Good morning, everyone. We'll get started. As you join, if you could mute yourselves, we have right now we're at 105 attendees and I expect that will continue to grow. If you could mute yourselves as you come in. We have several presenters today. You'll just want to make sure that you unmute. To the extent of any problems, I'll try to help. We have on experts on the line to help us. So thank you. Okay, I want to just we have a quorum before we get started. And for those attending this meeting is being recorded. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron. Yeah. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Brian. Here. Good morning. Good morning. Commissioner Zuniga. Here. Good morning, everybody. And then commissioner Stivers. Here. Good morning, everybody. There you are. Good morning. Thank you. Given the unprecedented circumstances resulting from the global current coronavirus pandemic, I would like to say thank you to all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to protect the health and safety of those who are interested in attending our public meeting. Keeping with the guidance provided this meeting. Back to utilizing remote collaborative technology. If there's any technical problem, I just want to let folks know that we will give guidance on our website. Mask gaming. Thank you. And I'm going to call to order this meeting. First. 2020. It is 1005. And I welcome all of you and thank you for joining us. We'll get started. We have a full agenda today. We of course will just keep in mind. Those that we have lost in Massachusetts, we are now over 6,000 due to this coronavirus. So we are thinking of all of their families and all of those who have. They have lost their families. They have lost their families. They have lost their families. They have worked hard to have provided care. Thank you. Item number two. Sure. Good morning, Madam chair, my colleagues. In your packet, you have the minutes of the April 29th. 2020 commission meeting. I would move the approval of those minutes subject as always to any typographical errors or any other non material matters. I don't know, I guess. You have a second commissioner Cameron. I did. I just unmuted myself. Second. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Thank you. And of course, thank you to Sharon. I'll do a roll call vote. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Ziniga. Aye. And commissioner Stevens. Aye. And I vote I thank you. Madam Chair, we also have in the packet the meeting minutes from the May 1st 2020 meeting. I would move their approval subject to any corrections for typographical errors or any other non-material matters. I'll hear a second. Second. Any questions or comments on those minutes? Hearing none, Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Zunica. Aye. And Commissioner Stevens. Aye. I vote yes. Thank you, 5-0. Finally Madam Chair, we have the meeting minutes from the May 7th 2020 Commission meeting. I would move their approval subject again to any changes for typographical errors or any other non-material matters. I have one non material edit and it is at the bottom of page 9. Commissioner Update, the International Gaming Association. We talked about the the two associations. Could we just add joint conference so we know that we're talking about a conference, not the organizations themselves. I will do. Sure. Thank you. On that note, I second. Thank you. Any further edits or comments? Always comprehensive. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Zunica. Aye. And Commissioner Stevens. Aye. I vote yes. Thank you, 5-0. Sure. Thank you. Moving on to item number three. Good morning Karen or Interim Executive Director Wells. Good morning Madam Chair and members of the Commission. For our administrative update today, I just want to give you a preliminary update on not only our office reopening but also casino reopening plans. We recognize that the governor just this week gave substantial guidance on office reopenings in Boston and across the Commonwealth. And notable in that guidance is that, quote, workers must continue to telework if feasible. So we've taken that to heart given the success of our teleworking operations at the MGC. There's really no immediate need for our staff to return to our offices at the present time. We also want to be mindful of conserving resources such as cleaning supplies, masks and gloves for other state agencies that will have a more immediate need to open and return to their offices. Additionally, we recognize that employees may have concerns over such things as utilizing public transportation and we want to minimize anxiety if pushing the return is not necessary as it is with us. So once the casino is open, we will need to have a presence on property. So our team is working on internal procedures consistent with the governor's directives for the safety of our gaming agents, game sense advisors, racing employees and others who are expected to be on site once the casino is open. Full office operations, that won't need to be addressed until after the casino openings and we're expecting an incremental approach to that process. So that's where we are on the office reopenings. Does anyone have any questions on that? I know Commissioner Cameron, Commissioner Stebbins are working closely with us on meeting that internal working routine on those office reopenings. So if you have any questions, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll go move on to the casino reopenings. I just have a follow up. So with respect to the guidelines that you're going to be issuing that will inform everyone on the reopening, those will be issued and will Commissioner Cameron, Commissioner Stebbins and you can bring them forth to the commission. Is that the ultimate plan? Exactly. So that the public will be aware of what we're doing, what our capabilities are and that the whole office will be aware. We'll have internal meetings, probably internal town hall to talk to the staff about that. But my expectation is we will discuss the whole process for office reopenings and what we will and will not do in that incremental approach that provides safety for the employees at the MG State. Commissioner Cameron, Commissioner Stebbins, did you want to add at this point? I agree that I know we have another meeting, I believe it's Monday to continue to refine and be educated about about the governor's instructions and our planning process. And I do think the town hall has been an effective way to notify staff about exactly what is going on. And that information is critical because it does it does tamp down anxiety, the more good information people have. Commissioner Stebbins, I see you nodding your head. Do you want to add in? Yeah, no, just to just to thank interim executive director Wells and the team she pulled together to work with Commissioner Cameron and I on this great sources of information coming from the governor's office and the state HRD department, which I know our CFAO Lennon has been closely in contact with. So it's it's been great information, information that I'm sure a lot of employers are going to have to follow across Massachusetts. So I appreciate the good team that has been working on this to get everybody back safely. Excellent. Thank you. As for the casino, oh, pardon me, and Commissioner Zaniga. Yeah, I was just going to echo that that that comment and I mentioned that it's very preliminary, but we might expect some incremental costs to come from reopening. The building manager has proposed a number of things that they would have to do. Again, this is very much in a state of being ironed out. And you know, we'll have to come back with those updates as necessary. Correct. Absolutely. And I know that Joe is working with the building. Correct. Thank you. Yeah, Joe's been fantastic on that. Joe, did you want to add in? I saw you leaning in. How's that? Okay, he's got mute. Okay, so as far as the casino reopenings, obviously, we got tremendous guidance from the governor's office on what the plan is across the Commonwealth earlier in the week. And we will be following the governor's guidance on that phased approach to reopening of businesses. So right now, we are in that phase three through the governor's plan and we'll continue to monitor what that guidance is. And then at the same time, we will be continuing to evaluate the casino's COVID plans, which you discussed at one of the last public meetings. And we will be providing guidance and direction to the licensees based upon those governor's mandates, the other state and federal requirements, expert public health guidance, and also lessons learned from other jurisdictions that will open before Massachusetts. I think that's going to be very interesting for our team to look at what positives and negatives come out of other casino reopenings. So that whole approach will be going on over the next several weeks while we wait for that phase three to be implemented across the Commonwealth. So that's generally where we are there. We're continuing to work internally, but you have any questions from the commissioners that have to be addressed. But that generally is the plan for both the internal and external opening processes, our offices and the casino. Any questions for Karen on that? Okay, I'll set. All right. Thank you. Anything further? No. Okay. I'll set then. I move on to item number three, four, excuse me. And this is with respect to our legal and licensing divisions. Again, Interim Executive Director Wells, Mr. Grossman, our Interim General Counsel, Loretta Lillio's Chief Enforcement Counsel and Deputy Director of IEB, and then Joe Delaney, our Construction Project Oversight Manager and Bill Curtis, our Licensing Manager. I think that we'll hear from all of you with respect to Plain Ridge Park Casino Licensing Renewal status update. So thank you. That's correct, Madam Chair. So I'm going to turn it over initially to Loretta Lillio's and Joe Delaney to start off the briefing for you and where we are with the Plain Ridge Park Casino Renewal. It's amazing to believe that it's the five years is coming up since they opened. So I'll turn it over to them. The staff has been working very hard and very efficiently. And it's another example of how the remote teleworking has actually been chugging right along and been very effective because this whole process continues to move along despite the office closure. So my compliments to the staff on moving along with that. And with that, I'll turn it over to Ms. Lillio's and Mr. Delaney just to give you a brief update. Thank you, Karen. And good morning, Madam Chair and Commissioners. So Joe and I are here to report to you on the status of the renewal process for the Category 2 license. As you know, the initial license commenced on June 24th of 2015, the date that the Commission issued the Operation Certificate. And under Section 20F of the gaming law, the term of the license is five years leading to the expiration date of June 24th of this year. On February 28th of this year, we sent a letter to PPC, notifying them in writing of the procedures for renewal that the Commission voted to adopt at its meeting on February 13th. And the February 28th letter itemized the materials that PPC would need to submit to comprise its renewal application. This itemized list covered about two pages of the seven page letter. And obviously from the timing of the letter at the end of February, it was only about two weeks later that the property closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And despite the fact that these unprecedented circumstances have created some challenges to PPC and gathering some of the application materials, nonetheless, PPC is well underway in this process. We've been in frequent communication with them about their submissions. They've provided a schedule for submissions of the material that is still outstanding and they've informed us they expect an intent to provide all the materials in advance of the June 24th date. And this would be important because under Chapter 30A, Section 13, the statute governing the commonwealth's administrative procedures. If a licensee has made timely and sufficient application for a renewal, the license shall not expire until the application has been finally determined by the agents. So Joe and I would like to update you now on the status of the required items. The first batch of materials are related to the suitability of the licensee and the associated qualifiers. We worked with Penn National Gaming and with GLPI to coordinate the submissions from the corporate qualifiers. And I can report that all of the suitability related application materials for both the individual and entity qualifiers have been submitted. I do want to acknowledge the degree of responsiveness and priority and the attention that the company has given to completing. This has been extremely high. I wanted to bring that to your attention. Even while dealing with the unfolding challenges, they have been extremely responsive. The investigators have conducted all the required interviews with the qualifiers. And the qualifiers have also completed all of the supplemental submissions that are investigators asked for. In fact, with respect to the individual qualifiers, the IEP has completed the suitability review under the procedures that you directed. With respect to the suitability review of the entity qualifiers, the reports are in their draft form. And those drafts are coming under review at this time. So the bottom line with respect to the suitability aspect of the renewal application is that PPC has satisfied all of the submission requirements.  