Good morning. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are meeting this Tuesday morning before floor to consider amendments to S 15. And I think what I'd like to do is run through all three amendments and, and then we can take our votes on them. After we've heard all three of them. So I think first what I'll do is have representative Townsend, who is here visiting from the Appropriations Committee share with us the Appropriations Committee amendment. And you should all be able to find that on our committee page. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much for the record representative made a Townsend from South Burlington on behalf of house appropriations. In addition to the text of our amendment, which is on your web page, there is also the text of the most recent fiscal note, as recent as yesterday, it is posted on your web page. So our amendment to S 15. As the bill came to us, we saw that it incurs costs to the Office of the Secretary of State, both one time costs in the near term, and then recurring costs, virtually in perpetuity. Yet there was no appropriation within the bill to address to address any of these costs. From our perspective, that is a problem. And it is because of that that we offer our amendment, and the amendment deals solely with one time costs in the near term. Only the costs, which are addressed in the fiscal note, which need to be, which need to be taken care of in fiscal year 22 so as to have a state of readiness, when we reach the beginning of the general election cycle in calendar year. 2022, which would be into FY 23. So our amendment, you will see it is in the amount of an appropriation in the amount of $800,000. And it's in three components. The second and third components basically speak for themselves, but component number one the $400,000 in general fund dollars merit a bit of context. The context goes back to early January, when the joint fiscal committee authorized $2 million in CRF money to the Secretary of State's office to assist towns to assist with the mailings for town and annual meetings. The cost of $2 million CRF dollars. As time went on it became clear that the full amount would not be needed for reimbursement regarding these costs, and the Secretary of State's office has already returned 1 million of that 2 million to the CRF fund for other use. And at this point, there's approximately a half million remaining unspoken for with regard to reimbursements to localities with just a handful of meetings yet out there not having taken place. That being the case, the $400,000 which shows in component one for meeting the $800,000 lead in FY 22. This involves taking 400,000 of the remaining CRF dollars which the Secretary of State's office has from that original 2 million CRF authorization. That $400,000 is taken out for CRF eligible expenses and swapped with general fund dollars, which would then go into the Secretary of State's coffers to fill the hole left when the CRF 400,000 was taken out this kind of swap. Is nothing new we've, we've needed to do this over the last several months, one way or the next to enable the most effective use of, of dollars throughout the budget. The 400,000 in component one for the 800,000 does show as general funds dollars, but it is attained by having swapped out $400,000 of CRF dollars understanding that CRF dollars are not eligible to be used for election matters in this in the context of this proposal. So you've got $400,000 or we have in the proposal $400,000 general fund, general fund, and then component two is that the second 400,000 to reach 800,000 total would come from the Secretary of State's service fund, or the Health America vote act funds to the extent possible. Beyond that possible extent, the funds would come from other federal dollars, which might be made available moving forward to the Secretary of State's office, and then component three to to protect the Secretary of State's office and to protect the work, which this bill would do to the extent of them to the extent that to the extent that the related one time elections costs cannot be funded or absorbed as outlined in components one and two, then the Secretary of State's office would include any remaining unmet costs in their FY 22 budget adjustment act proposal in January. So that is the outline of the $800,000 and how we managed package it how we managed to create it. In the fiscal note you will see that there's an explanation of what the $800,000 are needed for. It is, in essence, $300,000 for secure drop boxes, 150 units at 2000 each $100,000 for mechanized letter openers 100 units at $1000 each $100,000 for software upgrade this is to ensure that our elections management system is right up to its best performance measure and $300,000 for voter education primarily for media buys. This package of expenses is based in the experience it's informed by the experience, which we have from the 2020 election cycle. So there's solid data behind these these costs. That in essence touches on our amendment. I underscore we do not in our amendment reach to the ongoing recurring costs, which will come into play as we discuss budget matters in January. We're also in F 15 as F 15, excuse me, as 15 as it came to us there was reference to an assistant elections director. I want to underscore that when the house was working initially on the FY 22 budget. At that point, never having seen as 15 at that point in time, nonetheless understood the burden being born by our elections division at Secretary of State's office and the house had already built into the budget and the Senate maintains it in the budget in their version. An additional position and assistant elections director so that piece is already covered. The vote on our amendment and committee was 1010 favorable and our vote on the bill as 15 as amended with our, our proposed amendment was 830 favorable. And so any questions that you might have, I'm happy to answer. Thank you very much. Representative Townsend questions from committee members on the appropriations committee amendment. Well, you must have done such a bang up job that nobody has any questions for you. Oh, representative Higley has a question. Thank you madam chair. Thank you representative Townsend just a question so the ongoing costs that you've referred to which it was no dollar amount. There is the printing and mailing out of the ballots is that correct. And then the fiscal note you will see a figure listed of $2,043,000 for the entire package it's in it's it's there. In the fiscal note. And that'll again come from a host of areas and possibly some of the general fund money as well. At the same time it's impossible for me to answer that question with the near speculation. This, this will need to be part of what we discuss in appropriations moving forward with the FY 23 budget cycle. You will see you will see also in the fiscal note that at JFO there is a suggestion as to a path forward with regard to the recurring costs, but again, that's simply a suggestion. It's within the realm of possibilities. Okay thanks. Thank you Madam chair. Thank you madam chair and good morning again madam. Very thorough explanation as always, so I wasn't really keeping track of the math so of this 800,000 is all of this one time monies is that the expectation. Yes. The whole thing. So one time is f 15 didn't go anywhere at all, would we be expending this money, do you think. I understand it. The 800,000 one time, as well as the recurring costs are based in the requirements upon the Secretary of State's office in s 15. And I do see on the screen here that there is representation from the Secretary of State's office and I have no idea if perhaps they could shed more light on that. I have a follow up question there madam chair, maybe to Chris or for will. Is this 800,000 this exclusively. I guess allocated to the language for s 15. Yes. Very good. Thank you. I can give you more detail replic there but if that's sufficient that's it, it would all only be spent if this bill passes. Thank you. All right committee any other questions for representative Townsend or from the Secretary of State's office perspective on the appropriation. All right, thank you so much representative Townsend we will see you on the floor we have a few other pieces of business to conduct here this morning so you're welcome to hang around but I imagine you also have other places you could be this morning. Thank you very much for having me. Next I'd like to go to representative McCarthy for an overview of the amendment that he is putting forward and if you can just help the committee understand the context here since you and I have talked quite a bit about what's contained in here. Thank you madam chair so I'm sure that many of us have received emails since we passed s 15 out of committee. There were a couple of issues that came up that we wanted to take the opportunity to address so I appreciate our chair, working with me and other members of the body and some town clerks and the secretary states office to present two instances of amendment here, which I'm offering so the first instance allows ballot drop boxes to stay open on election day so recall that in section 11 of s 15. This is noted out says that those secure ballot drop boxes have to close end of business the day before election day. And we heard from a number of town clerks, and I had many emails forwarded to me by other members of the body. Why, why will we do that we kept ours open on election day and, and so this provides the item number two, the notwithstanding language, and I really want to thank director sending for helping with this. So that a board of civil authority can choose to keep the secure ballot drop box open on election day. So that's what instance one does. Do you want me to stop there madam chair case anybody has any questions. I'm not seeing anybody diving in. Right ahead. Great. And then the second instance of amendment has to do with some concerns that we heard from a couple of clerks, including representative Piala from London Dairy who was concerned that the reasonable effort that we were doing clerks to make to to find contact information other than the mailing address in that five day window before election day to notify a voter and let them know that they could cure a defective ballot. She wanted to tighten up that language and really, and so we heard from clerks that they were worried that, you know, one voter might be treated differently than another voter that that we shouldn't just make it any old contact info that we should really clarify. Working with the Secretary of State's office and the clerks we came up with this language that really specifies that we're requiring clerks to make a reasonable effort to contact voters in that five day window where a postcard probably wouldn't get to them in time. They only have to achieve that standard. Look at information that's in the voter checklist or on the online management system and a director setting talked a lot with me about how we already have a lot of voters who have their phone and email on the my voter page on the online management system, and that part of the media buy that we were just talking about in the in the outreach campaign before the next general election will include encouraging folks to update their information that they have on file so we're tightening up this language a little bit and hopefully providing some clarity. That's it. Questions from committee members representative Leclerc. