I think how I'd like to structure our conversation today is if committee members while Maria is walking through the bill. If you would kind of, you know, take notes with your questions priorities ideas as we go through this. And then after Maria has walked us through the bill. You know, as if we were sitting in our committee room, let's spend some time maybe a couple of minutes per member. To go through again your questions priorities ideas, things that struck you in the bill, things that aren't there that you would like to see us add at this point, just, you know, kind of a comment time so that we can put those thoughts together I think we're going to have an extraordinary amount of work to do in the next, as I said earlier in the next weeks, not months. My, my hope is that we can move on this bill quickly and aggressively and there are other committees in the in the house that are going to have to work on this before we even think about sending it to the Senate so I'm excited about this and rare to go so again thank you Maria for for all the work you've done so far and thanks for walking us through. Do you have co hosting capability so that you can pull the pull that I think the document is posted on our website although I haven't looked. I believe it is. Yeah. Okay, great. Take it away. Matthew you. Great. I'm excited to do that. Maria Royal with legislative council. I'm going to pull this up. Get to the beginning. So is that visible and large enough font for you to all see clearly. So I can see it Maria. You know we can only see I think seven or eight lines at a time, you know, that is that as big as you can make it on on the screen. If it is that's fine. You mean you want a smaller font you can see more on the screen or do you want it more the screen it was it was fine how you had it before we could only see seven lines of the of the text. Oh, I. I don't know why that is. Do you have this work for other members. Okay. You know, we're getting a special training led council next Monday. On sharing presentations on zoom. So I'm going to get much better at this, I promise. This session goes on. So. Okay, so we'll dive right in there about 60 sections to this bill. Some of them have many amendments within each section and some of them are still kind of in the to be determined stage. So we'll address each one of those. And I think the chair actually did a great job setting the stage in a way that's very consistent with what you have before you in the first section, which is the findings and intense section for the entire committee bill. And I don't maybe I'll go through these kind of quickly just to set the stage with the understanding that as you develop your work in here testimony they may be refined and revised based on what you hear. But we'll go through it kind of addresses what Vermont has done to date at a high level. And then what some of the newer issues are that have come to your attention. This year. With that, the first finding for over a decade, Vermont has pursued many approaches and strategies designed to ensure that every reminder has access to reliable affordable high speed broadband. In act are in 2018 and act 169. The general assembly found that broadband is essential for supporting economic and educational opportunities, strengthening health and public safety networks and reinforcing freedom of expression and democratic social and civic engagement. We further found in act number 169 that the lack of a thriving competitive market in Vermont, particularly in isolated locations disadvantages the ability of consumers and businesses to protect their interests efficiently. And recognize that the date may exercise its traditional role in protecting consumers. And then in 2019 through act 79. The general assembly found that despite the FCC's light touch regulatory approach under Title one of the Federal Communications Act, rather than utility style regulation under Title two existing broadband providers are not providing adequate service to many rural areas where fewer potential customers reduce the profitability necessary to justify network expansion. Accordingly, reaching the last mile will will require a grassroots approach founded on input from and support of local communities. Existing broadband grant programs do not offer the scale to solve this problem and traditional capital sources typically shy away from businesses with limited revenue history and little equity or collateral. Six, to this end, public investment in programs and personnel that provide local communities with much needed resources and technical assistance is required. In 2020, the COVID-19 public health emergency served as an accelerant to the socioeconomic disparities between the connected and the unconnected in our state. For monitors who cannot access or cannot afford broadband, many of whom are geographically isolated face challenges with respect to distance learning remote working accessing telehealth services and accessing government programs and services, including our institutions of democracy, such as the court system. Indeed, the ongoing public health emergency has highlighted the extent to which robust and resilient broadband networks are critical to our economic future as a whole and provide a foundation for educational healthcare, public health and safety and democratic institutions. Broadband infrastructure is critical infrastructure fundamental to accessing other critical services in sectors such as energy, public safety, government, healthcare, education and commerce. The goal of universal broadband needs to be elevated as the top priority of the state to meet the economic health safety social needs of our monitors. Sorry. While private broadband providers have brought broadband services to many households, businesses and locations in Vermont, significant gaps remain. When existing broadband providers fail to achieve the goal of providing reliable, high quality universal broadband, it is imperative for the state to support and facilitate the construction of broadband infrastructure through financial and other means. Communications union districts, CUDs were created by the state to coordinate and implement creative and innovative solutions in their respective territories, particularly where existing providers are not providing adequate service that meets the needs of their residents and businesses while ensuring public accountability. CUDs are thus positioned to be the unofficial provider of last resort for broadband and ensure public accountability for serving all Vermonters within their respective service territories. Yet CUDs have limited access to financial capital necessary for expansion of broadband to unserved and underserved areas of the state. Oops. I don't know why that happens. 15. All Vermont electric ratepayers are supporting the rollout of clean energy technologies. However, not all ratepayers are able to access those technologies because they do not access to adequate broadband. Equity in the energy sector requires universal broadband. The Department of Public Service simultaneously plays a regulatory role in the telecommunications market while also supporting the development of CUDs in an unregulated competitive broadband market. To ensure broadband in Vermont, there is a need for greater coordination of grassroots broadband solutions, both among the CUDs themselves and also with respect to their other potential partners, such as electric distribution utilities, nonprofit organizations, federal government and private broadband providers. That concludes the findings. Then the intent section in subsection B. Therefore, this act is intended to protect the public interest by ensuring broadband availability to all Vermonters and Vermont addresses. I'm missing a semicolon. And two, ensuring public accountability for maintaining and upgrading critical broadband infrastructure. Three, increasing the reliability of the electric grid and ensuring equal access to clean energy services among all electric ratepayers. Protecting Vermonters privacy and unrestricted access to the internet. Deviating the inherent tension the Department of Public Service currently experiences as a