My intention even pre COVID-19 was to complete that in advance of the June 24 date. I have I don't want to totally commit, but I have not abandoned that expectation at this time. So that's the summary of the suitability status. I can turn to Joe to give you the details on the other application. And just before we turn to Joe, do we have questions for Loretta right now before we turn to Joe? Okay, great. Thank you. Good morning, Joe. Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners. So just expanding on what Loretta said, you know, we did receive a large tranche of information from PPC on April 15 of 2020, which addressed many of the items that were required in the February 28 letter. After we took a look at all of that information, we did realize that there were some gaps in that information. So we reached out to the folks at PPC. And we've been dealing mostly with Lisa McKenney on this. And, you know, I think the real issue that PPC is having in pulling all of this information together is a couple of issues. One is that some of the responsible parties for this information have been furloughed so they are physically not there to do the work. And then the second part of this is that even if there are some people that are working there, some of them are just trying to keep things running. And just as an example, with the remaining HR staff, which is very minimal, they've been dealing with issues primarily around things like unemployment insurance, and trying to keep the employees, you know, a money stream coming in for those folks. Now, of course, those same people are responsible for the affirmative action programs, the affirmative marketing programs, the tourism programs, and some of those other things that we require.  Of course, with that said, you know, a lot of this work that we're still waiting for a lot of these things that we're waiting for, a lot of that work was done back when we did the so called midterm review, you know, which I think we did actually really about a year ago, a year and a half ago. Now, of course, all of that information that we had at that review still needs to be updated and so on. But we have that so we know, you know, we know that these things are in process. And then I think the other thing that you need to remember is that, you know, most of the information that we're requesting are really summaries of work that was done over the five year term of the license and the current status of compliance. And I don't want to suggest at all that, you know, PPC is not performing these activities on site, or, you know, certainly were when the facility was operational, or that the MGC staff is not monitoring or overseeing these activities. And again, just as an example, let's take internal controls. We know that PPC has a full set of internal controls because we reviewed them, and we continue to review them when they modify them. And the gaming agents ensure that they're being followed. So, you know, these activities are ongoing. What we're asking for them are these summaries of the activities that took place over that five year term of license. So I just want to put that in context a little bit. So how do we move forward on this? Loretta and I met on Monday with Lisa and went over every single thing item by item of what is left to get to us. And she pulled together a schedule on getting us this information. And essentially, what they've done is said that they'll get things to us in two big batches of information. One are about June 1st, and then the second on June 15. And that would complete all of the things that we have asked for in the application. Now, of course, the Commission has meetings on June 4th and June 18th. So when we get these in this information, we should be able to keep the Commission regularly updated as that comes in. We could come back on the fourth and give you an update and then come back on the 18th again, and give you another update. Now, of course, assuming that we get everything that we need by June 15, there'll really be precious little time between then and the 24th to complete all of the other things that we need to do with the whole public hearing, to review all of the submitted information. And there's an assumption there there'll be follow-up questions with the licensees. We have to draft a new license with new permit conditions and so on. So there's still a lot of work to be done, even after we have all of the information that we're looking for. Now, and also this could, and I'm going to stress the word could, coincide with activities leading up to the reopening of the casinos, which will complicate matters even more than it already is. So now as Todd has explained to me, and I think Loretta alluded to this at the beginning, once, and I'm going to make sure I get the words right, the appropriate words, once the Commission determines that an application is timely and sufficient, the onus is then on the Commission to complete the work of relicency, to do those things we talked about the public hearings and so on. Now, if that work isn't completed by the 24th of June, the license would then simply continue on until such time as the Commission acted on the license. I think it's somewhat analogous. If you have a professional license, in my case, I have a professional engineer's license. If I submitted all my paperwork to the state and they did not act upon that, that doesn't mean that my license expires. It means it just continues on until they do act on that. So I guess all of that, you know, if we could probably, if we get everything that we need to get, on the June 18th meeting, the Commission could then determine that the application is sufficient, and then we can develop a reasonable schedule for completing all of those other activities, depending upon what our situation is on June 18th, which we, you know, as we found out over the last few months, we never know what's coming up in a couple of weeks ahead. So I think that's about where we are and there's one other item I'm going to bring up, and then I'll kick it back to Loretta to talk about this a little bit more. One of the things that we did require in our application is the payment of the renewal fee. PPC has not paid that yet, and I think Loretta's had some conversations with them about that, and I think they're going to look maybe for some temporary relief on that, so that the payment doesn't have to be done up front, but it will need to be done, you know, before the license issue. So Loretta, let me turn that back to you and you can talk about that, and then I think we can open it up for questions. Sure, sure. Thank you, Joe. So our February 28th letter states that proof of payment of the fee is one of the application requirements. This is not a statutory or regulatory requirement, it was something that you decided to have us put in that letter as a prerequisite. PPC has indicated that they may request in the circumstances that instead of making proof of payment every prerequisite to the completed application, that the payment be required at a later date, perhaps in your conjunction with your actual consideration of the application. They have, in our discussions, they have not put in that formal request yet, but I expect that they will. You would, again, you would have discretion with respect to the timing of the payment, and I would suggest at this point that PPC submits such a request and that you could consider it at your June 4th, at your June 4th meeting. Loretta, can you remind me where that fee lands in which fund, or if Derek's on line if he could chime in? It goes into the Gaming Revenue Fund. That's my, yes, that's my understanding as well. Thank you. I apologize, Chair, I'm in another call. What was the question? I think we've got an answer from Commissioner Zumica. Oh, okay. Thank you. No problem. Any questions for Loretta and Joe? I just... Commissioner Cameron, please. Okay. I just, it sounds like both Joe and Loretta, you are confident that all the information you need for that application to be sufficient will be in the commission's hands by, it sounds like the 15th. Listen, they've made it a very high priority. It is, you know, clear to us that they have every intention of having a complete packet as soon as possible. So I have no reason to call that into questions. Great. Thank you. I think one of the key considerations also is that they want to get this stuff to us so that this does not conflict with the reopening of the facility. They're saying they don't want people running around trying to get affidavits signed when they're trying to reopen a property. So they're saying let's get this behind us and then we can focus on it. Yeah, thank you. I was, I was just going to make a comment about things like that. To the extent that we can insert some flexibility and I know we're not, we're not inflexible relative to information that we have maybe seen versions of in the past. We mentioned, for example, the affirmative action program and we have reasonable assurances that maybe nothing much has changed since we last saw it and we can get either an affidavit or a certification or a statement to the, you know, to the effect that there has been nothing substantial that we can at least deem it, you know, complete for the time being and revise or review any information after that. You know, if there's information, of course, that we have never seen, that maybe go without saying that that attains a higher priority, but I think we have had quite a bit of information from that mid-year review and other things along the lines, certainly throughout the five years in terms of compliance and whatnot, to be reasonably confident that they can attain these these deadlines. I think that we gave some good guidance when we decided about the renewal process that allows us to rely appropriately on those past practices. Is that correct, Loretta? The directives that that we gave earlier to guide this process for you? I think that's accurate and just in the nature of the items that are required in the application, many of them align with that mid-term review, so in that regard, you're correct. Right, and but the main thing we want to do is give very clear assurances to the company that as of June 24th, they have made a license application, renewal application, that is timely and sufficient. There can't be any ambiguity for them on that. Oh, correct, correct. That's very critical for their purposes. So to the extent Joe or Loretta, there's anything in your gut that you think you know really would be concerning about that sufficient piece. I know that you'll be on top of it. Absolutely. Yes. Excellent. Any further questions for Loretta and Joe? Excellent. Thank you for that update. Thank you. Karen, is there anything else on that that we need to add Todd? No, I don't think so. We have Bill and Todd on the on the call in case you had any questions on that, but the team does seem to be working very collaboratively with the licensee to make sure that this is done properly. Bill, do we have any concerns about renewals of liquor licenses? Do we have to worry about anything on that front in order for them to be? No, Chair, we don't. We have the liquor license will run out June of 2021, so they're still in compliance with that. Excellent. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We can move on to item number five and Joe Delaney, you're back on and I know that Mary is there somewhere too. There she is. Thank you so much, Mary Thurmo and Joe Delaney. Thank you on our community mitigation fund summary update. Thanks. Thank you, Chair and commissioners. Again, I'm here with Mary Thurlo and you know just before I get started on the update, I just wanted to thank the whole review team that we have here. Everybody has really gone over and above on you know doing this work remotely and trying to get all of this done. They've taken a lot of the responsibility for doing reviews and other things, so it's really been it's been a great process so far. You can name their names if you want Joe. Do you have everybody's yeah everyone's names in front of you? Yeah, I do as a matter of fact. So yeah, on our on our review team of course there's myself and Mary but we also have commissioners Stebbins and commissioners Zuniga. We've got Kerry Turisi, Kate Hartigan, Jill Griffin, Crystal Howard, Teresa Fiori and Tanya Perez. So everybody I said everybody's doing a really great job so I really do appreciate it. You have excellent extra hands there. Absolutely, absolutely. So just there's a lot of information in your packet and obviously I'm not going to go through all of this because it would be it would take far too long to do so but I just wanted to give you a high level view of sort of where we are today and some of the challenges that we have in the next several weeks. So we got our applications in on February 1st of 2020 on or before that. We got 37 applications that totaled about 13.4 million dollars. Now if you remember from our guidelines we had targeted a total of 11.5 million dollars for grants. We have 6 million dollars for Region A, 5 million dollars for Region B and we put aside 500,000 dollars for the Category 2 licensee and so right off the bat you'll see that we have more applications than we have available funds and also if you recall we we did agree that the money that was generated in Region A would stay within Region A and the money generated in Region B would stay within Region B for a period of three years. So we're constrained a little bit with that now in your packet in the memo you'll see that in Region A we had applications of over 9 million dollars means that Region A is over subscribed by more than 50 percent. Region B is a little under 4 million dollars so from just a pure money standpoint we're okay there and between Category 2 and the Tribal Reserve we have 282,000 dollars which is well within that 500,000 dollars that we set aside for that. So now that obviously gives us a challenge on Region A to get you know to review these projects to get everything to fit. Now that also doesn't mean in Region B just because there's enough money available that all of those grants will be awarded. We still have to do our reviews and make sure that they're eligible and they they have an access to the casino and so on and so forth. So all of that process is still underway. Now the other piece of this is we have sort of a second constraint here where we set targets for certain categories of grants so some categories don't have any targets. The specific impact grant doesn't have a target and the non-transportation planning grant doesn't have a target but for instance our transportation planning grant has a target of a million dollars and we've received applications of over two million dollars. The Transportation Construction Grant which is the new program for this year we targeted three million dollars and we have applications of 5.7 million. So you know the long and short of it is is that in doing these reviews we're going to have to make some difficult recommendations to the commission and the commission is going to have to make some difficult choices on on what grants to fund. So as of right now we have gotten our all of the applications in. We've done our initial reviews of those applications. Right now we're in the midst of our our meetings with the applicant so we meet with each applicant and ask them questions that have been raised on the review of the applications. So those meetings actually finish up tomorrow. We've met with MassDOT and we've got a letter of comments from them on the pertinent applications and we are still awaiting letters from our licensees on the applications. Those are due back to us on Friday. So once we get all of that done we get our our meetings done our letters done so next week we start our serious evaluations of all this. So we meet a couple times a week and we're going to go through these one by one and do they meet the eligibility requirements you know which are the strongest applications within the categories. So you know this will be a bit of a challenge I think for the review team. You know in years past we have we've not run into this issue with with money. We've always had enough money available to fund the applications the eligible applications that came into us. Again that's not to say we didn't eliminate some applications because we did you know do the eligibility concerns. So anyway we have our work cut out for us and what right now we have two meetings two commission meetings scheduled one on June 18th and one on June 25th to consider these applications. We're hoping that those two meetings will be enough to get through all of this. I think if you know certainly if it's not enough to get through that we can extend this out into July if we absolutely need to. But obviously our target is to try to get this done by the end of the fiscal year which is keeps in accordance with our schedule and it'd be nice to have it done at the end of June like we said we were going to even given the circumstances were and with that I guess I'll open it up to any questions. Questions. This is more a comment that has been made that we've made aware and Joe has been very good about explaining to the people that we are dealing with that I think is relevant to talk about now at a high level and that is that even with the targets even if we met the targets that that Joe described because of the casino's closure the next year's targets are it's probably safe to say that there would be less because there's been no money coming into the community mitigation fund you know since May the middle of May when they cease to operate and we just really don't know if and when they open whether the level of activity would be similar to what we were seeing before. Can I ask this question? So if Region B is the applications right now come in about a million dollars under the five million dollars that had been targeted for Region B does that million carry over to next year? Effectively yes. You know the way we've set it up yes. And when is the end of the in the three-year period would be it would stay with Region B correct Joe? Yeah that's correct so what what so the first year where the casinos were generating money we had some money that was in the fund from the license fees and so on but the actual money that's being generated by the casino is kept in it in its own region for a period of three years so we had the money that was generated in calendar year like for the Western region 2018 money and we had a higher year of 2019 money and then we have now what's coming in and what came in in early 2020 and then what will come in the rest of the year so we're going to have a we're going to have a hard time estimating. It's going to be hard to estimate yeah yeah the what we can do is we do those estimates and we'll say all right if they under expect it let's say for the sake of argument we have four million we gave off four million in grants and we had five million available just to make the numbers easy yeah million dollars would roll over so chances are you know the Western region would have a little bit better financial situation than the Eastern region by rolling over those funds and when do we have to generate our rules for the next year is it October? yeah we start generally in September and we usually finish up our guidelines right about by the end of November so that we can get our get things out to our applicants by December 1st and that gives them two full months to get their applications together so we're going to be well hopefully by you know that time period we'll have some idea of you know the casinos will be back open it will be generated it will have an idea of how much money they're generating whether it's 25% or 50% or whatever it is of the the number that was being generated before you know I guess we have no way of knowing that yeah thank you other questions for Joe and Mary? Madam Chair just a just a couple of points and I want to thank Joe and Mary they've kind of you know picked up the ball and kept running with this process seamlessly it was interesting to note that nothing and Joe will correct me if I'm wrong nothing came in this year that was deemed an emergency impact something that required the commission's review and an assessment immediately so I think that speaks to you know how we have how our licensees how our hosts and surrounding communities have all tried to adjust to what the expected impacts of the casino were going to be I like the fact Joe has led off every conversation with getting feedback from the applicants as to what impact the COVID-19 crisis might have on their application especially if there is a municipal match or a municipal contribution of the project so I think that's been helpful um the the one place that we've encouraged our two workforce training applicants were would they have any interest in reassessing their proposal understanding that what they filed by February 1st may be completely different than what the workforce needs would be coming out of coming out of this pandemic crisis so all of our you know our two workforce applicants are certainly thinking about that and responding to that also in one other final point kind of looking forward is especially if this becomes a lean revenue year and it will be thinking ahead to the guidelines and policies for next year should we address pulling back reserves that have not been used that were allocated over several years or what we might do with awards that were made in the past that have not gotten to for any number of reasons not gotten to the starting point so I think those are questions that you know the commission you know come this fall might want to think about but just again kudos to Joe and Mary and the rest of the review team for the great work everybody's been doing and you too thank you any other um questions for this team Mr. O'Brien are you all set no I don't have any questions thanks okay excellent can you camera else that I don't have questions but I would like to thank the team I realize by all of the submissions we receive how much work goes into this process and how thoughtful they are about equity and what really um you know making sure that these applications meet the criteria and sending letters back to give them additional information so I do thank the entire team for the work that goes into this yeah let me just second that and uh you know it uh as has been articulated here there's a lot of these grants that are very worthwhile even in the face of a changing circumstances I like to mention