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mike I'm just looking to make sure I understand what I'm reading here and part B, the second instance of amendment. So are you are you saying that within that five day window, the clerks are or are not required to try to contact the voter. So that remains the same. The change from our original language is what resource they have to look at in order to find alternative contact information like a phone or email. So this language says that they'll provide notice to the voter as soon as possible using any contact information for the voter other than the mailing address right because postcards not going to work in that type of timeframe. That is contained in the voter checklist. And so that means the voter checklist online management system my voter page, so they don't have to scour the earth to try to find a phone and email in order to make that reasonable effort. They just need to at least look at what's on file. Okay, thanks Mike I follow up question for I guess will that be all right madam chair. Absolutely. Is my memory fading here or is it current statue that that five day window, they're not. What is it about the five day window right now. There's really nothing yet in the five day window right now you can request a ballot and request a ballot be mailed to you, all the way up to the day before the election. But what we've talked about a lot of times rep. Leclerc is through guidance and experience, the clerks generally will try to tell those voters this isn't going to make it to you on time, you're not going to be able to get it back to me. Why don't you come down and vote in the office or election day. I've always been clear with them though if they can't. If they get a valid request by that deadline and they can't reach the voter they should mail it out. So they meet their responsibility. Okay, so there's really nothing in statute will it's kind of like a best practices type of discussion. Okay, very good. Thank you. Yeah, follow up on that madam chair. So just to be clear that right now you can't cure a defective ballot at all. So this whole notification scheme is part of our new ballot curing policy that's in the rest of S 15. That's right. Any other questions for rep McCarthy on this amendment. All right, excellent so representative to thank you for being with us. Go ahead and introduce the committee to your amendment. Madam chair and thank you house government ups committee for having me in today. Thank you for looking at this amendment. If anyone doesn't have it it's on 20 page 2257 of today's House calendar. My amendment is simple. A couple months ago I came in and presented a very similar amendment to a bill for town meeting day this year. Basically what my amendment will be doing will be requiring town clerks to mail out ballots for town meeting day. That's for those that are voting via the floor so if you vote via Australian ballot. This amendment will require a town to send out ballots, not less than 20 days before the election or as soon as they are possible, or as soon as they're available excuse me. The reason I, I'm really passionate about this I think that mail in voting last year was a success across the state and I think. The next two town meeting day will also get better voter engagement there you know there's a lot of talk around the country about voter suppression. In America and keeping in the spirit of this bill I kind of want to push this to town meeting day because I feel like those are the elections that have the lowest turnouts. Historically when we when we go to the polls in March 15 to 20% I think statewide I don't have the exact numbers on me but those are for me those are really concerning when we're voting on really important topics like. School budgets and school boards that to me there's nothing more important than my child's education. And I would love a more representative government of people coming out to vote for these things so that's why I'm adding this in. I know there's going to be a matter of question right now the question of expense for this and to that matter I feel like that right now this will be on the expense of the town. I think this is something that we should look at big picture going forward, how the state can can finance this because I think as we look at how are our elections will be going forward I think the mail in balloting is a great way to get people engaged. People won't have to typically drive to or make a phone call or do anything. They just get the ballot and they vote and I think that was a very successful thing and I think a lot of people that typically didn't vote, ended up voting in 2020 and I think that if we give them that option with our town meeting. And, and special meetings I forgot to mention that it also applies to special meetings. Special minutes will meetings or elections. So, I think that'll just get better engagement and I realized when I came in in January, it was kind of too late we, we, you know, we're less than two months away from town meeting day and it was it was kind of a tall. It was a tall order but I think if we look at 2022 maybe even 2023. I would be willing to look at that I think that just, it's something to me that's really important to get better voter engagement across the state. So, thank you. Thank you representative any questions from committee members for the sponsor of this amendment representative Higley. Yeah, I'm just saying, representative to. I just want to be clear that the folks that currently have a floor town meeting. This this wouldn't affect am I correct. You are correct this would only be those that vote the Australian ballot. Okay, thank you. Representative Marwicki. Thank you and good morning thanks for for bringing us to our attention. Just as a some sort of guide to what kind of costs. This would, this would entail, not sure how many people live in the town that you're in but do you know what the estimated costs for your town would be. You know I don't have that answer to how much with the estimated cost I did speak with one of our town, I represent to the towns I represent the McCarthy and I represent the same district and one of our town clerks and she expressed that it wasn't as it wasn't that hard of a built order and she could actually use a male house or some some sort of private company that could do this and it would be fairly cheap but I would I mean that's something that I think for 2020 2022 is something I think I will probably be bringing legislative legislation where we look into the cost and have a real conversation about that going forward. So I don't I don't have the exact costs on that thank you representative Marwicki for the question though representative McCarthy. Thanks for bringing this because I think we really are wanting to move in this direction obviously of having more participation. I was wondering if you talk to the city clerk about some of the logistical concerns that she had, especially back in January and that are still kind of out, you know, out there in terms of questions of that male house it's not just about cost but also about the timeline and if there might be some other considerations that we need to think about in order to make it more practical for more towns to do this for the next town meeting day. Absolutely I haven't I haven't reached out to her. I was really busy trying to pin this in with Mother's Day and all the other stuff going on this weekend so I do. I do apologize to her and do that I reached out to her but you're absolutely right and that's what I you know one of my reasons of bringing this forward is to start this conversation because even if I know that it could fail. These are the kind of conversations about going forward. Do we give ourselves enough time to have ballots ready before town meeting day, because that is one of the biggest orders you know 20 days to get everything in, or 20 days before the election that mail everything out and and have everyone ready it's a tall, it's a tall order for our town clerk so you know that I would be willing if if the if the committee would be willing I would be willing to push this out on a date that's in 2022, because I just, I think that this is a very important. It's a very important process that I think we should adopt but maybe we're not ready for it but I would like to see the state figure out where, where we, how we can be prepared for it in the future. So thank you for that question. Thank you. I would love. Do you know if the town clerk's association has thoughts on this amendment. First of all, I have not talked to the town clerk's association. Um, and then my other question so I know that you know as we were in deliberation I guess it's not really a question. We also talked about the primaries being another space to sort of explore this and I wonder if this is a place to aim towards but not set a specific date in in this moment so that we can really get those logistics