result of its dual roles as both regulator and community project developer. Directing public resources to the development of public broadband assets intended to provide universal access. Seven, developing favorable taxing financing and regulatory mechanisms to support communications union districts. And finally, eight, providing time limited leadership for coordinating the build out of Vermont's communications union districts and their partners. And developing financing mechanisms to fully support that build out through a newly created state entity. The Vermont community broadband authority designed specifically to effectuate these purposes. So that's a lot to digest I realize. And again, I'm sure we'll return to these and refine them as you continue to take testimony. So moving on to the first substantive provision in section two. As the intent section noted, the purpose of one of the purposes of this act is to create a new authority. It's called the Vermont community broadband authority. And we'll just go through this first section. It's a new chapter chapter 91 a of title 30. And the very first section kind of dresses the overall policy findings and purpose of this chapter. I'm going to pause for a second and ask the chair, kind of to get a maybe a sense of the level of detail for each of these I don't want to just feel like it's not helpful for me to read kind of a word by word description but what do you think is most Yeah, I agree with that Maria. I mean, clearly, these portions of the bill, you know, kind of the substantive policy portions. I think you should feel free to, you know, to go through and touch on the substantive points here. Okay. You know, what what the action is. Okay. I mean, I'm reading along with you obviously if there's something that I think we should pull out to highlight I certainly will jump in. Okay. Great. My internet connection looks like it's a little bit spotty so I will call in on my cell phone if I need to. With respect to this new authority, I mean, you will recall that right now in dormant status, you have the Vermont telecommunications authority which was created in 2007 to help build out broadband in the state. It went dormant in 2015, and some of its authority was transferred to the Department of Public Service, which is why the department now is ministering for example the grant program the connectivity initiative and engaging in other activities. So this proposal would create a new entity. It's similar in some some respects to the Vermont telecommunications authority. I would say one of the most notable differences is that unlike the VTA, this new authority does not have bonding authority. You cannot issue revenue bonds to support broadband deployment. So, if you happen to be looking at chapter 9091 of title 30 and you go through the VTA provisions, you'll notice that all of those financing bond related sections are do not appear here. It does track a lot of what is in the VTA but not everything and this proposal drew upon some other models in the state. So that being said, I'm probably saying more than I should but I just wanted to point out, you know, that big distinction for those of you who are familiar with the dormant VTA. So the primary I think that's helpful background Maria, I think that is helpful to. So thank you for that. Okay, great. So, you know you'll see in the policy statement and subsection a and again I'm, don't worry I'm not going to read word by word but I do think this is important because this is a policy for this whole chapter. This is here policy of the state of Vermont, it is the policy of the state of Vermont to support and accelerate community efforts that advance the state's goal of achieving universal access to reliable high quality affordable broadband, the emphasis on community. I'm not going to read through all the findings here but this is really a general statement of what the chair is opening comments that so far based on all the strategies based on federal policy what the private market has been able to do there are still significant changes and at the local level through communications union districts there's been a lot of activity to address these gaps, and it is those CUDs who deserve or warrant under this proposal support of public resources and greater coordination and leadership through a new state entity. I should have just read it because I think I spoke longer than it would take to actually read that, but in any event, so the purpose is creating this new authority to accelerate coordinate facilitate support accelerated community broadband solutions. So no real need to go through the definitions I think they're all what you would think they mean what you wouldn't expect they mean. The authorities obviously this new authority that will authority comes up in another section as Vita. That's not what we're talking about here. This new board of directors, which will review in the establishment section. The connectivity initiative is the existing grant program that the department administers now. The department used here is Department of Public Service division is director purposes division for telecommunications. There's a new special fund that's created here into which any monies can be deposited. And then the other thing that I did. I'm just going to highlight. In terms of definitions of underserved and unserved sometimes those terms are used and they're not always defined. They are defined under the connectivity initiative. So we'll be looking at that section in greater detail, but that's for now that's kind of where those terms are defined and this will hopefully add to some consistency. There are other programs so that people know where to look when they're using those terms who's covered. So, with respect to the authority, it's a body corporate and politic it's an instrumentality of the state it's in terms of central government functions it's a public entity. And in performing its duties it's subject to state laws such as the open meeting law, etc. So this is not unlike other provisions we have for establishing state entities and describing what their authority is. With respect to the power of the authority, it's exercised through a board of directors. There are 11 proposed members to ex officio members. Those are the commissioner of public service or designee and the secretary of commerce and community development. Then there are the rest of the members are public members, three of whom. They are representing the CUDs, and they are selected by the Vecuda from our communications union district association for public members appointed by the governor, who may not be employees or officers of the state. One public mentor, a member appointed by the speaker of the house, who shall not be a member of the general assembly at the time of appointment. One public member appointed by the senate committee on committees who also should not be a member of the general assembly. And then when making appointments of public members the appointing authority shall give consideration to citizens of the state with knowledge of communications technology communications law and policy finance and electric utility law and policy. This is just the subsection D is the membership and the terms, maybe reworking a little bit to make sure that they stagger terms reflect what you want. It allows for members to be reappointed. But just to give you a little bit of a heads up there is a sunset provision for this authority. And I believe it's 2026. So, anyway, that's just so you kind of know where we're going and something to think about. In terms of an I see representative in touch. Has raised his hand. Yeah, Tim, do you do you want us to ask questions as we go along here? Yeah, what I think I'd prefer to hold them to the end if we can Mike, because I think there's going to be a lot of questions and we're going to, we're going to go through those but let's make note of them and then let's raise them at the end as well as we can kind of hear thoughts. Okay, so maybe I'll given 40 gun for a half an hour here so some of this, you know, you can look at and really kind of think through how the chair and vice chair or selected