenty twenty two adopted the advanced clean car two and advanced clean truck regulation. It did so these are the regulations that California adopted with permission under a nineteen seventy Clean Air Act law passed by Congress, signed by president Nixon, that allowed them to regulate tailpipe emissions. They used that same regulatory structure, that same approval to create a new mandate to reduce the the or to require manufacturers to deliver to California, an increasing number of battery electric vehicles. Vermont and eleven other states or ten other states in Washington, DC adopted the similar mandate. So we are copying California. California has permission under this nineteen seventy law. And despite what you may have heard or read from the Trump administration and their unleashing energy report, that was a different set of regulations that he promised to unwind. Whether or not this is unwound, whether or not California loses permission to enforce this, I don't know. I've never tried and never will understand how that whole process works down in DC. However, I can tell you how it's affecting dealers here. The clean truck regulation is awesome effect. Again, less steep climb towards battery electric for trucks. But think about trucks as everything from the eighteen wheeler that's delivering milk and logs to a class two b vehicle, which is like a Chevy Silverado twenty five hundred or a Ford f two fifty. Again, working trucks, mostly working trucks, and everything in between, as you can see in the chart. Those have a different standard that they have to meet. Again, these are these are regulations proposed by the Agency of Natural Resources, adopted by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, have the force of law, and unless and until California is denied the right to to implement this or they themselves rescind it or we rescind it, this is the current rule. So there are three ways to comply, three ways for manufacturers to comply. It's not a mandate on consumers to buy these cars. It's not a mandate on dealers to sell these cars. It's a mandate on manufacturers to deliver to Vermont thirty five percent battery electric vehicles starting model year twenty twenty six scaling up to a hundred percent in twenty thirty five where all you'll be able to purchase for a new vehicle in Vermont is a battery electric vehicle. Two or three ways I can apply. One is they simply put thirty five they sell hundred cars a year. They put thirty five battery electric vehicles on the Vermont lot, dealer's lot, and sixty five gas vehicles or some some there or thereof. Or they can reduce the allocation. The manufacturer could put, instead of a hundred vehicles, could put fifty vehicles, thirteen, fourteen of which are battery electric, and and, thirty two are gasoline. So reduce the number reduce the volume that they provide for monitors, reducing choice for dealers to sell, reducing choice for consumers. Or they could pay they could purchase credits through a credit system set up by the California Air Resources Board. Credits are owned by manufacturers who produce more electric vehicles. It has become a significant profit sector for Tesla. Forty percent of their net profit in twenty twenty four is from purchasing these credits. So when people say, oh, the president Trump is going to eliminate this rule that allows California to require this that Vermont is following, I say, maybe. But maybe it benefits people that want those credits. It's complicated. It's tricky. But for Vermont dealers, they want they're not they're supportive of EVs. They've sold EVs. They've made significant investments in infrastructure and charging equipment, in training. An EV tech has to you get take a mechanic and send them to New Jersey for a week and train them to be an EV tech. For them, they wanna sell what their customers wanna buy. And and they're this is a challenging situation that they're in, being ping ponged between federal policy, California policy, Vermont policy. And and then, of course, hanging the balances, what federal and state incentives are available to convince consumers to purchase an electric vehicle? It's a challenging time for Vermont's auto dealers. But just like just like the gasoline station, you know, just because you see mobile doesn't mean mobile owns the station. Just because you see Citco on on on the on the road to route twelve, Citco doesn't own that station. Jeff Parker owns that station in Montpelier. Same thing with Ford and Nissan and all these dealers that are in your towns. They're owned by, generally speaking, locally owned, family owned businesses, and navigating a very challenging situation with policies to promote electric vehicles, to incentivize electric vehicles, demand electric vehicles, and then administrations change. And then and then the manufacturers may change as well. It's confusing, to be sure. A lot of this will be sorted out or a lot of this will be discussed at our annual breakfast meeting. You're all invited to Copying Cars in the Capital Plaza Hotel, where many of the beta members who are struggling with these questions. You can hear it directly from them, not from me. You know, you'll see yet another invitation coming up. That's in a couple of weeks. Are there questions about the data or about about electric vehicle sales? [Chair ]: First of all, thank you very much for responding so quickly as we discussed the electric vehicle incentives and the program that ran out in our response related to we have to answer to the Budget Adjustment Act for tomorrow. So I really thank you for coming in so quickly and specifically addressing that issue, but also the opportunity to discuss and highlight or preview something we're going to have to get into in a much more in-depth or at least awareness wise of what's coming for a pretty significant sector at lot. So it's kind of two different pieces. I don't think we're gonna be able to tackle all of it today, but I certainly open it up for questions. We do have more time on the agenda, but I definitely this was what we absolutely wanted to see. I'm glad to get the preview on the bigger or the other issue as well. So please, representative Fowles, it looks like you're Yeah. [Speaker 8 ]: To go ahead. Thanks, sir. This is great information. I have two questions. One, are the dealers to talking amongst themselves, like, the incentive programs have, like not that they're not helping or or are they feeling like it didn't didn't really matter? [Speaker 1 ]: No. So I I I don't wanna thank you for the opportunity [Speaker 4 ]: to [Speaker 1 ]: clarify. Incentives look. Incentives absolutely help move the market. There's no question about that. I thought did the lack of incentives mean that no one's buying EVs? No. Are there a multitude of issues at play, particularly at the end of the model year, particularly at the end of the fiscal year, calendar