Good morning Rick, please join us. We're going to spend, I wanted to spend a little bit of time today to talk about funding for problem gambling. Under the lottery, if you buy a lottery ticket or you visit the website, you'll either hear the dulcet tones of a previous lottery director saying to play responsibly. And on every lottery ticket, there's a 1-800 number or a website that talks about problem gambling. We have, and now that we've merged the lottery into the Department of Liquor and Lottery, there have been some proposed changes. There have been some changes that have been done in how we handle problem gambling, at least the funding for the programs. The reason Mr. Barnett called me earlier this year just to say that the money for the programming, which he'll explain, has been cut. And I'll just put my own personal take on this on the table as we start. We make, we, the state who sells lottery tickets, which is a poison to some people, we make over $20-plus million a year as the net proceeds to the state that go to education from the lottery funds. Putting $150,000 aside for problem gambling programs to me is the morally right thing to do. And to see it cut creates some optic problems. That's where I'm coming from. But Rick, you run the program. If you could just give us a history of, if you could just let us know what the program is and how it works for you, that would be great. Hello, my name is Dr. Rick Barnett. I am a psychologist doctor at Lesley South Long Drug Counselor and private practice in Stowe. And I am the chief executive officer and president of a nonprofit called CARTER, the Center for Addiction, Recognition, Treatment, Education, and Recovery. Our organization, which consists of three of us at this point, mainly has been active in addressing problem gambling across Vermont through the grant from the Vermont Library originally starting in fiscal year 2016. And we also address all major addictions, alcohol and drug addiction, food, sex, and nicotine in addition to gambling and gaming. Recently we were awarded a contract with the Department of Health to manage the impaired driver rehab program in three counties, Addison, Franklin, and the Loyal County. I bring this up only because CARTER is expanding in terms of trying to help from honors in various ways around vices. I was driving through Waterbury Center this morning and I noticed that good stuff changed from good stuff to vice land. So you could think of CARTER as being somewhat of a nonprofit trying to address many, many vices. I called into the Senate, one of the Senate committees a few years ago when Draft Kings and Van Gauls was lobbying to legalize fantasy sports. I called in and I said what my organization was. Senator McCormick said, I said, you know, food, sex, gambling, gaming, alcohol, drugs, nicotine, and he looked around and said, well that just about covers all of us. So anyway, addiction is obviously very common and it's in the public consciousness every day. Gambling is one of those odd addictions in that it seems to be the most hidden. People often don't ask for help when it comes to gambling problems until it's far too late. Just to put it in context, gambling as an addiction has five times the suicide rate as other addictions. It's usually way too late at that point obviously. People don't typically ask for help because it's the only addiction that's predicated on hope. If you keep shooting heroin, you won't get more hopeful. You won't get the sort of, one day I'm going to win if I keep shooting heroin. I keep drinking my head off, I'm going to win. But when you gamble, it's based on this idea it's predicated on hope. So if you keep playing, if you keep engaging in this addictive behavior, you might actually win and it's kind of true. You might actually win. Unfortunately rationally it's not true. People don't win and lives are lost and much pain and problems come from problem gambling. So in 2016, 17, 18, the time that Carter has been the steward of the grant, it was at $150,000 level. That was a grant that came directly from my understanding right through Vermont Lottery Funds, handled by the Vermont Lottery. Historically I believe it was handled through the Department of Health somehow and there's still some dotted line connection to the Department of Health. They reviewed I think the language in the grant every year that it comes up. But they're pretty far removed at this point. Although I had a discussion with the Department of Health about this recently. And what the grant does, and that's in this, let's see here, what you have on the screen there and in your files, it's really the first paragraph, the first sentence. What we do is we manage a phone and text hotline for people who run into problems. Representative Stevens mentioned the 805-224-700 number that people can call. We maintain a counseling network for referral treatment. So if someone does call and they need help, we can get them into seeing a counselor as soon as possible. We don't pay for the treatment. Setting up a treatment program for problem gambling or any kind of addiction or mental health issues is quite an endeavor and it costs quite a lot of money, far more than $150,000. But we do refer people to treatment. And then a lot of what we do is we provide education and public awareness in trying to help other counselors and the public raise awareness around problem gambling issues. So those are the three charges of the grant that's written in the terms of the grant. And as lottery has merged with liquor at the 11th hour last, the end of the last session, Carter was informed only by trying to find out whether we could apply for the grant again that the grant had been cut from $150,000 to $100,000. We were able to apply for the grant and the grant was awarded but we didn't get the first check of $25,000 until October of 2018 and the grant cycle starts July 1st. So since the liquor and lottery have merged, no one has really seemed as though there's been a lot of oversight of who's in charge of this grant and Carter has been interested in keeping things going to the extent that it's possible. Doing so at the $100,000 level is still possible but we are hamstrung a little bit more because one of the things that we focused on so much was public education and continuing education or professional development around problem gambling. We went around the state in 2016, 2017 to many of the designated agencies. The VA and White River Junction veterans are severely impacted by gambling. We went around to private practitioner groups, different professional associations and provided continuing education credits for free for these folks to learn more about problem gambling. We have not been able to do that as much this year. I've been focusing a little bit more on social media campaigns, podcasts, some work with other media forms of media. St. Mike's newspaper did an article about problem gambling on college campuses and also I would like to bring to the committee's attention that sports betting has been legalized in the last year in many states or is going to be legalized in many states and Vermont is definitely taking a look at it. At this point I don't know what the future of that holds but just by way of saying that gambling is more and more woven into our culture and that's going to be present more and more people with problems around gambling. I don't think it's a good time to cut the funds for this kind of public service.  People do not call for help in large numbers and if you just look at the numbers of people calling or getting help that's a very difficult number to measure success by. It's really an effort to continue to raise awareness around these issues, to educate the public, to educate professionals, to screen for this, to address this when people do reach out for help. That's the most important thing I believe. The hotline is very important. I don't mean to minimize that at all but the utility of it, the volume of calls, it's not high. People often call because they're looking for lottery numbers. Frankly there's an order in amount of wrong numbers or people looking at just what were the numbers last night or whatever because they just look on the back of the card and they say I'll just call this number and the problem of gambling in Vermont is like oh no, sorry. It's not what I was looking for although maybe they should have been looking for it. I do call. I've had, strangely enough I've had more calls this last month than I've had in a long time and people with real, real problems. People saying I called the hotline four or five years ago, I'm back in a jam again, I spent all my money on gambling, going to the casinos. This is not just lottery by the way, this is all gambling and I like to extend it to gaming. Video game addiction, there's all kinds of built in money or fake money stuff into video games. People are calling for video game help, gaming, gambling, casinos, poker, lottery, bingo. You name it, there's so much of it in our society. It's not just lottery tickets, although lottery tickets are some portion of what people call about. Yeah, people are calling like serious issues. Someone calling for their sister who's 75 years old who spends all her money at bingo. Someone called because their husband just mortgaged the house again and it's burning through that because of this gambling problem. Someone playing house poker games in Burlington who has just lost $3,000 on the last game looking for help. These don't happen in high numbers, but two, three, four calls a month of people running into serious problems and we try to get them help. So that's my background loosely. The materials that I've provided for the committee is just to show you what a year end record looks like. That was last year and then quarterly report which was the last one that we did from October 1st to the end of 2018. The next quarter and third quarter is due this month and we'll get that into the liquor and lottery board by April 15th. That's what these points do. So I'm happy to answer questions and I think I've been clear on what I've been asking for is to restore the funds to $150 if possible. There was also a $50,000 line item in the lottery budget for advertising about problem gambling. I don't know where that number, what happened to that $50,000. So it was really $200,000 that was set aside at one point for problem gambling services. So now there's $100 for what Carter does and then I don't know about the separate line item for advertising. Questions? So how do people get to know about your organization? I mean, in the United States of Education, of course I think it's the basis of all things that need to be dealt with. So how, if I didn't call the number on the back of the lottery ticket and I have a problem in some sort of addiction, how would I know about it? I mean what, in terms of education, how do you have to hate to use the word advertise in the sense that we partially use it? But how do people learn about it? I think that we started off with a bang in terms of reaching out to all the designated agencies. The designated agencies, the mental health agencies across the state. So if someone were to present in a designated agency for mental health or any other services they might be getting and a counselor or case manager was aware that there was a gambling problem, they would think, oh Carter handles problem gambling. Let's call them and see if they can help us with this particular person. So that's one way to do it. Certainly having these free CE events, raising awareness for professionals is one way to get the word out that Carter runs the problem gambling in Vermont. We sponsored, the Howard Center has a huge conference every year in Burlington. Last year was on opioid use disorder and pain and there was something like 350 people there, problem gambling in Vermont, we provided some funding for that so we could have a table there and I got to introduce a couple of speakers which was really cool and I've never spoken to that many people before and so that was neat. But that also raises the public consciousness around that. One follow up. Do you find, at least I think that people getting involved in gambling tend to be adults in them? Do you find young people young in high school, college or high school college? Do they seem to be developing problems and of course they have but they're all kinds of addiction. So I guess I might sort of answer your mail question but do you ever, does your foundation ever participate in job fairs which may sound farmed or college recruiting when they have recruiting days on different campuses? The reason I ask this is because frequently I see credit card companies popping up these kinds of things because they're dealing with young people so is that that's a good question so that subgroup, that population has the highest rates of problem gambling for sure because of its fast paced a lot of the sports betting, fantasy sports video game gaming, it's a very popular amount among young people so if you look at problem gambling incidence rates, you'll see a higher incidence in the 8th, you'll see that like you said, you'll see that for any addiction marijuana alcohol stimulants, you know that population 1825 is the highest and gambling is no exception So is there any participation at this point of your I was delighted to have that article come out for the defender, I think of St. Mike's college newspaper that they did a piece on it because they're obviously aware of it, they sought out Carter saying, hey we heard you guys with a problem gambling people, can we interview you for problem gambling because we're having issues on campus here so it is something that's starting to that we're obviously it's percolating, it's percolating, yeah the words getting out So my suggestion would be I was a college admissions advisor and so within the scope of the things that I did, I was involved in recruiting as well and I would think that that is a really great that would be a really great event for your group to have a table mat because there's apps to be people who will respond because they see you right there yeah and also with the sports and it's nominal in terms of cost to participate at least it was this is many years ago but it's certainly not a big heavy price tax for being able to participate yeah I'd love to do that and it's a good way of networking with the college admissions people who very frequently become aware of problems that students have so thank you I'm just I'm just reading your I'm poor here and I just want to make sure I have the numbers in the quarter of the report there