So let me just start with why we took up this bill, why it became an immediate priority for Well I'm sorry, Phil Baruth, center from Chittany County, currently chair of Send Education. So as you've no doubt heard or read about, there was a pilot conducted last September. The pilot came back with results that however you look at them, they are not results that you can walk away from and looked at in one way they're alarming. So all of those 16th grade had taps that were at levels of concern. So I apologize, Senator Campion. I actually was standing in House Ag for a moment I thought, Huh, didn't this committee just tell you I was there? No? We would absolutely not. Governor Campion and I are happy to be here. So as I say, those 16 pilot schools had taps that were at levels of concern. So a number of members of the Senate including Senator Campion, President Protem, Chair of House Appropriations and myself met to figure out not just a strategy for dealing with an immediate strategy. And I stress that because I will finish by reaffirming the Senate's commitment to do this quickly. That is via the budget adjustment at the levels that the Senate voted out. So what this does in effect is introduce two regimes. One is immediate and is directed by the Department of Health under guidelines that they will put together that are meant to be no less stringent than the 3T guidelines that the EPA puts out on a yearly basis. That process is temporary and it's meant to get us through testing every school, independent school and child care facility, licensed child care facility in one year. And so that testing will then immediately produce remediation required by law and under the Senate's vision the testing is covered and a certain percentage of the remediation costs are also covered. It sets what is not the strictest parts per billion standard in the country but among them three parts per billion. My committee had a great deal of testimony, a great deal of discussion about that parts per billion. There were members of my committee who wanted to go to one which is closer to a scientific standard. The pediatric associations recommend zero because any amount is considered unsafe. With that said, my committee did not believe one was an achievable standard, a reliably achievable. The standard for bottled water, filtered bottled water that you buy in the store, that can vary up to five. And so we went between three numbers, one, three, five for several weeks and we took additional testimony. We settled on three. I think that is an achievable number. It's a practical number ultimately but it is also a huge gain for the state of Vermont in terms of the health and safety of what we provide for our kids in schools. So the second regime that I mentioned is envisioned going forward. The Department of Health will do rulemaking under the time-honored process with lots of testimony. It specifically requires ongoing consultation with education and natural resources agencies so that there is input from different stakeholder groups in the administration what the Department of Health would be taking the lead. And those rules would be generated. They also would not be allowed to fall beneath the stringency standards of the three T's put out by the EPA. So that's the heart of what we're doing. And just to return to the question of how the legislature responds to this. I just spoke with the Chair of Appropriations. She is committed to having the full funding in the budget adjustment that we put in. I understand there's some concern perhaps about whether or not the committee would be finished with its policy deliberations before that budget adjustment goes through. I think that the feeling on part of the Senate is that the money should be in the budget adjustment and we will push to make sure that that's the case. And then the policy-making work of this committee could extend beyond that once the money is safely there. But I just want to remind everyone of something that's easy to forget and that is the Fed crisis. That was obviously a much different situation and it was much more urgent, much more sensational. But the point is that we know now that there is lead in the schools and the childcare centers of a certain amount. It is a neurotoxin that any amount can be damaging. And so I'm very proud that the Senate managed to move ahead in the way that they did. And it's my hope that the House will back us not only in what we do but how fast we do. Senator Campion, any of you? No, I guess the only thing you may be able to recover is Senators. For the record, Ron? Yeah, Ron Campion, Bennington County, Wilmington. It was a little back and forth with the administration around 15 parts per billion and what we initially thought was one part per billion. I think three parts per billion sounds like a great number. But I do understand that Representative Morrissey and others in the House side have a bill for 15 parts per billion. And I would just highly discourage you from going that high, I think, where Senate Ed planned is the right spot. It's a good compromise. And as Senator Ruth mentioned, the American Academy of the Adverts, and I think most Americans realize no level of lead in water is good for children. So that's a lot of that. Did you hear from other states as to what their requirements are? We didn't hear directly from officials in other states, but we looked at Jeff Francis. You can have him provide you with some information about what other states are doing. I believe Illinois has a stricter level than three parts per billion, and I believe Pennsylvania. District of Columbia had five parts per billion, but with three parts per billion we would be probably in the top five in terms of strict standards in the country. Have you heard from schools that have actually remediated any of the schools? We did. We heard from the facilities manager of the Barrie system, and they were, it was either Montpelio or Barrie, but it's on our witness list, but they were part of the pilot program and we went over with them how they tested. One of the things we found out from him that was interesting to us, this bill requires testing and retesting mandatory. These pilots were voluntary and retesting was voluntary post remediation. So the schools that found that they had some levels of concern in various taps, they remediated, and then they did not test all of them afterwards, it's an oversight that's hard to argue for. But he was a very good witness in terms of telling us things about the cost, things about when they conducted the testing, because the bill requires that the testing be done during the school year, rather than over the summer, and so he gave us great practical testimony. I can get you the witness list if you don't have it already. This question may have been asked. The delivery system, water to our town, the municipal water systems, who deliver the water to those schools, I mean, is there a hoose to say that they're not delivering this water and what would be the relocation? They're already tested. The delivery systems are currently tested. And so one of the reasons why we didn't go to one is that we had information that the non-period water system varied so that it was sometimes over one. And so then the problem is if the water system is supplying a level over the action of a limit, then that school would have to install filters. And so that was the thing that ultimately killed the one-part pavilion was that to reliably get there, you'd have to put many Vermont schools on a filter system. Those filters need to be changed out physically, I don't know what the frequency is, but certainly each year. So you're adding cost, you're adding physical work time. So that's one of the reasons why we didn't go to one is the municipal water source and what levels they were there. Do we want to run the risk of losing additional childcare providers with a bill like this? I don't think so. You know, the Senate has imagined that our remediation would be substantial. It wouldn't cover the whole cost. But testing would be free. And in the large percentage of cases, switching out a tap accomplishes the remediation. And childcare centers, you know, the home-based ones, I think, you know, could you lose one over the fact that they are at four parts per billion and they need to get to three? I don't have a hard time seeing that, but I'm sure you could get someone to say that any new regulation or any cost by the state will put them out of business the same way when we increase the minimum wage. You can get testimony where people will say, I'm going to have to shut my business down. So if I may, I think what you might see is a shift of families taking their children out of certain care centers and putting them in care centers that don't have letting the water out. I could see that kind of shift happening absolutely. I mean, you see, you know, I don't know many parents that would want their children having, again, drinking lead in water, especially at that age, early childhood, where it could do detrimental damage. So I think if there were a childcare center where it were 10 parts per billion or something like that in the family, and the people said that we're not going to change it or we cannot, I think it would then shift to other safer areas. It's really a consumer protection bill in a lot of ways. Perhaps I'm inferring incorrectly, but when you talked about moving, when Representative Cooley asked this question and you said one wouldn't work because some municipal system is maybe above that. Am I inferring correctly that you're saying that no municipal systems go above three then? We didn't have testimony that there were any that did. So if you have a municipal system that has more than that, my feeling is we would be hearing alarm bells go off. So the number that was the highest for any we heard with municipal systems was 30, and that wasn't, it wasn't always three, it was. They had at one point recorded up to three, but they tend below that. But they're required to be below 15 by EPA. Yes. Yes, so 15, and I might as well say this because we're all family education committees and you will have the administration come in. The administration was, as Senator Candy said, pushing for a 15 parts per billion standard. I don't see how that's considerable given the results of these tests myself. We did give them something else that they badly wanted, which was Department of Health to be in charge of this operation. They have their own lab. They're either going to run all the tests or they're going to certify somebody to run something for them. So they were, they were not, I wouldn't say happy with the three parts per billion standard, but in the same way that the EPA has kept it high partially because of thinking about what it takes to bring it down. But to my mind, that's secondary to the fact that this is a neurotoxin that is particularly directed at developing brains. And so one last thing I wanted to make sure I get on the record. The bill that came to us from Senator Campion, I don't believe originally included child care. Maybe it did. But we made the decision to continue child care facilities in the bill. And that added expense. It was about 25% of the expense is child care facilities. But we were presented with a contradiction in our own logic. If we were saying it was unconscionable to have public schools and independent schools educating children, how could you have the state be in charge of licensed child care facilities but not regulate their lead levels? And if you're going to regulate their lead levels in this sense, aren't you also committed to paying for it? So that's what we've done. And I think that's logically consistent, but it's also, you know, just in human terms what we should be doing. So it isn't just identifying those that are pre-approved for pre-K. It's all approved child care facilities. Licensed registered. Private. Church run. Licensed and registered. So the state already has that oversight role. Do you know how percent of schools have been tested so far? Well, the bill covers this year. So if you have been tested outside the last calendar year, I would have to believe there haven't been any other than the 16 that were in the pilot. I think when I read through this, it said that the actionable level of free parts pavilion is on the first draw sample. Yes. So that doesn't allow, I'm just sort of picturing a small registered child care that may be home-based that doesn't allow them the option of simply flushing. What do you have? You have to do a second sample where you flush. Right. And so, again, I apologize, I don't have it understood correctly. But if you have a first draw of three or above, you must remediate. Yes. So the second, the flush draw, if it's zero, it doesn't matter then. Well, and there are, we had testimony, there are districts right now where they instruct the custodial staff to flush the waters. And that's simply not good enough, right? Because if it isn't flushed, if, you know, children go into the building and somebody hasn't done their job, then they're drinking. So having the lead level depend on a human being flushing every day is not going to work. It reminds me of when I was on the school board in Burlington in Edmund School, there was a proposal to put in an elevator because disabled kids were not allowed to go to Edmunds. They were shipped out to the new North End because there was no elevator for them. Elevator was going to cost $1.8 million. And so there was this dispute about it. A woman said at the public meeting, well, why couldn't some strong boys agree that they would carry the kid down in the event of a fire? Obviously, that's not how we want to set up our system. So similarly here, I wouldn't want to have it depend on flushing something that we know is dangerous. We are aware that there is a pressure. I appreciate the fact that you're having a hearing and moving forward on it. We are, tomorrow, H3 comes to the floor and we've done our work on that. We appreciated very much the unanimous vote you had out of the house. That was very helpful to me in making sure that people didn't change that bill because as you well know, everybody wanted to change the bill one way or another. And I was able to keep saying the house achieved a unanimous vote and on this particular issue, that's huge. So we're not, to the extent we can agree, we're not doing anything from that. So I think we've done well picking up each other's priorities. I think we have the AA on the floor tomorrow. Okay. The funding for testing, does that basically cover the actual cost of the testing with the health department? Yes. And does that include bottles or equipment necessary to collect samples? Yes. So they would provide vials or however they want to do it along with instructions to districts. And then any labor needed to send notifications, send this further information about what will be done depending on the result and the actual testing. That's all going to be absorbed into local school budgets. Right. So the Department of Health gets funding to do their end of it. You're right. Local districts would have a facilities manager or custodian actually fill in the vials and getting them to the Department of Health. And just, I see that we want to adhere to a certain methodology. Is there some testing that's going to happen for those members of the custodial staff or others that are asked to do this? You mean training? Yeah. How's the health department going to train in terms of the methodology for collecting samples? You know, that's a question I would put to them. They were confident that they could run the operation on their end, accomplish all the testing, and that they could also interface with the districts and the childcare centers. You'll see it requires a notice to go out directly to parents and to officials in schools. I believe that Department