payment of expenses. The authority can hire an executive director who's the chief administrative officer. And then the responsibilities of the director attending meetings approving accounts filing filing an annual report. Any other duties required. And the authority has may also employed technical expert experts and other officers agents and employees that are necessary to effectuate the purposes of this new chapter. There was one possible provision that is included here for your consideration, whether you want the authority to use the office of the Attorney General for legal services. It's not in the VTA language. It has been used in other contexts. So it's italicized here, something to consider. So then there's creation of a new fund. And this is a special fund what's significant about it is really that any unexpended balances that are in the fund fund can stay in the fund and carry forward to subsequent years. So it's out pursuant to the policies and purposes of this chapter. But it's a repository to the extent the authority can obtain any grants donations, whatever. This is where they would go and they would stay there, as opposed to being returned to the general fund of the state. So, section 8085, the general powers and duties of the authority. You know, if you happen to be looking at the VTA language. I'll just note that this kind of boilerplate language here basically means that the entity has all of the authority of a corporation in Vermont to engage in contracting other transactional activities, the right to sue or be sued. So some of what is in the VTA language is actually subsumed by this section. But I would say this is pretty boilerplate. But then significantly so in terms of its duties to coordinate and facilitate community broadband efforts and to provide resources to communications union districts in the form of support, technical support, as well as through grants under the connectivity initiative and the community broadband innovation grant program. So, as I mentioned earlier, the connectivity initiative the existing states grant program that right now is being administered by the department would now be moved to this new authority. Similarly, a couple of years ago you created the broadband innovation grant program, which actually we will look at in more detail because there are some amendments there. This would be fall under the authority of this new entity. Then some boilerplate about receiving grants, accepting grants, three subdivision three. Right now the department owns fiber optic assets that were originally acquired by the VTA and then transferred to the department. There's a proposal here that those state fiber assets are transferred to the CUDs in which those assets are located. We'll talk about that again in a subsequent section. Then there's just working with VTA the bond bank regarding financing consulting with other agencies and departments regarding broadband taxes and fees whether they should be modified or waived. Oops. Assisting CUDs with pursuing route identification for fiber networks and with obtaining poll surveys and negotiating poll contracts to some general authority. And then this subdivision seven is really identify publish federal nonprofit other broadband funding opportunities you know an entity that's actually looking for funding opportunities and trying to coordinate them and then assisting the CUDs with completing any grants and loan applications. Eight is just a general provision to do whatever is necessary to carry out the purposes of the section flag. This is typical VTA did not have rulemaking authority. It's typical for many authorities. And it looks like my internet is unstable. Can you still hear me. Okay, great. Yeah, so the only question I had about rulemaking is maybe when you when or if you want the authority to adopt rules only because it can be time consuming. Eight months typically to adopt rules and as I mentioned earlier this is a program that's hopefully going to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time so I'm flagging that issue more than anything. So this 8086 this is the new version of the broadband innovation grant program that you created a couple of years ago. And without going through it too much in detail I'm just going to highlight and then also explain for the benefit of some of the newer members but highlight some of the differences. This grant program was primarily to fund feasibility studies related to broadband deployment in rural unserved and underserved areas it was available to two years ago to any broadband providers including up to two electric utilities. It's about $60,000 left currently is to continue the program but limited just to CDs and their partners. Whoops. So that's what you see in terms of eligible applicants is just CDs at this point so the references to the de use is no longer here, but they're still required to produce an actionable business plan. Going forward. The grant award is still $60,000 the cap provision for administrative grant management has stayed the same. And you've also left the 12 month requirement for getting the studies actually concluded. In 2006 you expanded it to 12 in the fall, and you're leaving it at 12 months. Then provisions for the authority to retain the award until the studies completed. Then reporting back requirements. The authority also reports back any findings and recommendations aggregated information to the relevant legislative committees you'll see a reference there on line 17 to the annual report there's a new annual reporting requirement that's tied to this whole chapter for this new authority. And see just clarifying that this program is the successor in interest to the existing program so that any funds are transferred to this new new fund new program. 8087 is just the annual report provision. I think that's pretty standard. And then significantly the sunset and section 8088 July 1, 2026. This is a broad overview of this new authority and its responsibilities and the programs that it's designed to support. Just some repeals, pretty boilerplate here because it's the existing broadband program and those are now in a way. Number four, this is specific to the transfer of those state owned fiber assets that that the department has now so this is a little bit more prescriptive that that transfer of ownership to CUDs should happen on or before July 1 of this year. There is a provision that should a CUD dissolve that those assets would be returned to the state of Vermont. So the proposal on section five. So, we'll talk about this in greater detail in a minute, or a couple sections further down. But what this proposal here would do under the connectivity fund. That receives its revenue from the universal surcharge, which all telecom consumers pay on their telecom bills. It's a 2.4% surcharge funds various programs. I can talk about that a little bit more, but just for so we don't get too far ahead. What this would do is basically right now there's a set aside of the money that comes to the connectivity fund for a specific position, currently in the Department of Public Service, which will forever be known as the Rob Fish position. What's proposed here is to one increase the amount of money. On the other side. For the operational expenses. Now, not of the department, but of the new authority, the Vermont community broadband authority. And this envisions that the role broadband technical assistance specialist the Rob Fish position would be moving to this new authority. Okay, whoops. That. Okay, so I think that pretty much explains that. Oh, section six. So you have the existing telecommunications and connectivity advisory board which advises the department currently on policy and planning, and also with respect to grants under the connectivity initiative. So because you're moving initiative to the new broadband authority. At some point we'll have to go in and revise the existing statute. I just didn't have time to do that before today. But that's the intent here. The advisory board would continue in its role in making recommendations on state policy and planning. Section seven. Eventually you'll have to think about some funding source