were 24 calls that came in the last three months is that? yes and does that hold for each quarter it's about 20 to 25 calls 20 to 30 calls per month or to me with the construction if you have less money it seems even more passive if you could reinvent this program would the hotline be the way to do it? I really think the hotline needs to be there as an essential tool but it's really it has so many problems because well for one when people reach out for gambling they may call a private practitioner or a community mental health agency directly to come through the hotline or may come up during the course of counseling with somebody so it's hard to track that 211 also has problem gambling Vermont or Carter listed as a person so if someone calls 211 and they ask about gambling problem gambling services 211 will get that information I don't have access to 211's data there's no communication there so the hotline itself I wouldn't get rid of it really the question is like how do we continue to raise awareness so that when people do run into problems we're talking 4 to 6,000 Vermonters per year struggling with gambling addiction it's not a small number but the percentage of those people actually reaching out for help it's pretty hard to track so I'm not sure I know every state gambling council has a hotline to call this 1-800 number actually is a national number and it tracks the 802 and then redirects it to Vermont when it's an 802 number if someone's in Vermont and has a 978 they're going to get directed to another state I don't know the 978 is Massachusetts I think and then they'll direct them back to Vermont so it's not the best but it needs to be there absolutely needs to be there as a resource is that the walls then handle the tram okay I'm going to have a problem I'm not formally laying a question out of this dealing with addiction seems to me a really, really hard thing to do and try to any kind of addiction and so I'm just curious I notice there's reference to gambler's anonymous in here so it sounds as if you is that a referral process to gambler's anonymous I'm just wondering do you have any kind of numbers on successful treatment what how can you mention success I guess is my question well first of all you have to track the people getting into treatment and then you have to track whether the treatment is helpful treatment like you said it's a bit shirmy for addiction it's really, really hard for people to get into stable recovery, long term recovery so the guy like I said he called recently he said you know four or five years ago I called the hotline I talked to somebody who was really helpful I got my stuff back on track I was doing well for three or four years and now here I am again in the same situation so it's very difficult there are I mean gambler's anonymous any 12 step approach public community organization like that mutual aid group is one very valuable resource in my opinion but it's not formal treatment formal treatment again if you look at the numbers of counselors I've trained many counselors on gambling you know two hour intro to gambling addiction and you know as counselors we don't really think of asking about it screening for it and then what do you do when you find it and how do you treat it you know at that point a lot of professionals you know in our education or training we don't get a whole lot around gambling so that's one thing that I really enjoy about being able to be a minister of this grant is I get to sort of inform people raise their level of skill when people do cross their doors into their office tracking the success it's tough it's tough people say it's a chronic relapsing disorder whether it's gambling or food or sex alcohol drugs nicotine people can cycle through for it thank you I answered my own question so a typical individual who reaches out for gambling addiction is there a pattern there is it someone who has just lost their week's paycheck and is looking at how they're going to pay their rent and possibly not be able to is those typically the folks that are reaching out or is it just somebody long term thinking boy I could have done a lot with the money I've lost over the years and maybe I should consider this is there a pattern there and Rick good to see you Rick by the way no it's bad when people call like someone had somebody call from the mall county the mall county mental health a couple of years ago I remember they called because they had just blown $10,000 and then $2,000 in like the next 24 hours they somehow cobbled together another $2,000 and lost that right away and they were ready to put a bullet in their head so they were evaluated by crisis services determined it was a gambling problem they contacted me and met with a guy a few times to get him stable again and I don't know what happened I think he's doing okay so it's usually bad so another woman like I said there was a woman they called a couple of months ago about her sister terribly worried about her sister because it was really looking dire that she was blowing through all this money this is an older woman and that's not an uncommon population older women with bingo or slot machines in the casinos it's a very important group and it's usually bad it's bad when people call so that was my other question what hyper gambling is so accessibility to casinos with a free bus ride down and a free lunch and $20 in chips it's pretty enticing just for entertainment for senior citizens and my father used to do it unfortunately he wasn't didn't go over so is that a lot of it or is it scratch off tickets or is it everything I was saying that earlier no it's fine it's everything a lot of times it's casinos around problems one thing that Carter does as part of our national cooperative effort is that we're part of the national council on problem gambling we're part of the regional council we need to just come online with all these casinos so that's going to affect Vermonters as well and so we're part of those other gambling councils they know me we know them, we work together I get all this information from them to sort of keep up to speed with everything that's a huge part of it so I go to conferences to keep up to speed with everything that's happening and it's a lot it's house poker games in Vermont it's lottery tickets, bingo it's video gaming it's online gaming opportunities, online poker so there's a variety of ways that people can plug in I was curious Representative Clacky, thank you lunch so when someone calls you and they lost significant dollars are you able to refer them to free services or like free counseling because they've lost their money for health so in 2013 the Bible that psychiatrists and psychologists and non-health providers used the DSM, the DSM-5 came out for the first time a non-substance addiction was listed in there as a billable code gambling disorders, a billable code used to be under a different name and previous versions of it but now insurance companies are really recognizing this as a reimbursable code so if that person does have insurance they don't have to pay out of pocket for that, some people don't have health insurance and then like there is a little bit of extra money in there that we might be able to help people pay for a portion of a few sessions just to get them going, I want to get them access to care, a guy called recently he's like I don't have insurance, I don't have any money left and he said himself he's like but if I'm spending all this money on gambling I should be able to come up with some money to pay for counseling if I want help, so he was aware of that and I was like look if it helps it all we can contribute a little bit to get you going but that's not part of the grant again running a treatment program for mental health, for alcohol, drugs gambling, it costs a lot of money to staff that and to to run that, so a hundred thousand hundred thousand dollars you can do that but we can assist people Representative Mosh then I want to get the commissioner up as well okay do you think now casinos and I'll focus in on that they're in the business to make money that's what their business is but have they, so obviously they are aware that there's big gambling problems out there, do they do anything in terms of big gambling to help neutralize that in some way and so my comment is having not a whole lot of exposure to gambling houses but in Canada it used to be that if you went to the casino you'd have to exchange money for in order to do the one on bandits and it strikes and now it's totally, it's different because you can do things by credit card and you can do that on those little sunships and all that kind of stuff which it's like we have benchmarks to help people stop and reconsider what they're doing in other areas and I think that changing the system the way they did it's easier for people to just get at the moment carried away it's very easy to take your card and put it in there and let it run up whatever as opposed to having to physically go to a place within the casino exchange money that's a stopping point to me you'd have to really think about it because you're handling it and then having to refill so to speak so again it's another and that's all been removed so to me that's more it's easier it makes it easier for people to fall into that and really get entrapped in it so Massachusetts has something called game sense and game sense has all these kiosks around the casinos that people if they're registered for them that they have a problem they can go to the game sense machine and they can register there's also voluntary self exclusion rules or guidelines so that people can exclude themselves from casinos these other states gaming commissions, lotteries they fund a tremendous amount of problem gambling efforts because Vermont doesn't have casinos we don't have the kind of funds to be able to do that but again we still have Vermonters that go to the casinos so it's prudent for Vermont to be aware of voluntary self exclusion, game sense all these different ways that people could access help if they realize that they have a problem one of the things that we testified on a couple years ago on the FanDuel and DraftKings fantasy sports legislation and how a sports betting comes online is to make sure that any online program or company that provides gambling services has a clearly spelled out area where people can click and voluntarily voluntarily self exclude or there's ways to enter your information so they can track how much money you're spending and they can send a flash thing out saying like you've spent this much money you know you may have a problem you know people can just ignore it of course but there are things built into that and those are important stopgast for people who do take a moment to realize they might have a problem thank you we're just being a little bit attentive to everybody's time and commissioner thank you Rick welcome Deputy Commissioner Kessler you missed the opening of the I apologize I mis-scheduled I mis-scheduled the time I apologize for that well I'm glad you made it so we just heard I think you know what the issue is here from my personal personal speaking solely for myself the optics of changing the grants when it's a multi-gazillion dollar operation of the optics of it aren't very good when we're trying to promote control that's where I'm starting from on this conversation just thought I'd start with that and then here from you one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation in committees because there was so much telephone game going on between different aspects of this conversation I just wanted to give us an opportunity to talk about it here so just as a start I think the amount of money commissioner Dulley and I were not responsible for the department last budgeting cycle we came to be responsible in managing the department after the special session and took over in July so I think whatever the legislature decides is an appropriate amount of money would be fine with us if it's 100,000 150,200,500,000 whatever you decide the money comes out of the proceeds that the lottery makes in profit that's money that won't go to the education fund I would like to try a different approach than the approach that's been used in the past and have been speaking to our board as well as to others around the country about how we could do more with the money that we do spend whether that's 100,000 or 200 or whatever the sum is I'm not convinced that the present system that we're using is generating the result that we wouldn't necessarily like and as a steward of the state's money in the end I just in good conscience I just don't know that this is the best way to continue to move forward I did provide you with the annual report you could look and see how the money was spent in the prior year just to get a sense about that I've spoken to many other states at lottery gatherings to find out what they do as far as problem gambling it spans the range from nothing to money that goes for grants to money that's used in a number of different ways I think going forward and was mentioned I appreciate the question that was asked money that actually pays for treatment someone spent all their money on gambling and looked to lose their house because they don't have the money to pay the bills or get kicked out of their apartment or lose their car lose their job whatever it happens to be it would be helpful if there was money that would actually help those people get treatment treatment can cost $50 or in instances $200 an hour and it's important that people get the treatment the existing grant of $100,000 really provides no money effectively as was already mentioned to actually pay for the treatment so that's one direction we're looking at I've reached out to 2-1-1 they're willing to manage the phone hotline component of the calls and again the rate to do that is relatively low effectively picking back up to a system that already exists so I think that would be prudent just looking at trying to spread this out one of the other options that we have now that we're a combined department is through liquor education everyone who sells alcoholic products so that would be a bartender or a wait staff but really more convenient store employees all have to be trained in order to be able to sell that product now that we have a lottery as well there are programs that we can integrate into the training for convenient store clerks to be recognizing the sounds of problem gambling that's an area that the state has never been engaged with and I would like to put some resources into that make that part of the standard training