of Health is going to produce the materials for that, and then the districts would be in partnership getting those out to parents through their networks. There's going to be a teamwork aspect of it from the get-go, but you're right. There will be some labor costs to local districts. And I should say it's the point of view of the superintendents and the school boards and the principals that they would like 100% of the remediation pay for. We didn't give them that, but I think we're substantially there for these people in providing free testing and 50% for remediation. And that's a follow-up. On that remediation, just how did we come up with that number of how to appropriate for 50%? What was that estimating to say, here do we think 50% of remediation should be statewide? That came... Well, the projections for costs come from Stephanie from JFO and Chicken Gold are her modeling for you. If you mean how did we land on the policy decision to cover half of their remediation? No, I'm sorry. I guess how did we just determine that for this scope of remediation, this is the amount that should cost on average? Because I assume that number must be tied to a certain common scope associated with remediation. Yeah, so Stephanie would be the person to speak to that. She worked out an initial model and then she revised it. I want to say seven or eight times. So she wound up something that everybody was very comfortable with. Her initial estimates were very high. They came down to the point where you see them now with two and a half million for the entire operation. Thank you. So just... I will need to... Yeah, I have to go to committee. I need to start my committee. One quick thing. I know that there were federal funds that were available to apply buying, I guess, a couple of weeks ago. Is that process in place? Good question for the Department of Health. I assume it is. They mentioned the possibility of federal funding when they testified. The prisoner did commit a testify. Excellent. Okay. Actually, independent schools, the funding would also help remediation. And these are approved independent schools. Yes. And did you get a number on how many schools that is? Stephanie has that number. And that's part of the... I don't have the sheet with me. But, you know, as this committee well knows, you run into arguments anytime you use public dollars in independent schools. And I get that. My committee largely moved past that argument as secondary in this instance because it was health-related. And we wanted to produce immediate action and make sure that that stuck on the other end. So, independent schools were included as were China. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. I'm glad you're here. If you'd like to switch out your room at any point with us, I'll be there. Hi. Okay. I don't want DNA is here right now at the moment. We have the NEA is up there. And then we're going to hear from all of you who are here. Related to this bill. Oh, no, you're not on... No, it's the 30th. Jeff. What's that? NEA is here? Come on. I will pass that down. Okay, we are just waiting for them to hear. How strict is it? We've got a little bit of a complication here in terms of budget adjustment act. Can't use one. I'm not. Sorry, Madam Chair. You've been my over-the-glasses teacher. I can't wait until I have the glasses on. My understanding is at this point that it's not in the budget adjustment act and has been taken out. Bear in mind that we have to have to move this and to get it in the budget, we have a minimum amount of time to do that as well. In fact, we have to have it too approached by the 22nd? The 22nd. Of March. For money crossover? Yeah. For us to move something to appropriations. Is it the 15th? Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. So we have this week, and we come back, we have the next week. That's all we have to do this. So it's just got moved to the fast track. Not here next week? No. Not here next week. No, we're actually going to be... You all actually do have to come in next week. Ah, Kate. Sorry. We're waiting for... Jeffrey Francis Ruck, Superintendent of the Association. Can I just, I want to get a point of clarification. The Senator Baruch indicated that the resources were in the budget adjustment act. I thought I just heard you say that they're not. They're not. So is that a Senate House issue? It's a Senate House issue. The goal of upstairs was to move it. We just, we didn't have enough time to do justice to it. So there's no possibility that a conference committee on budget adjustments have a drive to policy on this issue. Is there? I would say not. Okay. But I would imagine that we may end up going to the committee on budget adjustment. I'm with Marx and we're still doing budget adjustment. I see. So, okay. So the deadline that you're projecting could hold even with negotiations on budget adjustment. Okay. Just because surprises happen. Thank you. What did you say, Madam Chair? They probably, their budget adjustment will have the money. Ours won't. In both. So, so. So almost more on a deadline of the conference committee than on the deadline of. For the Senate, I would say but probably on the deadline of. Basically, we're going to try to do as much as we can as quickly as we can. So I'm going to be looking to just, we just got a few things. We've got, we've got the hearing tomorrow, we're not hearing. We've got a joint committee meeting tomorrow to deal with the past of the issues. And then I would say that the rest of the time really needs to be addressing S40 and those last little things that we're trying to. I don't know what we're going to get right on. But if we can move this bill, it can be something that can catch later. Passing question about that. Just a little confused. So there's this bill S40. Yes. But on the Senate side and what they want on the House side is to be funded out of the BAA. Right. So it could have its own appropriations letter and just be like a regular House and Senate bill with an appropriation tied on how, right? I'm just kind of wondering why, why the mechanism of appropriating S40 through the BAA, I just don't really understand that. Is it unusual? Can we say what, does that happen a lot? Probably timing. We're going to get it as soon as possible. Yeah. It's unusual for us to be doing the budget adjustment this late in the session. But we also started the budget. Is it also unusual to fund current bills that just started this year with the budget adjustment that really pertains to last year's budget? I'm just trying to understand. I think one of the things that complicates this is we're dealing with one-time money. And in the years I've been in the legislature I've not seen any opportunities for us to have one-time money. So it's probably a problem with our riches. That's the 22 million or whatever that we were parceling out at the beginning of the session. Yeah. That one-time money we have to do. And the Governor also asked for this. Yeah. Joe, jump on that. Who's the answer to what we've heard? We'll hear from the Department of Health. I mean, who? Are there... Well, what I'd like to do, we have the ADA folks here. I'd like to move to them. We will have an opportunity to be discussing S40 again today at 2.30. We will be hearing from the Department of Health, the Environmental Conservation Professor from Middlebury and a school business manager. So that will be able to start to... And we aren't going to be able to hear from the Attorney until tomorrow. Until... Oh, great. Oh, great, yes. Okay. So we have people from the NEA here visiting us. We always like to hear from teachers. And you were already talking about perspective from the classroom. We actually have an interest in them. So I'm not sure who's up first. Don, did you want to do anything? Or is Karen up first? Karen's up first. Karen's up first. Good afternoon. Karen Chudomer, North Country Career Center. I teach automotive technology. Hi. Congratulations on the upgrade in space. It's much nicer than across the hall. I won't tell them. And whoever was in charge of the snacks today, well done. If you want... Okay. But anyone like copies in the education world, we usually go digital and paper. But... We are really trying to work more towards digital. Very good. It's always good to be prepared, though, in the event that the technology doesn't work. Right, exactly. Thank you in advance for the opportunity to present these items and for your service to the state. What I was a little bit round about was, again, I was a five-in-farm family. And joining the military seemed like the best route to a college education. I was very fortunate to study aviation maintenance. And then I got my English major because I assumed everyone loved literature as much as me. And to my dismay, I couldn't let everyone on board with that plan, but it was drawn to career and technical education. Where, you know, we're seeing some interesting things, but not unlike every other school. Right? So, you're serving on the most important committee, I would think. And Governor Scott, very interestingly, is hosting education forums where he tells us, oh, gosh, you know, do more with less. It's concerning, right? At a time when we're kind of going, gosh, I don't know if we can do that. I think maybe we have to do as much as possible and maybe even with more. And that's maybe in what's best for students. So, I'm going to tell you a little story because they say this is what I'm supposed to do. That you might be more interested in me if I keep it real. I'm going to tell you about my little guy. No, it's not real. I have six children, actually, three biological and three that we've adopted very fortunately through foster care. And my youngest is a special case. He's brilliant and he's so creative and he loves to color and he loves to read books. Thank God. But unfortunately, this year, he also became a kid in the classroom who was doing chairs. And I can tell you that there are lots of calls you don't want to get but one call in particular that you don't want to get is the one where your child has been restrained. Because, you know, not everyone gets to see where your kid is on average today but what I can tell you about developmental trauma is that we're only starting to understand and that kids of developmental trauma whether given direction or in their classroom settings generally feel like or fight. It's not their fault and it's not something that they can generally avoid but it is something that we can therapeutically work through over time. Why is my son like the reason I come to you while my son is like the safety concern that is everyone's big talking point right now, right? But interestingly, I also have other students who are just like kids that need to be given lots of movement in their day lots of opportunities for snacks and to feel safe.  And so, what does this mean for your work? You know, my son came to us after being separated from the different parents and having spent two or three years in foster care in really loving homes but being bounced back and forth and developmental trauma on the whole can take a lot of different forms it can be a death of a family member it can be separation or divorce and it can be unfortunately what we see most in the state of Vermont right now is that children are born to addicted parents who are not being able to look after their care. So in our area we've seen a hundred percent increase in the number of children entering care and that has implications for the work but because what we know is that children in trauma really have specific needs and that if we do not address those needs then we are feeding the prison pipeline and that's really the opposite of what a school is designed to do what we want to do is funnel kids toward being really effective citizens looking to the work that youth folks are doing who can come and serve the community and I probably don't need to talk to you about doing a lot with very little pay because I think you're probably on board for that but you know what some states are doing is taking a comprehensive approach approach at building capacity by looking at department of health statistics census data law enforcement data and projecting what services might need to look like based on the number of increases and intakes unfortunately we have a lot less people who are people who are willing to work in education we have to get serious about how we are going to bolt the trap in retaining the state of Vermont it's my belief that if we're going to grow a strong and sustainable economy that schools have to be a selling point people come to Vermont because it's beautiful but they stay because it's a place where you can raise your children and have a quality education for them truancy rates it's not just high school students they're not making it to school anymore talking about first and second graders who have to put themselves on the bus sector grabbing cereal bar if it's available lots of kids are not making it through the door for us to offer them those services so as we think about a comprehensive approach we have to think about how we're going to get them there alternative programming we have a saying in our school that there's no more room in the end lots of kids are being funneled toward more therapeutic settings for some kids that's exactly what they need and in some instances what we're doing is creating situations because we don't have the structures in place in our current buildings to serve them where they're being funneled because there's really no else for them to be that's appropriate so we really have to think about how are we structuring our current systems to meet the needs of kids that are coming through the door early childhood programming is hard to come by I'm still a foster parent and one of the things that prohibits me from taking a placement is whether or not I can offer that child child care because I am still full-time employee and I think that my students need me probably as much as these kids do but one thing that they've shown is a real support system for families who are struggling is that you can offer quality early childhood services a lot of times other services that are able to come and wrap around the family you can offer them meals you can offer them consistency and routine and I will tell you that one of the few places that my son had as a consistent caregiver was his child care he may have bounced back and forth from foster homes to bio-mom but the child care was always there until it closed due to lack of funding so I kind of lay that at your feet because yes we do have a K to 12 issue and I consider what that looks like but continuity of care is of course important proficiencies and pathways we can all say a lot about that but here's the the thing I guess I want to say is that we really have to narrow our focus and do one thing really well and that really has to be figuring out how we're going to serve all kids well yes we want the cream to rise to the top and they are for them but we also have an obligation to support our immediate students proficiencies and pathways if you've got a K to who's suffering from ACEs and develop well shouldn't say suffering who's experienced developmental trauma or ACEs they're thinking about what's happening maybe in that minute, maybe in that hour maybe in that day but they are not planning for an entire semester sort of work and if they're going to be serious again I come back to those initial structures make kids feel safe make sure you're getting them in the door and provide them with the services that help them be in the classroom okay we do have this irony emerging it would appear that we've done all this work around act 46 and consolidating resources and many people think it's great work if we're going to be serious about keeping funding in our public school systems and offer the extensive