Stephanie's was saying because of this pandemic the challenge will continue to be how to manage the program overall and try to try to plan for the future as well any further questions comments any follow-up Joe are you all set I think we're all set thank you okay excellent thank you everyone and Mary are you all set I can read your lips because thumbs up thank you so much we're going to move on now to item number six on our agenda today um we are going to hear from our independent monitor that the gaming commission selected at the conclusion of our hearing on the wind matter last our hearing and decision last spring um the uh I want to thank monitor Alejandra Montenegro Elamonte deputy monitor president Pugh and um Ann Salton who joins them today and the entire team at Miller and Chevelier who probably is also on this call you know you you were selected based on many um based on established criteria and it was a competitive process and uh so much had to do with the fact that you had such a extensive experience and diverse team so we thank you at the onset I just want to note that you have provided us today with and with win a comprehensive and constructive baseline assessment after about six months worth of work as we requested in our decision and it appears to affirm win sincere commitment to HR compliance and confirms an evident change in organizational culture at the company's highest levels we appreciate the thoroughness of your report that report is of course posted on our on our website now and is available along with your PowerPoint which we will hear from you shortly I also want to acknowledge that while our colleagues from win are not going to join today for a presentation they have submitted a response that also is posted on the website so with that good um good morning this you did not have to travel from Washington DC to meet with us so we have spared you some air travel but we are here virtually I'd love for you Alejandra to introduce your team and then get started I do want to invite my fellow commissioners to interject questions along the way if you think it's going to be perhaps more productive sometimes we wait but this is a lengthy report in a lengthy PowerPoint and it might just be more meaningful even for our virtual attendees and presenters to have that exchange so please interject but we will also of course reserve time for questions at the end so thank you and good morning good morning madam chair and commissioners thank you very much for the opportunity it's wonderful to see you all at least virtually we want to start by thanking you again for the trust that you've placed on our team for this very important project it has been a privilege to serve in this role and we appreciate that opportunity I do want to start by introducing my team and madam chair I appreciate for you recognizing those members that are not presenting today but I would like to start with Preston Pugh who has his deputy monitor on this project and Salton who's another one of our partners and has had a very strong leadership role given her expansive compliance experience I'm not presenting today but certainly worthy of gratitude and recognition Catherine Pappas, Aisha Hussain, Nicole Goke-Shabai and Alexa Zhao and Mary Lou Saller who have also participated extensively in this in this exercise so thank you for them this report and this entire presentation would not have been possible without them I would also be remiss not to thank the company for their cooperation in this exercise as you noted it was a very extensive work and we do appreciate the cooperation and collaboration that they demonstrated throughout this entire project with respect to our document requests making individuals available for interviews even during the pandemic and I should stress that despite the disruption that the company has faced both in Las Vegas and in Boston we continue to demonstrate the collaboration that we've experienced since the beginning of this in September so I do appreciate that very much and please do interject we do have a lot to say and this is much more dynamic I think for everyone involved if you do ask questions as we go along we do have a presentation that we'll be able to project so everyone who is watching the video will be able to follow along we'll do our best to queue where we are as we move along but Ann if you want to get us started with that thank you we'll start by giving you a roadmap we're going to start just with a high-level introduction of what the goals of our baseline assessment were just to remind us what we discussed back when this monitor should be a summary of our review and testing activities so that we all have an understanding of what the procedures here look like overall observations and then we'll go into a bit of the company's risk profile which helped inform of course our review and assessment and when we began we identified what the key hallmarks as we call them were elements of an effective compliance program are so we will go again at a high level what the general observations and recommendations are of the team with respect to each of those hallmarks we'll conclude with our overall takeaways and we have reserved time for Q&A but as we've said please do feel free to interject the questions as we go along when we met before the monitor should begin and Anne we can move to slide three just so my fellow commissioners know I can't see all of your faces always so to you know don't be shy just interject okay thank you thank you when we first met we explained the goal of this assessment was to evaluate the company's current human resources compliance program which we refer to at times as the HRCP to ensure that as currently designed the program is tailored to the company's operational and human resources risks so that it can effectively prevent detect and respond to those risks particularly of harassment and discrimination to ensure that the well-being safety and the welfare of the company its employees is being protected so to do that we have outlined as we've said the key elements which we draw from compliance resources such as the EEOC and the DOJ who've got who've given extensive guidance when an effective compliance program should look like and these are the 10 elements that we will walk through with you starting with culture highlighting some of the ones that are most critical to our assessment here culture independence and authority third parties and internal investigations were some of the areas that we spent most of our time during this first six month period evaluating Ann's going to walk us through what the process looked like and then we'll continue with with more observations Ann thank you so we took very seriously the mandate in the decision order that the monitor conduct without limitation a full review and evaluation of all policies and organizational changes adopted by the company and certain business practices as relevant to the company's HRCP in conducting our baseline assessment we closely tracked the work plan that we had set out for you back in the fall and so I'll just briefly go through what our process was now for those following along on their own copies of the materials we are on slide four now our fact-gathering process consisted of three broad steps the first was requesting and reviewing documentation the second was conducting interviews of company employees and the third was conducting focus groups this was coupled of course with real-time analysis and then a broader analysis of our findings at the end during our drafting phase in requesting documents from the company we asked for a variety of materials including training materials board and board committee agendas and minutes the company's HRCP related policies and procedures a vendor onboarding documentation policies related to the use of external legal advisors and investigation files and as Alejandra noted the company was cooperative with these requests and we reviewed over 300 documents that they provided for us with respect to interviews we conducted 27 individual interviews and interviewees included members of the compliance committee senior management at Wynn Resorts at Anker Boston Harbor and at Wynn Las Vegas we also interviewed individuals in functions that are relevant to the HRCP including human resources employee relations legal compliance and security overall we found interviewees to be credible and forthcoming and we appreciated their participation in our process we also conducted 32 focus groups covering 200 employees 113 of the employees were in Boston and 87 were in Las Vegas our approach to focus groups was to have small groups sometimes sorted by department and always by position to keep line employees and managers separate and encourage as much of a discussion and as open of a discussion as we could so for example we had some focus groups at Anker Boston Harbor and Wynn Las Vegas that were sorted by department and some that were cross functional so that we could get a sampling of multiple different departments we tried as much as possible during the course of the focus groups and interviews to verify the information that we were receiving from individuals throughout our discussions we also importantly asked all focus group participants to complete an anonymous survey on the HRCP program their perceptions of it and their personal experiences with HRCP matters and we appreciated the employees willingness to do that so in the report we do cite to some information learned from focus groups or certain beliefs held by employees who participated in our focus groups and obviously we heard a lot of individual stories during the many discussions that took place but for purposes of the report we really focused on the details that we felt were representative of the messages that we heard from multiple individuals through the course of the last six months and then of course after our fact gathering was largely complete we sat down to synthesize what we had learned to put that into the report and Alejandro will talk a bit about our overall observations thank you and I want to highlight two two issues not two issues but two points with respect to the focus groups it's important to note the focus groups were entirely voluntary we worked with the company as to who generally the categories of employees that we wanted to speak to also gave our input on the communication around inviting those employees to the focus groups and we confirmed the employees that participated did so entirely voluntarily and willing to share which really added to the candor and dynamic discussions that we had as Ann noted we did hear many different voices we heard from employees who had very positive experiences very positive things to say we had other voices who expressed different experiences and part of what we're going to continue to do in the remainder of the monitorship is to is to pressure test a bit whether some of those employees that were voicing less positive experiences are outlier individual circumstances or whether they speak to issues that will continue to be a focus of the monitorship but for purposes of this report as Ann stated we did approach this thematically themes emerge across properties and across focus groups and that's what we will be incorporated into the report so based on that the really overall observations and madam chair is as you noted we did go in with a priority to test what the current culture is at when and on core both in Boston and in Las Vegas with respect particularly to harassment and discrimination compliance the events that preceded the M.G.C.'s decision and order occurred at the very top and you could argue were isolated to a smaller number of individuals at the top of the organization that said in our experience with these types of matters even though conduct might be contained it does have an effect of permeating an organization in ways that isn't always tangible and clear and that takes deliberate steps and time to shift so it was a true priority for us to test not just through interviews but evaluating the conduct of