for store clerks so that they can try to help people as well that is the point of interaction between the lottery and the participants so again putting some resources into that is one direction putting aside a sum of money whatever amount of money is budgeted for this to actually pay for treatment so we would be looking to help people that have a problem with gambling be able to apply to us to get money to pay for the treatment that they need as opposed to now they just get a referral then they need to figure out how to make that work to be much more effective and a better use of money than how it's been expanded in the past so again we're just starting to explore different options that this grant runs until the end of the year the end of the fiscal year so we are looking at other options for extending those resources going forward that I think will just be a better use of money and will help people in a meaningful way really not to say anything is wrong with the system we have now but I think it would be appropriate to try some things different than what we're doing I have reached out to other organizations that would be willing to come in and provide the same kind of free training free continuing education credits around the state I think that's very useful to make sure we have enough providers around the state and groups started around the state so people don't have long drives if they're interested in doing that again I think just taking a different approach to how this money is spent whatever the sum happens to be I just want to be sure that we spend it as well as it is possible and get it to most results for the money that we do spend I'm happy to hear that we're finally approaching a level of training people that has been a bug of a vine for ten years now of saying if you can cut someone off for drinking if you can recognize that you can that someone has had too much to drink what can't we apply that to something that's a little bit more quiet and insidious and invisible which is a gambling addiction so I applaud the department's desire to move in that direction what do we mean by generating different outcomes is that part of the having money for potentially having money for grants for people to get into it how do you measure the success how should one measure a success a suicide hotline for instance how do you measure the success of a suicide hotline this is slightly less tense but I think what we've heard the testimony is that when someone has a problem that's this deep and they're that desperate to call it really helps to have someone at the end of that line we would have the same type of service in other words it's a referral service that's going on now we would have the referral service but they'd also be told if you can't pay for treatment which is what we want the people to get in the end is treatment being in this spending hour as we heard a very small amount maybe to help people get treatment making a referral to a provider that you can't afford to pay for doesn't get you any treatment whatsoever so being sure that these people have the opportunity to get treatment at no cost or very low cost I think is a way is a better use of the money than where we are now and as far as I mean we have to train our the staff, the people that sell the lottery tickets there are some differences between obviously in signs of impairment that can be observed and someone who's spending too much of their money on lottery tickets so if I come to store A and spend $100 on scratch tickets and you think I have a problem I just go across the street or the next block up and the store of the street isn't going to be able to detect that I'm impaired by gambling too much they won't know that and so again I think having educated sales people would be helpful but it's not exactly the same as on the liquor side so that's part of it but I think again the goal is to get to good outcomes I have to say that in looking this over and then doing a little bit of research about how this was funded in the past I think the department essentially took the easy way out it's just easy to hand someone some money and say it's your responsibility now and the department doesn't have to do anything from there on out I think that our goal is to take more responsibility for what goes on with how this money is expended and try to have some more measurable outcomes again if you look at the number I mean it's so hard to know what the outcomes were and you can measure the number of calls and it's this very very small number and so how do we do better on that from what else can we do from an advertising perspective again that the lottery ads do talk about playing responsibly the back of the tickets include the phone number but are there other things that we can do to try to get people more aware of the options that are out there but I think letting people know that there is an option that includes treatment that could be funded in a way that doesn't require them to have no money to be able to get that treatment I think is a giant step in the right direction so I think a number of these things these are all forward steps and the department would own moving them forward again as opposed to in the past the department gave the money to the health department and then they found the provider I just think that was just a way not to have to be responsible for it but we did something with problem gambling we funded it and that's the beginning and end of it I think we need to be more engaged and make sure that we're getting to the outcomes that everybody wants us to get to yes John but does that mean you're going to come in with a proposal that the best practices would be to spend $500,000 whatever the number is rather than saying well if you only give us 100 we'll do the best we can I'm unclear what you're saying so I don't have a number in mind at this point again we'll have the number that we have in the budget which is $100,000 why that versus what you think was needed well because I don't know what's needed now I don't know that we can know exactly at this point what's needed I think the $100,000 is a place to start I could come back in a year and tell you that we need more money to spend this last year but I don't know at this point and if the legislature starts to provide more money we'll look at whether there's prudent ways to spend that in the end I think that's the most important thing as well is that we want to be good stewards of the money and make sure it gets spent in a way that results in the best possible outcomes certainly I think the chair's questions is very relevant how do we measure those outcomes and I think engaging into treatment and making sure they at least take advantage of the treatment opportunities is one way to do that there's all kinds of obviously reporting issues around that but if we are providing money to providers that would be one way to know that people got treatment there would be some proof that they actually went into sessions got treatment and hopefully made progress I don't know if we can measure whether they relapse or not we won't know that but we don't know beyond that but to me I think it's I think the legislature needs to hear from you what is needed versus saying well whatever the money the legislature gives us because it's been a very passive model I'm hearing you say so $100,000 I don't think it's you need to hear from the experts about what is needed to and not just about whatever you give us well I don't have a number for your interest I have some cost for some areas but not for all it's for the programs Representative Mosh picking up on John's comment best practices we have best practices for a lot of different areas that funding goes to I'm suspecting that there is no such thing that comes to not only lottery but gambling in general but I don't know I don't know the information I've been able to gather from speaking to others in the industry to find out what's done in other states and try to build off that but I don't have a number because I think we need to I'm not focusing on the amount but rather the methods the methods have been essentially the same for a very long period of time I think it would be helpful to try something different see if we can get some more measurable results I'm thinking outside of the box I'm a great believer in that sometimes I just try on there so I guess my question or my request would be if some kind of a loose basis submittal for consideration as you gather your information if you do fact-finding and that sort of thing thinking out of the box coming off with some suggestions even at this point just for conversational exploring so that this problem can be dealt with I mean another component of this I think is just as we tackle with early education programs in schools I think that the same thing would be able or should be able to be done within the school framework and I recognize that just as children came from many children or in home situations where there was a lot of smoking happening still we made big roads over a period of time so my sense tells me the same similar process should be able to be somewhat successful in terms of gambling because the adults are doing the gambling and keep it being brought up in that environment and I don't you know beyond observing that I have no educational influence I would say that a few days ago I was asking about this is what we had a conversation about it and I am going to draft up some of these different ideas about how we might move forward and provide that in some kind of in the next few weeks so I won't have cost estimates but that would be the plan to look at a wide range of possible ways that we could expend the money to provide better outcomes I'm going to have to end this right now so I do have questions about regardless of how or why a previous regime may have chosen to deal with this issue I have questions that I like to talk through about well is it the role of the people who sell the tickets to develop programs to deal with the potential addictions that come from those products to put an RFP out and ask the experts who deal with gambling addiction to put forward an RFP that develops a program you know there is no answer for that this morning but I just think the question I appreciate looking at every program that we have and seeing if it's the right program I would just be concerned with as I mentioned earlier the optics of saying that if we are dropping a by 33% if we're dropping our commitment to dealing with a problem, gambling problem before we're developing a program otherwise the optics of that just to me are not a positive thing for the way that we're making the money on this the department didn't ask for any reduction in spending on this so that's something the legislature decided to do and I don't know what the rationale was for because I wasn't involved in the department at the time so you guys would know better than I would about why that was why that was reduced or your colleagues would have had to vary we just haven't had this conversation for a little while so I do appreciate the fact that you took over late last year, midtime last year and so that this is all part of your many faceted role in the department but it is important for us to get a handle on it but thank you for coming on this issue I'm happy to come in if you have more time if you want to talk more about it we're going to continue to focus on this the focus has come more we've been talking about it for a while but more recently as a result of the conversation both here and in Senate appropriations where they just are trying to figure out how much money they are interested in putting into this we didn't have a number for them but they were looking at the same number as what was provided in last year's budget so that's where it got started great thank you thank you Ron what do we have for amendments coming up we have two that we know of yep and over they schedule 1045 okay so folks who are here for minimum wage welcome we have two amendments to the paid to the family medical leave insurance bill that we have to hear at 1045 and 11 so we can get testimony underway with the folks who are on the schedule right now I do not want to make feel like they're going to be speaking at two and a half times normal speed in order to hear everybody this morning but if people can allow us to take a break for half an hour and then come back at 1115 for those that don't match I don't think we're going to be here for I certainly don't hope we're here for an hour talking about these amendments but or just be aware that we may have to reschedule so but for people who have traveled to come in I'd like to prioritize them this morning people who are either closely more close to my failure or or in the building I'd like to yes if we need to so I'm going to look at this list and I'm going to guess that Mr. Stritzler you probably have driven the furthest today or Nori is that that's me and I actually do have some flexibility today if you need to delay my testimony until after you address the amendments I can wait okay and there's no guarantee again today family leaves going on the floor today so that is just obviously at least mentally is what's on the tap but let's just see how we go let's just see how we go Mr. Stritzler would you like to join us and we'll start with introductions I'm Tom Steen I'm a State Representative from Waterbury represented by Waterbury Colton I'm the assistant engineer at the University of North Florida Nat Barrow, I'm the Vice President of the University of North Florida and I'm the Vice President of the University of North Florida and I'm the Vice President of Franklin and Johnson. Mary Ann Kimosch, I'm from Swampton, and I represent Sheldon as well. So I'm Galaki, I'm from Wellington. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Tommy Walts, we've been in the city. Thank you. Chip Troiano from Standard, representing Hardwick Standard and Walden. And I'm Bill Strichler from Smudgers-Latch Resort. I'm here today representing the Gronach Ski Area Association, the member of the board, and an officer of the association. Although, when I would like to discuss with you, I believe those beyond the association's interests. The first thing I'd like to say is that businesses, every business person I know, and I've had an opportunity to meet a number over time to put my association with a business round table and a number of other Vermont-wide organizations that I've been part of, that every business person I know wants to pay more, not less. There are many good business reasons for that, including the loyalty you get from the employees and people who do employees on staff for promote courage and time, and employees improve their performance. So we do want to pay more, and the question is, what's affordable? For this particular legislation, there are two issues that I would like to discuss with you today. The first that I might have spent much time on is the payment for what we call our seasonal employees. When Smith, the owner of Triggered Reserves, is going to submit a letter to you on that subject, so I won't dwell on it. The second though relates to the proposed 7% increase annually in the human wage. I had the great experience of completing four years in Middlebury, and while there is a math nature in the economics major, and my professor of economics, Professor Wolff said, if you're going to talk about economics, only speak from facts. So this morning, I bring some facts to you. They do relate to smuggler statistics, because those are the ones that I'm familiar with. But I think that they're representative of the rest of the industry at different scale. Our part-time payroll at Smugglers is $4 million. But the average pay of part-time employees is $11.89, so it's well above today's minimum. The women are $11.60, and the men are $12.60, and six cents. We have 400 seasonal and part-time employees. A third of them are seasonal, and it's the seasonal people who are at the minimum wage. The kind of jobs that they perform are lift operations, camp counselors, beginner, ski instructors, summer lifeguards, many frankly, teenagers, particularly with parents who are happy to have them out of the house during the summer. So they insist that they come to the Smugglers and get camp counselors, so they won't be hanging around the house since then. You probably heard about the concept of wage compression. I won't dwell on it, but it does mean that you give raises at the low end of the scale, those raises have to percolate up. If that may be the purpose of the wage increases, but it's not simply increases for the low end, the wages have to percolate up just for wage fairness, so that the people who are well experienced and have complex jobs do get paid fairly more than those who are experienced with strength over jobs. So when we talk about the wage increases, it's not just at the low end that businesses will be concerned with them. Now, our full-time staff average is almost $18 an hour. It's actually 1797, and that is actually the full-time average for men. The full-time average for women is $19 an hour, and that's my reason. And I can assure you that our women earn every penny of that extra. Is there a difference in their roles between genders? We, our management ranks are dominated by women. Not only Q and W asked me why that, what did we do to make that happen? The answer is pretty straightforward. We didn't do anything special. The women earned their way into those jobs. We're very happy to hire paying jobs. Now, and the numbers that I just gave you, we do not include the top 10 salaries, so we don't get bias in the averages for the company. And now shifting to the specific issue of the 70% annual proposed wage increase. The Federal Reserve has said that they expect inflation over the next five years to run between 200%. That means that in our business, that would mean about a $360,000 a year increase in our payroll. And under the proposed legislation, the increase would go to $1.3 million. Now, it wouldn't be fair to me to tell you that everybody would get a 70% increase. That's not the fact. But if they were, that would be $1.3 million, or $1,000 less to invest. Frankly, we invested in the economy. Most businesses today that generate extra cash and end up reinvesting in the business. It's also by observation you could find that most businesses can manage around reasonable mandates, and you kind of find a way to do it if the mandates are reasonable. But that's only true in good times. What I want to focus on now is the implication of proposed legislation when times are not good, when there's a recession. Our greatest concerns managing in bad times. I understand that even the legislature is planning for an upcoming recession. Many are predicting it. When I worked with AT&T, I used to laugh at the Chief of the National Office because he always predicted 12 of the last two recessions to make sure we were really sensitive to what we had. But in this case, it looks like recessions are almost for sure will arrive sometime in the next five years. When the recession arrives, everyone on this table realizes that you also have a reduction in business volumes. So businesses of large and small are faced with reductions in business volumes and the mandate of 7% a year increase in table oil, right? I don't know of an economist, liberal, or conservative that would say that it makes good policy to raise wage at 7% during the recession, the business volumes are down. It just won't work. And what will happen is that businesses will react in ways that are not helpful to the overall objective. Most likely what this decision will do is cut back on hours. Now, if you talk to our employees, they'll tell you they don't really pay that much attention to their wage level, their hourly wage level. What they care about is the paycheck that they take home that they're looking at. How much they agree will end up with. In the way during recession every time, the way of the mandated pay increase will be treated. For sure, businesses are gonna cut back on hours. It's a very distasteful way for us to operate. Because when you cut back on hours, there are always consequences, particularly in customer service, which we all live on. So it's not, it's definitely not a preferred, but maybe just out of the straight economics, a required step for businesses to take. And unfortunately, that'll affect those people who we most are trying to help. It's a low end of the wage scale. So what do we do? It's always a hard question. It's a hard question for all of you. How do you balance the need to increase wages reasonably so that it can be sustainable? And I guess it's okay for me to use this word, the politics of what we're looking at. Now the Senate has proposed at the end of achieving the $50 an hour that we switch to an inflation measure. History would say that at the end of achieving $50 an hour, the nationwide desire to go beyond 15 will be present by the rest of the year. So the question again will become, what do we do? I am a suggestion. And the suggestion is that rather than a fixed 7%, we use an inflation multiplier, not inflation, it's a multiplier. So I worked around the numbers and I came to two times the inflation rate could work, the original, fixed, forecast. But perhaps on the minimum and with the minimum of 2%. Now during the recession, we ran one year, we ran with a minus inflation rate that was 2009, 2015, I think it was under 1%. So two times really in those cases don't work. So I would say that they have to be a minimum of 2%. And the limit of five and a half. So in difficult times, I think we could manage to those numbers. That is to say that whatever the inflation rate is, we could double it and that would become the new amount to be raised in the minimum wage. Now if you run the numbers, at the inflation rate of 2.4% over the next five years, we would achieve $15 by 2026. During good times, 2008 using that as the guideline, you would get there by 2025. On the other hand, if we had a recession that ran the length of the last recession, then we would get there closer to 2007. I couldn't, with your permission, say that the headline with a read, Vermont passes legislation, guaranteeing wage earners increase at twice the inflation rate. And while avoiding the unintentional consequences of the recession on the very employees who try to help, I think that this suggestion take a step in the right direction would get us there. I guess the bottom line with you is, I think it's absolutely important, very important, almost mandatory, that we take into consideration what the impact would be on this proposed legislation in the event that there is a recession. Lightly, I'm asking this question. In your experience, I mean, we've heard about the impending recession, I think, since it's been 10 years, since the end of the last one. And we've been legislating in a lot of ways with this fear in the future. It's always there. Whether it's two years ahead, five years ahead. When we're comparing and contrasting the fear of a potential recession with, how do we find the good times? How do we define, do we define the good times when we're in them or in retrospect, looking backwards? And did we take advantage of those good times? And then we're trying now, we're trying to catch up. I just, I mean, I appreciate your view on the inflation part of it. I just, I'm struck by, we always want to act in good times and no economist out there sends us a memo and says, hey, good times ahead. Yeah, I thought Moe's maybe used it to the right word. Moe's always been used without any struggle in your surpluses and whether the surpluses should be saved for future times or return to the taxpayer bills or I didn't really have a question to answer. Some economists will say that the trend is okay now. It's almost, if you follow it closely, it's almost week to week. I think yesterday it looked like the market was strong and we don't make you worry about it. Two weeks ago, we were facing disaster. So it's a hard call to make, but it makes it all the more important, I think, to have a plan that can go into action when the numbers show it, but does not have to be in action otherwise. And that's what I'm proposing. That as long as things are going wrong and something measurable, I know we all like to measure things. Inflation rate is published and measurable and usable. I'm suggesting two times that, unless the number falls below 2%, but not a Nordic-Matic 7% a year just to repeat myself during recessionary times, business volume's down. There's not an economist that would tell you you should be raising rates 7%, seven times the inflation. And from a business, I mean, you have a big business, basically, I mean, $4 million a year just for income is pretty sizable. We took testimony from one of our economists that said $15 in 2024, which is what the Senate proposal is, has the buying power of 1340-something today, say 1345 today. As you look out, how do you use that? I mean, the inflation, how do you look out and say, well, $15 today is really 1345 in five years. How does that work for you when you're planning your business, when you're planning anything from how big my staff should be, how big, nevermind what the employee's needs are, but how does a business owner project out like that for five years expecting there to be some kind of recession ahead? Well, I'm so embarrassed to tell you that we do not, and I don't know of any businesses that have any confidence in a four-year or five-year plan, that the one thing we know about our plan for next year, you know, it's only one thing we're sure of, and that is it's wrong, that it's either too aggressive or too passive, and looking out in today's world for five years, we frankly don't try. What we try to do instead is to have our business operate in a way that we can quickly respond to whatever the circumstances are now, and we can figure out ways to respond to a 304% increase, but we know in our plans, we cannot, in your other way, respond to a 70% increase, particularly during a recession, just in case. So what do we do? We bury our heads in the sand when we say, oh, that can't possibly happen. But we all survive, you know, businesses are survivors, and unfortunately, as I said earlier, the survival tactic will be not good for the employees. The proposal you, you know, the conundrum that your proposal presents, right, is this, it sounds very measured and very reasonable. I mean, you're very effective with this, I have to say, but you're speaking from your own business's perspective, right? So like, if the legislature took up your proposal and said we're gonna peg it to this 2.5, or this 2% minimum threshold for raises, in recessions at large, businesses throughout the economy, irrespective of a mandated 7% increase, still layoff workers and still reduce their hours, irrespective of whether they have 7% built-in raises or not, right? So we could sort of take out this bargain with you, right? We'll do this in order to prevent that, but the reality is that we have no actual assurance that it will prevent that, right? Because it happens. Yeah, I wish I could guarantee. Right. But what I can say is that if we don't protect against it, that businesses will absolutely take action. We don't, but today, you know, we don't have the opportunity to reduce hours. Today, well, we don't because we can manage the inflation every increase. And my compatriots and other businesses speak the same way. Because it falls into that category, I mentioned earlier, we prefer to pay people up. It's much more than just the business that you manage to pay people to work for them and pay them up as to whether or not you would take actions without this increase. I can't predict what every other business would do. I would tell you that we will not. We will not involuntarily reduce staff in favor of overcoming a two or three or four percent increase in the minimum wage because our interest is in making sure that our guests are taken care of correctly. During the last recession, we and I have a few others in our industry that I know that I've spoken to. We didn't have layoffs. We did have furloughs, but everyone came back to work after the recession period. So we value our employees and we're anxious to do the right thing for them. It's self-interest. So I don't think you would find the arbitrary reductions in staff because that answers your question in an obtuse way. No, it answers it in a very specific way, which is specific to your business. But the concern is we've got to look at all businesses and what their practices are, not just the insurance that we get from the data. If you look at, you would have to look at today's behavior, what the business is doing today or the today's circumstances. I don't hear about a lot of layoffs today. In fact, in Germany, I would say the opposite. We're all looking for more people, not fewer people. If you go to any one of our business meetings, you'll find the top of our list of not having enough qualified people to do the work. So we're certainly not seeing businesses today playing people off, and that's because times are pretty good. But when that turns around, I think it's when you would definitely see that attitude change as well. And I can confidently say that's across the board. In your communities, in your general stores, your parlorists, beauty parlorists, or men's parlorists, or wherever you go, they see signs in the window that people are looking for work. So we're not looking away from people. And you don't do that, Thomas. It's only when times really get to be rough that you have to do that. Any further questions for Mrs. Strickland?  