buffet wonderful opportunities that we are we can't then say that we're going to voucher off students to private schools because we're doing the opposite of what we set out to do with act 46 which was take those resources and make them available so we can't then voucher kids off essentially programs like my own and a career center would cease to exist because if everyone's putting their kids in a private school then we no longer exist for the great program that we offer okay and then my last ask I know I was wax poetic here for a long time please cheer lead for us other members of the house know that quality education is expensive and we're worth it and as we mitigate every crisis that seems to be emerging it's going to take resources in the long run um I guess I want to thank you one more time for listening to my die drive and I would ask if you have any questions for me better than kind to do because we're limited on time I'm not sure how many are speaking but yet each one that's going to speak and then ask you as a group Olive Bader thank you I'll give that 500 questions and I'm just thinking that what April break comes around that you're not under pressure we bring all these folks back in yeah I couldn't agree more 13 not a lot of my classroom I'll tell you that thank you for the record can you tell us who you are hi so my name is Lauren Buck I teach history as well in high school in Barry since I have all sorts of paper but so that's pretty awesome I'll just pull up here oh sure step us from the classroom I would totally do that it's really oh there it is oh this is yeah totally this business miscellator did not take it hi so I'm a native from honor I grew up in Waterbury product of public school education I was a hard-working high school stayed here to go to UVM for my bachelors did leave to get my master's degree but came back and got my teaching license through Shampyne College so for them a product mostly of Vermont education and I'm now in my fourth year teaching history in Barry and it's been very interesting dealing with all of the new circumstances that have come my way so Barry is an interesting place because we have a lot of students who come from loving happy families who are well adjusted who bounce in a school or a day and they're so happy to tell you what's going on and then we also have a lot of students who are struggling due to everything they are dealing with at home and things like that can include bouncing around through the system coming in because their parents have been incarcerated their parents are not active there for various reasons drugs are becoming more part of their lives whether or not they are seeking it out or because they're part of their home life made more available for these students and many of them are coming in without a lot of tools in their toolbox to be able to sit in a classroom and to be able to learn the constructive contributing member of the classroom many of my students are coming in hungry every day while they have access to free reduced lunch through part of our school either paperwork doesn't get filled out properly they're too ashamed to take advantage of that and they're going without breakfast sometimes without lunch I have students time out of time only one meal a day I'm just like, could you please just get some food do something for like owner now it's fine it's almost like a badge of honor for them and really it should be something that is taking more attention to I have students who are either homeless because they physically do not have a home or are homeless because their families do not own a house and so they're moving around between friends houses or aunts and uncles houses I'm talking about one student in my portion here where in my first year of teaching she came in and she was so excited to tell me that her mom found her by an apartment and she was going to have her own bed and her own closet and she just couldn't get over the fact that she was going to have a closet and I was just like, oh my goodness okay so this is this is what's coming into my classroom every day I don't know what they were doing students love to come in and just because they're not getting what they need at home they will share so much with you because there's somebody who'll sit there and listen to them and so the stories I have heard about their parents were doing or not doing or what they're up to is quite astonishing to me and so the fact that some of them even show up and walk through that school going every day I think is so courageous for them um students are being asked to take on more at home many of my students have jobs partly to fund their own pockets but partly because they are also protruding to their own households as well they need to be able to pay for a car because their parents are working and so then if they have younger siblings they become the person, the point person from school or bring them to practice they are an additional parent in that household and that thinks a lot on them because then that makes them unavailable to either come early for schools they need to get help if they need to their focus and their priorities are no longer on themselves as a student but as another caretaker as a provider in their family um there have been a lot of great opportunities that have been provided and talked about in legislation um one is the special pathways program Barry has taken great advantage of this and there are a lot of internship opportunities in the Barry community they have been willing to open up their doors and high pass students have taken full advantage of that and they come back either really excited about the stuff that they just learned or they just realized that oh no I'm not going into that profession I realized a lot of something else what it looks like beyond the school day um unfortunately uh because going to a special pathway getting an internship of this necessitates the need for a car this opportunity is only available to those students who come from families who have the ability to provide a car for that child to be able to be there so there is a large portion of the student body who will not have the same kind of opportunity because they cannot get themselves to this internship opportunities so while it was a wonderful thing to provide and to be able to get this opportunity for them to have real hands on experience it's still only for the top few who are physically able to get themselves to be from the school that they need to um the final thing that I wanted to talk about with you guys about today is about proficiency based graduation requirements we've spent a lot of time over the past few years at the Spalding High School that actually has been one leading charge of turning over to a complete proficiency based grading system um and there's a lot of things that we like with this we have liked that we are focusing more on the skills the students need to be able to be uh proficient um writing skills, content skills learning how to analyze documents in the history world but that's all good and we'd like that we've been able to move our curriculum around that however some side effects of that are proficiency based grading necessitates that students can demonstrate proficiency at any point throughout a grading period they've taken that to mean oh I don't have to do that by the due date I can do that all at the end of this grading period and they will put it off, put it off, put it off um and so then when they get to it at the end of the grading period something that we did in September which they now have to show in January they don't remember the details from it they don't know what's going on so we're not getting great work from them um we tried implementing a two week policy that's following high school where you don't get this on the first try you have a two week window in which you can show proficiency after that the teachers moving on I will accept any work from September in January but now that means that all the students who didn't do their work throughout the semester are going to dump it on our laps in January which becomes a very high stress situation not just for the teachers who have to do all this grading but students are now able to do all this work done that they haven't done throughout the semester done in a very short window of time and we cannot penalize or take points off for late work which I get and then we're trying to let them show that they are proficient at something that they have massive skills which is wonderful but at the same time we're also teaching them that deadlines don't matter and I don't know any job where if you turn on a report and it's time for something that you're still going to have a job next month and this is somehow becoming the behaviors that we are teaching to these students because they have all the extra time because it was work done so while we are allowing them to show that they can do math or do history at any point throughout the semester and learn at their own pace they are also not in an elephant skills that will not serve them well in professional fields I'm just starting a little bit of pressure on the time at the moment I know we have two more but people are going to want to ask I've been moderating minus people said things that I was going to say thank you thank you thank you okay so Betsy I have a lot of things to say that were already said so I'm just going to kind of jump right ahead my name is Betsy Nolan I teach music at Edmunds Elementary School in Burlington in the delightful city of the new ski so you've heard a lot about all of the trauma and issues that are happening and basically what it comes down to is any societal issue that impacts our state trickles down to the public schools and what I'm seeing is that we're not creating the school services our students need to be successful but instead we're creating school services that the taxpayers are willing to pay for something fundamentally skewed about the way we fund public education I know that the majority of Vermonters pay based on their income because of the income sensitivity but unfortunately with rising costs of healthcare and other things that have nothing to do with how teachers actually do their work it just isn't enough to meet the needs of the students that we have how it plays out for teachers when we do school consolidations and when we look at this play this numbers games where we say well there's five you know it's a one to five ratio for teachers to students that's not what's playing out in classrooms I have 22 to 25 kids in my classrooms at the beginning of the school year I had 22 kindergarteners in one class and 11 of them did not speak English at home and so I've never had a class that had five students in it or 10 or even 15 I don't think in my entire career working in Chapman County how this plays out is that we have more papers to grade more parent conferences more differentiation for our diverse learners more support for struggling students more enrichment for high fliers more students in the classrooms who have experienced trauma and anxiety results in more teachers the time being used to provide mental health services which means all of those other things that we do we do at home in the evening and on the weekend and we went into education because we love teaching and we love kids but I don't think that most of us knew that we were sacrificing our entire lives when people ask me you run such an amazing program the kids love the work you do with them how you do it and I literally say it's because I don't have kids and at the end of the day the amount of time to do the job well is completely unrealistic for a human being in addition to the amount of time that we put into meeting our students needs and doing this kind of work which for me includes like making sure every kid has a ride to the performance contacting the PTO to get money so that we can actually have a performance and doing all these other things now with the move to our new high deductible health care plans teachers are spending literally I spent over 19 hours on the phone last year trying to reconcile my health records working as my own health care administrator my bills went to collections I paid them they said the third party administrator said oh we already paid those and I said okay I need documentation that you paid them and they said oh we don't keep documentation that we paid your bills which doesn't even make any sense so the future plan yeah well this is actually Datapath who told me that they don't keep documentation of the bills that they pay so you add increasingly challenging demographics of the students that we're working with the tightening the austerity measures as they say which is really code for shifting more work with less resources on to teachers and then you add the diminishing benefits that teachers are getting with this new health care system which I gotta tell you I am not confident that the switch from future planning to Datapath is going to solve the problem because it certainly hasn't solved it for this one individual person you know in closing I'd just like to say that I love teaching in Burlington the diverse culture language backgrounds of my students creates amazing opportunities for teachers and students to learn about the increasingly small world that we live in and when I hear that state government is seeking to reduce the cost of education by shifting health care cost to teachers increasing class sizes and consolidating rural schools I have to ask what's more important than educating the next generation I believe that the problem in Vermont is not that our citizens don't want excellent schools for our children but that the structure of funding schools using property taxes is not meeting our needs it's time to look at funding public education through income taxes instead of property taxes and it's time for us to move toward a universal health care system for all Remoters and it's time for legislators and educators to work together to develop student support systems that respond to the ever changing needs of our kids thank you for all you do thank you for your time today thank you I'm going to turn on your middle of your vacation I've got a lot of questions and Tom? you guys are all around that yeah can you put the record so we can tell him your name yes so I'm Tom Peyer I teach math at Winnowsky Middle High School and I'm also the 2019 Vermont State teacher thank you for inviting us here I can't say enough that I can't say enough that I, in this role as a teacher of the year, I do myself as a voice for teachers. This is not about being the best or anything in that regards. I'm surrounded by people who are incredibly dedicated to the future of Vermont. And it's a really humbling position to be able to echo the sentiments that they put out there every single day with their actions and words. So, I know my time's a little short here, but I just want to give you a list. Please, yeah. So, it's about motivation. It's about proficiency-based graduation requirements. So, me, I'm motivated to live, grow, and teach in Vermont because I firmly believe that educating with proficiency-based graduation requirements is critical in preparing future generations for the challenges of global climate change and emerging technologies. That's my motivation. It's motivation, it's deep, it's powerful. I feel as a force that wells up inside me whenever I'm in the classroom. It keeps me moving forward when things get tough. Let's say if a lesson just totally tanks mid-class. If I'm having a difficult conversation with parents or students about grading and curriculum. Or whenever I hear in my classrooms or just in general sentiments such as, I'm not good in math or I'm never going to use this in my life or they don't even know their multiplication tables. So, when I encounter these challenges, I take