in place to make sure that it is equitable and you know because I so I worry I worry that if some towns are required to do it and we're not offering funding like there's just so many pieces here that we don't have answers to that I wonder if if if it is a an aspiration to move towards and we may not be ready yet. Yeah, and, and if I may answer that yeah I I'm personally against unfunded mandates it's something that I mean I serve on house education. And that's one of our biggest concerns is when we're like hey schools need to do this and, and we don't fund it it's like okay then why would we want to do that so that would be something that I would definitely want to look at it for you know future elections I like I said I understand this is a very tall order for a lot of town clerks across the state. Representative Hooper. Thank you madam chair. Thank you representative to but I have a question for will. In your experience do you have any opinion on town by town cost or actually capacity when it comes to individual vendors printing this number of small batch. Do you have any opinion for towns across the state, whether or not that would be plausible it within the timeframe. I don't have. It's really hard to pinpoint cost due to the variable circumstances across municipalities. What I can tell you is currently we're at right about at $400,000 of reimbursement sought for this year's annual meetings to our office from those CRF funds. And I do know that a lot of the municipalities I just want to point out to the committee to make sure you recognize this is written to apply to school districts, as well as towns and cities since it refers to municipal bodies and municipalities. There was some, there was some difficulty in finding mailing services, generally though everybody was able to scrap it together that I'm aware of from various mailing services in the state. Although it was a lot of people doing ballot printing and mailing for the first time is my impression. I think that before making this move if, if we ever were to move in this direction to mandate towns and school districts to mail out ballots, we would need to make adjustments to the local election timeline to accommodate it. And if I may follow up what, what would the difference in cost attribution be for school district elections as opposed to municipal elections funding stream wise, if any. I don't it's mainly dependent on the number of voters you have. So if you're talking big union districts with a lot of voters included it's going to be higher costs. Thank you. Representative Anthony. Thank you, Madam Chair. A back of the envelope estimate for the city of Barry would be around 5000 to cover postage printing envelopes, etc. And ours is 100% Australian ballot vote. I hope when those discussions about timeline arise, somebody would ask the question, not asked for over 100 years. Why are we voting in March, it's the weather is not particularly advantageous. And as my good friend from Barry town has already discovered voting in May people are a lot happier than they are in March. Thank you. Representative the Hovsky. I think that there is a lot of great information here and people certainly know that I'm supportive of making voting as accessible as as we can I would certainly encourage if this is a path we go down to connect with the towns that did in fact do universal mail balloting right out of the gate, Essex did their school budget and their town meeting by universal mail balloting back in 2020 and I think there's lots of good information to be gathered about what works and what didn't work and how to adjust the timeline but for me it feels like we just don't have the information yet, but I certainly would, you know I'm supportive of exploring this avenue. Chris Winters. Madam Chair, I just wanted to say quickly that we really appreciate representative to propose the amendment and his support of expanding vote by mail we had a similar conversation on the Senate side when Senator parent proposed a very similar amendment. I'm sure the committee is aware but I'll just point out that there was an amendment on the Senate side to modify our reporting requirements. So we very much agree with what Senator to admit I'm sorry representative to for many of you have said this morning which we all want to see more participation in our elections we all want to see this expanded to the primary and town and annual meetings, but there are a lot of logistics and there are a lot of financial issues to consider. So in the amendment on the Senate side added adding to our report requirements was for us to study issues related to implementing universal vote by mail for municipal and primary elections, and we very much intend to talk to all the stakeholders to see how we could possibly do this for primaries and local elections, and that report is due back on or before January 30 of 2023. And the reason for the kind of long timeline is that we're going to have our hands full in the in the next year. So any amendment that happened next year to expand to another election really wouldn't be in time for the 2022 elections in time for us to implement it. So, therefore the longer timeline and by January 30 of 2023 you'll have a report back from us that makes some recommendations on implementing vote by mail for municipal and primary elections. Thank you. And just to quickly follow up on that with Chris he's right with that timeline why it makes sense for January 2023 we couldn't, we couldn't make the changes early next session to apply to annual meeting next year. And I just want to remind the committee that the bill does as currently written in as past authorized towns to do this. And so towns next year hopefully another substantial chunk of them will choose to do so, and it'll give us another set of data and experience to build on in that report. Thanks well representative Leclerc. Thank you madam chair so that my question is actually for will. So, is there anything in. Is it s 15 does it just apply to the general election, or isn't there language in there that the local municipal bodies could elect to do this with town meeting currently well if s 15 was to pass. Right, both of those only mandated for the general election but authorizes them to vote to do it in their local elections. Very good. Thank you. It authorizes the municipalities who already have adopted Australian ballot. So if your school district or your town does their annual meeting in person. Your legislative body can't decide to switch to Australian ballot and mail ballots but if you already have a an Australian ballot budget adoption and annual meeting you can this authorizes municipalities to go forward representative to Thank you madam chair and just follow up that's the section that I, I changed. I believe it's section three in the bill, and that's where I change it from basically a shout to a man or a mate to a shell. So, thank you, and thank you for having me today I really appreciate it. Thanks for being here representative to have any other questions folks for either the secretary states office or the sponsor of this amendment. We do have a couple other pieces of business before us that we need to try to finish before we go to the floor at 10 so I'd like to move now to to do some voting on these three amendments to s 15 so we have the appropriations committee amendment. Anybody want to make a motion. I'll move it madam chair. Excellent. We've got a couple of voices in there. Thank you. Representative Colston when you are ready. I shall call the roll. Yeah. Mariki. Yes. The Claire. Yes. Cooper. Yes. Colston. Yes. The house key. Yes. Yes. Hickley. Yes. McCarthy. Yes. The vote is 11 00 passes. All right. Now we just need a motion on the McCarthy amendment. I'll move that we find my amendment favorable. Second. Or first. Representative Colston when you're ready. I shall begin the roll call. Gannon. Yes. Mariki. Yes. The Claire. Yes. Cooper. Yes. Colston. Yes. Anthony. Yes. The house key. Yes. The faith. Yes. Hickley. Yes. McCarthy. Yes. The house key. Yes. The house key. Yes. The house key. Yes. The house key. Yes. The house key. Yes. The house key. Yes. McCarthy. Yes. Covalent Hanzes. Yes. The vote is 11 00 passes. All right. And on to the two amendment. I'll be the Grinch. Move that we find it unfavorable. Okay. So a yes means no. Representative McCarthy, or sorry, Marwikki. Thank you, Madam Chair. My concerns here, this is a good idea that I'm not sure is ready for primetime yet. I think there's some good ideas, but there needs to be some more flesh put on this. And I'm concerned that for some towns it's gonna be a surprise, especially since it's when we're at town meeting, as soon as a box of pencils gets added to the budget, we know about it. So that's one of the concerns I have with this. And I'm just wondering if there's a way, a middle way we can find to put this in the parking lot for future to make sure that the idea gets the time and attention it deserves, but I'm concerned right now it's just not ready for primetime. Yeah, I agree. And I think Director Sending made a really good point that when, because we're authorizing this for the municipalities and school districts who already do Australian ballot, we hopefully will have more experience and more information about how to do this. And I'm concerned in particular about the timeline because local election ballots are only required to be printed 20 days ahead of time. And it's really difficult. I mean, that timeline for municipalities and school districts, I know that the boards are frequently quite stressed to try to get everything put in order to meet that 20 day timeline and to be a really well-functioning vote by mail system, I would think we would need more than 20 days. Rep Bihowski. I just wanted to, and I don't think, I don't know that this needs to be added in the bill with the budgeting pieces, the piece that feels really impactful, particularly for some of our smaller towns as Representative Merwicky points out, a box of pencils can really be problematic. And in some instances, it sounds like we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so, and I recognize the smaller towns would have a smaller budgetary need because