So, if you're in trouble with that, that's what you're supposed to say. I had a pretty kind of flat economy right now. It seems that it was 2% in place. Yeah, it couldn't. What you're saying is that the next five years, when you get the last 20, that this front room would work. But I don't know about those moments, you know, those individual moments. Where was that at the time? I find your testimony very interesting. And we'd like if you could make your written testimony available to our committee, what you have given us contains a lot of information. Okay. And it would be helpful if you could do that. I'll be happy to do that. Will Monday be soon enough? Sure, no, we can catch it connected with the Brown Art Committee's system. Okay, I'll post it for us. All right, thank you so much for your time. And thank you for being so receptive. I know it's a brand new way of looking at things, but today's my birthday, so I figured I'll be happy. Ah, all right. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. So speaking of looking at your crystal ball, how much snow are you gonna get next year? No, we, every governor that I've known in like 30 years always asks us, what can I do for you? And we always respond, bring us snow. And they say, okay. All right, thanks for your time. Thank you. And Mike, what's your name? Only very minimally and perfectly normal. Is that a nor? A nor, yes. A nor, okay. Well, my apologies for the grocery. No apologies necessary. So, and again, we're, we may truncate you, or we will truncate you. But please introduce yourself. You have a new role with an organization that we've seen here in this committee before on this issue. Yes. And so, well. Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. My name is Inora Fortin, and I'm the executive director of Hungry Free Vermont. And I have submitted my full written testimony to the committee, and so I will not cover all of that in the interest of facilitating, you know, when having the opportunity to testify and questions. So, Hungry Free Vermont is Vermont's statewide anti-hunger advocacy organization. We've been around for 25 years. Our mission is to end the injustice of hunger and malnutrition for all Vermonters. And a lot of what we do is work to make sure that Vermonters are able to maximize their use of the federal nutrition programs that they're eligible for. So, three squares of Vermont, school breakfast, school lunch, childcare meals, after school meals for kids, summer meals for kids, WIC, all that whole range of programs help to ensure that families and individuals who are not making enough money to cover all of their expenses, which I don't have to tell this committee that we have a significant number of Vermonters in that situation, or people who are unable to work for one reason or another, have access to food and have access to enough nutritious food to ensure that they can work, can maintain their health, can learn all of those things that really are critical to avoiding human suffering, having a workforce that can work all of those things. So, that's a lot of the work that we do. But fundamentally, we are out not to mitigate hunger, but to end it, and not just to end it any which way, but to end it in a just way where people experience dignity in the way that they're able to access food. And we're certainly very far from that goal today. Many people, a lot of the rules that go along with the federal nutrition programs do not enhance human dignity, or the experience of dignity when they're used. It's better than going to a food shelf or food pantry and relying on charitable food, but it's not the ideal vision. And that is why Hunger Free Vermont has chosen to join the coalition working to raise the minimum wage in Vermont, and that's why I'm here today, to speak to the issue of human dignity and the importance of making sure that people have a wage that will allow them to take care of their basic needs. And also to say that because of the way the federal nutrition programs are structured, we have a pretty significant number of people in our state who do not qualify for free school meals for their kids, or three squares Vermont, or they qualify for three squares Vermont at such a low benefit level that it's not worth it for them to go through everything they have to go through to apply. And yet they can't meet their nutrition needs. A recent research study from the Urban Institute that looked at how we might end child hunger in Vermont noted that as many as 42% of the children in Vermont, one in seven, who are living in food insecure households right now, may be living in households that earn too much money to qualify them for free school meals or three squares Vermont. So however much we work to expand the access to those programs for people who qualify, the structural way the federal programs and the federal poverty line are set means that people who need food assistance can't get it. So just to stop there for a second. So the federal, so SNAP is, is that the current name for it? That's the federal name for it. We call it three squares Vermont, but yes. So three squares is set at what is the, what is the numerical number? What is the salary cap for receiving benefit? Right. So for a family of four, it's 185% of the poverty line, which is about $44,000 something a year. And at that level, if I made $43,000 a year. Yeah. How many, how much in benefits would I roughly receive? Well, that really depends on a whole bunch of factors, but you might receive as little as $16 a month or you might receive $50 a month. For a family of four. Depending on how many other deductions in a very complicated application you qualify for. Does it match in some way or correlate in some way to the same way that childcare subsidies are for people at that, at that wage as well, whereas if you were at 100% of the poverty level with a family of four, you receive 100% of the childcare subsidies that we provide, but at 200% or at 300% or whatever, but at 200% you receive 10%. I mean, that's what it sounds like. Yeah, it is something like that, yes. And school meals are paid to the exact same 185% of the poverty line. So, and other programs are also. So, if you don't qualify for three spurs in Vermont, you also likely don't qualify for access to school meals for your kids. So, you know.  While we see our incomes rising anyway at the lowest levels, the federal poverty level doesn't change. So, this is part of the benefits cliff anyway that exists because whatever that number is at 21,000 or 44,000 doesn't change. Correct. Okay, I just want to be clear that this is the nub of the problem is that these constrictions that you have are not changing while the rest of the world is. Correct, absolutely correct. Right, and so we have families living in the benefits cliff already. Raising the minimum wage will have more families in that benefits cliff. So, we're not pretending that that's not the case and this will have to be monitored very carefully. You know, and we will need to think about creative ways to help address that. One campaign of Humboldt Free Vermont is to make Vermont the first state in the country to make school meals universal. In other words, to provide school meals as part of education to every student because that would help to mitigate a part, not all, of the benefits cliff. But nevertheless, I'm here advocating for increasing the minimum wage because fundamentally we have got to, you know, we have got to help people to be able to achieve their basic needs in a way that they experience is dignified. So, I wanted to speak to something that both of you just brought up. There are schools particularly in rural Franklin County that all students are receiving free meals across the board. It doesn't matter whether they particularly qualify or not. So I did want to bring that up that that is already happening in certain areas. Yes, so we've been working with schools since 2014 to make that happen and 24% of the public schools in Vermont currently provide universal school meals. And we've done some studies with the University of Vermont that show some pretty remarkable benefits for health, for family economic security, for social climate and bullying, for readiness to learn. So we think that there's a lot of wins to be had, but in particular, we need to be thinking in creative outside of the box ways if we're going to raise minimum wage because we're going to cause more families to not be eligible for some of these critical nutrition supports. And again, it's a reason for us to think creatively and play outside the box not to not raise the minimum wage. Representative, actually, we're at Centango, you can follow up and then Representative Colleen. So I'm assuming that you've thought very carefully about this because of the cliff and because of potentially causing those families who now qualify for universal school meals, for instance, to not qualify anymore in the ramifications of raising the minimum wage. And you feel your organization feels that it is more beneficial to raise the minimum wage and see these families potentially losing or these communities actually, because the whole community is depending on a number of families qualify. So the whole community could therefore lose meals but still be better off with a higher minimum wage. Yeah, so we have agonized over this. And you've put it very well. And it is true that one way that schools qualify under current federal rules to provide universal meals depends upon the percentage of students whose households are already receiving mostly in Vermont, it's three squares Vermont. And so yes, if the number of kids in those households declines, then the school could lose its eligibility under one provision. But there's another provision that schools can also use to provide universal school meals. It is more complicated. It is quite as financially beneficial. But there are ways that we can preserve and even expand universal school meals in Vermont so that those communities do not lose that program. But we would have to do something. The legislature would have to do something. Communities would have to do something. So that's not already a place that way out? Well, the provision is available, but we will be coming back to you next year with a very specific proposal about how we could, as a state, make a universal meals option available to any school in Vermont. It will cost some money. If this legislation passes, it's not currently available to those schools that are receiving those meals based on today's criteria. That's correct. But because this is a gradual rollout of increasing the minimum wage, we do believe we have some time to work on those things. It would be a big concern for me because the majority of the schools in my district receive universal food meals. And I appreciate that you're thinking that way. And, John, I'm going to actually interrupt here. I would like to invite you back, not only to talk about this in the moment, but also about the strides that we've made. I think that while we focus on what we're not doing, I think I do want to focus on what Hungry Vermont has done over the last 15 plus years to get us to the point where we are. Because I think it's been life changing for some communities in the way that it's been rolled out. Is, I mean, those of us in communities where we've seen the benefits, whether it's in summer programs or not, or longer term programs, I personally would like to hear more about what's going on across the state. But again, I appreciate you coming in and letting us interrupt you. We just have this other little inconsequential bill that we're just trying to get across the line today. So we support that bill too, and I'm very happy to see that. For you to do work on it. And my full testimony is available as the contact information is there. So if anybody would like additional data, if there's any way that I can provide additional information to the committee, you're just welcome to reach out to me. And thank you so much for the opportunity and for your time today and for your very hard work in this legislative session. Thank you. We'll see you soon. All right, can we now want to take five minutes? So folks who have come for no reason, thank you. We are going to hear from Zach. I'd like to just take three minutes to stretch legs and be back here at 10 o'clock so that we can start around nine o'clock. So, Amy, and you are here with us up with Representative Ralph. Oh no, Representative Ralph, you start. Yes, we'll just hang out. We're just going to hear, Representative Ralph, simple little amendment to our bill. Simple little amendment. We laugh at everybody that says that in our committee. For the record, I'm Zachariah Ralph. I'm the representative for Hartman Windsor and West Windsor. And I am here today to present an amendment to H107, the Paid Family Leave Bill. And it's actually to revert it back to the way the bill was when it came out of House Government Operations Lab. The first time you guys sent out. So, currently, General Haas. General Haas, excuse me. Where am I right now? So, as it is right now, the bill puts 100% of the cost for Paid Family Leave on the employees. The amendment would shift it back where it's shared 50% between the employees and the employers. I'm not sure how much you guys want me to go into reasoning for why I'm presenting this or if I... We have some time. Okay. I want to go into it. And just to be clear, the current amendment is, the current version of the bill is not 100% on the bill. On the employee, it's possibly 100% on either the employer or the employee or some split thereof. That's correct. There is the option for the employer to offer this. What I've heard is that it's a potential incentive to get employees to come and work for them. Sure. I'm not sure I totally agree with that logic. But, so the reason I'm presenting this is, first of all, I want to appreciate, thank the government operations committee for all your guys' hard work. I know you've worked out a lot of issues, general housing, thank you. Again, there are a lot of things. Thank you, thank you. I defer to... So I appreciate the work you all do. And