them personally as an educator. As a teacher and especially Vermont's teacher of the year, I am both praised and condemned. Praised for accepting and responding to children whose families struggle with securing fundamental needs like nutrition and heat at home. Condemned for attempting to respond to those needs with innovative practices and addressing systemic bias heads on. And because I take these challenges personally, I often find myself facing crippling self-doubt and anxiety. And if not for this motivation to make sure that all children have a chance to honestly understand and lead in the world they will inherit from us. I would have burned out years ago. This is only my seventh year teacher. So, my students, you've got to imagine, are no different. All of our students are no different. In fact, their experience is tenfold out of ours. I'm 31. I'm fairly established. My wife and I live in Starksboro, Vermont. We own our own house in an acre and a half of lands. And I have years of higher education in my pocket. But my students, they struggle with agency over their lives each and every day. Perhaps they don't know if they'll be staying in the same apartment next week. They may be grappling with a family member who's fallen prey to the opioid epidemic. They may be shocked and confused by the sudden change of a system that used to value credits, but now values proficiencies. So for me, I often think, where is and what is the motivation I move them forward? This question, it's on my mind and in my heart each and every day I teach at the Luskabin proficiency-based classroom. PBGR is implemented with fidelity as they have been implemented in Manuski. Have given communities the chance to break past the barriers of imposed credits and seat time to explore the deeper and more powerful driver of personal motivation. And it's messy work. A student and their family in a truly proficiency-based setting can no longer see a 4.0 and preferred attendance as the key to success. Now, now success is personal to each individual. There are no valedictorians. It's how well did you perform on your own personal motivations? It's a big change from the external to the internal. And it's no doubt difficult for people to grapple with, especially for students and family members who are constantly looking at themselves and thinking, why am I worth it? Do I matter? Are my passions and interests what are going to allow me to succeed? So, it's difficult, but I also believe it's great practice for the large disruptions our children will encounter in the future. It's close to impossible to measure discreetly in the moment. It comes about through trends and patterns that emerge through years of curious exploration. It exists inside and outside of a school building's walls. It illuminates the paths our students walk in their communities all seven days of the week. Our students deserve to be recognized for who they are, where they come from, and where they would like to go. PBGRs try to do that. Flexible pathways allow for that. So, as such, I ask you to consider this fundamental question in discussing not only PBGRs, but all equity-producing legislation that you will take up in the future. This question is, will this help all students develop and uncover their own personal motivation? You can do this by ensuring that learning environments are safe from the threat of gun violence, by instituting education funding structures that are clear to understand and fair to all Vermonters, and by supporting collaboration rather than competition between school districts who are grappling with what PBGRs mean to their community. Safety, common sense, and communication. These things create the environments that allow us as teachers, educators, professional support staff to honestly and earnestly get to the work of empowering every single student. I hope that you see that as the ultimate goal. So, thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Thank you. So, I know that we've got other people here, but I just really just got you, and I would like to take five minutes to wrap up her questions. Are there questions or comments? Well, thank you all. My father taught for 30 years in Vermonters, so I have great respect for the work you do. And I remember his weekend's grading papers in the attic, listening to David Bowie, whatever was on the radio. But quick question on proficiency-based grading. I'm just wondering, to your testimony from, I think it was spawning. Yes. Sorry. It was your name, but I'm wondering, you had indicated that the kids are not developing some of the, I guess you'd call it like, life skills of time management, it sounds like, in your implementation in the district. And it's interesting because part of the narrative I heard around how proficiency-based education works so well is the grading system actually would give the kids the opportunity to develop time management skills better, or might actually grade based upon their preparedness, their ability to problem-solve. And so I'm just curious about that, if you could describe it just a little more. I don't want to dwell on it, but. Sure. So we do the soft skills, the bottom half of the work. So we also grade them on that, but there isn't any weight behind those. Our school normally has them count towards sports eligibility. Everyone else really doesn't care.  So we're having a hard time translating those types of skills into what that actually looks like, what that means, because colleges aren't looking at those, so parents don't really care about those either, or isn't really making meaningful behind that sort of thing. People, we still have a good point average in our school, despite having proficiency-based grading, because we can't seem to get rid of valedictorian, valedictorian, because our school has that, because colleges still care about those, and because scholarships still care about those. So while we, in our little microcosm, can have proficiency-based grading, it's also then difficult to translate that into, I think, beyond for months, without any places that still do care about those things. So we're struggling because we have a foot in both worlds, and it's not working in the same sense, because we're grading off proficiency-based grading, and because it allows them to develop this over time, that's great, but if they're going to develop something, they actually have to do it the first time, to develop it, and they're just seeing no buy-in whatsoever in doing something. So I'm done. Thank you. Winooski did something that other schools have not done. What was it that got you to the place? I know that Winooski is one of the real leaders in proficiency-based grading and standards, and we may not have time now, but I know that the committee would be very interested in it. But you got, in terms of leadership and commitment to make Winooski a real, one of the real centers where it's working. I would say a lot of it had to do with the partnership for change money that we got through the Nellie Mae grants. I don't know if you're aware of that, but apparently Winooski got a co-grant together to explore what student-centered learning is, something with a two million dollars over three years, and that allowed us the flexibility to meet with community members literally in their living rooms for the course of a year to talk about what is most important to this community. What would you like to see students graduating with in terms of large cross-cutting skills? We've defined six of those, and we've stuck to them. We also have a leadership model within that school that respects teacher and student voice. These things are built collaboratively within communities. They can find them out and what will work for them. Time, money, and energy needs to be invested to make sure that this really does work, and it can and it will work, so please stay the course. Thank you. When is your April break? We want to talk to you again. Fourth week of April? Yeah. That's right. There's always that. We'll expect you all back. Just to follow from my testimony before, as you see, we're again all over the map of the presentation, so as I said, I met with the board directors, Don Tinney, President Marnier, so I met with the board directors. They approved the survey, so we'll met some resources again to get them. We've developed any questions in the past week or so, so we'll send that out, and also found out another place is doing at Wells Brattleboro. They're doing a good work down there, so we'll find out where, you know, what the experience has been. The other thing that you've heard a lot about student behavior and trauma-informed instruction, we are sponsoring a summit on May 20th to Monday, so if you're still in session, you can still attend, but we'd like to invite members of the House Education Committee to participate. We're bringing in the President of the Oregon Education Association. They know a lot of work. I can forward the report to you as well. Secretary French will be participating in the breakout session, so we're hoping to bring at least 200 people together, including superintendents from around the state, to take on this issue of maladaptive behavior and how that's going to, because it is a huge issue. You know, I've just got the room filled with the next people, so is it possible to, you've got your contact information, so I would love to speak with you again, and I'm going to be a task manager. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks so much. Thanks, Tom. Oh, absolutely. I didn't know we'll kind of get a little something more full together. I guess you guys had a jet anyway. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, changing courses. We're now we're going to be talking to the Vermont Association of School Board Officials, and this is in relation to a letter that we see. And I'm looking for Frank. Coming in. I think he just... Oh, no, I didn't just send him along. Frank. Hi, I'm Frank. Okay. So you are going to talk with us about some of the challenges that your peers experience. Please do. And I did need just a moment to plug in. Okay. But we can... Did you send you a testimony in to the committee? I just sent a couple of links. Okay. Yeah, I would say... Yeah, hopefully Shannon... Did you see those links, Shannon? Okay. So we're here to address Act 11 regarding the statewide financial management system and the Uniform Charity of Accounts. And I see Emily's here as well. So we're happy that Emily Byrne is joining us and Brittany is also joining us. Business manager, fellow business manager from the Middlebury system. And Brenda is also on-seeker. Oh, excellent. Okay. Brenda Fleming. Hello, Brenda. She's business manager at Rutland, North East. Shannon, do you have a plug-in for the laptop? Do you want one more? There's something... I know it's not a Mac. Turn around. Is that what you're looking for? Turn around. And you can... Let's see. So here's our letter. Yeah. Yeah, if I can just kind of scroll. We'll do that. Thank you. So we're here to discuss the request that I assume you have our letter. Is this... So this is the document that I wanted to essentially expand upon. We really didn't want to deviate from the points that we've made here, but we wanted to answer any of your questions if you have them. We also wanted to create a little more context for you so you have a sense of what the challenges that we have seen in the field as part of the implementation of the statewide financial management system and the Uniform Chartered Accounts. So as you may recall, Act 11, Special Session of 2018, essentially required a mandatory implementation of transitioning from approximately 50 systems that are in the 340 reporting entities in the state of Vermont, public school and or district LEAs to a single system. I think Emily made a very good point. I sent you a link to her testimony to one of your Senate committees a week or two ago about the complexity of the state and the way in which we are all trying to adapt to a single system from many disparate systems and not one system using the current vendor that's been selected. So it has some challenges. Here's our concern. In the first point we made, the Chartered Accounts continues to evolve. I do want to go to a second report that's on the Agency of Education's website to illustrate what it means to you as policymakers, to us as the folks that are trying to provide you with the information and obviously uphold the responsibilities of an employer and a business officer in a public school system. So a primary issue is that the business rules have not fully been vetted or completed and there has not been a business cycle to interpret the results of using a new Chartered Accounts that has just been developed. So let me scroll over here to the second illustration I wanted to share with you. This is on the Agency of Education's website. You have the link. Summary of the statistical report. Here's where I'll try to, for those of you that have not routinely utilized the output of the data collection system and reporting requirements, here's the summary information that's made available by the Agency of Education. It's very useful for local school boards. Often it's a request of legislators. I've been in school business management long enough to see where the legislators have asked for various sort of analyses of per pupil cost, spending on administration, a whole variety of data points that inform us about how we are doing gear in public education in Vermont. So a couple schedules I wanted to share with you and relate it to the Chartered Accounts that we are discussing and a little concerned about in terms of readiness. We have an executive summary that identifies the 1.5 on this schedule, a billion dollars of spending statewide. And again, this is the system that we are transitioning to that will continue to capture the information and provide you with the information you're interested in. Here it is. So here's sort of a functional overview of how schools are funded. I am going to the Agency of Education site. You may have already noticed this is basically your 16 data. If we looked at 17 and 18 data, I'm sure that that's to be posted. But the general allocation of money has not substantially changed. Here is a functional overview. I'm using the word functional and I want to relate that to the Chartered Accounts. And again, the issues that are obstacles for us to fully implement what we're trying to achieve. Here is just showing that the blue there is primarily direct instruction expenditures and the rest of those pieces of the pie are the various student support, administration, capital, and so on. What I'm going to do is just scroll to the spending segment of this report. I'm just going through the revenues right now and I'm going to get to about page 60 if you wanted to look at this again. Page 60 is where we start talking about the various spending by district and by supervisor reunion and then implications for you as policy makers when we interpret data differently, when we record data from Bratiboron from the Bratibor area versus the Middlebury area versus any other, the Winooski area that you just heard about. So we don't know if we can see this data but it's not to analyze it other than to say these are the key right here, these are the key functional subsets it says here's what we spent on direct instruction, here's people support, here's the instructional staff so this is how we invest in professional development to our staff, here's our general administration which is your principal office or I'm sorry, our superintendent and our school boards, here's our school administration transportation and so on. This is over a billion dollars in capturing and making decisions every day hundreds of decisions every day about how do we account for spending the public's money. As we go through all of this data here it