the current leadership at the company to really test the sincerity of the commitment to the HR compliance program and as we noted in our report we do perceive a sincere commitment to HR compliance and more importantly a sincere commitment to reshifting and redefining the culture at when and on core with respect to harassment and discrimination the way that this is reflected is as we walked through the hallmarks that are essential to a compliance program we do see the indicators that each of those elements is currently present in the HRCP it's already incorporated in the company's human resources compliance program in varying degrees of development and maturity of course as you would expect to see but the fact that the company is already making steps in each of those columns is to us an important indicator of its commitment to these issues that said we do make recommendations to help the company continue to tailor and mature its program what we're seeing right now is what we would expect the development of a more robust program that still needs to continue to internalize and reflect the specific operational and human resources compliance risks that the company faces and to align to enforcement guidance right so not just legal obligations but enforcement guidance that pushes companies to do to do more to ensure that its employees and its risks that its risks are mitigated and its employees are fully protected so with that we will move now to what those risks were that we evaluated as we were beginning the mentorship that helped assess helped inform rather our assessment with respect to the effectiveness of the program Preston Thanks a lot and I want to echo your your thanks both to Madam Chair and the entire commission for the opportunity to work with you and with when on this engagement to be very brief we talked about context and when you recall that in the beginning when we interviewed with you I would talk about context um risk factors as you see on this slide right inform the context in which companies both creates and implement the human resources compliance program and going into this I think both the commission and as a monitor team we we understood that there were certain factors risk factors that that this uh setting had that this particular employer had in this particular location we also as Alejandro said looked at Las Vegas our minimum force were accounts of the industry too so what we have listed here on slide six for those of you who cannot see it are a number of of risk factors risk that we knew about include for example course and social discourse outside the workplace and that's particularly something that happens and in Las Vegas but can happen and not ever as well workplaces with significant power disparities also something that we knew about just because you have a variety of different levels and you have a core group of the topic controls very much and of course some of the historical issues stem directly from on these power disparities um workplace cultures that tolerate or encourage alcohol consumption we know certainly that this is an industry that that that that tolerates alcohol consumption people are are participating in the games but at all hours of the day and night and and alcohol is is certain so that is something else that that creates that adds to the context we describe another risk that we knew about was workplace culture that I'm sorry another another issue that we knew about was an isolated workplace and I think that we've we've talked about this in the past but by isolated here we mean are there parts of this particular site of this particular employer that there's only a few employees who are working and maybe not in the line of sight of the the our most senior authorities right so there are a variety of areas in this expansive facility that can be isolated and the question of course then is all right well what is the company doing to make sure that it's it's HRCP is being followed even in those areas and not just with respect to its employees but critically and we'll talk about this more later with respect to third parties and other and patrons and people other people like that another risk that we knew about of course is that the company has has been in crisis management mode for for some time and of course the the the questionnaire then is as so many employers are facing now are the are the the the measures that are being taken to fix the problem taken so solely with respect to the short term or or are they sustainable over time to make sure that these issues don't come up again right um a few risks that we didn't know about but because of the focus groups and interviews that we've done we're we're now educated about them workplaces that rely on customer service and client satisfaction obviously when takes very seriously it's obligations to to client satisfaction it is key and as you've seen us describing the report it is it's central that in a alone is is great right but that also needs to extend to not just the way the clients are or patrons are treated but also how employees are treated and that's just by other employees but also by a customer so it's just a two way street your employees need to be treated right by your customers another risk that we we have been educated about are certain cultural and language differences in the workplace and again you can think of that at times in along the lines of this concept of isolation right so if if someone doesn't it's not comfortable speaking English but they have an issue do they feel comfortable enough to raise their hand and and to communicate right in their own language are there something that we tested and then another issue that all employees are facing now but but in particular on corn wind is the economic factors that we're dealing with right now right we're in a terrible time we all know that and the question that comes from that is not only can we survive this time and the answer is yes we will but the question also is are we able to sustain some of these process fixes that we put into place the HRCP and other things despite the economic risk factors that have went in our corp so and happy we're happy of course to answer any questions about that but when we move to the next slide thank you Preston so actually I this is Enrique Alejandra I was I did have a question maybe you'll speak to this at a later time I know you know the report goes into great detail but throughout you know if you just stay in page six you could be describing many other companies having the same the same risk factors but more specifically you could be describing just any other hospitality or gaming company with similar risks so I would be interested in throughout the presentation an hour or a later time to the extent that you could put into context what you will serve compared to other companies or if there's some kind of benchmark that you could speak to I know it's all about making incremental progress and that they it's good it's great to hear by the way that they're committed to their program and they're moving in in a very positive direction but I'd be interested in seeing how do you think some of these risks and program especially ranks or benchmarks against others absolutely we can address that right now at a high level but we will certainly identify throughout the presentation how these risks manifest when we look at this risk you're absolutely right they do apply to many different types of companies and in fact are as you see their EOC risk factors they are born from generally the EOC is understanding of what companies of all types face our approach was to understand from a longer list which are most critical to win and to encore but more than that to drill down within the operations to see how these risks were manifesting so it was less about the existence of the risk itself which you know we almost took as a given was going to exist but where exactly were the pressure points within the organization so that we could work with the company to ensure that the procedures that the compliance program bring to life the compliance program address these risks so just to give one example that I think is familiar to the commission the isolated workplaces right typically when we think about isolated workplaces we think about remote satellite operations that might be smaller and truly physically separated from corporate headquarters that's not the case here right you have two facility two building to two properties that are pretty much self-contained what we identify within the when and on-core operation for example are in-room dining attendants right who will walk the halls of the hotel property who will have access to employee it's our two guest rooms who are by definition at that moment isolated from the greater organization and more vulnerable to potential sexual harassment or worse sexual assault by a guest similarly for example employees who clean restrooms or who clean hallways or you know have to go in smaller closets again more vulnerable in isolation for for harassment type conduct so that's how we apply the risks your question is absolutely on point though and we will continue to highlight how that informed each of these each of these elements does that help orient where we're going commissioner yeah no absolutely I mean but my point I know it's well taken which is that isolation for example is not unique to win it's certainly very clear to observe for every worker who does you know in-room delivery of meals at what have you it's true for everybody in the strip and many other gaming companies so my my question again is how do we contextualize you know what they're experiencing compared to other companies I would say what they're experiencing is not uncommon it's similar to what other companies are experiencing I think with the gaming industry particularly when is a bit at the forefront of addressing these risks they were not unknown to the board or to the leadership when we spoke to them what we see is because they are so common it becomes a question of it it is an industry risk so what can win do and what should win do to address issues that are one common and two right just candidly some that might be outside of their direct control and we note in the report as it starts to make this cultural shift it is precisely because these are common risks swimming upstream in some ways with respect to addressing risks that have I won't say tolerated but have been accepted in the larger gaming industry context and that is a unique challenge for a company like Wynn to be in almost you know a leadership position I think as it tries to address some of these more difficult risks thank you very much thank you and I think you'll just continue to follow up on Commissioner Zuniga's question as you go through because it's obviously a broad one so thank you absolutely well thank you for that and it's actually a perfect segue to the culture and compliance hallmark which as we said in the opening remarks really was a main focus because of the specific history that the company faced here with respect to the culture that trickle down from the top given the events that occurred respect to the founder and other leaders who were there at the time we have seen a meaningful shift and you know not to repeat what we said earlier we want to focus here on how that shift has manifested itself one thing that we look at is where is the company making investments right is it only developing a paper policy program where it's saying and writing all the right things but not to speak colloquially right putting its money where its mouth is with respect to these issues one clear indicator for us is with respect to personnel staffing not only have there been significant leadership changes at the company with respect to personnel but we've seen investment in critical positions so meaningfully for example there has been a senior vice president of HR position created at corporate in Vegas who now owns the design and implementation of a human resources compliance program that is critical we'll speak a bit