year, particularly with different manufacturers who need to turn over certain yeah. There's it's to say it's the incentives were the only things driving the market. I don't think any of us know believe that, and I'm just here to affirm that. There are a lot of factors at play that that have helped increase EV sales because they have increased. I mean, if you look at the numbers over the past I guess I know that's a lot. Oh, yeah. Here they are. It's seven percent to ten percent, eleven percent, fourteen. We increased two percent every year in two and a half, three percent. We're gonna get to thirty five percent. It's not gonna get there in model year twenty twenty six. [Speaker 8 ]: So Thank you. That's great. My second question, is there any pushback from the manufacturers saying, you know, Chevy or whoever it is, not Tesla, obviously, can can we not you know, are they saying we can't even get that many vehicles of for electrics to your [Speaker 1 ]: show to show them? So I would I would let the manufacturers, and they do have very, skilled, representatives, in this building. I would let them speak for that. I can tell you that they have distributed a letter to the dealers saying that it will, quote, take a miracle for them to meet the, vehicle mandates. And, again, if if anyone says it's correct, that it's not a mandate, it's not a requirement that homeowners buy an electric vehicle, it's not a requirement that dealers sell it. It's a requirement that manufacturers deliver, and they're the ones that have to pay the fines off me. But I caution you on this because it really this is what has so many people concerned. It does not stop any of us going to Keene or Lebanon or Manchester, New Hampshire or anywhere over there where they have no such regulation, buying whatever vehicle we want in whatever trim, whatever color we want, and bringing it back here and registering it. That is completely legal and available to anyone that has the means to go across that skinny river we call the Connecticut and buy another vehicle that burns gasoline. Similarly, if a someone from New Hampshire wanted to come to Vermont and buy an electric vehicle because there's more choice, there's more color, there's more more trim design trim, premium, whatever it is, Vermont would get credit for that sale even if it was registered in New Hampshire. So it's different on the truck rule, though, which is concerning. So on trucks, as some of you know that are that have purchased trucks for specialty trucks, truck's not a truck's not a toy. It's a tool. Know that it might be assembled. For the truck rule, it matters where it's where it's registered. So for for it's it's the same regulation, but two different paths for compliance and two different standards, all passed through California, adopted by Vermont. And the truck rule will even though the bar is lower, it is going to be a much more difficult way to reach to the point where there are already trucking companies that have either, changed their domicile or opened up retail establishments in New Hampshire, swapped green plates for white in order to avoid having to purchase an electric vehicle in order to do the work that they do. Not because they're closed electric vehicles, because it is not available at a price point that they can afford or is not equipped to do the job they need to do. Moving logs, moving milk in rural areas of Vermont. Moving fuel. You can't build a fuel truck that has an electric battery on it. It gets fired. Thank you. Representative Burke? [Maureen Parker ]: Yeah. Thanks, Jamie, for this presentation. And can we get a can we get this sent to us at some point? [Speaker 1 ]: Oh, absolutely. Once I figure out how to transfer the large file, I will absolutely I meant to put on a thumb drive, but I'll absolutely put it on the Great. [Maureen Parker ]: And the question is, so you're saying that even after the incentives went away, people continue to buy electric and battery electric or at the same rate as before. However, I mean, so that you can't let going forward. But going forward, if we had incentives, it would probably continue to increase the way that they've been increasing during the time that we've had the incentives. [Speaker 1 ]: There's no question, Representative Burke, that incentives help. They're not certainly not the only factor that that gets people to the dealership that decides to buy electric versus gasoline. But, the federal tax credit, seventy five hundred dollars for those that have taxable income. That is a a definitely a strong factor determining whether or not they buy electric or not. Generally, the early adopters, they that was the easy part, quite frankly. Getting above getting to thirty five, getting from fifteen percent to thirty five, that will be the challenge. And then once you're at thirty five percent, then I think it gets a lot easier. But that getting from fifteen to thirty five percent over the next five years will be the challenge if we are going to transform our transportation industry so that more people are driving electric and not burning gasoline. [Speaker 4 ]: I think. Representative Susan? [Speaker 1 ]: So anecdotally, I understand that with leases coming off in the last next last two years that strict EVs, used EVs are getting very inexpensive. Is that is that anecdotally true? That is true. In fact, with but referring to why did our EVs not drop off when our state incentives went away. Part of it is very attractive lease offers and and and innovative, I would call innovative and creative lease offers. So some manufacturers offering thirteen month lease. Some some for fifty dollars a month. Some were offering eighteen month lease. We think of traditional leases as being thirty six month leases. They don't have to be thirty six month leases. They can be whatever. So when those leases come offline, they will go back to the dealer. And as leases work, the the dealer can either buy it from the manufacturer or the manufacturer takes it back. What happens then depends on when that lease term runs out as you described, whether or not there's more value to the dealer to purchase the vehicle back and then resell it or for the dealer to take it back. Now, of course, there are some leases that dealers take back and or excuse me. Some dealers that manufacturers take back, and they take back at a loss. All of that will play out over the next three three years, but, certainly, that happens in the in the gasoline world too. You have a if you have you're trying to move your new latest model year and you still have a lot of old model years on the lot, you you gotta push the old cars out to move the new ones. How do you push the old cars out? It'd be good this time. And some of that can happen through lease because the lease offers, that were available were able to capture, the federal tax credits, which is a big mover. The