is by school district I showed you something by supervisor reunion you'll see that we are talking about thousands of transactions that require decision points essentially every day, every hour of the day that's what the business office is doing. This data also goes into detail around spending per student and I'm going to go all the way to the last page here and then we'll move off this part of the discussion and just show you the structure of the current system. This is the last page of this link it's on the agency website here's the current structure of the Charter of Accounts that identifies things by a program by a fund, by a function, by an object and maybe one last data point that I want to share with you is where we're going so I just gave you a little bit of a glimpse do we have that spreadsheet? This is the one that had to be downloaded so the new system that we are going to if I provided you with a glimpse I did not all that useful to see it on a spreadsheet but what I'm trying to illustrate is that we are expanding the detail of the Charter of Accounts tremendously we're redefining the way we capture costs and when we do that we have to have a business rule that we all abide by if we're going to provide you with meaningful information right now if you went back to the schedule of the statistical report there are substantial variations between how much is spent in one district on student support services and you would see it proportionally there's data in there that's percent of total spent on student support percent of total on direct instruction and then many of us in the field take that data and say well what are the correlations statewide with great outcomes and we try to understand to what extent our successful schools getting great results by the way in which they allocate their resources and I know that's a topic for the legislature the whole issue around equity has a lot to do with how do we invest and make a difference with educational opportunities and the conditions that exist so the point I wanted to make is that the business rules that we need to make all of these decisions on a daily basis have not fully been defined here we are in our last business manager meeting statewide we meet monthly we don't have one system in the state that has demonstrated a transition to this new software so we don't have a pilot we don't have a model that says we are capturing the legislature's goal which is to increase efficiency and provide you with standardized information that you can make with decisions on policy so until that's in place we're asking for an extension to July 1st, 2022 to recognize that we have so many different systems coming from so many different circumstances this has never been done in Vermont before some districts are ready to go and we're fully supporting that others haven't even been formed yet because of our recent Act 46 mergers so we're asking for the flexibility to move forward and allow us to scale a model that's based on success Brenda, did you want to add to this? Yeah, if I could for just a moment first I'd like to thank you for accommodating me to be able to provide some conversations on this important topic by phone I have the pleasure of hosting my agency of education monitoring while we are monitoring our federal spending so thank you I did not have the opportunity to drive up to Vermont but just to reiterate some of the things that Frank has shared with you we currently have no systems operating on the new financial system and the agency has created a beautiful crosswalk to capture our current disparate accounting system information into a uniform chart account structure so that the data points that Frank was talking about can still be captured so what Alco is really looking at is wanting to see a successful implementation of both the new accounting system and the new chart account but we have to weigh it individually by each district for a lot of factors to help make it successful for example one of the existing factors that every district is going to consider is their current capabilities and their current system functions and limitations and approximately a third of the state of Vermont still distracts our older legacy software that have limited functionality they are interested in upgrading and are some of the nine that have volunteered to kind of move forward with this a couple of other things the status of merger so the voluntary merger often times the birth year if you will or the first year of the numerous districts is the ideal time to implement a new chart of accounts as well as the new accounting system but for some of the forced mergers that are happening now they are in a situation where they have to unify their operating procedures and their practices so that they can set up good business rules in order to be ready for a systematic and plan transition so they may find it easier to wait an additional year to get that in place before making this additional change and as Frank was talking about each of our systems are going to be defined based on how we operate and our business rules and that is going to be captured in the Vermont Education Handbook 2 which really details how reporting information is maintained it details the definitions of what type of function or object or level or how the different components are to be captured so that we can have some consistency in the outcome so that as policymakers and as users of this data we can look at things in a multiple of sections to determine, you know, maybe what K-fixes are looking like versus K-8 maybe what an SU looks like versus a multi-district maybe fair out preferences in regards to transportation because they can be very disparate throughout the state so it allows us to really detect the financial data in multiple different ways for multiple different purposes but in order to have that be consistent and reliable data the business rules that are defined in Handbook 2 really help set that up and then in my final point kind of reiterate what Frank said was that that's hope we have for a successful outcome that we all want is quality training and a realistic transition at timeline forcing everyone to move in the last four and a half months of this year to be operational by July 1 to present some real challenges there are currently two districts that are operating but none of them are operating fully integrated general ledger accounting system they are either making journal entries to bring in payroll or using an outside payroll provider or they're using journal entries to bring in their accounts payable and even with that they are finding that there have been at least two reported significant weaknesses to generally such an accounting principle because it was two entities instead of 360 or 150 or anything much bigger than that both the vendor and the district were able to respond efficiently and swiftly to these situations so that they can adjust both their business rules their systems and their training for a better outcome for the majority of everybody who's going to follow so I think in the letter that we sent to you in February and again thank you for the time to review this and listening to us we have about nine districts that are self-collective that they would really like to go live for various reasons that I just talked about on July 1 and they have a nice procession between school districts single districts supervisors unions and tech centers so they would be a great pilot group of leaders that would help the rest of us transition more smoothly so I did kind of send to Shannon thank you for getting that kind of my thought these bullet points that I just went over and as I'm reading I noticed one major faux pas and that is in the end I say thank you for your consideration of delaying that SSBDMS and the UCLA until July 20, 2020 and I mean 2022 if you just want to resend that we'll repost it accurately because we're so ready to do the 2020 I know right? I will absolutely follow okay I'm just looking we also have is Brittany in the room? yeah Brittany is here Brittany and Emily so why don't we hear from Brittany and then we'll have an opportunity to give Emily and all of you and I'm hoping that you can let them know okay so can you come? sure my colleagues have done a great job sort of outlining the environment and the day-to-day world that business managers live in so I just want to be really brief and kind of sum up some of the points in the letter for you the goal of the legislation is a good goal it's a goal we do want to see too which is standardization and reporting data making data more accessible and easing administrative burden but that's not going to be possible without the business rules so if we don't have the business rules it doesn't matter if object code 610 for example is the code for supplies what matters is what is a supply and that's what hasn't been defined yet so that will take a while and it will take some details I think some real on-the-ground sort of trial and error to determine what's working and what's not so the business rules still are complete as Brenda said no school district despite minutes to go live in October of 18 and January of 19 have been able to fully implement so there are pieces that have been implemented but not a fully working accounting and finance and human resources package many districts have a very robust software which does everything from recruitment to open enrollment human resources payroll accounts payable all the things you would normally think of purchasing bidding those things have not been able to be implemented fully and that could really be a hindrance if you really step backwards for many districts so we haven't seen how the system works in real life yet and then thirdly discuss the force the force mergers that are a bit up in the air it seems for some people so there are some districts that are better positioned than others but it would be really detrimental to some of the districts that the structures are unknown sort of up in the air to have to force this this is our chance to get it right for maybe the first time ever and if we rush into it if we force it then we'll have a system that maybe kind of works but it won't be what we want so I think that this is our opportunity to maybe take our time even when it feels like we want to rush into it because the outcome the goal is so laudable but this is our chance to get it right so more time is what's needed to do that which is why we're asking for July 1st to tell me so one of my questions when people ask for more time what's going to be the difference that's going to change over that period of time are there other things that you need or is it just we're just going to be trucking along at the same speed but get it done so what will happen in those two years the business rules being fully developed would be critical that will tell us where things go do you need support on that I guess is what I'm saying is it just time that you need to do those rules primarily time it is primarily time and it is resources and it is the part of Act 58 I think that essentially required the agency of ed to develop those in conjunction with a consultant and the agency of ed has worked very diligently with our own organization the Vermont School of Business Officials however they do not have the resources to fully implement what's required the the other issue to speak to your question is what will be different as the vendors, as Brenda you heard Brenda refer to as the vendor and the current pilot group surface system failures we've seen them in ways that would be severe if we were in a whole region missing a payroll date that's a severe flaw those things will get resolved if we have more time those things as the pilots go through a complete business cycle which is as you know we start at any point in the year there's a unique cycle right now it's budget development and there's a whole lot of accounting and then in the spring it's getting ready for fiscal year end in the audit issuing employment contracts recruiting making sure our staffing is all set these are all system things we won't see until a year from now from the pilots because they're just training and trying to get these things off the ground there's the whole financial reporting interface again we haven't seen a complete financial statement out of the system now we're meeting the needs of our school boards our general public, our auditors there's a great deal of reporting for the IRS for the agency of education and so on we need to go through that whole cycle to say does the system capture what so many different entities are interested in and it is it is complex and it's having come from where Vermont is now which is a very decentralized and non-standardized process so those are some of the key points okay I think we'd like to get the agency yeah you can do whatever hi for the record Emily Byrne chief financial officer from the agency of education this is an interesting and challenging and I think really critical issue for the general assembly, for the agency for school districts and for the state if you told me a year ago that the legislature was going to mandate that this process be implemented this system be implemented at all schools I wouldn't have believed you and then this came down so that kind of changed how we were doing our work and what we needed to do in terms of meeting the mandate so I think to clarify one of the confusing things around this issue is that there are actually two mandates in legislation there's a mandate around the uniform chart of accounts and then there's a mandate around the implementation of the statewide financial system the uniform chart of accounts I believe initially was passed by Martha Heath and Jane Kitchell kind of worked on that Martha hasn't been in the legislature for at least four years so this was in I believe the 2012 or 2013 budget initially so the initial work on the chart itself started at that point I know the agency did some work with a contractor to help write the chart to do that work move forward in conversations with Vasbo and with the agency there was a we decided that the easiest way to do this probably was to have a statewide system that the agency would be able to monitor the chart and implement the chart at a central level so part of the issue is that once the chart is implemented how do you make sure that everybody continues to follow the chart accordingly so we went out for an RFP and procured the statewide system again the assumption was a year ago when we bought that there wouldn't be a mandate and that school districts would be able to get onto the system when it was right for them that is not the case anymore so now that there's this mandate so the chart of accounts the initial the legislation said that the chart of accounts was to go into effect on July 1 of 2019 so 5 months 4 months from now and that the mandate that was passed last year was that the system would be the same by July 1 of 2020 so part of the challenge was how do you implement a system but get the chart done in your old system and then tweak your current system so that you get the new chart into that system so we worked with the senate during the budget adjustment process to have the mandate for the chart of accounts align with the current mandate for the financial system so I think you were supposed to pass the budget adjustment today and I don't know if you did no so once that passes that will realign the two systems so what that will do is buy us a year to work on the handbook that Frank, Albert and Ian Brenda spoke about that is a critical piece the data is only as good as the data you put in and if we don't have agreed upon understanding what the data means then we're not going to have useful information I do think that we need to acknowledge that the chart itself won't evolve but our understanding of