more to that when we speak about independence but creating that position giving her staff that is equipped and capable and experienced to help further the HR compliance program development is another indicator for us and we have seen that they're not just filling positions to fill them the company seems to be very deliberate with the experience that it is seeking in its personnel that own part of the human resources program implementation we've seen program enhancements as well president will speak later to training but we've seen significant investment in training on human resources issues not just the regular annual trainings that you would expect to see at most companies but also more focus training of managers and supervisors on some issues that are relevant to our review and most importantly we have seen increased transparency in the reporting of sexual harassment and discrimination cases and we'll get into greater detail with that later but the company is now elevating from both properties all allegations of sexual harassment regardless of nature and size to the general council at wind Las Vegas and also to external council as warranted for review and the same is done that's done on a weekly basis and the same is done on a quarterly basis with respect to discrimination claims and all of that also goes to the compliance committee for review we've seen those reports they're they're quite detailed as we know in the report we we have you know we're monitoring to ensure that that level of work because it is a heavy lift for the teams on the ground is sustainable which is important objective of ours is to ensure that the company rolls out a program that can be sustained in the long term where we also should should give credit we have seen through interviews and through focus groups the actual leadership of of the company so mathematics Marilyn Spiegel Brian Gil Brands are all recognized as being credible this is something that we were very deliberate to test they have gained credibility and respect from the org from across I'd say across the organization particularly Ms. Spiegel and Mr. Bill Brands are recognized by even inline employees as walking the floor making themselves visible and have developed different platforms to communicate with the company with the with employees through shift briefings at the start of every shift for example email communication to make themselves visible and that is a platform that we encourage in the report the company continue to leverage most of the communication that we're seeing right now focuses on customer service on issues that are important to the operation to further to the shift we see to further embed that through the organization as we said earlier right it has to trickle down the company is well positioned to leverage those channels of communication so that employees here directly from their leaders the importance of HR compliance the company's position on sexual harassment discrimination and most critically speak out culture we want the company to really promote it's and we'll get to this in the investigations section to really promote its internal reporting channels and the fact that the company will address regardless of where the allegations come from and to whom they're directed all sexual harassment and discrimination claims as I was discussing with commissure Suniga the larger industry does present a unique challenge the company is aware of that I think until now it's it's struggled with how to address those cultural challenges that that impact the entire industry but we've seen an appetite to think creatively of what it can do to reset its communication on what is acceptable behavior not just from its employees and its leaders but also from those that visit its properties Alejandra if I could just interject this is Kathy on this slide what you're addressing are some of the the the movement that the company has shown to shift the culture and yet it's also under the framework of these unique challenges of the casino industry I think you'll probably be addressing in your investigation section but I just wondered if this is a good time to point out that or if you could elaborate on perhaps some of the a sort of more state of the art movement that they're making I noted that they're developing plans to track and monitor data that they collect from their investigations to help inform their policies I think that might be have been with respect to patron activity and then I also know that they've got the development of the new platform which I'm sure you'll talk about on the channels but I was just interested to know from the industry point of view is that state of the art is that data analysis something that is unique or is it expected it's it's expected so one of the things that we'll talk about in investigations and in monitoring is more and more compliance expectations are trending to what are companies doing to test the effectiveness of their compliance programs and that would include human resources compliance programs as well so while it's commendable that the company is reviewing on a case by case basis all sexual harassment allegations and discrimination allegations that's just one part of the story and as we know in the report that's it's retroactive it's demonstrating you know what what has happened in these individual cases where the company is moving consistent with industry expectations and the expectations of enforcement agencies like the EOC and the DOJ is that they take that data and analyze it in the aggregate so for example on a quarterly basis just to give a hypothetical right what are what are the specific sexual harassment allegations that we have received what is the nature of those allegations where what departments do they come from right what positions are we seeing or most vulnerable because then that begins to tell a different narrative and what you do with that data is then pressure tested against your program what is the root cause is it that perhaps our policies are not clear is it that our training isn't clear is it a more systematic issue that we have to focus on so it arms the company with as you would with other KPIs and operations right it's the exact same concept just applying it to compliance and what we will want to see again we've seen the company last quarter start to use that that that data and to their credit they've been doing this manually and the platform that you are alluding to I think is going to really one facilitate it and make the their ability to really work with that data more effective yeah um so we will be as the monitor ship continues looking at what the company not just that they're aggregating it but how are they actually putting it to use to create a feedback cycle on their policies procedures and implementation thereof which is the most critical part right policies are important procedures are important but what we care about most is what you do with them that's really helpful thank you so the next Alejandra can I ask a quick question now I'm sorry to how much your camera now thank you yeah this is Gail Cameron I find this this portion of the presentation really interesting you as well as Preston mentioned sustainable change like you have some experience with monitoring and police departments and um you know I've always been interested in how well that change is sustained after the monitor ship and I find it directly related to the leadership team and lots of times when agencies are hiring new leaders they ask a lot of questions about how well they perform in other positions but maybe don't ask a lot of questions and their shared values of an HR compliance plan it was it was very good to hear that the leadership team is considered credible but I'm just wondering if if that will be part of the training or the company the board realizes that the speed of the leader is so important and um for this sustainable change to continue long after people stop asking the questions about this and I was happy to hear you talk about it but um that's a piece I think a lot of organizations misses that that initial who are you bringing in who are the folks that you are recruiting to your company and do they share these values that's I I love that question for a couple of reasons one yes leadership is critical and that's why we have focused on it um but more than that leadership does change right and whether it changes in five years or 10 years it changes and we have seen organizations who have put blood sweat and tears into creating a culture that starts to erode once the people who have held that culture leave which is why we put such an emphasis when we look at these programs on how are they embedded into the day-to-day operations of the organization so that it's not reliant on one two or you know 10 people to keep it alive so for example we'll talk about risk assessments down the line um how is the company actually leveraging other functions it's internal audit function it's security function so that then it becomes an organic part of how the company operates the systems that it's rolling out with respect to internal investigations reporting and its ability to synthesize and report that that's that if implemented correctly and and housed in the correct place should continue to live on past the tenure of the current leadership which is the concern when you have something that's so manual and reliant on this leadership's interest and focus on these issues the risk is that when there's a change that will that will go by the wayside harder to dismantle a program that is operating really on on its own yeah thank you of course thank you Minister Cameron if I can add just one one point that has become clear to us as well was when you raised police monitors that said something that we're familiar with and and it is this having spent time with leadership both at in Boston and then of course in Las Vegas I think it's pretty clear that the pain of 2018 is is is still palpable right they they still feel that and they have no desire to go through that again they get the message so not only are they looking at and are we talking to them about the importance of making sure that they've got sustainable systems that that go beyond just this leadership group but this leadership group gets it too and you know they're in as we understand it for the long haul so that that I think is helpful yeah great to hear thank you and Commissioner Cameron it's almost like you all are teeing up the next slides without knowing where we're going but the question that you raise is also why we look at how the company where the ownership and authority over a compliance program sits and you know as a hallmark we call that proper authority oversight and independence but what we're really talking about here is one who owns it who has authority to make decisions with respect to not just the design and implementation of the compliance program but to hold the the company to account if something actually does wrong goes wrong who's going to be the one who's going to raise their hand and say you know hey time out right we have an obligation here not just to protect the company's interest but also to protect the life of of our welfare and and security of our employees and so to that we've looked at and that person has to be a senior person within the organization person or people right have to have the experience in leading these types of programs and has to be equipped with the right team experienced resources and of course the budget to be able to carry out these programs the company as had occurred even before we started has taken steps to ensure an independent or to design an independent oversight of its human resources program in a couple of important ways one is the reconstitution of the compliance committee which existed for a while but in 2018 was reconstituted with truly independent members with no affiliation formal affiliation to the company they're not employees they have no financial interest which is which is important because at the end of the day right they should have no no