or appropriation for this new entity. So moving on to kind of a new subject. Some what with respect to changes under the existing state grant program, the connectivity initiative. So, in addition to this program now being administered by the new Vermont community broadband authority. There are some substantive changes proposed here. Right now. The initiative funds projects that are capable of speed of a minimum of 25 three. That's consistent with what the federal government is doing in most of its programs. The proposal here is you can see online 20 to raise the minimum requirements to 100 megabits per second symmetrical. So that's a significant change for this existing program. And then also with respect to defining the terms unserved and underserved and remember these terms now are going to these definitions are going to be the definitions for all other programs. Unless you change them. So what it means to be unserved is not having access to four one. What it under this proposal, what it means to be underserved means having access to four one, but less than 25 three. So those are the categories that receive priority, the targeted locations under this state grant program. You'll see online 10. This was an issue. It's noted here is to be determined. There's been some discussion about open access, whether state funded infrastructure should be open access and what the policy ramifications are of that so that's noted as this is one place where that potentially might be addressed if you decide to move forward. The other change here in subsection be in the existing program under the existing law. The department publishes a list annually of eligible census blocks based on the definitions of served and unserved. I think you heard director Purvis explain earlier this session because of the granular data that they have, they actually do it by 911 location. And so this will just bring the statute into conformity with the current practice, which again is more specific than the census block. Existing language. So, then, so you'll see obviously it's the, the new authority that solicits the proposals, and then significantly the current program offers grants to any broadband provider under this proposal only CUDs would be eligible to apply for grant under this program. Then also what you see online 1617 again something kind of noted and will for further consideration by you is whether these particular grant funds should be available for capital improvements only and not for operating and maintenance expenses. That's actually the existing law. It's italicized because there was some question about potentially expanding the reach. So, no other proposed changes to the criteria that are relevant to whether grant is awarded. Subsection C, not going to go through it in detail, but this is just basically ensuring that the grant funds go out based on the value of the work that is completed. So that funds, ensuring greater accountability. Subsection D is just a requirement that the authority maintains a publicly accessible inventory of any projects that are financed in whole or in part with grants under this section. So really starting to build up that database of where the state dollars are going throughout the state. So the next several sections concern the broadband expansion loan program. In this context we are now entitled 10 of the Vermont statutes. And when we refer to the authority, we're talking about Vita, the Vermont economic development authority. And Cassie and Tad last week about this particular program. So there are some proposed changes in this program. One on line nine, you can see that the entities eligible for financing under this program are CUDs. So it's no longer any internet service provider. Also, the loan amount, the maximum loan amount is capped is raised is doubled from $4 million to $8 million under this proposal. B is just again clarifying eligible borrowers include CUDs only. And then under this proposal so the existing program contemplated $10.8 million of lending through Vita. This proposal increases that amount to $36 million. So with 10% match that's still required of the now CUDs for their project that would bring total spending for broadband under this program to $40 million. The current program, the 10.8 with the 10% match was $12 million. So a significant increase of lending. Oops. Subsection three. Basically just adds the Vermont Community Broadband Authority as an entity that is consulted with, in addition to the department for financing under this program. The other proposal here in section 10 is one specifying I think there's some question about whether this was intended to be a revolving loan program. Or if when the money came back, it was read to the state. So this hopefully clarifies the intent at least here that this is in fact a revolving loan program. You'll see that online six and eliminates the programs that are the provisions that reference the termination of the program. So this is an ongoing program. And then there are a number of provisions and subdivision new subdivision to online seven. In terms of what the state's risk is vis-a-vis the Vita's risk. You know, there's an attempt just to kind of extrapolate from the existing numbers. You know, for this much bigger $40 million program. What is that what would that mean. So instead of $8.5 million risk to the state there would now be under this proposal of $27 million risk. On line 11, the authority would be absorbing many more losses from $3 million to $9 million. Whoops. So two things about the section 11. This is a one time general fund for loan losses. When you created this program a couple of years ago, and you'll definitely want to hear from Vita because there are two factors that to primarily two factors that will influence how much of an appropriation you would want for a loan losses. So one, how much, how many loans does Vita anticipate writing this year, or in fiscal year 2022, and what is its assessment of the risk in those loans. So, I think when you first developed this program, Vita thought that they'd be issuing behalf of its lending authority in the first year. And then set aside 10% of that. That's what this number is designed to reflect roughly, but you'll absolutely want to hear from Vita and others about what the need and and timetable might be for these loans. Then the next sections 12 and section 13. Along with this enhanced greater lending capacity through Vita, there is a proposal that it has greater moral obligation lending authority for its bonds. That increase in bonding authority comes from the dormant VTAs authority. So, that's what you see online 15 and 16, in section 12, the increase to Vita, and then the corresponding decrease to the VTA. Even though the VTA is dormant, its bonding authority is still reflected on the state's ledger. Whether these are the appropriate numbers based on a $40 million program. I think you probably just need to hear more from from Vita on that but that's, that's the intent. So that can I chime in here real quickly. Yeah, sure. And some of this, as I've mentioned before, when we are going through how these numbers all play together and what type of commitment Vita might make or what commitment we might ask them to make in this legislation to a larger lending program. I think we have to look to what the appropriation, the legislature would have to make in order to support that are connected formulaically. And back in 2019 when we stood up this program. I think it was a conclusion that Vita would have lending capacity of $10.8 million here. Yeah. And what this legislature had to appropriate to support that amount of lending by Vita was a 5% loan loss reserve. And part of act 79, the legislature appropriated $540,000. That was a general fund appropriate, I think it was a general. Actually, I can't remember if it was general fund or not. Yeah, it was. Yeah, appropriation to support that level of lending. So to, you know, to what you were saying, Maria, if we increase the amount of lending capacity here by Vita, let's say another $20 million. That would require an additional $1 million appropriation, just to establish the loan loss reserve to support