the data will evolve so to the extent we will get a book together we will understand things once you get into the nuances of individual accounting transactions there is a possibility in the first year of rollout we're going to find out that one district of this and the other district of this will have to move forward so the legislature and the agency school districts won't have perfect data right out of the gate anyway and I think that's an unrealistic expectation to have but I think any movement forward is progress so the agency has been working with districts who are ready to implement right now so there are four districts that are currently on the system they have had some challenges we are working with the contractor to try to get more resources out to them to make sure that they are better poised to finish implementation there are eight districts currently working on implementing between now and July 1 there are another eight that are working on implementing between now and December 31 so January 1st of next year and then everybody else in the state is sort of teed up based on the mandate right so we have to assume current law is current law that they will go forward and start implementing on July 1 of 2019 so it has to be live on July 1 of 2020 so that's sort of where our schedule is at this point so there are four that are doing it now eight more will be this year and so eight more so we are looking at that 20 by January okay by January and I guess the remaining 23 by on the following July 1 through that part of the challenge that we had the initial implementation phase was only about six months as we got into it we realized there were some issues with the chart itself which really made implementation challenging so we did have some schools that were ready to go that dropped off because there were a lot of unknowns at the time we have tried to figure those out I think as the members of VASBO outlined that learning opportunity is critical you don't know what you don't know until you realize you don't know it and then how do we make sure you haven't made a bunch of decisions around something you didn't know what the end of the road looked like until you got there as with any IT implementation not just financial systems so I think we will continue to so I think there is a lot of work to be done the agency did not get extra resources to do this in terms of human capital we are looking into one of the great suggestions that we got at the VASBO meeting last week was to hire well I didn't think of it, I don't know but to pull in a contractor to help us write the business rules so in the last three weeks since we've met we've been working on trying to figure out what's the fastest way given state procurement process is that we can get somebody into the agency to help us start those business rules so to recognize that the agency doesn't necessarily have a human that we can dedicate to that work but can we hire somebody who will move forward to hire everybody and try to get that business those business rules written before everything goes live a year from now 18 months from now that would just be an outside consultant on a temporary basis and that's what we did initially so when the legislation first passed that's what the agency did was hire a contractor to help write sort of a first pass of the handbook but it needs to be updated because it's been updated and we know more given the system and the mandates of the system what will be what's needed in that handbook you're moving forward with that do you have a second point on that question I hope for that maybe if I had another question are handbook and business rules the same thing yes you would keep going I don't know what I would say is so they're asking for two year delay if you're saying no delay the agency's position is that the uniform chart of accounts is a long time coming and that this to the extent education spending keeps growing and to the extent pressure on taxpayers continues to exist information and data analysis that having everybody on the same system will provide is important for the legislature and for policy makers in a perfect world we would have a slower implementation process probably but I think the benefits of getting that information to the general assembly for decision making is important I think what we've learned in the first not quite a year of implementation will be helpful in the remaining 18 months of implementation across school districts I don't think it will be perfect either but I think it's important the agency thinks it's important that we move forward on the timeline outlined by the general assembly because of the benefits that it will provide to policy makers but if the information is not accurate sure so the agency if we're able to find a consultant to help us write the business rules work with the business managers to help work on that I think the language change in the budget adjustment act to push the uniform chart of accounts out the year buys us the time necessary to do a work on the business rules that's good there's already a one year delay we're already pushing it out one year is that what you're saying the implementation of the uniform chart will make the budget adjustment passes which is waiting for the house to leave okay so that came over just to clarify that was the senate's recommendation they put in the budget adjustment act and we will be hearing about it tomorrow okay interesting it's a funky it's written funky because it's an amendment to session law from 2013 that was amended in 14 that was amended again it's like the third amendment to session law but it will push the implementation of the chart out to align with the system so then that day would be which kind of account would be July 1 of 2020 okay same with the system Jeff Jenner Boston yeah I just first I want to thank you being a former school board member I love looking at this data I mean I have no clue how you get to it but I really like using it data for decision-making and to inform kind of decisions but it just sounds like a perculean it just sounds like a huge endeavor I mean to me I just I wonder if it's realistic the timeline you know along with act 46 with the merger I mean I think you want to do it right you know and be realistic about what people can do I think people tend to like if they're in a hurry then they're you know it impacts their thinking and so I just want to be realistic you know it would be nice if it could be implemented sooner but I just assume have that 2022 an end date and if it happens sooner great and everybody's happy but I guess I'm curious because this business rules like if you had a magic wand and by 2022 you could have everybody on the same page in terms of three of the top business rules that you would want what would they be? Well I would say because we are mostly staffing it's defining the the various levels of staffing and what they do I know the legislature is considered staffing ratio analysis I think there's a report to be presented about that analysis and that gets how do we employ our staff to address student needs in a variety of different levels and so in terms of business rules I would refine that definition because an example around recording a fairly significant amount of investment that Vermont does Title I funds I know I record Title I funds in the general fund it's part of the academic support cost centers that folks see when they look at our budgets I know other business managers and systems put that in a special revenue fund it's not part of the general fund and when if you were trying to make a decision as a policy maker state-wide and you saw the level of investment it would appear to be much higher than the neighboring district that may do the same thing but they record it differently and therefore you might make a decision when you look at this system doesn't spend that much in student support and they give great outcomes so let's go in that direction and I'm suggesting that that would be a disaster for the kids that need intervention services more than anyone else so that's one example that's very significant another, a second business rule issue is around we are hearing a lot about benefits and the way we record the cost of benefits just recently we've gone through negotiations that have brought in the HRA benefit and the HSA benefit relatively new to many districts not to all but to many and that coincided with the VHI plans all being terminated and then we created a couple of years ago to comply with the Verbal Care Act so within that very substantial amount of business some folks say hey let's have a code for HRA let's create the code 212 it's an object code some say let's create one for the HSA no we don't need that because you realize when you start fragmenting data like that and some have it and some don't people make conclusions that are not consistent and other folks will argue well you can roll it up and you can have aggregate data so there's a second area of very significant investment I would say a third it is at the project level project level accounting has to do with the many millions of dollars I know in the Brattleboro system we get about 6 million dollars in federal funds and those come in in a project definition what did you sign up to accomplish and tell us how you spent that money against a project code can I just add something the information you're saying it's really valuable but I want to remind everyone that the state has already implemented and we utilized it last year and has the ability to utilize it during this transition period a crosswalk that brings everything that Frank is talking about that might be recorded differently from district to district into a uniform crosswalk so that the data that you guys recommended and appreciated looking at and evaluating becomes much more uniform so I think one of the things that I didn't really know how and I apologize being on site trying to interject is one of the best things that we would get with more time is more thoughtful proactive implementation versus reactive as a problem resolved or a problem is aware and having that pilot through so first being able to identify those things the next layer, the next 20, the next 40, the next 50 so we get all supervisor unions and all districts converted will be able to do it more thoughtfully and proactively versus reactively and again the agency has this tool that takes our disparate data and consolidates it in a uniform way so that we can still provide and review the data that's so valuable for making decisions and I'm really sorry because I don't know how to interject when I'm not there so I apologize for being rude if I could just finish that and that is so I appreciate Brenda's point and that's the data but it's not for business reasons so you were asking the question about what do we need for rules so agency has done a very good job in prepping the data but we haven't said how do we record those rules thank you thank you we're going to take a five minute break to find the next people that would like to take you with us thank you that's my bill that's Zach Rapsville and he's yeah but I agree with the concept which bill the one to make like California and any new buildings in the state have to have solar panels on wrap them around wrap them around there you go interesting all new buildings do you raise your hands pretty at the market that's what shut your mind again of course you guys do you want anything no so disgusting can we stop the side conversation thank you we are now back to F40 an act related to testing remediation of lead in the drinking water schools and health care facilities and on deck Brittany same person given topic was this order this was the order so Brittany come back thanks for having me perfect for the record again yes my name is Brittany Gelman I'm the business manager for Addison Central School District so the purpose the reason that I wanted to come here today was to share a little bit with you about the results that we've been seeing at Addison Central School District with our lead testing so in January of 2019 we partnered with Middlebury College to do some lead testing and in an effort to be proactive we've already begun some remediation efforts based on the recommendations of researchers but I do have some observations about S40 as it's currently written in S40 so you can see my points in the letter I'll just review them briefly as currently written in S40 the definition of outlet could be interpreted to include all outlets in a school even those for which utilization for drinking purposes would be unlikely such as a bathroom or utility sinks and this definition could reasonably be expected to lead to more extensive remediation in addition I have concerns about funding in the senate proposal of amendment to age 97 $860,000 has been allocated to fund the estimated 50% state share of tap remediation costs my belief is that this estimate may be significantly underfunded based on Addison Central School District's estimation of remediation costs so at a three parts per billion action level in speaking with my facility spokes we estimate that remediation compliant with S40 could cost between $80,000 and $100,000 for us conservatively this assumes replacement of fixtures only and does not include plumbing and replacement costs for more distilled piping which does not appear to be an issue for Addison Central School District it could be an issue for others so certainly if more distilled piping is to blame for other school districts the cost could increase exponentially so we fully support testing intermediation efforts I think that's evidenced by the fact that it's not difficult about testing and about remediation but I would urge the legislature to consider additional funding to complete this initiative and that's that's for remediation you're talking about additional funding for remediation correct I believe the bill is currently written already covers testing under S40 under S40 there are some exceptions that you don't have to do testing if you already have recently as you're reading the bill that your district would fall into that category you wouldn't have to retest I'm just curious whether a recent initiative to test would in some way somehow not meet the letter so I hear that you're not clear on that I'm not clear whether we would have to retest or not whether the testing is funded would be funded and that 80,000 to 100,000 is that what your estimation is that's across your district and is that the 50% or is that the entire half of that would be remedied correct it should be clear it sounds like the concern is perhaps clearer definition of what fixtures would be affected by this bill so that we're not necessarily having to fund replacement of a mop bucket filler as opposed to something that people are actually getting portable water from right and your concern is that this is a little broader that it could actually include those fixtures yeah I think that the reading of it could mean that you would include those fixtures obviously that increases the remediation costs but the same there's moxin perhaps like the one that says not drinking water we also have showers other utility sinks bathroom sinks unlikely people would drink from a bathroom sink China Street Lab people fill their water bottles yeah I mean they probably shouldn't but it probably happens you know when we talk about the free cheese some of that's training so there's the hope that we could have protocol that you would not drink from those sources or let them run for 30 seconds yeah so most of our results were below the free parts per million action level upon flushing I don't have the exact number but I would say that the majority were fine after being flushed for 30 seconds so in terms of your sense that the 30 parts per billion seems like a reasonable thing that would not