thank you so much. And thank you for taking the time to do this. So this is a question of why are we doing this bill? And I think we've heard lots of testimony about why Paid Family Leave is so important. Women make up a large part of our workforce. And it is inevitable that some women will have babies. This is an essential part of the continuation of life on this earth. And the first three months of a child's life are extremely formational. The time that a mother, a father, or a family spends with this child can determine the rest of that child's life. And so that's why the need for Family Leave is so important. So we're creating that time for families to spend with their newborns. But the problem is that, since we do not have mandatory Family Leave, families are forced into a situation where they either have to go back to work earlier than they like, or they lose their jobs, or they are doing this hodgepodge of figuring out how to combine all their benefits into enough time to spend with their child. And this is, of course, during one of the, probably what I imagine is one of the most stressful and complicated periods of any family's life, which is bringing a child into this world. And so we are trying to address this problem by offering paid Family Leave to these families so they don't have to deal with this burden. Now, the bill as it is, and why I'd like to amend it, is because I do not believe the bill is addressing this issue. I believe that this will look great in the headlines, that the house passed Family Leave, but ultimately all it does is shift where the funding is coming from, but not who's paying from it. Unless, of course, all the employees, employers decide, or a bunch of employees decide to offer this as an incentive for their employees to join in. By the way, I just received an email from one of my small businesses in my area that was adamantly opposed to Family Leave because of the additional burden it would put on employers. So I am not optimistic employers will be offering this. And it's certainly not the big ones who are not as connected to the actual employees themselves. So, much of the cost still would remain with the families. And as it is, we don't pay a livable wage. We don't pay enough for people to be able to afford food, healthcare, housing, and as a result, who pays for this additional cost, which every remonderable pay for? And the answer is us, it's the state. Because when we're not providing, when the employer is not providing these things and we're just taking it out of their paycheck, it means that these people that are already overburdened will need food assistance, fuel assistance, and assistance on their healthcare. Which means that we will be taxing more. And I don't think anybody in this room wants to tax anybody more. And so, this essentially is another example of businesses externalizing internal costs. Since it is an integral part of life to have children, this should be considered an essential service. And that our employers should recognize that if they would like to employ women and employ families that plan to have children, that they also need to be providing the funds necessary to allow for them to take care of those children in those form of the years. So, for those reasons and many, many more, I have offered this amendment and full disclosure, I have been told to present this bill and withdraw it on the floor immediately. To make my point, I'm not trying to make a point, I think it's important that this is what we do. I think the people in the state would like to see an actual paid family leave. And so, very much at this point, it comes down to the committee and whether you're willing to accept this amendment and change the language and hopefully get some support on the floor so we can actually create something as we need. So, with that, I ask for the committee's support in this amendment. And happy to take questions for us. Well, let's hear from, we have a couple of quick questions. Go. All right. I'm just curious, have you ever owned a business? No, no, I have not, no. I think it's really important. I know that our businesses struggle without a doubt. I have communicated with our businesses quite often in Heartland and Westminster and Windsor on a regular basis. I think that they have a strong voice in our state house. We hear from the chamber all the time and all the business advocates. We don't hear from regular residents a lot. But you've never owned or run a business? No, I have not. But I run a household and that's what we're dealing with as individuals. So, at this point, it's important for me that we are taking care of our families and individuals in the state, putting that need over the needs of profits from our businesses. Because ultimately, those people will determine our future, the people and the children that we raise will determine what services we're paying for. If we continue the way we're going, we will continue to see suicides, opioid depression and addiction at a level that will increase and who pays for that for us and the businesses as well. It is not the cost of living in the state that makes it so business don't stay here. It's the fact that we have a drug problem. So, would I be correct in assuming that you believe every business could afford to do this for their employees? I think that we live in a capitalist society and that we need to, that is up to the free market system to determine whether those businesses exist or not and not up to us to subsidize them or make it easier for them to exist. But we are doing that. That's exactly what we're doing, yes. I'll list every other answer. Damien? Yep. So, for the record, Damien Leonard, Legislative Council. So, what this amendment does is it takes the current language in the Ways and Means Strike All Amendment of what passed out this committee. And what it does is it, wrong section of the bill. What it does is it strikes out the language that provides that, let's see, an employer shall have the option of paying some or all of the contributions due for employees' covered wages or may deduct in withhold the full amount of the contribution due from the employees' commitment and replaces it with the language that was voted out in the old version of this bill that passed this committee. So, this is almost identical to what passed this committee, just tweaked a little bit to fit the current structure of the bill. So, that's it. Representative Byron, good trial. So, the constructor currently is 0.552 the employee with the option for the paying to come from the employer. That's still about roughly half of what the original bill was at 0.97. 0.93. 0.93, sorry. So, fundamentally, it's almost the same required buy-in from the employee from what the bill was that we passed that order. So, the original one would have been yeah, about a tenth of a percentage point lower but the benefits have changed a little bit. The benefits have changed a little bit. Yeah, so, the wage displacement's dropped and the leave length has been changed. Yeah, I got on that one, but the cost is almost the same to the employee as what we passed that order. Yeah, the cost is a tenth of a percentage point higher assuming the employer doesn't cover any of it. Correct, assuming that they don't assist. John, I'm sorry, Chip, and then John. How will this impact the start-up 0.1% and graduating to, will it have any impact at all on that start-up six months? I mean, it's not gonna impact the amount of revenue that's generated by the start-up six months. All it will do is it will set a mandatory minimal split of 50-50, so then you'll basically, employees will be paying 0.05% and employers will be paying 0.05% during that start-up six months. Right, okay, so that does change, yeah. 0.275. 0.275. Minimum from employers after that and then maximum of 0.275 from employees after that. 50-50, right. That's right. Thank you. In the original version that we all passed that was 50-50 split, but I think it's quite fair. But I just want to make sure, are you gonna present this, but then you're gonna withdraw it? Or you were asked to withdraw it, and you're planning not to withdraw it? I've been asked to withdraw it several times. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I want to know how the committee would feel about it before I make any decisions with you. Well, I'm conflicted because I actually like this very much because it's moved through the process, it's changed into this. Now it's optional and you don't know what this is. But I do like to share it, but I guess if you're going to withdraw it, then I don't know. I mean, it's kind of like, so I'm confused. That's why I've been asked to withdraw it. Okay, give it a little bit more. Can I just ask the question that you just said it's optional, what's optional? I don't see anything that's optional. Who pays what share right now? Oh, right now it's optional. With this amendment, it would put it back to 15. It would be shared. I just didn't know what you were referring to was optional, in case I didn't really see much about the bill that was optional. Who pays the insurance for you? Okay, any further questions on this? Do we want to hear, do we want to vote on this now or do we want to hear representative Brown and some others? Let's vote on this now. I think this is the best way to do it. Mary, are you just about ready to go? Yes. All right, you both. Yeah, and thank you for bringing us back to our own language. Obviously, as representative Blackie mentioned, this did pass through here at a strong vote, but I do think that the notions that were presented as bills evolved in the other committees tend to be something that we were, that we would be following. I appreciate that, Representative Stevens, and the implementation is a high compliment, in my opinion, so let's get back with your own bill. Those of us in government operations are very excited. I'm sorry, I'm getting thrown, and she. Two of that.  I know, I know. That's why they call it a plundered operative. So, I would take a motion to view this amendment as unfavorable, which would mean a yes vote to make it unfavorable, and a no vote to find it favorable. Does that make, censor, is that too complicated? That's complicated. Why would you not just want the motion to be favorable? Well, there's a political semantic in there. Yes, which I do. But if you would like to make a motion to find it favorable? I'm not making any motion. We do have to have a motion in a second. We do have to vote on this bill, so I need a motion in a second, and what's your pleasure, and we'll sort it out after that. I know we find the amendment unfavorable, so that means a yes vote means you're not in favor of the amendment. Correct. Just be clear. Okay, Mary, are you clear on that? Yes. Okay, any further conversation on representatives? Is that your second? Representative Byron did it. Okay, our second. Okay, any further conversation on this amendment? Hearing none, clerk can commence to call it the roll. Representative Longs? Yes. Representative Longs? Yes. Representative Kamash? Yes. Representative Toriano? No. Howard? Representative Kalaki? No. Representative Sacht? What did you vote? Did you vote yes or no? Me? Yeah, I didn't hear what you said. Oh, I'm sorry, no. You said you voted no. Yes. Representative Byron? Yes. Representative Stevens? Yes. Representative Pango? Yes. So that's seven, four, unfavorable? Or no, seven, three, seven, three, one. One more. Thank you all very much for your time. I do appreciate it. And thanks for all your hard work. Thank you for coming in, Zach. I appreciate it. Of course. Thank you. I appreciate your comment on the other work that other committees have done. And I think that's part of the consideration that I have to really think about, just in this particular one. And particularly the hard work you're doing. So I think we really have to pay attention to the work other committees have done, especially when you're listening to the money committees. And so that really colored my view on this. I also think this, what we just did will make it more palatable to more people. So thank you. Because it will help small businesses. So let me be perfectly clear. Yes, vote was not to use that amendment. Right. Correct. Correct. Thanks. Under the category, yes, we have no bananas. Right. Yes, absolutely. Correct. OK, that's fine. Who's that? Have you voted? OK. So has anyone able to review representative Browning's amendment before now? 21 pages of it? Eight is long. He was once over. No, ours was once. He's some odd pages long. After yesterday, it's 16 pages long. Yeah, I think I saw that one small change. Yeah, I'm not really sure what is different. What's different is the number one is the size of benefit. It's limited to four weeks for anything and everything. I believe the split. I believe the benefit split is 90, 50s. That's the same thing. Employees, I'm not sure what the employer option is on it, but the employees are offed out. Employees are allowed to off out. And the effective dates are important to pay attention to, because the effective date is delayed until after a study comes back to that. And representative Browning can talk more about that, but there's a study in there that doesn't seem to be as timing as well as important to what that's like. Sure. Representative Browning, welcome. Representative Stevens, thank you. You have a message for us on H107, and it is up on the screen behind you. Thank you. What I like to do is characterize the amendment overall, and some of the key changes, rather than go through the amendment piece by piece, because you can do that. You can redo the amendment later. And I just want to give you the overview. OK, the key things about this amendment are that it changes the pay family and medical needs for the different qualifying situations to four weeks for all of them. So parental bonding, your own illness or injury, and caring for a family member are all four weeks. And another key thing is that it provides for an individual employee opt-out. So the situation is that everybody who's working 20 hours or more is automatically enrolled, unless you fill out a form that tells you about the program, but you opt-out. So it's not an opt-in voluntary. It's everybody's enrolled, and yes, unless you're explicitly opt-out. So those are the true key characteristics of it, and I'll talk more about the other changes. But they're motivated by my concern that the benefits program in the other one, the one in the second, is generous enough and it's new enough that I'm concerned about financial sustainability. I think we learn with other benefits