they have less ballots, but I do really wanna start to get a handle on what would this cost and looking at how we, as Representative Tuve pointed out, how we might build a funding stream in so that the towns don't have to bear this cost. So I don't know if that needs to be added specifically into the report or if I can just say it and the Secretary of State's office will make sure that they look at those pieces. I would guess that they will because they're pretty good at covering all their bases. And in particular, it's worth noting that if this requirement were to fall on our school districts and our towns, that's all coming out of our property taxes. So I'd prefer not to do it in this way until we have figured out a different funding stream Representative Leclerc. Thank you, Madam Chair. I share a lot of the same concerns that everybody else does as far as timing and cost, but I'm gonna support this because I do think it's a very worthy conversation to have. As the presenter had indicated, we have very low turnout on our general, not on our general, but our town meeting day votes in our school boards. And I don't know about most of you, but those affect me rather significantly and on an ongoing basis. And I would very much like to have as much turnout as we can possibly have. I do think that this is the appropriate vehicle for this to be attached to so that we can have those robust discussions, whether it be about the funding or the timing, because those are all very valid questions to have. But if we don't start having it now, when are we going to? So I am gonna end up supporting this, recognizing that again, the presenter of the amendment was amenable to pushing out an effective date and having more subsequent conversations about the funding and timelines. I see no other hands. And so I'll remind folks that the motion on the table is to find this amendment unfavorable. So a yes vote means no to the amendment, just so we're all clear. Rep Colston, when you are ready. I shall begin the roll call. Gannon. I vote yes to find this amendment unfavorable. Leclerc. No. Marike. Yes. Cooper. Yes. Colston. Yes. Anthony. Yes. Pihotski. Yes. Lefebvre. No. Hinkley. No. McCarthy. Yes. Copeland-Hanses. Yes. The vote is eight three zero and we find the amendment unfavorable. Thank you for being with us this morning, Representative Toof. We've got two other pieces of business that we need to try to transact here before we go to the floor. So I'm gonna invite Becky Wasserman to give us just a sort of 30,000 foot view of the differences between the Senate passed version of 449 and what the House passed. And just for those following along at home, this is an act relating to membership and duties of the Pension Investment Committee Commission and the creation of a pension benefits design and funding task force. Welcome, Becky. Hi, good morning, everyone. Becky Wasserman, Legislative Council. So I did prepare a side-by-side which I think will be helpful as I go through this and I'll try to do it quick. I know you're short on time. So that is posted on your website. So the, as you recall, this bill is primarily doing two things. It is changing the membership and duties of the Vermont Pension Investment Commission and it is also creating a task force to look at pension benefit design and funding for the State Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System. So the main changes that they did was in the past of the Senate was mainly changing the section on the Pension Investment Commission, making some changes to the membership and duties of the task force. And then they also added in a new committee, Legislative Pension Oversight Committee. So those are where the main changes are and then there were a couple of sections where there were no changes or very minor ones. So I can just highlight, starting at the beginning of the bill in section one where there were some changes. And if it's easier, I can use the side-by-side if that, for now, just to go through. I think that would probably be most sufficient. Great. So the first change here is in the definition section for the commission. As you recall, there was an amendment on the House floor to amend the definition of independent to say that if somebody's spouse, parent, or child is a beneficiary of the plan that that individual would have a material or direct interest in the plan. So they removed that relationship linkage. So it's just, if an individual has, is a beneficiary of the plan then they have that material and direct interest but not through that relationship. The other main changes were amending the number of members on the commission. So their version has nine members and they've removed the commissioner of financial regulation. They've also amended how the, an alternate's term limits count towards the total terms that a person can serve. So as you recall, the total term limits are four year terms for three terms. And if you serve as an alternate that counted towards that 12 years, they have said that one of those alternate terms would not count towards that 12 year cap. In terms of the chair of the committee they also made a couple of changes. So your version had an interim chair being appointed that had to be either financial expert or independent. And they have changed that to being both. So an interim chair would need to be financial expert and independent. The actual chair of the committee in your version did not have any of the independence or financial expert requirements. So they added that in for the chair as well. And finally, they removed the chair's 20 year term limit. I think the idea was that the consultant that's being hired is going to be looking at what the appropriate term limit was. So that would be something that could be updated after that report comes out. Any questions? Okay. So in section two, there was a minor change just removing the reference to the, this is a section that deals with the transition of member terms. So since the commissioner of financial regulation was removed from the committee, the reference to that commissioner's transition was also removed in this section. Section three of the bill deals with some reports that the commission had to prepare for FY 22. One of those, as I just mentioned, was hiring a consultant to do an assessment of how to get the commission to be a standalone entity. That was the word used in your version of the bill. They just replaced standalone entity with independent entity. So minor change there. There were no changes to sections four through nine of the bill. And section 10 of the bill is the pension task force. So the main changes here were amending the membership of that task force. So they reduced the house and Senate members from three to two each. They removed the commissioner's financial regulation and human services and the director of retirement division, but they included the secretary of administration. The powers and duties of the task force were also amended. I don't know if you want me to go through all of these. I've listed what the changes were in the chart. I don't think it's necessary to go through in detail. I appreciate the side by side though. That is so very helpful. So I think one of the main ones I would highlight is just the first one in your bill. There was language about looking at the setting setting as pension stabilization target for the employee system and the teacher system and reducing the ADAC and the unfunded liability by the amount of the increases that were in the actuarial valuation reports for those two systems between FY 21 and FY 22. So this change is actually slightly looking at the slightly differently by recommending strategies to lower the ADAC and unfunded liabilities with those reports in mind. So I think the idea was that it was a little clearer with respect to what exactly the task force would be looking at there. And then I've highlighted all the other changes that they made with respect to what the committee would be, what the task force would be reviewing. There were also some minor changes in subsection E that the task force would have the fiscal assistance from JFO and the state treasurer, committee support services from ledge operations and that ledge council and JFO would be authorized to do the contracting to hire an outside actuarial benefit and legal expert. And then finally, in terms of the reporting requirement, Senate GovOps changed it such that there would be an interim report that was due October 15th in a final report due by December 2nd. And then, so moving on, they added in section 11 a new committee, as I mentioned, it's the Joint Legislative Pension Oversight Committee. So this is a legislative committee. It has three House and three Senate members and they are tasked with working with and providing assistance to other legislative committees that deal with matters relating to retirement and OPEB. So this committee would look at issues of public policy relating to retirement benefits and health benefit design innovations, changes to any statutory provisions that relate to the retirement systems. And they would also review the annual appropriations for the retirement systems. So this is an advisory committee. They don't have the authority to act on any of these issues. So they would just operate in the same way that other oversight committees in the legislature operate. So the language also sets up how often they can meet. They have assistance from ledge council, ledge operations and JFO. And then finally, it also requires that VPIC and the Retirement Board submit some reports to this committee every year. And then sections 12 and 13 are just renumbering of sections in your version of the bill to account for this new oversight committee section. So that was a very quick. Great, that was an excellent jog through. And I know that committee members may want to dig a little deeper into the details of this, but given that we're bumping up against floor time, just do folks have any questions for Becky on what she just reviewed with us? Is there any part of this that you feel you need a deeper understanding of at this moment? Okay, I'm not seeing any hands. And while there's parts of this that I think are interesting and indeed