that level of funding. So, I just wanted to be clear with members, if we expand this program there's got to be an appropriation that goes along with it to expand the size of the loan loss reserve so that's where the appropriations committee would get involved. And the other thing though that I did forget to mention, I guess, I guess we'll go back as part of that general fund appropriation for loan loss reserves. It's all the, it's similar to exactly to what you did a couple years ago, except for online 17 and to enable the authority Vita to provide credit enhancements to assist communicate CUDs with securing financing through other lenders. So that's another tool that Vita may be able to use to assist. So I just want to, I forgot to mention that that's, that's new. I'm really bad at the scrolling, aren't I. So, then, with respect to now we're we're talking specifically about CUDs and this is an amendment to their existing authority. Your chapter of title 30. And what this is really doing is clarifying the confidentiality of their records and information. So, I'll just read through it quickly the purpose of this section is to clarify that any records or information produced or acquired by a district commute that's a communications union district that are trade secrets or service information shall be exempt from public inspection and copying pursuant to you and that's the Public Records Act. Such records or information shall be available for public inspection after project completion. So just a very clear statement of, I believe what existing law is. The next several sections. This concerns the property tax exemption for broadband infrastructure. There are actually two options presented here. And Abby Shepard, my colleague in ledge council is our tax attorney. So, not only should you hold your questions to the end of my walkthrough, but you might want to hold them until she's here on Thursday, because if I start trying to explain tax law that may confuse everybody. I will tell you just big picture. The proposals here what they intend to do under the first option. There would be an exemption from both the statewide education tax, as well as a tax at the municipal at the local level. The exemption property tax exemption would be available in two instances, subdivision 19 and subdivision 20. Subdivision 19 makes the tax exemption available to electric distribution utilities that build broadband infrastructure. And that infrastructure is leased to a CUD for the purpose of providing broadband service. CUDs are municipalities. They currently do not pay property tax. This would allow the electric company to similarly not have to pay property taxes provided it's leasing that fiber infrastructure to a CUD. The exemption would apply prospectively to infrastructure that's constructed on or after July 1. Then the second instance would be if a broadband provider. So this could be any broadband provider builds infrastructure. And that infrastructure is used for the purpose of providing universal broadband service in unserved and underserved areas. It's constructed on or after July 1 so prospectively as well. And further provided that purpose is affirmed in writing by the Department of Public Service and any affected CUD. So an affected CUD means the district in which the broadband infrastructure is located. So those broadband providers would similarly be able would be eligible for tax exemption if it meets all of those requirements. So these next sections basically just fix other provisions in Title 32 clarifying what I've just read to you. So they kind of all go together as a package. Option B would be similar exemptions offered to the same providers, utilities and broadband providers. What's different here is this would be property exemption and only a property at local level if it's approved by the local voters. So hopefully that is an accurate high level description of the two proposals. And as I said, Abby is available to what this means in the tax world and what some of the other tax implications might be or considerations might be. Maria, I hesitate to even ask this at this point, but it is important. It's an important distinction between these two options. In terms of what the what the financial effect would be in that I believe option a and I'm going to ask you to catch me if I fall. I believe option a would provide a full property tax exemption for these assets. If it was left to local voter approval, as to whether or not to extend this property tax exemption, it would only affect the local municipal property tax, but not affect the property tax exemption that is paid into the state coffers. That is my understanding. Okay, so I might have screwed that up too but I, let's say, let's suffice it to say for members as we go through this, there is a different economic benefit between these two proposals it's not simply that the property tax exemption incur occurs in one with one mechanism, or in the other with another mechanism they're actually different, the size of the benefit is different. Right. Okay, so moving right along. Sections 15 F again these are just corresponding tax law changes. Nothing new, nothing substantive there. Okay. So, then section 16. This is a proposal that's under consideration that I think you've kind of heard about. And Marie, I can speak to this since there's since there's no language on this that this really was just a placeholder at the highest level in that we had heard testimony, I can't remember was last week or the week before. And I can't remember from the day that Green Mountain Power and Washington Electric co op and Velco were in about the possibility of distribution utilities, achieving some cost recovery related to poll survey and make ready work that they would do. This was simply a placeholder. There's no language around this but a placeholder in the event we decided to develop this idea more. I'm sure this would be of great interest to folks in the regulatory community at the PUC and the Department of Public Service but just wanted to put this in here as a placeholder so that we can explore this and the weeks ahead. So, that's all this is meant to call out. Okay. So section 17. This actually is a proposal that the department presented last spring as part of their emergency action broadband plan. What this would do so they can actually come in and probably better explain the problem that it seeks to address and how it does that but at a general level. This provision would assist CDs with accessing middle mile fiber that's currently owned by electric companies. So it's an interconnection requirement and designed to give them access to existing middle mile mile fiber as they build out their networks and it specifies the process for that. Whether there are other services, middle mile services available, what the cost should be, how they should be allocated. But again the idea is to serve as one tool that might help the CUDs as they're planning and building out their networks but the department can better explain how they arrived at some of these proposed fees and schedules and allocation of responsibilities for maintenance, etc. And the next section section 18. This is in the context of telecommunications facility siting under 248 a and what this provision does is simply adds CUDs as another entity. I think I just skipped over it. Yes, online 18 that receives receives notice of 248 a application request. The purpose is to generally make them aware of facilities that are proposed to be constructed in their service territories. So this actually goes on the existing law for quite a bit. I can probably not include the full statute in the next draft but there's no no other substantive changes there. And then another placeholder provision section 19 concerning workforce development of communications line workers. Something that you may want to include in your next. I'll just note for members if you haven't taken a look at our agenda for this week actually tomorrow morning we're going to take a morning of testimony about this very specific topic. This is something that I have learned enough about to be dangerous in the last month or so. But left this