have been harmful to you at this point in terms of cost but perhaps I'm sorry can you repeat that question let me just ask this simply the number 3 parts per billion does that seem like a reasonable number to you well I'm not a public health expert but I don't think that's not really what my concern is but to be clear ACSD is remediating 2, 3 parts per billion we are remediating 2, 3 parts per billion and why did you choose that number because we believe that that's what would be imposed by the legislation so that came first yes yeah real quick, is it safe to assume that all federal funds grants low interest loans do you think federal is being looked at for funding as well is that safe to assume that someone is doing that we can talk with public health thank you you may be talking to you again but we're just opening this conversation and we're new to this topic I'm going to excuse myself I have a manual meeting tonight thank you very much did you do the question okay I did a very tantalizing have we heard yet about the relationship between parts per billion and the cost of money we are very much in the beginning if senators come up and introduce the bill to us we have not had the lawyer our lawyer come in and present the bill to us so all we've heard from is those and hers now we're going to be going to the commissioner of the department of health who will be likely one to answer awful ones of questions we have about the health insurance so welcome now that I have great expectations to satisfy Mark Levine, commissioner of health let me open with something that the department of health should do which is provide a little synopsis about lead impact of lead so you know why we're talking about this in the first place there were many areas in medicine that controversy exists and where we sort of say well this probably isn't good for you but absolutely certain science may not be perfect with lead it's much more black and white than gray and that there is no safe level of lead in the body is a truism we also know that there are members of our human race amongst us that are even more vulnerable and they tend to include children and pregnant women and lead can damage many organs such as kidneys but with regard to the groups I just mentioned we're most concerned about their nervous system and their brains and at the time especially for young children that they are developing brains so what can lead do in an adverse way lead can impact their ability to learn can impact development can impact the kinds of behaviors they portray whether it be in a learning environment or an unlearning environment can impact their growth the thing about lead that's most profound is that the effects can be irreversible and permanent but they are preventable so like many things we test for lead unfortunately is colorless odorless tasteless so if you really want to know if it's present you have to test for it I want to be clear that drinking water is not the only way the members of our society who have lead poisoning get lead poisoning it's a component of that the most prominent way is if one lives in a house pre-1978 construction getting it from paint and the estimate and this is an estimate from the EPA about the one's lead burden the component of one's lead when it comes from drinking water is 20% or more but certainly not as high as what we can pick but it's still significant obviously so are you saying that 20% of the lead burden in a child let's say the child's body who has high levels of lead would probably come from the drinking water so it isn't helping but it's and it clearly can be hurting but the biggest component is still the paint from the child's body how does it get into the water you know through lead pipes and especially in older construction but as you've been hearing a few times here already fixtures and specifically lead solder in fixtures and then you have to look at what the water is like is it what would you call acid water with a pH that may not be perfect for the human body to ingest things in because it can affect how much lead will be reached into the circular environment so why are we even here we're here because the Department of Health actually did a pilot study so we kind of began this troublesome pathway that we're all on now because the pilot showed us things that we didn't see because again if you don't test for lead you don't know what's there so we piloted it in 16 Vermont schools and we tried to be somewhat representative in terms of the kinds of communities they represent the geographic location etc but you know with 16 schools in a state it's not going to be a perfect sample if you will that everybody can be matched up against the representative what did we find this was done by the way 2017-2018 we find that if we use what is termed the EPA action level of 15 parts per billion which everyone is hearing a lot about here that at least one tap at five schools had elevated to that if we went down to what we termed the Vermont Health which is a level that we set out in our health department of one all 16 schools would have taps that obviously had led and exceeded the level and it was at least three taps in each of the schools so if that pilot is an all representative that would give you some view if you will preliminarily and of course the conclusion that was inescapable was that all schools must test every fixture that carries drinking water to know if Vermont's children are safe from consuming lead-tinted water I heard a discussion earlier about religious schools independent schools versus public schools certainly from the Department of Health in 2019 even more than ever before we are all about the concept of health equity health equity meaning everyone has the same opportunity to be healthy and so our advocacy would be that all schools be tested for lead not differentiated by their label if you will one thing that occurred and while I'm giving you some numbers here as we testified in front of the senate committee and as you heard there was the newer initiative of examining daycares child care centers a huge majority of which are in homes now there was already a testing program in place for those that didn't quite adhere to the same testing program that we used as a pilot in the schools that has been written up in the bills but at the same time it gives us a glimpse at what went on in those places and if I can just we can provide you with this data but if we looked at the school data and the first tap draw results draw tap results from the schools and the level were set at greater than one 31% of 38 schools were positive that includes the 16 pilots and 22 schools that after they heard about the pilot said me too we'd love to get involved in this certainly not a majority of Vermont schools but another sample if the level were at three which the senate committee as you heard advocated for 18% of the tap results were positive first draw level at 15% looking at the daycares and you may be somewhat reassured by this since most of you live in homes and these were homes essentially um if the level were at one it would be 73 out of 486 homes which was 15% if the level were three it would be 22 homes 4.5% keep in mind that's lower than what the schools found and then the level of 15 is 1% so just to give you a sense these are again ballpark numbers looking at the sample size that we have to provide you with information the the word level is also important to clarify because there are the so-called action levels which you're going to hear about from others providing testimony which really have to do with water rules and those who are involved in another agency in our state and then there are more health related rules for lead there's only the American Academy of Pediatrics statement which essentially says there should not be any lead so if you look at other states experiences we found maybe one to 15 states that actually address this it's not like 50 states have already done this in Vermont's way to comment so there's not that many states and as Senator Baruch alluded to in his comments the majority of those states are actually using levels of 15 one state specifically went down pretty much to zero and that state did not actually factor any inundation of the cost into the legislation they just said schools have to do this and others use have to test this or schools have to cut results have to test it and remediate it and then a handful of states used five which is the FDA level for what is permissible in drinking water and bottled drinking water so just to give you a sense of the playing field we were asked to provide some data originally about what this whole enterprise would cost and we were able to provide some data showing what it would cost for 450 schools with an average of 50 taps per school two samples per tap and others protest at the health department and that comes out to $900,000 we did not estimate for daycares at the time a sort of rough back of the envelope calculation for them though if there's approximately 1200 facilities and you still do two samples per tap they are more like a home where there might be one tap where drinking water is going to be utilized that's still 2400 samples which is another 48,000 dollars what we learned in the pilot was that for remediation the average cost was in the $500 range which was mostly replacing the fixtures we really feel that any system that is developed through legislation should be on a timeline that's reasonable obviously the governor's original speech committed to a one year timeline but that needs to be done right and it's a very complex process if you just think about what little was just discussed about how are these samples actually being attained are they going through an appropriate protocol are we getting data that is actually the true data we want there's not going to be a false positive negative because of the way things were handled the kind of communication that needs to occur amongst the health department and the agency natural resources with regards to testing and remediation the kinds of data management that needs to occur for this number of taps I just want to lay out the fact we're not intimidated by this but this is a very complex process potentially and you want to do it right because you don't want to be in the position ultimately of reassuring parents in Vermont their kids are safe and actually things didn't go the way you anticipated it at all so we want them to go well we want them to go right the Vermont department of health lab is certainly prepared to do testing testing is now getting into the extraordinary number of samples so the lab would want to be able to retain the ability to have labs that are certified that they choose to be part of the process so that things get done in the timely manner that they requested to we certainly were very well prepared to meet the one year time commitment in our original proposal with the addition of daycares that does complicated things just because of the sheer number of those those are the major comments I wanted to make from the health department center viewpoint if you will without stepping on too many toes people who are going to also testify today okay I think we have DC coming and I'm going to be asking how let's get some water that might be better we get in terms of a couple questions is there any, I think a speculation to help get yes so if you have a child we have about 50 per year of children who test high the good news is we actually have a very high rate of compliance with testing kids it's at ages one and two okay you test goals all were probably in the 80s percent getting that accomplished because that's that's contingent on parent behavior, pediatrician behavior et cetera yes so that's done through the pre-nutrition yes we process the samples so we're aware of anyone who has a high level these are on a different scale so it's not through level of 3, 5, 15 this is level in blood so don't try to compare them to what we measured with water but for someone who scores high there may be a need for curation and curation is not either in the hospital if necessary or it can be done actually as an operation as well so there's a lot of factors that go into decision making about that but it gets accomplished keep in mind curation is for what's in the blood and there may be damage that has been done in an organ that you can't guarantee that curation is going to reverse all of that impact but hopefully you're catching people early enough in the continuum where you can do some good that's obviously the goal of the level so it depends what state you live in so this being Vermont we actually err on the side of being as low a level as possible so I think many states use 10 and we use 5 5 what I think we're in parts per trillion excuse me if I made it or not it's micrometer micrograms micrograms per deciliter but it's 5 micrograms per deciliter deciliter I know that there are a lot of questions so all the numbers that you gave us were based on first draw samples how much would those numbers change if you were talking about a flush sample I can't tell you that off the top of my head did you do flush samples on all those same ones or did the first draw to know for the schools because that was our protocol but for the daycares that often wasn't part of the protocol they've been adhering to for many years so so you had the numbers for the schools then yes but you don't know about it wasn't it can you just characterize a difference I don't want to do that but I can refer you to the actual report it would be nice to get that before on to available to the committee other questions really focus on the health related questions here we'll get to the water weight related questions and we'll get to DC but yes has the state undertaken any statewide testing or mediation efforts surrounding paint in public schools just given what you were saying about the source of lead being hired from paint what assurances do we have that there's not a lead paint problem in public schools yeah so whenever a child is diagnosed we automatically begin a whole protocol that's very home based because they're each one in two and don't look at the schools and all so regulations are in place regarding paint but it has to be something out of schools now again keep in mind the data of construction is pivotal because in 1978 it was cut off right I would think most schools in Vermont are older than that yeah I believe there is something and let's bring that question back to Michael O'Grady because I believe he would likely have that information there's some things that other painters need to do in terms of sanding for example and we don't sell lead paints anymore they were really concerned about peeling paints dust from paints and kids of an age who are actually just willful as opposed to just being it's a good concern do hold on to that question and I will ask our environmental health supervision and financial involvement I do know we have a program called Envision which schools are free to take advantage of some dream a lot don't which really looks at the environment of the school so we focus a lot in that program and environmental precipitants of tax things of that sort and we look at cleaning products that are used on floors, waxes what that will have to see if that involves painting and I think another thing we might be interested in is something related to the levels in other states the states that actually do that have something to do you probably have that in the background so what I characterized was pretty true you know the majority are 15 and you are at 5 and you need the therapy I can get you that table if you want I'm interested in mainly our contiguous states in England other questions for Dr. Levine I know as we go along there are going to be more questions because we really have to start to accept the bill that we