interest and should be able to ask tough questions as particularly given the fact that they do have visibility as we were relating to earlier to the company's sexual harassment discrimination cases and how they are handled we have seen and we point in the out in the report to certain factors that could again in the long term jeopardize the ability of the compliance committee to exercise truly independent judgment I want to make clear we haven't seen that judgment compromised in the six months that we've been working on this project but the the gaming industry is a small community right and there's a balance that the company needs to strike as it thinks through its constitution of the compliance committee and that is finding people who know the industry because that is critical but at the same time have not too close personal relationships professional relationships because of because of the industry being so small that could compromise not for any wrong reason right but simply because I know you I trust you we've worked together for a really long time I'm not going to raise my hand in the same way as I would if I was just starting to work with you as a company or as a person so those are things that again in the long term as a company thinks about what this committee should look like and who should be on there as a balance that will need to be struck we spoke about the enhanced HR organization certainly very capable and professional and experienced people particularly at the lead roles both in Las Vegas at the corporate and property level and certainly in Boston at the property level as well have been very impressed with the leadership of the human resources department in Boston it's a new organization they had a lot to do to launch an operation needless to say the last couple of months have certainly not helped with the burden that an organization faces but we will continue to work with the company to ensure that the team that it has in Boston isn't just staffed that it's big enough right and that it has the depth of expertise that it needs to continue to implement and run this program another opportunity that we've identified and this is something you know Preston talked about the company has been in crisis management mode and what we've seen in our experience is when there's a crisis you tend to build up very very quickly and that's a normal reaction once crisis subdued it's important to make sure that the roles and responsibilities of the functions and the individuals that have oversight of the human resources compliance program are clear so we have legal we have the chief compliance officer and we have HR and of course a compliance committee each needs to understand where its authority starts and stops so that they're not in a position of feeling incapable or lacking authority because maybe somebody else has has a they perceive somebody else has that role and responsibility so that is something as we highlight in the report will require more analysis and assessment as we move on Alejandro if I could jump in for a second this is Commissioner O'Brien I think this sort of the general area and the detailed report where you talk about the resources particularly for EVH in terms of you know HR experience they're currently looking to backfill that litigate that attorney position that was specialized and sort of the trainings and that sort of thing I had a question specifically about there's a comment on page 35 about the fact that the organization-wide compliance officer because of his recorded status with us did not have the ability to provide as much assistance to Boston and my understanding is that's not entirely accurate and I'm curious as to where that understanding came from it came primarily through interviews with different personnel across the company with respect to what the compliance officer's role is currently and our understanding was because of those issues right now he's not able to engage as closely and as critically with the Boston operation as they expect he will be I don't believe that's entirely accurate but Commissioner O'Brien I did hear as you go forward whether you can drill down on that a little bit more sort of as you go forward absolutely right if I could just add in on that Commissioner O'Brien I did have a chance to speak with Loretta Lilios too on that matter and IEB did seek some additional clarification from EBH so Alejandra if you could circle back to Loretta we might want to make sure that that line on page 35 is accurately reflects our regulatory structure because that's Commissioner O'Brien also alluded we're we're not sure it's entirely accurate and you could just if you find fit amend your report accordingly absolutely we appreciate that and that is something that has been critical to us is to make sure that assumptions and facts are accurate so we appreciate you pointing that out to us and we'll certainly follow up yeah it's not accurately reflected yeah it's not an uncomplicated you know distinction so it would just be helpful to go back to I think Loretta will expect that call fantastic but I do think it also requires following up with the company in terms of their understanding and representations in that work absolutely yeah understood Commissioner we'll do that thank you that takes us to policies and procedures Preston yes if I may hit on mute we can hear you yeah where we can save some time because of the fact that this has been a focus in the past and I have a focus before we got involved but to to kind of lead off our team in this discussion obviously all of us are on board the policies and procedures are this start to having a good program they're the start to it right before we came on the company updated sexual harassment and discrimination policies and and some related policies as well we identified some opportunities for the company to enhance its existing policies and strengthen its policy environment by adding more details where we're necessary and addressing some of the areas that are critical to HR compliance as you've seen in our report we pointed to for example the importance of a standalone religious discrimination and harassment policy disability pregnancy or accommodations and harassment and even anti-discrimination and with respect to pregnancy as well although some of those areas may be a subset of the areas that are enumerated in Title 7 the fact is that they're important enough to have their own rules right and to make sure that the organization and employees understand what those rules are with respect to those areas it's it's you know of course it's not just enough to have the right policies of course but your employees and people in your workplace have to know what these policies are right and abide by um and um we we found opportunities that we are in discussion with the company about to improve the recognition of of policy their their employees for example that we encountered through focus groups who didn't have access to the wire now why does that matter it matters because the wire is the place where policies are kept all right so let's say you had some question your employee and you had some question as to what the policy pertains to yet you you were trained but you just have a follow-up question if you're not able to get on the wire that presents a difficulty um we will continue to monitor this issue and in related issues as we go forward okay thank you yes and I part of the implementation too and we spoke earlier about the company communication platform one of the things that we're also encouraging is to ensure that it's not just rolling out but when it's implementing human resources policies or changes to human resources policies that it really promote and ensure that even if employees read the policy on the wire that they really understand it and that does two things right it's ensuring mine proper compliance with the company's policies and expectations and two it's again communicating that tone and that culture that the company is is looking to to enforce and going back to commissioner soon you guys question right this is one of the areas where we look at specific risk factors to make sure that they are at a baseline addressed in policies that's not the you know as we've said not not where it stops but it's an important indicator that the company has internalized risk acknowledge the risk and is communicating to its to its employees what it what has to be done to that risk and that is something that would be standard across companies across industries and very much in expectation of both the EEOC and the Department of Justice based on their compliance program guidance if I can on that commissioners Zuniga I'm thinking about your question and there's one component of it that jumps out I believe this may have been it implied the question is is the company learning from its peers in the industry right and to what extent is it taking on best practices that it's seen quote quote best practices which is obviously a phrase that we'd be careful about from the industry and with respect to policies but I think this goes really across the board it is it is encouraging to us to see that in Las Vegas their their chief of human resources is someone who came from a mature HR environment right an organization that had a mature HR environment and and had maybe more bells and whistles in its program then then when did before 2018 so I think that that that continues to to help this process again with policies and other things and go into third party relationships yep third party so well at the start of the monitor ship based on the commission commissioners decision in order we were focusing primarily on the changes and the elements of the program that the company had implemented with respect to vendors service providers in its management of that of its external council as we moved through the first six months of the monitor ship particularly with and takeaways from focus groups one of the key risk areas and we highlight as the highest risk factor with respect to third parties our patrons and both the EOC and the DOJ highlight third parties as a key risk for all organizations how those risks manifest itself vary and certainly in this context was was very particular what we've heard from employees is that sexual harassment and discrimination with respect to employee by employees is really they don't perceive as a as a high risk but they do and they raised offending behavior by by patrons as something that is that is quite prevalent not terribly surprising but there was again given the the larger the larger casino industry culture to be clear what was interesting for us was the perception of employees that the companies and Preston alluded to this when we were speaking about the risks the company's particular focus on client service and this is something commissioners soon you got that that emerged as as a differentiator in the risk profile for us but when an on course focus on customer service is something that they take very seriously and it is a something that employees themselves take great pride in we heard routinely how proud employees are to work at when and when brand and to promote that brand and unintended consequence of that has been employees perceive that they are not empowered in some instances to back on patron behavior that is offending because it's it could be perceived as inconsistent with how the company expects its employees to interact with and treat employees and the type of experience that that they want their patrons to have with respect to the service they receive from from the staff so where you might want to push back or perhaps you know speak to a patron in a way to signal that they should stop what they're doing is something that employees have felt they need to feel more empowerment to do to be clear employees have said the company there is a line of course they understand that there is no touching is never accepted you know any any physical contact did not accept it but there is a gray area of offending behavior that the company should make clear will not