the oversight committee is a really great idea that frankly, we didn't have time to incorporate into the bill on our side. So I'm thankful that the Senate did that. But I do feel like there are some parts of this that are a market departure from what we did on the house side. And so I'm gonna make a motion that we not concur and that we ask the speaker to appoint a committee of conference so that we can work these details out with our Senate counterparts. Do you need a second, Madam Chair? Sure. I'll second that. Representative Colston, are you ready to call the roll on that? I am. Give me one second. Can you clarify for process that this is another yes means no vote? Yes means you do not concur and you support going to a committee of conference. So yes means no concur. Representative Hooper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Your quick run through there, can you point out a little bit more what you think is egregious that we're voting to not concur on? Well, I certainly didn't use the term egregious. I did. Significant departure. I think that the makeup of the pension benefit design and funding task force was quite different on our side. And I think we should seek to understand a little more about why the Senate did what they did. But I believe that is a big departure. And I would also like to understand a little bit more about the powers and duties section and Representative Gannon as the primary reporter of this might have other thoughts. Do you want me to trip in, chime in? Sure. Yeah, no, I mean, I think, you know, well, I appreciate the hard work that the Senate did with respect to these proposed amendments. I do think we need to take a look at the oversight commission. And I think because time is running so short that a committee of a conference is the best way to look at the changes that were proposed and resolve this so that we can hopefully pass a bill and move it on to the governor before the end of the session. Thank you. There are some things that the Senate did that I think move us significantly in the difference in a direction of acceptance by the people that are impacted by this. So I kind of favor this. Thank you. Representative Anthony. I rep Pooper and Gannon sort of got my thunder. I'm so worried that this is not gonna get a signature promptly by going to conference. That's my worry. And I really think this time is of the essence and that frankly trumps the departures understanding that this bound to be a different process, different view on the Senate side. So I'm hung up, I'm stuck. I wanna see this happen. And I'm not sure that these are what's proposed or deal breakers for me. But I understand the animus since we were pretty clear about what we wanted in both the task force and the oversight board. But I'm still on the fence. Thanks. Well, we are at that time of session where we need to begin to count legislative days. And if we were to delay action on this and try to craft a counter proposal that would need to go through the normal process on the house floor of further proposal of amendment. And there are fewer legislative days involved in both creating and acting on a committee of conference report because acting on the committee of conference report is a one and done vote. And it doesn't require the second and third and day's notice. So, or actually does require notice. Representative Daman. Madam chair, that's a very good point. I mean, the emotional efficient way to get this bill passed and signed is to go to a conference committee and not try to have this committee work on a proposal of further amendment, which could take days whereas we could resolve this on the floor today to get it to a committee of conference. Maybe I wasn't being clear. I was gonna favor concurrence and then it would be done. As was, as am I. I don't think there's anything in this revision that is so objectionable that we can don't move it forward based on the Senate's proposal. Any other committee discussion? All right, Representative Colston. I shall begin the roll call. You have a motion on the floor to not concur. So yes means no, thank you to the Senate version of the bill. And just to clarify, Madam chair, who made the motion? I did. Thank you. Gannon. Yes. Marike. Yes. Like Claire. Yes. Cooper. Is that where he said he? Cooper. No. Colston. Yes. Anthony. Anthony. No. Pihotski. No. The fave. Yes. Hickley. Yes. McCarthy. Yes. Copeland-Hondes. Yes. The vote is eight, three, zero in support of a committee of conference. All right, thank you so much, Becky for being with us. And last but not least, and we are running short on time, Tucker Anderson is going to explain to us the small amendment that the Senate made to H-177. Good morning, everyone. The Senate amendment to H-177, which was the city of Montpelier Charter Amendment, makes an amendment in the first section to ensure that citizens of the United States can vote in city elections. As the Charter Amendments were put together and passed the House, the Charter Amendments proposed to allow anyone who is a legal resident of the United States to vote in city elections, but that was defined as non-citizens who reside in the United States on a permanent or indefinite basis in compliance with U.S. immigration laws. It did not include United States citizens. I noted this in the Senate. They corrected that to ensure that U.S. citizens can vote in city elections and ask what you have in front of you. Representative Gannon. I move to concur with the Senate proposal of amendment. That makes a lot of sense to me. Any questions from committee members? Seems like that was a good catch and conforms the bill to what we intended it to be. Representative Colston, when you're ready. I shall begin the roll call. Gannon. Yes. Mariki. Yes. Leclerc. No. Hooper. Yes. Colston, yes. Anthony. Yes. Bihovsky. Yes. Lefave. No. Higley. No. McCarthy. Yes. Copeland-Hanses. Yes. The vote is 8-3-0 in support of the committee of conference. No. Concur. Concur. I'm sorry, concur. Thank you. I like the first comment better. Low paperwork here. All right. Thank you, Tucker, for joining us this morning and nice work committee. We are gonna head now to the floor since we may be through announcements.


So, we are here today to talk about, instead of firing a client, which I've talked about more than once, it's before when you get the client, when does a bid turn into consulting and when should you let it go? And this is very relevant. He's, he actually gave me some great advice because I was really struggling with a customer. And yeah, I've been in business 15 years, yeah, thousands of sales and the whole staff and I still am being honest, I have struggled sometimes with customers because sometimes you don't know when to let go. There's sales that go really easy, like, oh, I want this and I know I do this. So, I provide that. Then this customer comes at me and this is not the first one but this is just the most recent one with a list of things they want for their new server. Sounded reasonable. And then five emails, a 40 minute phone call later. I don't know what she wants still and maybe she's watching this. I don't think she watches my YouTube, but on the off-chance. If not, maybe it'll be a good wake up call. Good wake up call.  It's like, hey, you can, you've helped my company. You can probably help hers. I couldn't and not because they just had ways they wanted to do things that I didn't think was made any sense to me. Like they wanted to use technology in a way. They wanted to use QuickBooks in a way that does not designed to be used. And then they wanted me to support that and I'm like, no, here's the thing from QuickBooks that says that's not the way to do it. And I get this email back. I've been doing this for 20 years this way and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they lost track of their other IT guy and I'm like lost track of them. He quit returning your calls. That's probably what happened. I feel like it may be the backstory. I'm just assuming here, but that's definitely a possibility way. Well, yeah. They ran away too. Yeah, they ran away. You know, I do a free consultation with people when I'm doing consulting. And I think doing that helps to put people to ease because you've got to give away something. And when I do that consulting call, in that first hour, I'm determining if I want to do business with this person. But they're also determining if they want to do business with me. And I give a lot of things away for free in that consulting appointment. But I think you and I were talking about when is it that you need to start charging for things like this? Yeah. And so if you didn't know or you don't watch previous videos, Brett does business consulting. And obviously you're here because you probably know I do IT. But there's a similar thing where it's not just I'm providing a service. It's a solution we're providing. So there's always this determination you have to. And I've seen people, oh, you should charge for all your sales calls. I'm like, well, that's a good way not to even get your calls. Correct. And it's different. I'm not talking about where we go in a deep dive and assessment that you should charge for where you actually do some engaging work. But that initial call sometimes sit down with a client. You have to fill it out there. Like I suggested these are the server ideas I had for the way they should do it. You should set up remote desktop. You set this. So there are a lot of things I give away. And I'll actually refer back to something simpler like wireless consulting. We did this big bowling alley. We had to go out there, spend some time figuring out where all the Wi-Fi is. But I call it my crayon drawings. We scribbled it out and we measured it, measured a building with a little wheel thing, and we drew some pictures and we go, OK, these are where the Wi-Fi devices should go. It's very general. We know specifically where they go. They know it generally because there is the risk that they're just going to do it on their own. And that's a lot of people say, you should charge for any Wi-Fi assessment you do. I'm like, no, I would lose the lead again. Right. And we close the majority of them. But sometimes you don't. And then you've now given, all right, you probably need 16 devices to make this job work. Now they have that information too. Right. But I've got to ask you, though.  