haven't done yet and I'm going to stay for some of the other test points thank you okay, David Engelder so David had to go to testify to another committee he would ask if you could reverse the order yes, we can do that which brings us to Brian in DC you're going to help me with my question that went some point on how that gets into water I'll do my best good afternoon for the record my name is Brian Redman I'm the director for the drinking water protection division which is located within the agency of natural resources the agency was a key partner in the 2017 lead in the school drinking water pilot program we had a coordination role with the Vermont Department of Health and also we're really the experts in the remediation phase of the program that the health department relied on us to analyze the data and provide assistance to the schools we share the common goal of reducing clean drinking water as you heard from the commissioner of health lead is tasteless, odorless, and colorless the only way you know if it's in your water supply is to test for it the agency is supportive of statewide testing and remediation program I offer one specific comment related to a feature on S40 and that has to do with the action level it was touched upon by the commissioner the EPA action level for lead has been established 15 parts per billion this is the level in which the agency regulates public water systems many of these types of water systems include community water systems which serve in many cases not all cases serve a school as well as what's referred to as non-transit non-community water systems these are what NTNCs is the acronym for these these are a class of public water systems that include approximately 150 of the 450 schools in total and these are schools that are regulated as a public water system because they have their own well they are not served by a community water system these schools are required to comply with the requirements of the federal Lenny copper rule the EPA first establishes in terms of establishing a drinking water standard establishes the goal at the MCLG the maximum contaminant level goal the goal is a health-based value at a non-regally enforceable standard and that is for lead is zero the action level is established as close as possible to the MCLG while factoring in technical feasibility as well as cost-benefit analysis with respect to cost and specifically to the school testing school and childcare testing and program as the standard is lowered both the scope and the cost of remediation will increase the focus on the remediation so far has been with fixed replacement at an estimated cost of $300 per tap the current estimates under the S40 do not include an estimate for other types of remediation that may be necessary our data is very limited I was talking with the professor before the testimony and he commented on what to expect when we get into schools but one could say that the cost of remediation and scope of remediation will likely increase as the standard is lowered with the ability for potential for plumbing retrofits as you heard from the business manager previously or carbon filtration systems as another option for remediation those two types of remediation included in the estimated cost for the program they are also very difficult to estimate as Stephanie will tell you finally the division is scheduled and has previously provided a technical assistance to the schools during the remediation phase of a school testing program when we estimated heading into the session our role and what that would take to hold that role we estimated one full-time employee that was an estimate that was provided at a standard of 15 parts per billion as well as just schools not including the child care facilities so I just wanted to be clear that that estimate does not include we do not feel that the resources have been allocated to remedialization as part of the development let me just clarify you said that if it were 15 you would need one FTE but already 15 parts per billion this is a new this would be a new regulatory program we do not have any resources currently committed to a school lead in drinking water testing program that's contemplated in this bill we do have a lead and copper rule manager that implements the federal lead and copper rule for all public water systems that includes about 150 schools so the programs are different but that would include all the schools in the sense that persons also regulating other municipal systems that are feeding schools right so they're directly regulating those 150 schools that have their own wells don't they also regulating municipalities that supply water to schools that don't have their own wells yes that is a true statement under the lead and copper rule the testing that is done in a community water system is what they're called tier one sites their samples are collected within homes of a certain vintage it's essentially the worst case scenario that we're looking for in let's say an area wide system like Montpelier we would go collect samples at the worst case sites to diagnose it's more of the overall crucivity of the water that's being provided by the municipal water system we're in a program like this we're actually directing right down to the tap level you may not know the answer to this but I just want to ask before do we have any municipal systems whose output of water is above three yes so they presumably serve schools they do so under this bill that would require that school therefore to put in its own remediation to get that level to three or below not necessarily we've spent some time over on the senate side trying to explain the apples and oranges nature of the existing regulation to what's being contemplated now let's just say Montpelier's it's a 90th percentile so 90 90 percent of the samples must be below the action level 15 so that 90th percentile sample let's say it's five parts per billion that's the one sample of Montpelier it's not representative of the lead content coming into the school from the supply is there a difference between groundwater well water and simply water district is like simply is there a difference in terms of the municipal and well well well vast differences with respect to lead I would want to look at the data a little bit closer I would say in general we're not finding lead to be a naturally occurring issue in Vermont's groundwater or surface water supplies it's more of an issue with the piping, the fittings, the fixtures the solder and the plumbing if I may one more comment you had asked about funding there is some funding becoming available through EPA these types of programs are starting to proliferate nationally we've recently applied for funding Vermont's allocation would roughly be in the $200,000 range for the whole state and that's specific for testing there's no advance notice there is other grant programs that are being discussed but no notice of availability of funding yet this is related to this grant money the safe water 3T is that what this grant is the OIC the WII and ACT section 2107 and that's where we get the $200,000 from the fence which is going to cover maybe a quarter of what the specific to testing not for remediation there's been discussion of additional programs for the remediation side of the house but there's been no notice of availability for funding the remediation money as I understand is really the replacement of taps and I'm just trying to imagine if the testing is happening and whatever the level is we establish that certain taps are above that level and then the remediation is to replace that tap is there an opportunity prior to spending the money on replacing a bunch of taps to come to the conclusion that maybe the problem is upstream of the tap so in other words if it is a plumbing infrastructure problem is there a way to figure that out before we replace a bunch of taps that aren't going to solve the issue that was one of the reasons that we were advocating for the flush sample collection as part of the initial sampling effort so that flush that first draw sample is going to be your first 250 milliliters of water that's going to be some volume that's contained in the fixture itself and then as well some volume chasing backwards into the plumbing system so you're going to get some of the copper or plastic tubing not just the fixture after that first draw every second flush sample is to really try to isolate that column of water further back to give us a data point to understand if we may be looking beyond the fixture replacement more into the plumbing so that two part test kind of is seeking to differentiate those numbers and that's why that we recommended the additional cost we spent up front that's how we ran our pilot it was very valuable information especially when you're finding lead in water that's good to have more information to be able to intend to work with are there new materials I would imagine since I can say there are new materials out in DC or stainless steel that even new construction school new construction school if we have to replace fittings that we could use so this would never be an issue again as far as the the latest materials available I can't really comment on that at this time I will say that in 2010 back in 1986 the Safe Drinking Water Act promulgated lead free material requirements in 2010 in Vermont that allowable amount of lead content in plumbing materials was reduced even further but as we heard on the senate side lead free does not necessarily mean that it's completely lead free there is some allowable amount of lead content in lead free products are there other are there other chemicals that may be put in a water supply system that would affect lead chlorine for example in a water supply that goes into our schools and other homes does it have any effect on the the parts per million of lead it could I don't have specific data to provide you today with respect to that question I will say that all schools that are on their own water supplies are required to have the ability to disinfect the water that's really for the biological control so they all do have the capability the ones that are on their own water supplies have the capability to add chlorine not all of them are and then again on the municipal side in most instances you're going to have a chlorine residual that's coming in so it could impact the reciprocity of the water in a municipal water supply context you're adding corrosion control chemicals to basically coat the insides of the pipes and that is the really the remediation strategy to control lead leaching into the pipes so you're finding in the municipal supply system that there's less lead in those schools and there would be an outlier town system this is a city system not a data point I'm prepared to share today but we have a lot of data under the top of role this is all information we collect in our data management system and we could do an analysis to look at the occurrences in schools and municipal water supplies versus those that are on their own well is there any correlation between disinfecting byproducts and what not prepared to answer that at the moment another easy one for the committee thank you I'm feeling as we go along we're going to be more questions okay Molly I I don't know if they would make it I don't know if anybody wants we just raise their hand is Molly down here so for the record can you tell us who you are I'm Molly Costanza Robinson I'm a professor of environmental chemistry at Middlebury College I'm the Middlebury researcher who was recorded to earlier who the past two years has been carrying out the testing within the Addison Central school district and my training research and teaching is all surrounding contaminants in the environment and specifically the sampling and detection of low levels of contaminants like lead I appreciate being asked to be here today and really appreciate and support the S40 effort I think it's really important my first item in my testimony I won't talk through I came down for the meeting just laying out why we're so concerned with lead I'd like to move to point two which is I think why I was asked to be here today which is to talk a little bit about the sampling methodologies S40 goes into considerable detail about how to sample and I'm glad for that because sampling for lead is something that it's not hard to do but it's easy to mess up and if you don't do the sampling correctly the general tendency is for those numbers to come out lower than they should be and therefore not be protective of children's health in the way that it was intended so what a good sample is if you're testing lead is a sample that accurately represents what a child might be exposed to who comes into the school first thing in the morning as Brian talked about the lead is leaching typically from the fixtures or from the pipes from the solder and so water that's been sitting overnight accumulates that lead and if that first pulse in the morning the first child to get that tap that's going to be the maximum exposure and so that's what we look for when we're sampling is to take those samples first thing in the morning I won't go through all of what I already support in S40 except to say that I do support the methodologies that are in there all of them comport with what's kind of considered the Bible of lead testing which is the EPA document of three teams this was recently updated in ways that are really consistent with my experience testing in the schools here in Vermont ways that I think improved the methodology compared to the 2006 version of this document so this is what's in the bill currently is consistent with this and that is supported by the science but that's the way to go I'm happy to answer questions about sampling that you may have but I thought I would move on to the second page and three regarding supporting what's in here now in terms of the scope of testing we've heard some testimony already that maybe questioned which outlets we should be testing and so I want to support especially right now just relative to testimony we heard earlier that all waters all outlets that have some reasonable potential of being used by children in water to be tested when I went first to Edison Central School District the idea was that I should only test drinking water fountains and I said I don't think that's enough people are drinking from others other outlets and I heard many times that no we tell them not to drink from the bathroom fountains so being a researcher I went to the experts my children and I said where are you drinking in the schools and they said yeah we usually drink from the bottle fillers but yeah we filled up where it was convenient I've had teachers I've posted all my results publicly and shared that with teachers and I've had teachers say that's my classroom and I guess I kind of knew we weren't supposed to drink from there but it's often more convenient so I want to push back against the idea that you can train children little children in a way that that's going to be meaningful and effective as Dr. Ligene has testified damage from lead can be irreversible and it's goes directly against education and so to have that in schools is problematic so I would recommend and push to retain what's currently there in terms of the scope of the testing that all water outlets have reasonable potential to be used for consumption to be included I agree with earlier testimony and my data for ECSD which I'm happy to share or answer questions about I did for the superintendent kind of parse out custodial sinks I tested them and everything because I want to know recognizing that some of those, the custodial sinks that are in custodial closets even if they tested high for lead I put them as a very low priority for remediation so I think there are it doesn't have to be 100% of outlets versus only drinking