Vermont transportation bureau details equity, outreach and labor-compliance efforts

Colleen Montague, director of the Civil Rights Bureau at the Vermont Agency of Transportation, told the House Transportation Committee on Jan. 29 that the agency has expanded outreach, language access and workforce programs to reduce barriers for residents and small contractors interacting with transportation projects.

Montague said the agency is implementing a Transportation Equity Framework intended to guide investments and public involvement and to “rectify past discriminations” while ensuring affected people are represented in decision-making. The framework, she said, builds on federal civil-rights requirements for recipients of federal transportation funding.

Montague described the bureau’s staff and recent activity, saying the civil-rights team of eight manages labor and contractor compliance and emphasizes training and education. “We really try to go above and beyond compliance and we promote education, culture of respect, stability, inclusion,” she said. She told lawmakers the agency has 40 internal “equity champions” who work with the public and agency decision-makers to identify and reduce unintended access barriers.

On workforce and recruitment, Montague said the agency onboarded 146 employees in the previous year and reported a current vacancy rate of 8.6 percent, which she described as the lowest in five years. She outlined training pathways tied to contracting work, noting that the agency identifies on-the-job trainees at contract award: “We have 10 on the job trainees, graduates,” she said, and two additional trainees are enrolled though their projects have not yet started.

Montague described efforts to connect people to commercial driver’s license training tied to transportation jobs: “This past year we had 20 who received their permits and 18, which actually received their CDL licenses,” she said, adding that some trainees may join state work crews or the contracting workforce.

She also described the agency’s National Summer Transportation Institute (NTSI), a federally funded program that introduces students to transportation careers. Montague said NTSI served middle-school and younger students last year and includes hands-on activities such as equipment demonstrations, simulators, an introduction to aircraft through a partnership with Vermont Flight Academy and exercises that teach safety topics. Representative Couch asked about program activities; Montague replied that the institute uses simulators, hands-on equipment days and field exercises to demonstrate careers and technology in transportation.

On language access and public materials, Montague said the Vermont driver’s manual and other public-facing materials are available in 14 languages and that the bureau supports translation services and outreach at public events. When asked whether translation accommodations extend specifically to the written driver’s license exam, Montague said she did not have that detail and offered to follow up: “I unfortunately don't know the answer to that,” she said, referring the committee to DMV for specifics.

Montague described the certified disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) program that helps small, woman- or minority-owned businesses compete for federally funded contracting work. She said the certification requires a 51 percent ownership threshold, a net-worth cap, a site visit and evidence that owners are integral to business decision-making. The state participates in a unified certification reciprocity with neighboring New England states.

Representative Burke asked how the Transportation Equity Framework might be affected by recent federal pronouncements; Montague said the agency was monitoring developments and was “waiting to get informed and see, see what happens.”

The presentation ran roughly the committee’s scheduled time for that segment. The committee then took a break and planned to reconvene for a department-level budget briefing later in the morning.

The session contained no formal motions or votes related to the bureau’s presentation.