seventy five hundred dollars absolutely has an effect. And if you can capture that in both the lease and a purchase, which which the federal government has allowed dealers to do, manufacturers to do, that ends up. We don't know if that's gonna stay. So there's a lot that we don't know. We don't know if the federal government is going to continue to provide that tax credit. We don't know if there's money available on state for that tax credit. We don't know if the mandates will have it how the how the manufacturer will react to that. There's a lot of uncertainty in this business at this time because it needs different policies again to push us to electric vehicle. [Speaker 7 ]: Could you just clarify, this e b credit that you were talking about? So understanding that the ACC two regulation requires manufacturers to deliver x amount of EVs to Vermont, and and we're trying to get to thirty five percent in twenty twenty six and scaling up to [Maureen Parker ]: a hundred percent in twenty thirty. [Speaker 1 ]: Twenty thirty five. [Speaker 7 ]: Twenty thirty five. And you said that Tesla that that manufacturers can purchase EV credits. So and how Tesla I I just didn't quite understand that. [Chair ]: So the way California [Speaker 1 ]: so stepping back, California, received permission from the federal government, don't know exact dates, to regulate tailpipe emissions to have a standard that's above and beyond what the EPA allowed. And they did so based on the Clean Air Act saying we need to take away the nitrous and the and the the SOx and NOx out of our tailpipes or so we have less smog in Los Angeles. They have used that same structure, the California Air Resources Board, to extend that logic to we can actually remove the tailpipe entirely by having battery electric vehicles. Received permission from the Biden administration to impose that regulation in twenty twenty two. It passed it. It's in effect in California. Vermont and ten other states have adopted that same regulation, which takes effect with model year twenty twenty six, which rolls off the assembly line in Detroit in April sometime. And and what they can do in order to comply is every manufacturer has is based on their prior sales. So so it's not one, one manufacturer over performs and one doesn't do it. It's not like you're picking up the slack. Every manufacturer is on the hook at thirty five percent. So you can either deliver those vehicles to Vermont or you can purchase credits. Who owns credits? Credits are the manufacturers that overproduce. So any of the big manufacturers could overproduce as well. They just happen to not be doing it. Who is overproducing? The companies that produce just electric vehicles, Rivian, Tesla, but mostly Tesla. So they are able to sell their credits to the the traditional manufacturers who mostly produce gasoline vehicles in order for them to for those manufacturers to reduce their requirements to deliver electric vehicles. [Speaker 7 ]: And is that impacting the car, the cars that are in Vermont, or is that just happening in the ether? We don't really like, this transaction of Tesla selling credits to another car manufacturer. [Speaker 1 ]: This is happening in the this is this is way above my Do we do [Speaker 7 ]: we see it in the landscape of Vermont vehicles? [Speaker 1 ]: Well, we don't the requirements are in place yet. So a transaction between regulated by car transaction between a manufacturer traditional manufacturer and Tesla regulated by the California Resources Board, it's sort of beyond our scope. And I the the climate office, Jane Lacerig, with the with the agency natural resources could provide a lot more insight than I can. We're just in this in this odd period where we don't know if the federal government will remove California's right to do this because we where where California goes, we're currently hitched to their wagon. We don't know if the federal government will continue to allow the Trump administration will continue to allow California to do this. We don't know if they decide to let them not do this, whether California could sue the federal government for the right to do this. That's certainly within their ability. We don't know if this will be adjudicated at the ninth circuit court or the supreme court. This could take six months, eighteen months. I have no idea. But what we do know is that if the manufacturers decide to comply with the rule as it states now and deliver thirty five percent of electric vehicles with model year twenty twenty six, it will be very difficult, consent of remote, to move that number of electric vehicles. I'd love to say all we need is a five hundred dollar incentive, then we can get to thirty five percent model year twenty twenty six, but that's not the truth. We're not gonna get there even with [Chair ]: an with a generous incentive from the state. This issue, this issue is is a sort of this portion is a preview of something we'll be digging more into what we specifically for what we need to accomplish right now is about whether or not there was interest among members to adjust the letter that we we don't have to the Budget Adjustment Act. So we have another minute or two, but we'll have to go back to where our regular scheduled programming. Yes, please. [Speaker 1 ]: Can I just say one more thing, Terry Walker, which is to say that the starts and stops, I'm you I'm sure you'd hear this from my friends at Efficiency of Vermont as well? But when it comes to start and stops with funding, it's really challenging, because just as soon as you get the word out there and then you educate the the sales managers and then the Internet, you know, to have a program that lasts for a couple of weeks, which is probably I mean, we're talking about fiscal year twenty twenty five budget adjustment act, what we could put on the street in, what, May? May and June. If it if it's a continuation of of funding that goes on for FY twenty twenty six, I get it. It makes sense. If it's just a six week program, it's it's sort of challenging from the perspective of those who sell the cars to be able to advertise. We got a great rebate for you, and then it goes away and we gotta pull it away. You know the We don't. [Chair ]: And we don't know. Exactly. Representative Casey, if gas prices drop, isn't isn't and and combined with the mandates that Vermont's Vermont's got, isn't that that's gonna be hell for the for the automobile dealers. I think they're just gonna sell out and go over to New Hampshire, and we're all gonna have to drive over to New Hampshire to buy our cars. [Speaker 1 ]: Yeah. I I I think the the gas prices won't be the the primary driver of that. It will be, individual individual needs and wants. For instance, as we said before, the the most popular vehicle in Vermont is not a car. It's a truck or an SUV. Truck truck they do make electric all electric truck and SUVs, but