as kind of a, an open area for the committee to consider as you know if there's programs that we want to look at supporting, or even changes to existing programs but this is something that we heard about in the past as a potential critical critical path element that is a constraint on the amount of work that can be done in the state, just lacking the qualified workers to do this type of to do this type of line work. And that brings us to the effective date section the act is effective on passage. Any questions on that section. And any others, you might have. I will stop the share. Yeah, great. See each other. Super. Thank you for taking us through that. That was helpful. Great. So as I said at the outset, what what I what would be helpful to me and hopefully interesting to members of the committee. I'm just holding off on questions and, you know, taking notes and I'd like to open it up just to kind of general conversation now and go, you know, actually go around the table and hear about priorities that were missed priorities that shouldn't be in here. Questions that people had, you know, the floor is yours but if folks would like to take a couple minutes to speak to those things, I would welcome some thoughts on that now. And with some of the things that are laid out in this bill, including the one we just talked to the the workforce development. Some of the agenda planning for this week is again to build the committee's knowledge and provide an opportunity to ask questions and again to dig deeper into some of this policy as we collectively craft this bill so. And probably the best example that is the workforce development piece. So floors open. Mike, did you want to share your question now? Can you hear me. Yep. Yep. Okay, so just my first question right off the top was, we're talking about community broadband. Are we talking about CDs only, or are we talking about broadband that's currently being being built up by other entities like Waysville, Champlain Valley, Telecom, or other ILX. So I'll take a shot at that, that you know answering that but I think the focus here is on supporting. Supporting organizations whose focus is on providing universal coverage. And definitionally, that is how CDs are set up. So a CD could potentially partner with another entity that doesn't have that as their mission.  They could partner with consolidated. So it's not that the resources here couldn't only support CDs, but they would have to collectively support the mission of universal coverage, which effectively means partnership with CDs for for for this funding. Okay. I have a whole bunch of questions I don't know if you want me to go through all more whether you want other people to comment on that particular aspect or not. Well I don't see any other hands up so if you've got some thoughts to share please do. Sure. So the Vermont broadband authority that would take over the CD support functions from the Department of Public Service altogether. In short, yes. Okay. What relationship will the Vermont broadband authority have to existing telecommunications providers. Yeah, I guess what I would go to is at least again as the bill is now drafted. The community broadband authority would be focused on supporting the work of CDs. So, you know the end goal here is to get broadband service to parts of the state that are underserved and answered. And how to best do that. What are the organizations who are focused on that as their mission. And if I can keep going. Let me just add as an as an addendum to that Mike that that doesn't mean that private internet service providers couldn't be part of that solution. But they would be working in partnership with folks who have the mission of providing universal coverage. So universal coverage is key. So transferring fiber assets owned by Department of Public Service is owned by Department of Public Service or state. So when the, when the Vermont telecom authority was set up, and ultimately came into possession of assets that they developed. And there were a number of assets they weren't just fiber assets I believe there's a, there's a cell tower in there in central Vermont someplace I think there's a few other cats and dogs. And I believe I don't have the specific language in front of me right now but I believe what this bill contemplates is the fiber assets. When the Vermont telecom authority went into dormancy, those VTA assets went over to the Department of Public Service, all of them. And what this bill contemplates is that the fiber assets. Not the other stuff but the fiber assets specifically would would essentially be moved over to CUDs, essentially, and if a CUD went, you know, went out of commission for whatever reason, those assets would revert back to the state. So isn't there a whole bunch of fiber that's owned by the agency of transportation as well. And it's included. No. No, okay. And then the next question I have is the increase from 120,000 to 240,000 for the Rob Fish position is that mean that there's going to be two positions. Let me do the math. Okay. I'm just kidding. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Actually, what I was, I'm sorry for, for being for pulling your leg, what what that essentially was meant to mean was to double the resources for that type of type of work. And I just want to say that the paid positions at the, at the community broadband authority would be would be kept at two positions. What it means is that two positions at the CBA would come from that stream of funding. Okay. And then with respect to the Vita bonding authority, it's going from 181 million to 193 million. So I think what I got from Maria's presentation was that 181 million is what the VTA is currently allowed to bond. Our data is currently allowed to bond for VTA or something to that effect. And then it's going to increase the 193 million. Yeah, so I think I think we're going to quickly get over our skis here but I think the important point that what what this draft legislation contemplates is expanding the amount of lending that Vita can do from 10.8 million. And Maria has 36 million in this draft. It's not clear to me if that 36 million should be 34 million but at any rate, increasing it significantly call it from 11 million to mid 30s. So that's the amount of money that that Vita could lend. And that money is backed by the moral obligation of the state of Vermont. And typically what, what we would do in standing up this type of program which we did back in 2019 is the legislature will appropriate a certain amount of money as a loan loss reserve to support that lending. And in this case it was determined that that amount should be 5% of whatever was lent. So I, I'm sorry, I'm evading your question. I don't know what the 181 or 193. I don't know exactly what that reflects. Yeah, I understood the other part I just wanted about the 181 to 193, you know what. Why the increased error. We're going to have to have a bonding expert in here to explain those numbers to us. I think that's the state bonding. I mean, I think that's a bigger number. Yep. And my last question. When we talk about the electric distribution utilities the middle mile fiber is that is that fiber that's in the electric space of the polls. And how would that it would that access have to be dropped down to the telecom space, or is that through technical question. For me it is. I was going to say for me also, I don't know if all of the do fiber is in the electrical space so we heard that some last year. Yeah, it may, it may very well be but it would not be used for last mile fiber. So no service drops off of this fiber middle mile transport I don't know that that requires moving, but I don't know the answer. All right. Hey, over. Hi there. Just so some broad comments. First of all, I, there is a lot in this bill and this is a this is a pretty, this is a pretty big bill that will do a lot of things and I'm not immediately finding anything you asked to tell us if there's anything missing. I'm not. I didn't find I didn't go hey what about such and such. We may hear from people about things that are missing. I may at this point, I have some word tweaks about things I would I would say