We get a call. Right. Yeah. Because sometimes they bid it out to the lowest bidder. And especially with technology, you're not comparing apples and oranges. It's not like they're just going to take my quote and drop the same thing in. We took over IT from a company that actually had the same stack we used of both hardware software. Like, it looks like a job we would have recommended. We actually joked. Like, did they watch my YouTube videos? But they had configured it all improperly. So the good news we have for the client was, hey, good. You have nice equipment. You have the right equipment. Bad news is it's all configured very wrong. Right. And so it cost them less because it was easy for us to just change the configurations, adopt them on as a client, and fix what the previous IT company had done. But once again, it took an evaluation to get there. And because I had an idea what the problem is, technically, just on the sales call because I logged in and looked at something. I seen how they had it hooked up. I changed one rule and it fixed the immediate problem they had. But I won them over as a client. Like I said, they go, what do I owe for that? And I'm like, it's a sales call? I guessed that these guys had done nothing wrong and they did. Right. So those are fine. There's like, Fred said, there's a lot you have to give away. It's really hard, but you do have to stop. And once I decided I was like a 40 minute phone call and just all these emails back and forth that were paragraphs of telling me I'm doing it wrong is always a red flag. Right, right. Ask for my advice and then tell me I'm wrong. That's never a good way to have a relationship. I did a workshop and one of the people I got to meet with after that workshop, we sat for about an hour and a half. And it had a great conversation in a coffee shop. And I gave her a lot of information. And I realized up front that I wasn't going to be able to. I was going to be able to help this person, but I wasn't going to make any money doing it. And there are sometimes you have to do that too. I was able to help her and she was very appreciative. And I said, if there's ever something, as you move through the processes that we talked about today, when you become successful, what you're doing and when you want some more advice, then we can talk about. Because she wanted to work with me. She couldn't afford what I was going to have to charge, even if I charged half of my rate. So there's sometimes where I want to help somebody and I'll help them. And you've done that too. You'll help them. But it's when that customer or that potential client starts to say things like, no, that's wrong. You don't know what you're talking about. There's a point where you have to say, OK, we either need to end this relationship or we need to start charging for it. Yeah. So it's hard to figure out always when that is and it can be in different places. Either they can't meet the prices that you're charging. And that's not necessarily an indication that you should just go lower. Because at some point you know your market value. You know what you get for this type of project. You should always be aligning to make sure your price value does match your market you're in. But in reality, it's just some people that are going, hey, great, I want this. And that happens a lot with clients where they come in thinking they want something really big and they realize that's just not an affordable solution to them.  I'm like, oh, yeah, that's about $25,000. When do you want to get started?  I'm like, well, we got to talk then. We're going to have to scale back to your size. Because there is simply the hardware purchase alone exceeds your budget. So there's times you can't do anything. But you still keep a very professional out. And that's what he actually had a suggestion for the wording you told me. Yeah. Do you remember what she said? Well, I think it was you were resending an email. And I think they had said something about, well, she had emailed you something because if you say what the email was about, I'll remember what I told you to write. What was the email about? What did it say? Do you remember? Yeah. And it was basically her asking, it was the bottom line was she wanted to use QuickBooks in a way that QuickBooks didn't say. And I just said, look, I can't support this configuration. And that's where I paused on my email. I can't support it. And you said something like thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. I wasn't aware of what your budget constraints were. I wasn't aware of what your budget constraints were and what you're looking at. And it might be a better idea to do something about looking elsewhere. Looking elsewhere. We may not be a fit for each other. It's about coming up with a polite wording back and forth. There's not a way I can give you a cookie cutter on this because it's going to be different for each one. But wherever the impasse was or the other problem is, and this is one of the other questions she had for me, I thought I would get too very drawn out. That was it. And that's what you answered and responded to. Hey, I wasn't aware of your, because there was something about budget. I wasn't aware of your budget constraints or that you wanted this detailed of information. I was just giving you basic information, thinking that we could have another discussion. And she thought I was going to detail it out in absolute detail. Tell her what licenses to buy, what quantities to buy, how much each license. Like a whole lot of detail. Give her the recipe for nothing. Yeah. And it was not, it sound like just a quote. It was a, I want all these comparative quotes. She had a series of ideas. And at that point it's consulting where I want to know what my business looks like model after this scenario detailed out, then this scenario detailed out, then this one. And they were completely wildly different. It was like kind of asking for one extreme, the other extreme, and maybe a middle, but not like a simple quote. Like very, she wanted the absolute license costing details. At that point it becomes consulting because you're looking for a template that you can then go hand on there. And one of the red flags that was raised and the second to the last email was, I just want to buy it all directly from Dell, I have a coupon. When you're the CEO of a company and you tell me you have a coupon to buy it directly and want me to give the quote, you've pretty much said you don't really want, you don't value my time now. And you just want to order everything directly without me and maybe have me configure the part that you don't know how to configure. And I'm like, at some point I can't figure out where that is and they don't want to say because, well, they're fishing for information and it's where you kind of have to go, we're probably not a good fit to work with each other. There's a fine line with that because how long would it have taken you to do that analysis? Honestly, how long? Probably at least an hour or two minimum of my time. And I'm fast at it. So I know how to put all these things together because I work in this industry, but still an hour or two of my time is a lot. The most expensive thing ever is your own time. Always remember that. That is hugely important. So the sales process can be hard and you have to weigh it out. Like how much will I make on this sale? Honestly, this server project for was not a big money maker for us. It was not some project that I'm going to be, wow, it's worth spending an hour at a time because it does scale upwards. I did a very large Wi-Fi bid. It takes more of my time, but the reward for it, it's a six-figure bid, so okay. That's the return on investment that you're looking for. Right, but when you talk about the potential that I'm only going to make a few hundred bucks on it for whatever, just a couple hours of consulting time or something like that, how much do I spend a few hours putting up proposals together when they don't even want to buy the hardware for me? So there's like, I'm cut out of it except for some minor consulting and they didn't want to pay a consulting fee for me to put the bids together. That I think was the kicker. Yeah, that was another kicker they had in there. They wanted you to spend hours of time, hours. Yeah. Because you'd already spent a 40-minute conversation, a ton of emails, and now probably another two hours of figuring, don't do it. Yeah. Don't give away, I just got to say, you can't give away that time because your time is precious. Yeah. I can't even say precious. It's hard because this is just a mentality you can read, it's the sunken cost myth. And this is a problem where if someone puts a few dollars into something, they become so committed to it even if it loses them more money and that same mentality can catch you up when you're doing a sale where you can just go, I'm just so committed because I got this far. Look, I'm two hours into it. I got to get a return on it. And if it's only a dollar return, is that worth it?  