they tend to be at a much higher price point than, say, your more modest sedans and wagons and CUVs that are electric. Right. Like a ladder rack for it. So that's that's the challenge, representative Casey, which is which is for those that either need or want the truck or a large vehicle, yes. They can go to the next one. Yeah. [Speaker 4 ]: For example So just so these credits so take Chevy, the manufacturer. So they're if they're going to send something to a Chevy dealer and a particular dealer, thirty five of their cars have to be electric, sixty five are fuel gas. Correct? If Chevy can't provide that, if the manufacturer of Chevy cannot provide that, say they say that we can provide twenty EVs and sixty five fuel, then the manufacturer is going to pay to get credits for the fifteen that they can't provide to this dealer in Vermont, not the Vermont dealer? That's correct. In theory, that's how it's supposed to work. [Speaker 1 ]: But we do have a public letter from the Alliance of Manufacturers that says that is one way that they can comply. The other way they comply is by lowering their allocation, lowering the denominator. Except, like, fifteen. But so they could Right. By twenty. To buy fewer gas vehicles, and then they're still up to thirty five percent because the denominator is less. Okay. [Speaker 4 ]: Alright. Thank you. So, [Chair ]: again, Matt, I really appreciate your quick response. I will say for the newer members, this is a visible person in the building, and this is a big topic that we're headed towards. Connect. [Speaker 8 ]: Oops. Representative Johnson? Just one last question, and maybe you know, hopefully. So is California in the same spot in the other sixteen states? You know, are they also looking at this sort of it's not CLIP. It is CLIP, but you gotta go up. You're not following up. Right. Which it really starts in twenty twenty seven is when the twenty twenty six has happened. Right? So are the other states in the same position as we are, I guess? [Speaker 1 ]: So are are they California outperforms all the other, ACC two states. So, you know, think of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Washington, DC. You know, I'm missing some. But all those states that have adopted California's rule, California's outperforming. They're I get the numbers, but they're in the high twenties. We're in twelve percent. They're in the high twenties. And it is model year twenty twenty six, which are available in twenty twenty five. So for some for some manufacturers. Sometimes they're available in April. Sometimes they're available in December. Sometimes they're don't come until January of twenty twenty six, but it is in effect. And and quite frankly, I have no insight. I can't I you know, you heard the news about president Trump revoking the Biden EV mandate, which wasn't it's just a completely different thing. It wasn't it was a nationwide mandate. It wouldn't take effect till twenty thirty. It wasn't happening now. This is happening now. And whether or not they decide to pick a fight with California over it, Yeah. Who who would enforce this, man? [Speaker 6 ]: Like, if the manufacturer trip you know, or whatever. Say, hey. Right. Right. Doing it. Who would who would sue Ford to say you're not complying with the federal law? Would it be California or would it be under the Trump administration, which obviously he's gonna direct his people not to enforce that? It [Speaker 1 ]: it would be the it wouldn't be federal law because it's it's permission by the it's confusing, but it's permission by the state of California through a federal law to enforce mandates on manufacturers adopted by Vermont and other states, enforced by or the the the regulatory agency in charge of all this, all this accounting is the California Air Resources Board. California with But but locally, it's the Agency of Natural Resources. They promulgated the rule. Yeah. They keep the data. In fact, on their website, I can give you a link, it shows you how each manufacturer performed and what their requirement could be going forward. And it must be a good idea to bring someone from I don't know what to do, but but but agency natural resources are wonderful source of information on how this would be how it would be enforced and how they see compliance going forward if it were to stay in place. [Chair ]: Yeah. That is very exciting. Okay. Thank you very much for the quick response and availability, and we'll work with the the with the assistant to have that information available and ensure that sure that we'll be seeing you again. And then I have to extend my apologies back to Jana, and your team is back and up in this week until lunchtime and picking up on [Speaker 1 ]: where [Chair ]: we left off before, and my apologies to Christine. [Speaker 4 ]: And might need to just a moment to get reconnected. Yes. Take a couple of presentation on it. [Chair ]: Please do. We'll be live during that time frame. And just so you're all aware, we're still on still on live. We'll go from there. [34 seconds of silence] [Speaker 4 ]: This [Chair ]: one much bigger. So [Speaker 4 ]: I noticed I didn't get an email the other night about your ballgame. [Chair ]: We have another one in Middlebury tonight. We'll get to inspect more of our agencies here [Heidi Quenneville ]: for probably didn't win. [Speaker 6 ]: Right? Yeah. Streak has ended. [Speaker 4 ]: I've tried. [Speaker 1 ]: I'd like to look [Chair ]: at it as three out [Speaker 4 ]: of four. Did you We [Chair ]: won three out [Heidi Quenneville ]: of four. Or a little? [Chair ]: In the end, it looked like a lot, but I thought it [Matt Coda ]: was pretty well. I'm trying to help you out here, miss. [Chair ]: I thought that the the team played pretty hard, and if we had, you know, it's all on those coulda, woulda, shouldas, but that's for us well. They were all yeah. No. I I never say that. Yeah. We like to think with us three out of four with another chance of money. [Speaker 1 ]: In your [Chair ]: He's in our little late vision. Right. So look at that. And we are live, and we are picking up. It's up there. I can see that. We got a nice picture of a lot of orange. You've seen everybody having challenges where the system's in. It's not yours. We've had it with most of our witnesses. [Speaker 4 ]: I'm sorry. I'm just writing this as well. It's never fine. Oops. What's [Chair ]: your mother? That's your uncle. [Speaker 6 ]: And we do have this online. So so Yeah. If you wanna proceed, you know, I'll need to hold you up anymore. [21 seconds of silence] [Maureen Parker ]: Good morning. Good morning. My name is Christine Hutzall, and I'm the director of the Bureau of Innovation, Learning, and Development for the Agency of Transportation. Thank you for the opportunity to join you today and share about the terrific work that this team is doing. So we have a few different, groups that