systems, the pension systems, and other kinds of things like that, that once you put in place a benefit structure, it's very hard to ever reduce it because people really resist that and rightfully so. So I think it's really important to start a benefit at a small level, and then depending on how it goes, you can always increase it. But if you start at a higher level, you're never going to, I mean, you certainly could theoretically reduce it, but we don't do that very often. And understand, again, that's very understandable. So I'm very concerned. I think this is such an important area. We need to do this in the right way. We need to do this in a careful way. So I want to start small and then grow it. Now with the opt-out issue, I think that people should be in this program and I hope they will stay in this program. But I also feel that the underlying bill provides flexibilities for employers because they can decide whether they want to pay some of the premium or not, some of the contribution or not. It provides flexibility if you have an employee that gives you better benefits of this, you can stay with that, or if you have a union contract, your benefits are better, you can go to that. But it doesn't give an individual worker any flexibility. They have to be in this program and they have to pay that contribution. And I know that there are reminders who would prefer not to pay for this and they don't want the benefit. So, and in fact, we know that because you're making program mandatory because we know that some people were opt-out. So I want to give people, people who want to keep an extra $150 or $250 or $450 in their paycheck instead of this, either they don't think they're going to have those qualifying events or they have it covered in a different way, that they should have the rights opt-out. Again, you're required to enroll and you will be enrolled automatically unless you explicitly opt-out. But I want people to have that choice. So that's the overall structure of the changes I made. I'll talk about a couple of other changes, but I also need to say that this is a much shorter bill, much shorter amendment than the underlying bill because since I'm going with the opt-out structure, we have to evaluate what effect that might have on the rate of contribution because you have adverse selection that people who you land up with a pool that has more people who are going to use it than if you had the entire universe in the pool. So I worked with Joyce Manchester about trying to come up with a range of possible rates, but I was not able to order a run to analyze my version of the program the way Ways and Means did for other versions because I'm just me, I'm not Ways and Means. So this proposal is a preliminary proposal and what it asks is for the administration to evaluate this approach and answer some of these questions, do that modeling and then come back to the General Assembly when the report next January and then depending on how we evaluate it at that time we would make a commitment. So it's shorter because I don't have to have all the rulemaking and the other things that has to be set up when you're saying, we're doing this. So that's why it's so much shorter and all the questions about what about self-employed, what about the rules, that's all in the report, which is one of the last sections of the bill that I asked for. So that's why it's a shorter bill and that's a big difference in this. And I know that's a disappointment because I know people want to move forward but with something like this that is so important, it's really important that we do it right and that we do it cautiously and I think it's worth exploring this alternative approach. Just for some tentative numbers based on a sort of extrapolation or interpolation from the modeling done on the other version, the version that's in 107, JFO has estimated that this version because of the shorter number of weeks, I keep the same benefit levels, the same benefit levels as in the 90% up to a certain level and then 50% thereafter. That's the same but it's just four weeks because of that the cost including administration drops from about 80 million to 46 million. Now the rate of contribution might be as low as 0.3 or it might be as low as 0.5 depending on the adverse selection process. And we use factors provided by insurance companies to come up with those calculations. I think it would probably be about in the middle because I think about 70 or 70. Most of the surveys that we do say that 70% of people want this and will pay for it. So if that held true, you'd probably be about 0.4. So it costs more and you're getting less but you have the up to out and that's really and the whole thing costs less. So that's what I'm trying to get at here. I also have other things like that you have to take, you take it in one week chunks so that if you need to take a day here or a day there you have to go to chemo or you have to take care of your mother after surgery. You use your other kinds of leave for that. This is for things that are gonna be weeks long if it comes in a one week chunk. And I did that in order to reduce the amount of churn that the insurance company has in terms of taking the applications and paying. So that's really the outline of the amendment and it sets a shorter number of weeks. It provides for an opt out once a year. In December when you do all your benefits you have the opportunity to disenroll and ask for a report back before we proceed with this approach. Doesn't it, the version I saw I think in the calendar doesn't it also have a week where you week off? Yes, first you have to be, you have to essentially be not working for a week before you can apply for the leave. And that was again to try to deal with the question of churn and what is this really for? And the studies have shown that when people really need this leave, they take it whether they have paid for it or the unpaid leave because the need is so overwhelming. The question is when is that need? And my idea is that it has to be severe enough so that you're out of work a week and then you trigger the paid family leave. So does that week end up being part of a unpaid leave through FMLA or is that? It would depend on how the employer and the employee wanted to handle it. They could take unpaid leave from FMLA or they could be taking using up vacation days or paid sick days, personal leave days that they might have accumulated with their employer. So again, so this would be a two, but that would, is that just the first time you use it or is that for each time you use it? So does that have to mean that you do a two week leave essentially each time? I did not develop an answer to those kinds of detailed questions because again, I think there are things that would have to be studied and characterized in order to deal with this slightly different version of the program. My intent is not to reduce people's leaves opportunity, it's my intent is to reduce the administrative cost of the program, which would reduce the overall cost which would benefit everybody. So if it was a question of you had the one week leave the first time you ever took it and then you never had that again, that would be one way to go. I think that makes sense. Or another way would be every time you took it you have to have the week, but I did not clarify that because I can't answer that question. But I think that's one of the unanswered questions that would have to be in what, because I don't even know enough, I mean just from the brief amount of evaluation from insurance companies, I don't know enough about exactly what are the key parts of their administrative burdens. And I do know they talked about churn and dealing with some of lots and lots of applications. And so I was trying to say you have to take it in chunks and partly to reduce that burden and it may not be worth it. But that's what, that's what I, you know, that's what I'm talking about. In the bill as it now stands, not a tremendous, a maximum of 12 weeks. Yes. And with four weeks. Four weeks, four weeks. Of everything. Everything, yes. So for medical leave or for four weeks, four weeks total. Total from, so I could have a week for caring for my mother, a week for my self, two weeks for my new adopted child. And that would be what I have. And it's definitely less, but the key point is to start and prove that the program is viable and affordable and then you can expand it later. So I'm not denying that everybody would like to be more generous. I'm just concerned about using up $80 million of taxing capacity. I know calling this a contribution, but it walks like a tax, it walks like a tax and it's a payroll tax. You're using up $80 million of taxing capacity.    You are more than reversing the income tax rate reductions of last year for people who have income that's only wages. Because we went from 3.55 for the lowest bracket to 3.35, we're adding 5.55 to that. So we're going back up to 390. So you're essentially increasing payroll tax or income tax. You're not gonna be able to go back and increase those rates for other purposes. But you just used it here. So I would like to use less of the taxing capacity, start smaller, include the individual out, and then it can always evolve as we go forward. Just the second thing. Yeah. The study has to determine what it would be, but you would expect that it'll be more costly than the current bill as it currently stands for. It won't be more costly. The current bill is 0.55%. The range that JFO and I did, and this is very roughly just working what we have, was between 0.33 and 0.48. So all of those are less than this, but you have less leave. And I was just trying to say that based on the idea that about 70, 75% of people would stay in would not opt out, then it would be about 0.4, which is less. So you are paying less, but you are getting less, and I acknowledge that. Yeah, okay. Thanks. All right, Damian, do you need to walk through this, or is it? Representative Brown, a good job of summarizing the bill. I'm happy to answer specific questions, but a lot of what's in this bill is a repeat from the underlying bill, and she highlighted the key differences, which are the employee opt out, the shorter leave period, and then the delay on the effective date until after the results of the study come back, and then the study asks for a lot of looking at this and recommendations on additional legislation that might be necessary and rules and so forth. And it's done in such a way so that the results come back so there's a full session for the legislature to put those pieces in place or to push the program out if there's more leave time needed. Yes, but essentially it pushes the whole calendar out of the timeline out a year, or approximately a year. I'm just smiling because that's where, that was the timeline of our bill when it came out, and just the way the bills evolved is just. It's fascinating. Too fascinating. There's a lot of irony in these two conversations. We came around today. Representative Triano. So let me make sure I have this straight. Leave is taken one week at a time so if you're diagnosed with brain cancer and you are in the process of trying to get into chemotherapy and go on a regular basis to chemotherapy and feel terrible as a result of it that you've got to go back to work in a week after that happens. No, you don't. You can use. That's what I'm trying to ask. You can use if it's a question of I need treatment this day and I need two days to recover, which is less than a week, so that would be three days. You would use your acumen at least from other sources, or if you had already used ozala, you would use unpaid leave. Or you would stay out more than a week and then you would be eligible for this. So this is about something that is serious and is gonna take up a week, a week of your time, more than a week of your time. It's not for taking a day off here or there. I understand that. Because of the question of term. And that is something that, you know, can be studied and evaluated, but I was really trying to deal with the question that we saw in the insurance company documents about the concern about churn and about how that having, they actually recommended taking longer chunks of leave to reduce the administrative costs. Because you don't want the administrative costs eating up too much of the revenue because then it's not going to the benefits. So that was one reason I put it in there. But it would be subject to evaluation. So those are basically, you know, considering the week in the units. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I have a question specifically about that. It sounds to me as if you're assuming then instead of adopting this businesses, adopting this and replacing what they have, businesses would have two. Because you're saying they're gonna have other systems of allowing leave and then this. Well, we've already required businesses to have to offer was it five days of paid personal leave? So you have that already. People have vacation leave. Say they accumulate a number of different sources of leave. I'm not requiring business to offer this. This is up to individuals to have it in which case the businesses have to collect the demand and send it in or individuals can opt out. But this can be used sequentially because it's less than the 12 weeks that 12 weeks is where you have the job protection when you lose job protection after 12 weeks of unpaid leave and after 12 weeks of paid leave in 107. Since mine is only four weeks, if you work for a business that provided two weeks family leave, you can now add this sequentially on it so you'd end up with six weeks because you have two different sources. So I'm seeing this as something that could be used in addition to something that somebody already has. It's not a replacement in 107. If you have better benefits, then you can keep better benefits and you don't do this. You know, and that could happen with mine because but you always have to look at when you run out of job protection. But this is supposed to be very flexible for the workers and for the businesses in terms of, you know, they can keep offering what they're already offering. And then if some of their workers want this too, they get it. Okay, so it sounds, yeah, okay. So probably we're gonna be businesses that can do as well as we're gonna do. Absolutely. And then at this expense. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. But as I've drafted this, it's up to the employees to say I want this. I want more. The businesses are not like that in digital. I think that's one factor that you put in the report as to whether a business could sort of opt in and pay the premiums for all the workers and then everybody's in and they wouldn't have it on that. So there's some things that I just, it got complicated. I'm sorry, I just have to step out. I wanna thank you for coming in and talking about this. Chip will take over for you. No, no, thank you for coming in. Okay, thank you, Chip. Thank you. Lisa, I'm sorry. So could you expand a little bit more on what Representative Wallace was just asking about and clearly state what the obligation for an employer is under your proposed menu? Okay, I may phone a friend, but I will say that my understanding is that the obligation of the employer is when they're going over all the paperwork when you hire someone, whether you're doing your W-2 and your deductions or whatever, they would have a sheet of paper that would describe this program and they would be an opt out box. And if somebody opts out, the employer does not withhold and send in those premiums. If they stay in, then they withhold and send in those premiums. So the employer's obligation would be to do what their worker tells them in terms of collecting and remitting the premium to the tax department. And they have no other obligation or role that I can see. No financial obligation. No financial obligation. Yeah, that's correct. So the contributions, they keep the same language as passed out of House Ways and Means, which is the employer's option if they're gonna pay any portion of the contributions.  And then the employees get to the side if they would rather opt out and not pay the contributions and don't participate in the program. And it's kind of treated the same way as enrollment and other benefits programs are at work. So there's an annual enrollment or disenrollment period. And then there are, the language is put in there so it protects against people bouncing in and out of the program to take advantage of it. You have to, if you opt out, when you opt in, you have to start over again for meeting your eligibility requirements and so forth. So, but it's set up that businesses just like the underlying amendment from Ways and Means, businesses don't have an obligation to pay any contributions. They do have the obligation to handle the withholding, but the bank and elect pay abortion or all of it, but it's really up to them. The employees here, given the additional option of saying, I also don't want to pay the contributions because I'd rather not participate in this program. That's what this bill does. That's different from the House Ways and Means approach or that's probably the biggest difference. I mean, there's the change in the benefit lane and then things are pushed out to study the issue more but that's kind of the key piece there is the employee choice as well. I'm sorry because I was not here for the initial bill and I'm still trying to understand that if the Ways and Means amendment doesn't pass, how does this, how does your amendment that you're offering reflect back to the original bill? Okay, my amendment is a strike all amendment. So if one or the other successive amendments, whether it's Ways and Means or Approves or whatever, did not pass, my amendment is a strike all, so it just sets up what I say. But I'm not quite sure in terms of how things are handled on the floor. Sometimes I think you introduce all the amendments and then you start voting on them so that's about my pay grade. But this is a standalone. You don't have to worry about with this piece of house general stay in there or this piece of the appropriations report stay in there if you are concerned about one of those or is it her amendment not going to work anymore if something happens with the reports it'll stand alone on its by itself. Okay, thank you. Rosette, go ahead. No, no, that's good that you have. Rosette, hand go, you all set? Yes, thank you. Sorry. So I just want to reaffirm. So the way the bill stands now, the employer has the ability to completely opt out. In the existing bill? In the existing bill. They don't have to pay anything. No, no, right. And then the employee would have the responsibility to pay the full amount of whatever it would be. With your amendment, if the employer were to opt out and say, no, I don't want to pay anything except to the employee, your bill says, your amendment says, if the employee wants to participate, otherwise the employee can opt out. Yes, and the default is that you're in. Okay, but you are going to be enrolled unless you fill out a form and say, no, I'm not going to be enrolled and it gets sent to the tax department. And then the withholding doesn't happen. So the default is that you're enrolled. So it's not the default, you're not enrolled and you have to take action. The default is you're enrolled. But the key thing is I'm concerned about workers who do not feel they need this and they're going to be paying 150, 350, $500 out of their paychecks for something that they don't want. And that's what I'm trying to provide flexibility with for both the workers and the business sector. Okay, any other questions? Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for coming in, sharing this with us. Sure. Anything further from you, Damien? Thank you. You're very welcome. Damien? I think the only thing that I forgot to mention was just that the employees here, you have to be considered an employee. You have to be working 20 hours a week. So that's another big change from the underlying. So it's an individual who's performing, working 20 hours a week or more for an employer. So folks who are in order to be considered an employee for this and then to be an enrolled employee, you have to have chosen not to opt out. So once you're in that halftime or more position, you have the option of opting out. If you choose not to opt out, then it's just the question of needing her definition of what I call a qualified employee. And that's someone who's earned wages on contributions in those 12 months over the last two years or earned wages that are subject to contributions. So basically, you've been enrolled in the program and you've earned wages for 12 months where you've been enrolled and you've been paying contributions and then you can use your leave. But in order to get to that point of being able to enroll, you have to work 20 hours? Yeah, you have to be employed for 20 hours a week. So it's not, you don't have to work 20 hours first. You have to be actually working 20 hours a week or more. So, yeah. For what period of time? It's just as working for an average of 20 hours a week. So I haven't specified the time. Again, this is part of the reason why the study is put in this bill is because this is a big concept change. We have a very short period of time to think about it and so that's why her model is to take the kind of the big sort of framing for the concept. And then we're going to fill in and paint the drywall for the insulation of the wiring to use the house analogy. That study, what the design of the study is to get the administration. So the commissioner of financial regulation working with commissioners, labor and tax, private insurance carriers and third party administrators is going to report, do a report that analyzes and assesses the feasibility of creating this program and then looks at specific issues around adequate contribution rates, establishment of a public-private partnership and what that would look like. So, and whether that, what degree that public-private partnership might shift administration to a third party, to a private insurance carrier, to a third party administrator, to how to ensure adequate appeals within this framework where you're dealing with private insurance carrier, but it's a state program, how to make the program enrollment as efficient as possible, et cetera. So they're really looking to allow time for the administration to work with the private insurance carriers and third party administrators to do some deep program design and then come back next January 15th with the additional pieces that need to be put into law and the rules that they will need to adopt and report to the legislature to say, okay, you've thought this through and then there's a year still before the effective day to allow those changes to happen with the legislation. So that's, I think, kind of the key piece. So if there are some little pieces here that are missing, that's intentional because there are questions that because this is coming in as an amendment, right? Because it's a framework. It's a framework, not the final product. The redundant walls. So it's a 20 weeks. Okay, so that hit me thinking, what about the piece about the four quarters and dividing by 26, has that gone from the amendment too? So I left a lot of the other definitions in there for purposes of this. So when you're determining an average weekly wage, you still look at the two highest and turning quarters out of the last four. Okay. When you're looking at definition of an employer has stayed the same, the definition of family member has stayed the same. So a lot of the things have stayed the same, but it's these key pieces that are changing a little bit. So employees have changed and we have this opt-out piece. So we've added a definition of what's an enrolled employee. It's someone who's chosen not to opt-out. And so those are kind of the big changes. And then a lot of the nitty gritty details that are in the current bill have been pulled out. So the appeals section is pulled out because we're asking them to study that and come back with a structure that they think is going to be workable and efficient with this framework. The penalty and enforcement piece is pulled out because we're asking them to come back with a structure on this. So we've kept the tax collection piece. We've kept the benefits piece kind of some of the really big pieces, but then some of the more getting down to the nitty gritty details of how is this functioning on a day-to-day basis have been pulled out so that they can be studied and designed through that process. We've got a panel. Is the portion still in there where if an insurance company isn't found that can administer this or in four years the state decides they want to take this over then? So is that still in there? The study about the state taking it over is pulled out. And the RFP process has been pulled out for now again because she wanted to have the study in place before we dictate what the timeline and the requirements for the RFP are through legislation. So that's again one of those pieces where she felt it was important to get the feedback from the study which is looking at to what extent do we want to use a third party insurance carrier or third party administrators so that you know what to do the RFP for because conceivably you could do an RFP for a third party to step in place of the state for everything. Or you could say we want to have an insurance carrier that administers benefits and the funds and then we want to have a third party administrator that administers another aspect of the program because we want to separate those out. And there are examples of other states having done that with no state has done this with Family Leave but the example in my world that I would think of is Maine when they privatized their liquor control they separated marketing from the actual management of distribution and so forth although ultimately the two branches of the same company submitted the winning bids for those things but they set it up so that conceivably they could have a separate marketing company come in with the expertise there and then a logistics focused company come in to do the distribution and the warehousing and so forth and they felt that those were different and not that they wanted to focus that expertise so that's something this leaves flexibility for. Your representative Clark. Well I'm totally opposed to this and I think it's been a process well we've had all less cases this room about looking at the issues around this and I think our committee went through a kind of deep dive into this and as we move forward to the other committees this changes the structure and then says that everything else will be figured out and I saw it's half-baked so I propose that we vote unfavorable for this and move on. Yes we are going to vote this out and if you would like to make that in the form of a motion as I represent Clarky okay do we have a second? Second. Is there any further discussion? Representative Walz? Yes I'm also going to, well I don't know how you phrase that to find it unfavorable. So it's like the last vote, yes yes. I want to make sure which way I'm talking. Everyone clear on that? I'm not saying yes. I'm saying correct or incorrect. Right. So I want to share why, well, lots of things about this I don't like, I don't like the idea that you have to take leave of one of the chunks that does not reflect the realities of being ill, that just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't like the idea that you have to take a week and find another way to pay for it before the benefits, even apply for the benefits. And the four weeks for bonding, no, not even close to being long enough. Does it get you into daycare territory? No, no, so I don't really, I think there's some major failings here and then to basically, the other major thing I don't like, representing Calacly already addressed, sorry, Calacly already addressed is, it's just not enough meat on the bones here to use another analogy. We're going to do this and then we're going to study it. Well, no. Half day? Yeah. Not even in the oven, as far as I'm concerned, so I'm totally opposed to this. Any further discussion? Hearing none, will the clerk call the roll? Representative Wallace. Okay, double checking. Yes, okay, let's do that. Yes, means I'm not in favor of the amendment. In fact, you're finding it unfavorable. Yes, yes, yes, okay. Make sure I don't. Representative Law, yes. Representative Kamash. No. Representative Toriano. Yes. Representative Howard votes yes. Representative Calackey. Yes. Representative Saad. Yes. Representative Hiram. Yes. Representative Stevens will. And so Representative Stevens has asked to... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He's made time. I've got to get all those notes out. Okay, Representative Stevens will be back to vote. Representative Hangel. No. The vote is still open. The vote is still open. And the vote remains open. Yes, thank you. Okay, so. Okay. Do you have anything else from Mr. Chair? I don't believe so. All right. Thank you, Damien. Thank you for your time. Yeah, thank you very much for your help.