Right. And let me see, our goal is always to have a long-term client, but if it starts out this rocky, it's a lot of red flags because the goal is never to fire a customer. The goal is if you can pre-screen them well enough, you never have to fire a customer. You just choose not to do business with somebody. Yeah. And that's okay. That's okay for everybody. And that happens every day in every industry. People choose not to do business with people. But defining that fine line of what is just pre-sale and what is where you need to actually start making money, that's a fine line. Yeah. And I had another email come in the other day and I actually referred them over to someone else because it went out of what I do. They had a question about, they wanted me to get on a conference, call it them about a comparison to about five different phone systems. None of them I've ever sold before, but I have talked about them on my YouTube channel and they thought I would just for free jump on the phone with them and have a discussion with their IT department about it. I'm like, there's nothing in it for me. I kind of meant that a very, and that was actually a reply. I said, I don't sell any of these. I said, so I would charge you for my time to consult. They go, oh, we can buy, aren't you a reseller for all these? I'm like, no. And once I realized what they narrowed down what they're looking for, I referred them over to my friend who specializes in that because they actually, when I did talk to them a little bit more, I still went a step further and emailed them back a couple of times. They were really looking for one specific one and that my friend specializes in. So I'm like, oh, well then just reach out to him. That's, you are in exactly the world he's in and they are, they thank me very much and they say, well, they may use this in the future, which I appreciate because they got an honest answer for me, I didn't charge them any money. You let them down nicely that it probably wasn't a fit. I'm not just out here for the money. I could have charged them, could have done more, but you focus down on it and go, all right, I'll refer them over to here, keep a good, open thing. Son of a thank you letter for reaching out to me and away we go. And it doesn't have to end badly when you do this, but you don't want it to end badly for you either. Well, the biggest thing is don't burn any bridges because you never know when a contact's gonna come back to you and need something else and actually that could turn into a more lucrative contract. Yeah, especially when someone puts things in caps like I was expecting a more detailed quote, really. Yeah. I, my desire to be snarky is always there, but I will, I will. You called me, you called me and said, what should I say? That opening line of a, yeah. I like the politically correct thing because I think don't burn a bridge, but don't sell yourself short. And I think when you don't charge for something, you're hurting other people in the industry. There's another thing to think about. You're hurting other people in the industry. There's a point where you need to start charging because if you don't, just the next person that comes around is gonna fall into that same trap and it's a downward spiral. Yeah. So you got it, there's a happy balance here and that's kind of what I'm gonna get here. It will leave you with that. That you have to think about it, value your time. I don't understand. I've seen people say, well, you should just charge for sales. I haven't seen a business model around that work if you've found someone that has some figured something out, but I don't know any IT people who charge you just to even look at something in terms of like, hey, I'd like you to come and give me a proposal to wire my building.  I have a feeling I wouldn't be going out as often as I am. And I have a feeling that people that are doing that aren't around as much or are not gonna be around. Yeah. I mean, because asking for a quote on how to wire the building is different than how would you wire it and can you draw me an entire schematic? Well, now that would be. Now that's time to charge. That's time to charge. Us going through and sketching it up real quick on a drawing board so we can give you a proposal because we need to know how many and give you a quote on it. So you just gotta figure out what that line is and it does take a little your time, a little effort to close the deal but you gotta figure out when to not close the deal. I know it sounds a little fuzzy but these are just things you have to constantly be thinking about and you're probably going over in your head right now going, I do know Kofo, I should probably stop replying to him. Like, yeah, it's a spiral. So thanks and leave comments in the below and see you next time. All right. Thanks for watching. If you liked this video, go ahead and click the thumbs up. Leave us some feedback below to let us know any details which you like and didn't like as well because we love hearing the feedback or if you just want to say thanks, leave a comment. If you wanted to be notified of new videos as they come out, go ahead and hit the subscribe and the bell icon that lets YouTube know that you're interested in notifications. Hopefully they send them as we've learned with YouTube. Anyways, if you want to contract us for consulting services, you go ahead and hit launch systems.com and you can reach out to us for all the projects that we can do and help you. We work with a lot of small businesses, IT companies, even some large companies and you can farm different work out to us or just hire us as a consultant to help design your network. Also, if you want to help the channel in other ways, we have a Patreon. We have affiliate links. You'll find them in the description. You'll also find recommendations to other affiliate links and things you can sign up for on LawrenceSystems.com. Once again, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.


Hey, this is Brett and this 2022 Ram 2500 Crew Cab Short Box Power Wagon Level 2 is stock number 13655Z. I am here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, you're new and used Ram and heavy-duty truck headquarters. This 2022 Ram 2500 has the 6.4 liter V8 Hemi engine. It's paired up with the 8-speed automatic transmission, puts out 410 horsepower. This truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, and this truck is 100 percent ready to go. I'm going to go all the way around inside, underneath, start it up and take a look under the hood to give you the most accurate representation possible of the truck. Billet Silver over black is the color scheme, and I shoot all my videos in 4K, so if you have HD capabilities, turn them on now because it is your best way to check out the quality, condition, options and cleanliness of the truck before seeing it in person. Going down the driver's side, the box is in fantastic condition. The cab and doors are in really great shape as well, I didn't see any dents, I didn't see any dings, looks very nice, paint is very reflective and glossy. If you like the video, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash summit auto. Click the bell notifications and you'll get updates on the videos I do each and every day here at Summit Automotive, as well as access to one of the largest catalogs of used and new vehicle walk arounds on YouTube. So a lot of good stuff there. This one comes with these 17 inch painted black alloy wheels, and it has Goodyear Wrangler Dura Track tires. These are LT28570R17s, and I would say they have probably about 75 to 80 percent of the tried left on them. Frame and underbody is in excellent shape, you get the Bilstein shocks with the power wagon package. And this is a one owner clean title history, clean car facts out of New York. Has the LED headlamps, LED running lights, and the LED fog lamps, we'll turn all those on at the end of the video so you can see how nice and bright they are. You get kind of the powder coated front bumper, low gloss front bumper parking sensors, and you get the worn winch with the synthetic rope from the factory. Grill is in nice shape as is the hood, I didn't see any denser dings on there, and that sticker is in very nice condition as well. Cab lights up top, and the passenger side front fender is absolutely perfect. Passenger side front wheel, no major scuffs or scrapes on there, and billet silvers got just a little bit of metal flake to it. Good looking color. As you go down this side of this 2022 Ram 2500, take note of how clean that body is, how reflective and mirror like that paint is. Take these HD videos so if you are far away, or even if you're close by and you just cannot make the trip down but you're still interested in purchasing the truck, you can see the truck, hear the truck, and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. So when you do get here there's absolutely no surprises and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. Or if you get the truck shipped to you, you'll know exactly what you're getting. And if this video helps you make a smart buying decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video that was helpful in that Brett sent you. Back wheel is absolutely perfect, and the back tires have just as much tread as the front tires. The frame and underbody looks really good. This one has MBRP performance exhaust on it, sounds great, other than being just a little dusty under here, a little sandy. Looks really good. Lower rockers, cab corners look great, and it comes with the, pretty sure those are factory step bars. Get the fender flares on there, you get the MBRP exhaust tip as well. Rear bumper is painted just like the front one and you get the backup parking sensors. Full towing package which includes the receiver hitched 4-pin and 7-pin wiring, and the tailgate is absolutely perfect. With that ram stamped logo and that power wagon, those are just stickers, if you didn't like those you could take them off. Has the LED tail lamps, shock down assist tailgate, so it's never gonna slam on you, and the bed's in really nice condition. A little bit of light duty usage, nothing too bad, does have a 115 volt 400 watt plug-in, you get LED bed lights back here with the button, then you get some side box tie-downs as well. Light shuts nice and solidly, and for full disclosure this back wheel, just as nice as the rest. This one does have the heated fold-up tow mirrors, they have built-in directional signals, they fold up like so, they also have LED side lights, and they fold in like that. Inside the power wagon level 2 package gives you the black leather interior, you get the 40, 20, 40, 40, 20, 40 split-bend seating in the front here, no rips or tears on those seats, you get the power wagon stitched into the side there. Seats are in excellent shape, both these front seats I believe are heated and cooled, factory all-weather formats, auto headlamps, and power pedals. Power windows locks and mirrors, these mirrors do power fold-in, I always like showing them both sides, so you know that both sides are working properly. Then you get power blind spot mirrors, so you press that button, which side you want to adjust, and that blind spot mirror is power, not a big deal for the driver side, but if you need to adjust that passenger side one, it's a really nice feature to have. Checking out the back seats, these back seats are heated on the outboard side, latch child safety system for any child car seats you may have. First sliding rear window with the built-in rear defrost, you get the speakers in the ceiling, part of that Alpine premium sound system.  