are underneath this build. That's the name of our bureau, and we really are about building we're building a culture. We are really focused on how employees are doing their work because we know that employees that are engaged, empowered, and feel psychologically safe are productive, and they produce better work. The first group is the business intelligence and performance team, and this is really our data team. And in the presentation, there's a couple of very nice graphs that show kind of the automation work that they do, Power BI dashboards, and different power applications for a variety of things, like tracking our standard work procedures or facility safety checklist. And, really, the value of it is just data driven decision making empowers people to make better decisions. The better decisions they make, the better work outcomes, the more empowered they are, the more efficiently government lives. Speaking of efficiency, Federal Highway has a priority area of innovation, and we have a group, a continuous improvement and innovation group that's very focused on innovation. And innovation is how our organization evolves, becomes efficient in in changing times, changing technologies just like today. There's all sorts of technology that sometimes is really effective, and sometimes you need to pivot, and that's what innovation is all about. How do we continue to evolve and do things better? So just a couple of examples. There is an employee group that is a strategic workforce committee on innovation that gets together to share ideas and to discuss how to best broadcast innovations that encourage others to innovate. There's manager supervisor training on supporting innovation. How do you have innovative employees that are coming up with sometimes brilliant ideas and sometimes maybe the idea isn't not yet? How do you continue to have those conversations with employees to have them challenge the norms to try to innovate while keeping people safe and staying within the lanes that you need to to do that. We have a comprehensive training program that's launching next month specifically on how to create innovate innovation in teams, and we spend a lot of time at the national level on all of our various workforce issues, learning from other DOTs, understanding maybe what bigger states are doing. And I'm just here to share that our small and mighty state's actually incredibly innovative in all of its workforce practices as compared to nationwide the other DOTs. So there's a lot of information sharing going on. So when we think about innovation, that's really, again, creating employee engagement experience, psychological safety. People want to take a risk. They want to learn. They want to grow. And that's how you grow a culture of an organization so that you're not constantly battling turnover or a bad attitude or just disengagement. So the continuous improvement group that runs innovation also does a lot of business process documentation, standardization, process mapping, working with all of the different divisions on efficiencies. They offer coaching, mentoring, all sorts of a variety of projects, and they too have a nationwide presence with other DATs sharing sharing best practices, curriculum. It's very it's a the DOTs are very terrific about sharing with each other. Moving on to workforce. So this is such an important topic that this team focuses on. Our vacancy rate is the lowest it's been in five years, which is pretty shocking. Even though there's lots of workforce pressures, we've done a lot of work on that. Twenty three percent of our new hires are actually returning AOT employees, and that's really interesting. When you have an employee that departs, which you never want them to depart, but if they do depart and they wanna come back, that means you've handled their onboarding, their offboarding. You handled everything well, and now all that institutional knowledge just comes walking right back into the door. So that's really exciting and and quite a bit different than some of the other DOTs that we work closely with. They carry much higher vacancy rates. They don't have the return rates that we do. So I think that speaks a lot to our culture. So just as an example, eighteen retirements this last year that will continue to escalate as we look at the aging of our state population and of our workforce population. So we're gonna do everything we've done to keep people engaged, evolve past normal retirement age, and be creative in how we can give people the flexibility that we we do have an employee engagement survey that the Department of Human Resources issues for all all state agencies, departments. And we fared quite well the areas where AOT always consistently scores above average of state average is around the opportunity to learn, grow, and having the training that they need. And that is in part because we do have a training center, a technical training center for the agency of transportation. And we also just wanted to note, we had some substantial improvements this year in our communication scores. Our senior leaders, our leadership, our managers, supervisors have really focused on opening up communication, transparent communication, availability, and that seems to be making a difference in the workforce. The workforce is saying our communication is improving. So Yeah. We do watch our [Todd Eaton ]: Just a Yes. [Speaker 6 ]: Quick question on the eighty one point six percent of the vacancy. Is there a common thread there? Is there a certain need that you know, whether it's maintenance or or is it pretty much spread out? Just one of those one clearing [Heidi Quenneville ]: Maintenance system. Job. Yeah. [Maureen Parker ]: Maintenance, construction worker, that whole sector is very under [Speaker 4 ]: Yeah. [Maureen Parker ]: Developed in terms of the amount of people that wanna work in that. We chatted in years past. We used to hire a lot of farmers. You know, farmers who sold their farm, kids are farmers. People came in with heavy equipment experience. They weren't intimidated. Now we're having to offer all of that basic training to begin with. So maintenance is always a pressure. Chittenden County always a a pressure because so much competition. The rural areas seem to have a little bit less action. [Speaker 1 ]: Thing. [Maureen Parker ]: Yeah. It's a great question. And so, anyway, we're really trying to make data driven decisions in terms of our workforce, and that's where we instituted last year a strategic workforce plan. And I will just share that there's only a handful of DOTs in the country that take the time to actually look at their their data analytics and really understand who's moving, who's promoting, who's applying, and then start setting goals and strategies based on that data. So we have a two year plan in place that is available online. Happy to share that. The workforce pressures