a little bit differently in the, in the finding section I'm not going to go into that at this point. And, but just a heads up the one question I will have and I'll bring it up on Thursday has to do with the, the lab the end of the bill with the, with the property tax exemption because I have a lot of questions about option be or where that came from and why, why it's being thought about. Other than that, this is a lot of work and thank you and I'm sure we're going to do a lot more work and there'll be suggestions coming but this is, this is a great start. Thank you. Thanks. Well, I will. I'll insert myself into the airtime here in that something that hasn't been identified with specificity here is some of the funding channels here so there's there's a lot of work and heavy lifting to do on that but and that's in front of us. Hey, Heidi, go ahead. Sorry, sorry, you hear me. Yep. So yeah, I guess I'll first echo Abrams. Thanks for putting this together it's, I know it's taking a lot of a lot of thought and a lot of work on on your part and the part of Laura so thank you both. I will say, obviously we were here or at least I was am I the only one. I don't know with when the VTA was was in so I appreciate the thoughts you've put into the challenges with the VTA the failures in my view of the VTA and some other I appreciate that the thought you've put in when you're putting this together with our experience of the VTA. I will say I would like to hear from some of the incumbent carriers, not necessarily the big ones as you know Mr chair I, I have a community that has an incumbent provider that's a really small one, but, but is good and is committed to serving this area and expanding the service. But it's very difficult obviously financially to meet the needs in in the very rural parts of our area so. I'm understanding and I realized that the partnerships with the CUDs in that way some of that funding can can can can work for with regard to accessing it, getting some access through through through a partnership to to some of these I just want to really hear understand some of the smaller incumbent carriers and what their needs are because I know many of them, including the one that I know as well but a number of them are committed to universal service, but it's, but it's a challenge and I want to see how we might be able to help those as current assets that are parts of our community important parts of our community with jobs in our community with investment, lots of investment in our communities and trying to help support them as they try to expand and again provide universal service all around. So that's that's really all. But again I appreciate all the work that has gone into this and I look forward to all of our work as a committee as we move forward so. Good. Thank you, Heidi. Catherine. Yeah, thanks just that first start by echoing all of the, you know, gratitude to chair Brigham and Laura for all of the work that has gone into this. I'll know access to broadband has been an essential resource for a long time and coven has highlighted the gaps for so many of our communities and really appreciate the focus in this bill on universal service and accountability for public dollars. I know that the size and scope of this problem is so far beyond just our own limited state resources and I think in this critical moment it's essential that we focus on how we can use our, our state dollars as strategically as possible to stay focused on the universal service goal and so pleased to see this effort focus on the local volunteers who have emerged from our underserved communities to stand up CUDs to bring that accountability and focus to universal service. I'm excited to mention, you know, excited for the conversation later this week to dig into the property tax exemption stuff and excited to have Vita back to talk more about the lending piece. Also looking forward to continue conversation about open access and the role that it could or play in this moment and how to think about whether we can do that strategically without creating barriers for CUDs to advance this work. So, grateful. Catherine I will take that note for for the committee and you know any folks who are listening out there and YouTube blend. The question about open access is a really interesting one to me, and I would say as much out of ignorance and concern about unintended consequences. This is something that I'm very much undecided on. It's something that I really am interested in testimony and and learning more about, you know what can go right there and also what can go wrong. And we've heard a little bit, you know, kind of on the edges of some testimony that we've taken in the last couple weeks, but you know the concept of any public dollars that go out there to support broadband deployment. I think that type of asset should be an open access asset. And I think there are a lot of different ways, but I don't know if there's lots but there are different ways to define open access is something that I'm going to want to dig into a little bit. I think it's an interesting concept, but it causes me some anxiety as well. And so appreciate how responsive you've been to all the things that I brought here. Mike go ahead. I asked a lot of questions before but I also want you to know that I do appreciate the work you and Laura and Maria put into this, because it's a piece of work. Thanks. Lots to chew on. Lots to chew on here. Go ahead Lucy. Yeah, I really like the direction it's headed. I, as I, I kind of flagged a few areas that I would feel like I needed to understand better, either through testimony or on my own, depending on how much you guys did in this in past years, but one is You're talking about the parts that weren't included in the federal telecommunications act Lucy. One is the VTA dormancy. I, I guess I feel a little lost on that and would like to, if we're kind of modeling after the VTA in some sense would like to understand more about why it became dormant. And just, just get more of the full picture there. And then the next is the related to the tax exemption, I guess, I realize that I would want to know more about how is telecommunication infrastructure tax currently how much, if it is currently taxed how much are we currently bringing into the state and local municipalities just more of the context in which we would be working with that. And then the final piece, I feel a little confused about which maybe could be this one maybe more could be answered today but just, I guess I'm trying to track the movement of the, the movement from the public service department to the new community broadband authority, and trying to track you know how much so how many are any positions being how many positions are being eliminated how many positions are being added and just kind of trying to track all that is is a little hard through one read through. And then, let me see if there's more to that. I think the, the only final thing, the only thing that kind of really stuck out to me as a hesitation is, is having the community broadband authority run by this board, it, it seemed I guess that that was a place that I would want to kind of look more at it seemed like you could run into some trouble with that as far as who so there's three communication union district representatives, essentially making the decisions of how money is allocated to all communication union districts throughout the straight state seems a little odd to me, and then also having the, you know, who are the members of the public who will be appointed. They seem pretty vague but presumably, people who have expertise in broadband but are not in state government and are not in communication union district so it just, I kind of am curious who those people would be so those were that was kind of the thing that was going on, whereas, you know, right now I realize there's issues with the way the system is set up, but at least being housed within the public service department, we know it's answerable to the commissioner and that the commissioner, you know is there as an opportunity to take care of Vermonters with their telecommunication needs, more formally so that those were my big picture. First responses and I need to, I need to look at it more before I had any more responses than that. Great. Thank you, let's see. Representative ocky salee.  