Here's the winch controller for the winch, and a receiver hitch reducer. All-weather floor mats back here, you also get in-floor storage with removable bins, for easy cleaning, you can put ice and drinks in there, it's like you have too many coolers wherever you go, or if you're not in Wisconsin, just extra storage space. Has two USBs, heated seat buttons and a 115 volt 400 watt plug-in, side curtain air bags, and child safety locks on the back doors. Inside and bottoms of the doors all look really good, and we'll hop inside, check out Myles, the radio, and everything that this truck has to offer on the interior. See that this one has 13,704 miles, you get the 7-inch LCD display, digital speedometer, digital compass display as well, and you can change all those corners to read pretty much whatever you want. Has the heated leather-wrapped steering wheel, very nice condition, cruise controls and gear selector on the right, Bluetooth and information center controls on the left. You get audio controls on the back of the steering wheel as well, push-button start, this one has the Uconnect 5, 8.4-inch touchscreen radio, AM FM and Sirius XM radio capabilities on here, so FM, AM, Sirius, also Bluetooth, and then you have all your different apps on here, including Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and you can check out your backup camera, which they've made these backup cameras HD on the RAM, so it's nice and crystal clear, so that you can get hooked up to your boat camper trailer the first time every time, and then you can zoom in on your receiver hitch for even better hookup.  You get your 4x4 shifter right there, two USBs, two USB-C's and an aux jack, 8-speed automatic transmission, you can lock your front and rear axles, or just your rear, and then you can unlock them there, downhill assist control, and then your sway bar disconnect, so this is really what makes a power wagon, a power wagon are these capabilities right here, you don't get those on any other normal RAM, so anyways, that's everything, you get the power wagon logo right there, passenger side, floor mat and seat are in excellent condition as well, no rips or tears, I don't think this truck's ever been smoked in, and the headliner is absolutely perfect, you get assist and SOS buttons, as well as sunroof and power side and rear window controls up there, and home link buttons for your garage door security systems and lighting systems, keyless entry with your remote start and your power drop down tailgate, and before we start it, I'm going to show you the tire and loading information sticker as well as the vins sticker, feel free to pause that, alright let's start it up, take a look under the hood, that MBRP exhaust sounds really good, I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today, and hopefully from this HD video you've been able to verify the quality condition options, and of course cleanliness of this truck all the way around, inside and out, under the hood we have the 6.4 liter V8 heavy engine, 410 horsepower engine base, very clean runs, very smooth, and once again this truck has been fully saved and inspected by a service shop, that's a fresh oil and filter change, all fluids have been checked and topped off, and it is 100% ready to go, there's the emissions sticker, wanted to let you listen to this MBRP exhaust, I think it sounds really good, and I would highly recommend this truck from a quality and condition standpoint, I shipped this one in New York, California, Texas, Florida, wherever, whoever's going to get this truck is going to love it, and to see more pictures of this truck or one of other 550 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, half tons, three quarter tons, one tons, you name it, we got to go to that website right there, summonauto.com, full of pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle, all at summonauto.com, if you'd like to check out more HD videos, you can go to youtube.com slash summonauto, click the bell notifications to get updates on videos I do each and every day here at summonauto.com, in fact in a second, you'll see a link to subscribe to my YouTube channel on the upper left, links more, Ram 2500 truck videos like this one, the upper right, link to this vehicle on our website, and the lower left, link to one of our ladies' YouTube videos in the lower right, click those, check us out, we're super excited to help you with this Ultra Clean 2022 Ram 2500 Crew Cab Short Box Power Wagon in Billet Silver over Black Clear Coat, thanks again for checking out the video, remember to like, subscribe, and share on the YouTube channel, I really appreciate it, thanks again.


This is a really important time because as a country we are currently undergoing a mass political awakening We're forced to grapple with the role of police because you know when you see video after video after video of police brutality You can't just sit there idly by in ignorant bliss, right? Now that white people are finally privy to the knowledge that black Americans have had for centuries about the police Now we're forced to grapple with the role of police in our society And how we're going to transform the current system because obviously the status quo isn't working and Because we live in a capitalist society Large multinational corporations are forced to adapt to societal changes because if they don't they go out of business They lose money. I mean, could you imagine if Nike for example supported segregation in 2020? It's almost unthinkable, right because they don't want to lose that money It's difficult for Chick-fil-A to continue to be vehemently anti-gay in this current political era because that's not socially acceptable So large corporations are forced to adapt if they want to be relevant, right? Because if you don't adapt to social changes on a capitalist system, you do lose money and Lego is one company who is deciding to At least read the room a little bit because they've decided to stop marketing Their Lego White House set as well as their Lego City police sets because during a time of worldwide protests against police brutality You know toys that glorify police and subsequently brainwash children Arguably into thinking that their forces for good in society, you know, it might be a little bit inappropriate right now So as a result, this is a private company who said to all retailers don't you know Market these sets you can still sell them right you can sell the police sets But don't market them don't advertise them in your weekly store ads And this is something that I think they should do they should reevaluate these toys Because I think that this is a tool to brainwash children. It's something that we have to think about right We have to think about the way that culture, you know Helps to reinforce what we've been taught about the political institutions that we've all come to know But putting all that aside Stuart Varney of Fox News reacted to the news that Lego would be suspending marketing for a period of time and He was absolutely against it He was appalled and he clutched his pearls as we expected him to I'm staying on this protest theme. It's infected the toy industry Lauren is am I right in saying that Lego is stopping ads for police kind of Lego characters and It's White House kit so Lego sent an email to online companies saying Temporarily at a respect for what's going on across the country stop marketing for about 30 Lego sets that have emergency Vehicles police cars the White House in those sets you can still sell them don't advertise for them their recommendation Legos is also donating four million dollars to organizations that support black children and Educating all children about racial inequality. So this is another example of many retailers many companies Essentially putting their money where their mouth is there they're saying we should do more and they're donating money to do more Yeah, maybe so but it's sending quite a message to children, isn't it?  He said this is flat-out anti-police material Stewart, it's Legos. It's not that big of a deal None of this will lead to societal change nor will it lead to maintaining the status quo What Lego chooses to do is Completely inconsequential to what's happening currently in the country if they choose to overmarket police Lego sets Not gonna make a difference if they choose to remove all of their police Lego sets from the shelf not gonna make a difference It doesn't matter. So why would you you know? Use any of your energy to be outraged about this when there are real injustices happening throughout the country. I Mean, this is a time where all of us should force ourselves to be introspective to actually feel a little bit uncomfortable thinking about our role and how we prop up and maintain White supremacy even if we thought we were allies force ourselves to do better It's a time where we all should be thinking bigger about what types of transformational changes we want to apply But I mean Stuart Varney he only has one setting and it is to be offended and defend capitalism at all costs But hey, if you're gonna be a capitalist, it's a private market Right if Lego as a private company decides that they don't want to market police propaganda to children That's their decision Do you want the big government to step it and stop them from doing that? I mean, he's not implying that to be fair, but I just I don't get why a news Organization would spend any time covering Legos, but again, this is Fox News back in 2018 We covered how they were outraged because I believe it was a bakery in Denmark They decided to have gender gingerbread people cookies that were gender neutral So I mean you can't really expect this news outlet to Not be completely idiotic, but I mean this is this is Ridiculous, this is Legos and Stuart Varney is clutching his pearls at Legos.