was were brought to all of the designated managers, and they voted on what they felt were their most important pressures or most painful pressures and then what they wanted to do about it, which actually created this really successful environment of implementing mandatory monthly one on one check ins. So every employee gets a one on one check-in with their supervisor every month. They could be writing the check together. It could be in an office. It it doesn't matter how it happens, but just that that happens. And that's been a tremendously successful rollout with mandatory training around how to have an effective check-in. It's great to have a check-in, but but if it's not a positive check-in or an effective check-in, then it's almost detrimental. So that works really well. Goals for this calendar year are around decreasing our average time to recruit, hire, and fill a position. We were losing some primary candidates or top level candidates because it was taking us a little bit too long to hire to go through the whole pure pride process of the hiring. So streamlining all that, educating managers about hiring committees and setting appointments up before jobs close so that you can kind of rapid fire, move somebody through the system. Somebody's unemployed, they want a job, and they want it now. And we want them. So we're moving that forward along with some mandatory training on building healthy and cohesive teams, making sure that that culture is good and knowledge management practices. So really just looking at workforce, keeping in mind our data, being very strategic about what we're measuring and what we're executing on. And then, on top of that, just a couple of other final stats on training, we do a a lot of technical training. Some of that's mandatory through VOSHA. Some of that is just our workforce is coming in maybe less qualified with heavy equipment and different equipment that they need to use. So we offered one hundred and thirteen in person or hybrid trainings, different trainings, and employees took advantage of two hundred and forty unique online trainings. Some of that could be for their PE licenses or or safety trainings. We also offer a lot of in person training on supervisory training, Transportation Leadership Institute of various leadership trainings. We do individual development plans. We have mentoring. We have coaching. We're working on succession planning with knowledge management. We have book discussions. We have lunch and learns. We just we have such a wide variety of employees that learn in so many different ways. We just we just throw a wide net. And it's been a really successful program. The training center has been around for a long time. So from onboarding to offboarding, we're really trying to create this growth mindset. I wish I could show you the slide on the Gallup strength training. We have a team grid, that shows a team's strengths and, how they vary with each other. And this is through Gallup. It's a really great model that talks about how people are productive. And I just wanted to offer to each of you, if this is something that you're interested in, we would love to send you a code so that you could take your assessment. And if you ever had any time and wanted to spend a half hour learning about each other, we'd love to put together a team group for this committee so that we can understand how you communicate differently and what's important and how you process information differently. It's a really cool tool. I'm a Stripe certified coach. It's inexpensive, so invite me back. I'd love to do that one. And then just to wrap up, one of our bigger training programs is entry level driver training. Back in twenty twenty two, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration changed the rules on how to get a CDL and made it a a lot more complicated and a lot more detailed. And it costs on average anywhere between five and eight thousand dollars to have somebody take CDL training. So we wanted to offer in house. So utilizing our network, we were able to build into our learning management system theory a theory course, many, many, many, many courses attached to that as well as in house trainers that are field workers that do the behind the wheel training. And we've had seventy seven AOT employees complete that this year and get their license for a cost savings of three hundred and eighty five thousand dollars. And then, Vermont Local Roads, who you're hearing from next. Also, we shared this with the municipalities. We had nineteen municipality employees complete that program. That was a saving of ninety five thousand dollars for a total of four hundred and eighty thousand dollars in savings just by doing our in house training using our current staff, which is incredible. So now that was very fast trying to get through this on time. But just in summary, we really foster and develop our workforce. And we know the better plan that we give them, and that doesn't mean they're not challenged to grow and that there aren't a variety of opportunities. The more we invest in them, the more they invest in their work and the better services we're able to provide to the citizens of them. Happy to answer any questions. [Speaker 8 ]: Okay. Thanks. Seems like I ask a lot of questions. This is all fantastic. I work with VMEC, Vermont Manufacturing Extension Corp. They do value stream mapping. They do that all throughout Vermont. But it's more manufacturing food, you know, producers and stuff, but they do a lot of this, and they're they're an extension service. So it might be you know, they may have resources [Speaker 7 ]: about all this kind of training [Speaker 8 ]: look into that. Certainly do that. [Maureen Parker ]: Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. Continuous. [Speaker 4 ]: Okay. Well Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Thank [Chair ]: you very much for joining us, and thank you for your flexibility and patience with our schedule. So moving on to the next, I guess, we'll welcome Todd Eaton, Vermont Local Roads next. [Todd Eaton ]: Yes. Todd Eaton. I'm the branch manager of Vermont Local Roads. I work directly under Christine in the Build Bureau. [Heidi Quenneville ]: Yeah. Former colleague. Yeah. [Todd Eaton ]: So sorry about the presentation. I so my intention with this presentation is to give you an overview of what Vermont Local Roads is, what an LTAP is as far as on the national level, some of the services that we provide municipalities, and also some of the well, focusing and highlighting the new services that we were able to to add last year. And we are. So our team is comprised of both myself and Holly Caden. Holly is our program coordinator. In the summer, we do hire a temp to come on and do equipment training. We hire him as the circuit rider, which is a LTAP, the local technical assistance program, traditional title. Basically, they, you