Thank you. I'm going to say some of the things that other people have said I to Lucy looked at that board and went, whoa, I've got to get more detail on that. How's that really going to work, or they really agreed with you on that. I certainly agreed with, with Catherine on being really comfortable with the, the real focus on accountability of the public money. I know that's going to be lost to Sally. You're muted Sally. I just unmuted you Sally. Okay, I had muted me. We lost you for 10 seconds. Well, I was agreeing with Catherine on the, the accountability of federal, you know, the state money and where all that's coming from and then I realized that there is another question of appropriations and the questions of funding and I think I need to do some homework and catch up on some of those issues. Yeah, I mean, the funding is clearly going to be a really important thing that we're going to cogitate on, although the governor may have made it a little bit easier today. So, I'll just say, you know, as an as an editorial on this. As Maria was laying out particularly the Vermont community broadband authority piece. And highlighting one concept that for me is critical. And it's something that a little bit this year but definitely last year when we were kind of in March and April and kind of in the throes of pandemic and, you know, a little bit of panic about how do we quickly do work to accelerate broadband deployment. The concept of coordination continually came up. There are so many different entities that are affecting this marketplace, whether it's the CDs, whether it's incumbent internet service providers of all different stripes. There are utilities playing a role, different types of telecom providers involved different government entities at the state and federal level, and the concept of having a, an entity that is stood up at a high level of Vermont and has a coordinating function was something that I was hearing a real interest in last spring. And I just want to highlight that as one of the kind of primary purposes of establishing an entity whose sole function is broadband deployment. And whose function also being moved outside of the Department of Public Service, which is at its base a regulatory body that is now simultaneously being asked to stand up and support really new players in this marketplace that are, you know, competing with other entities that are being regulated by that same department. And by setting this outside and having an authority that not only can coordinate, but can do so without regulating with the other hand, was an important part of the a lot of setting this up as, as more independent, but obviously the Commissioner of the Department of Public Service would still be involved as an important board member of of the CBA. So anyway, just wanted to insert that editorial representative Sebelia. Thank you. And I'm happy to hear all the comments don't really have already spent a lot of time on this, but want to say really clearly that I don't think I think that anyone who is working, any entity, private public nonprofit that is working on broadband can benefit from the provisions in in this bill as they're currently written and we may change, you know, a lot of these things. But at the end of the day, you know, as the chair said we are not getting to the last mile and the investments that are being made by our competitive for profit providers for them to continue to stay competitive in the areas where people have choice, which is not my area. Or a lot of rural Vermont. You know those investments that they're making oftentimes are making the situation, even more expensive in the places that are uncovered. So, our CUDs have Vermonters, not our CUDs mean with 300 Vermonters that have really rushed forward with, I mean, there's a real breadth of talent and experience in those folks, and, and especially during the COVID crisis, and their volunteers, despite their talent, and they deserve, you know, they deserve our support they have been busting it. And they've brought forward plans that we told them they needed to create right so tell us how to do it. Here's funding to, you know, tell us how it can be done. And they're doing that they're bringing those plans forward and the next thing is for us to figure out. Okay, how do we help put together that different kinds of financing to get these to get these built. You know they'll be public financing private financing philanthropic financing, but you know, asking these volunteer boards on top of all the work that they're doing and doing quickly to also you know, without the support, put together the financial stacks that are really needed to build out this infrastructure seems like a stretch and so that when you know the first discussions around reviving some sort of authority or entity for me felt like we are so the urgency is so real and our need to move quickly is so I feel really strongly and that felt like a pretty heavy lift, but we need we need we need support for these CDs. We need support it's not a knock on the department at all, not at all. And you know the work they've been doing is, I know, appreciated by those who monitor so I'll stop talking right there we've been, we've heard a lot of things but I look forward to working on this with all of you and Maria and Tim. So, I've actually taken two pages of notes here these are really good questions and things to dig into. And so, I mean this is going to inform the testimony that we prioritize. We don't need to do this now in this invitation is always open but between me and Laura and Heidi, we are going to work together to plan the testimony of the committee and always welcome input from people from members of the committee as to priorities on issues that we want to hear about in this bill to dig into. You know that again in this discussion in the last 15 minutes, I've got a pretty good list going here. So, you know definitely speak with me or send me an email or whatnot if you want to expand on some of your comments today, in terms of where we want to go, you know for areas of focus. As I mentioned earlier tomorrow we're going to have pretty much a full morning of testimony on line worker workforce development. On Thursday afternoon, we're going to dig into property tax exemption that portion of this bill pretty deeply. And Friday's committee testimony is a little bit in flux right now but I think we're going to finish up some of the work we did last Friday on grid modernization. But again I want to be clear this is where we're going to be focusing our time for the foreseeable future so please be in touch. With areas that you want to dig deeply into but this is a, I think, you know last 15 minutes has given me a real sense as to where people want to understand better make some changes. You know maybe there's a different focus, or you know we've just got to educate ourselves better on some of these things so any other comments people want to add. Thank you.


This paper proposes a novel methodology for generating new 3D-based autolabeling data sets with a different point of view setup than the ones used in existing data sets such as Kitty, Waymo, etc. The methodology is based on the YOLO model trained with the Kitty data set. It is intended to autolabel new data sets while maintaining the consistency of the ground truth. The performance of the model, with respect to the manually labeled Kitty images, achieved an f-score of 0.957, 0.927 and 0.740 in the easy, moderate and hard images of the data set. The main contribution of this work is a novel methodology to autolabel autonomous driving data sets using YOLO as the main labeling system. The proposed methodology was tested under boundary conditions and the results showed that this approximation can be easily adapted to a wide variety of problems when labeled data sets are not available. This article was authored by Guillermo Escudieres Cabello, Edgar Tolivera, Guillermo Iglesias, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.