know, they travel around and they bring training right to the local municipality's location. So we do that focused on equipment training. And as I'll talk about later, that has been a major emphasis of ours to increase the how much we offer as far as equipment training, over the last several years. So as I said, I wanted to provide a bit of an, explanation as far as what an LTAP is, a local technical assistance program since nineteen eighty three. It has been a federal mandate for every state in the country to have one. The that was actually lobbied for gosh. It just went out of my head as far as his name, but he was the town manager of Manchester. I he left that position, lobby to lobby to [Chair ]: the at at [Todd Eaton ]: at the house in DC to, to, you know, make this a reality and was the first director of for Mount Local Roads. And as I said, every state in the cut every state in the country is mandated to have one. They are of varying sizes. They are housed both in in, state DOTs and also in universities. Depending on where they're housed, it kind of switches a little bit of their emphasis. The ones that are in universities tend to deal a lot more with research and the ones that are in AOTs focus very, very specifically on training in, technical assistance services that we provide directly to the municipalities. Our mission is to foster a safe and efficient and environmentally sound surface transportation system by improving skills and increase increasing knowledge of the transportation workforce and decision makers. And a vision to supplement that is to improve the quality and safety of the surface transportation system through collaborative workerships, training, and information exchange. As as Vermont's LTAP, we focus on four specific areas as far as the services that we provide. Those are safety, infrastructure management, workforce development, and organizational excellence. Safety, obviously, to improve awareness and increase the implementation of best practices and roadway and worker safety. Infrastructure may management to hasten the implementation of best practices and planning and design, construction, maintenance, management, and operations of the service transportation system. Workforce development, we help stakeholders attract, retain, and retrain a knowledgeable and skilled transportation workforce. Just yesterday, most of my data was comprised of a as you're aware, many of the municipalities are dealing with a a lot of challenges as far as their own workforce or internal workforce. There's been a lot of turnover as far as row foremen are considered are concerned. Many municipalities have had to, I'll say, broaden their scope as far as the, the limitations that they're gonna put on their expectations of who they would hire for such positions. It just so yesterday, I'm working with the select board to go through basically a mentoring or a, internship pro program with a very young road foreman hoping to be road foreman of that particular town. So that's a process that we just started yesterday. And so that's just one of the ways in which we serve municipalities, very direct. I mean, that obviously takes up extra time as far as on my part. But, Vermont Local Roads also offers what we call a road scholar program. We maintain this to track and recognize participant advancement in their professional development and skills related to subjects essential to the effective road management. And those we have four levels that are attainable within that program. We have level one, level two, level three, and then become the master road scholar. The several reasons that we encourage, municipal participants and and road crew members to, enroll in the road scholar programs, they receive experienced instruction from dynamic presenters, benefit from hands on learning, and get to meet new people because one of the largest benefits as far as the feedback that we receive is the road crew member from Brattleboro interacting with the road crew member from Milton at a training or some type of event that we've been able to gather everybody together. And so they're exchanging notes based on the different demographics or whatever vendors are available to them in their area and however things are working for them. So they're able to learn from each other and their shared experiences and also their the different differing points of their experiences. Upon graduation of the Rhodes Scholar program, they they receive official recognition letter, a certificate sent to them and to their supervisor. They're featured in an article, the Vermont Vermont Local Roads newsletter. We we provide award as recognition, and that that will be presented to them in in in the presence of their peers. And it's definitely an increased confidence and knowledge level. There's there's many that have gone through the program, that have you know, they're nearing the retirement age, but they often introduce themselves to me. I'm a Rhodes Scholar, but I'm a master Rhodes Scholar. And so that's the the interaction that we can just start right off on a on a float of understanding. We also maintain a website for municipalities. The website provides resources such as workshop descriptions, the schedules for the workshops that we have, that we're currently offering, contact information, Rhodes Scholar information. So the the what each individual participant can log in to their to their Rhodes Scholar program and track their own progress. Technical resources such as tailgate talks, current road conditions that we partner with NOAA to out of out of Burlington to provide any kind of weather updates that might be pertinent to their particular areas, many different types of written materials as far as templates, things that can make their work easier or give them, you know, further instruction on whatever particular area of interest they might be pursuing. There's a classified section, listserv information and registration, and links to partner organizations partner organizations and also links to other social media like Facebook and things like that. Within our classifieds, we off we do advert excuse me. We do advertise, many job op opportunities as the municipalities make us aware of them, and the municipalities municipalities are also able to use that to, to list whatever piece of equipment that they might be interested in selling. The listserv that I mentioned is a method of communicating with a group of people through email. You send one email message to the reflector email address and the software then sends that email to everybody that's a member of that particular listener. It's the one of the it's the most efficient way as far as what we've experienced within our program of, to inform municipalities of workshop opportunities, highlight municipal equipment, as I said, the different things that they can, communicate with one another. And it's also a great way for one road one road foreman, say, from Bennington has a question. So he posted up there, well, where are you getting this particular material? And then you get input from road foreman and people from across the state as far as to help you out with that. Since the twenty twenty three flood in July, Holly and I have both been the, partially deployed to the recovery office under Doug Farnham to assist municipalities with the recovery planning and identifying funding opportunities to, you know, assist the the flood affected municipalities that are are obviously still struggling to to work through that process. I do not wanna be the guy that makes you late for lunch. So as as I said, I wanted to highlight some of the new programs that we were able to to, bring on bring on board last year, and one of one of which is our, Vermont Local Roads Grant programs. So last year, we for the first time in our program's history, we were able to offer grant grants to, to answer some of the challenges that municipalities have as far as for temporary traffic control. The temporary traffic control science grant, we divided the state into four quarters, and one town in each of those quarters, is able to is selected to receive five thousand dollars to purchase temporary traffic control signs to increase the efficiency and the safety of their temporary traffic for work zones. So this is when they are in the road doing some type of work. And last year's recipients of that was STOW Electric, Orange, Vermont, Milton, Vermont, and Stratford, Vermont. The temporary traffic control lightings program provides ten thousand dollar grant toward the purchase of a temporary traffic control lighting system. We've opened that up to any style system that they would that they would prefer. Some are operated directly by one individual flagger. They call it a flagger assisted, and some are fully automated stoplights for both directions. And so, depending on whatever the town is interested in as far as, what works best for them, we provide a grant for ten thousand dollars. Most of those systems run fifty to sixty thousand. Another program that we were able to begin last year was the Vermont Leadership Academy. We graduated sixteen out of twenty selected participants. The participants must apply to the program, submit a support letter from their supervisor or their select board, and commit a yes. Commit to a nine session schedule that we have previously posted just to make sure that the road form and they're obviously already busy, and also for their select board or their super supervisor to know what they're giving up as far as the commitment to enter into this particular program. The sessions focus on providing training in leading and motivating municipal highway employees to increase employee retention. The participants each prepare a presentation on a work related topic as a final project that they present to their peers to complete the program. The as I said, we graduated sixteen out of twenty. Two of two of the four that were not able to complete the program were not able to keep the schedule, and then two others decided that they were not willing to do a presentation in front of their, in front of their peers. So, otherwise, they did finish the program as far as going through all of the trainings, which opted out of doing the actual presentation. In the, in the presentation, which I'm sure if you, you will be able to see it later, I do have a snapshot of our dashboard that shows a lot of our training records. I'm proud to share that, both the we have been successful over the last several years. We've really tried to increase the amount of equipment training because that is the number one requested, training type from the municipalities. So we've made it a concerted effort to expand our contractual relationships with vendors and various Vermont tech centers to meet that request. And so from if you were able to see this graphic, you can see that that has become the number one training type that we provide as far as hours and and frequency of the of the training. [Chair ]: Page, and we can't follow along from the end of Christine's for those of you who looks like some of you are there. But that's interesting. Your list over on the right hand corner of the top courses and whatnot. Mhmm. [Todd Eaton ]: Yeah. In in years past excuse me. So I've been, I've worked for Vermont Local Roads for ten years, and, and I've been the manager to manager of it for the three or four. And prior to that, I was the technical training specialist. So then that's what I did. So I traveled around and I did a lot of the training. The technical and safety training was our number one offering at that time. And so that we've as I said, we've made a concerted effort to, to switch that around and to, to turn that more into the equipment side. As you see from my last slide, those of you that are able to follow along, we have a map there that highlights all of the different areas in which we've provided training. And so our as we build our training schedule, we we really focus and we do the best we can to scatter them throughout the state, and this is to reduce travel time for the participants. And our goal is to keep the travel time down to one hour or less. This along with limiting our training sessions to about five hours within the day within a five hour session, this reduces the need for overtime pay which helps to increase the select word support for the training. Overtime is Two minutes before twelve? No. [Chair ]: I was was just looking at the map. Sorry. Representative Burt. [Maureen Parker ]: What what does it cost to to [Speaker 4 ]: to participate in your training? [Chair ]: To answer your question directly, nothing. Yeah. [Todd Eaton ]: So the many of the LTAPs, as far as all of the different centers throughout the different states, it varies as far as what they offer. Everyone aims to do it as inexpensively as possible. I believe the the center over in New Hampshire generally charges twenty five or fifty dollars for training sessions. We are we are mandated everything. The Vermont Local Roads the legislation that brought Vermont Local Roads into VTrans legislated that we provide all of our services at no cost within this balance. So everything we do is. [Maureen Parker ]: I have some questions, but [Speaker 7 ]: I don't have time to wait for the answers. But We've been in touch. Candace White, you came to visit my private road in Wakefield, and [Heidi Quenneville ]: so I'll follow-up with you on email. [Speaker 7 ]: Okay. Thank you very much. [Chair ]: Thank you very much. Very much appreciated. Thank you to the whole team for your patience piece. We'll certainly try

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SmartTranscript of House Transportation 2025-01-22

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