be tolerated and more importantly empower its employees to respond to that behavior in a way that is that is appropriate to ensure that it doesn't continue the company has in place policies that addresses interactions with patrons it doesn't quite go to the heart of this issue though particularly in internalizing the perception that employees have again it's a matter of training it's a matter of intentional communication on these issues and this of course starts to get into that area of what the company can control and it can't control you can't control your third parties and patrons in the same way that you can control your employees but you can set expectations and we've made recommendations in the report of ways that the company can start doing that with respect to what it expects from its patrons and its guests we see that in other industries you walk into an establishment and they tell you if you behave a certain way the company has the right to kick you off the property the company already has that in place it has trespassing procedures for patrons who commit any type of offending behavior or or violations of law to ensure that that trespassing procedure is uniformly applied across patrons whether they be smaller value players or high value players is important to start shedding this perception the firm its employees that the company tolerates certain gray area of behavior particularly if this is a high roller or someone who is considered to be a VIP patron Questions? I just have a comment more than a question but you can obviously expand on it if you want no hunger this seems to me to be an area in the area that Enrique talked about where Wynn really is standing alone and how they need to deal with this in terms of because so much of their brand and is the five star service there is a heightened tension I think in this area that doesn't necessarily apply in other competitors arenas so it's a comment I don't know whether you want to comment it or not but it does seem to be an area that's a little trickier for them to tread than maybe some other casinos it is and that came across also from the employees that we spoke to particularly those and this is true for Boston and Las Vegas I should make that point clear and it is one of those themes that we heard in almost every focus group Employees who have worked at other casinos were very clear that they have faced offending behavior from patrons in their entire career but have been able to challenge and push back that behavior more directly and in some ways more effectively than they feel they can do it when and we got some very specific examples from employees who have faced that circumstance so yes you're absolutely right and Commissioner Suniga this is one of those risks that is quite different for when because of it right because of the brand we will note that and this is certainly for the company to think through right but at the same time it does create an opportunity as part of reinforcing that brand and preserving the patina that comes with that brand to leverage that and to say we will offer a five star experience that is free from this type of offending conduct not just for the benefit of our employees but also for the benefit of our patrons Alejandra I'd like that you mentioned that in the report that you said flourish behavior from one patient could actually impact the experience for another highly valued patron I thought that was really important can you just for a reminder give a few of the examples that you offered to the company to be able to address that tension that Commissioner O'Brien mentions it's a it's a real tension and I think Henrike's initial question really highlights the this issue so you did have some concrete suggestions in your report we did we had and and Preston can help me remind me of the concrete examples too but we had for example where employee where guests to the hotel are checking in there could be language in the contract that you're signing that says this is the type of behavior that is visible right this is the type of behavior that we expect so almost like a like a code for for patrons the standards of behavior code that can be printed on the when you go into cash cash in your chips for example there could be a sign that says these are the standards of behavior and if you violate them we reserve the right to to exit you to trespass you from the premises any paper that is received by patrons or by guests can have that same language on the website you very often see vendor and supplier codes of conduct we could have you could have patron standards of behavior that is quite visible again to try to promote that culture within its within its buildings one thing I might add here I'll under before said use the term upstream right so so because these efforts may be in some ways are going upstream both for when but the industry as a whole the the company has to be very purposeful about communicating these standards that I'll under pointed to the you know and that that is where it becomes difficult because the company doesn't want that to dominate the patron experience but yet needs patrons to remember and you know one of the things that we've talked about is that when that happens and and patrons are on board not only is that a better is it a better place for employees but it's a better place for other patrons and a better place for when because there may be patrons who are not coming now because they're a little little if you about what the environment has been but once they know that the environment is one where they can feel more secure and safer and where harassment is not going to be tolerated there's a there's a win-win-win so to speak no pun intended no pun intended Alejandro this is commissioner Stebbins I want to talk about the the vendors vendors and service providers yes and passing some of those obligations through contractual provisions I couldn't get a sense of whether that's something they they're doing now or is that a recommendation and have you seen it else elsewhere and that's why you're making it a recommendation thank you for that question so I will clarify the company is doing that already it is we've seen standard agreements that include the company's expectations on sexual harassment discrimination and more importantly requiring that vendors and suppliers report if they have knowledge of any sexual harassment or discrimination what we have and this is perhaps where the confusion come in came in what we have not done is actually tested the implementation of that so while we've seen the template agreements what we intend to do in the next phase is actually look at actual contracts with vendors and suppliers to make sure that those clauses aren't being negotiated out which we do see happen in other in other companies and industries right sometimes clauses come out and that it is the companies if the company's template agreement is not being used that they are incorporated to the extent they don't already exist in the supplier vendors agreement so that's that's the testing that will that we will want to do going forward okay thank you thank you so those are the changes that we've seen with respect to that category of third parties with external counsel the MGC's decision in order of course focused on deconfliction policies which is to ensure that counsel external counsel that are representing the company are doing so in a way that is not informed by any or tainted by any conflict of interest the company has rolled out a policy to that effect in our review of it the policy does not cope quite go far enough it of course passes down to an external counsel the obligation that we all have of ensuring that we are avoiding conflicts of interest with respect to our clients but it does not directly address the possibility of external counsel also being called upon by company personnel for individual representation as was reflected in the MGC decision in order as having occurred in the past it's important that the company internalize that and reflect that in its internal policies and also guidance that it provides to external counsel we did review billing guidelines that extends to external counsel to inform to highlight that potential risk but more importantly and this also touches on the controls environment that it have in place a concrete and formalized review and approval procedure of all third of all external counsel engagements that's an important control to make sure that the company knows what its external counsel are doing and for whom and we do understand that as a matter of practice the general counsel does review and approve all engagements but again looking at that sustainability element it's important to make sure that that is part of the company's control environment as would be the case for any other contract related to operational transactions questions for Alejandra on external counsel I do in terms of there seemed to be a theme in terms of conflict of interest that was in not only external counsel but also in definitions in terms of personal relationships and that sort of thing it's mentioned a couple of times in terms of and it's an area of concern I have going forward in terms of why we're here in the first place which is the idea of undue influence or favoritism or conflict of interest not only an external counsel but also in the personal relationships and so I would assume that that is something given the baseline that would be a focus going forward in terms of how they expand knowledge and dissemination of the information organization on it will 100% be a focus as we go forward and you're right to have identified that as an opportunity in both one is a theme throughout the report but yes in both categories the internal conflict of interest policy and externally this is Commissioner Judd-Stein I have two questions on this one with respect to the policy on on complex I understand that the general counsel is the point person I suspect that might have been the case in the past that led to many concerns for us in our underlying decision I'm not sure what the solution is but if I were the general counsel of this company I would want to make sure that I'm not solely responsible for keeping records of these conflicts and I'm not sure how that gets you know where there are other who comes into assist on that but a single point person to keep track not just literally being able to keep track of these but also because as you point out particularly in Nevada and I suspect in Boston the gaming legal community is a small one and so we want to make sure that no single person is is keeping sort of record and score of these external counsel relationships you raise if I can just comment on that briefly you raise an important point that we as compliance monitors always look to and it's the formalization of authority and one of the things that we do I think we we allude to in the report but do intend as we continue to look at the company's controls environment is where there are there's a need for dual approval one area that we highlight for example that we have not tested is payment of external counsel invoices to avoid some of the issues that you raised in the in your decision in order that would be an opportunity for there to be a dual approval right typically we would recommend as general counsel and CFO okay and so part of the ongoing testing of the company's controls environment will be what we would in other terms call compliant sensitive transactions right and in more in in other areas of the law but similarly looking at where there are decisions review procedures that would require that second look because again right we don't want there you know it's interesting the company it's very it's there's not a lot of bureaucracy and that's a good thing in many ways but it creates vulnerabilities to with respect to oversight and authority and striking that balance without dramatically changing the company culture but ensuring that it has documented controls with respect to these areas is going to be a strong focus in the next in the next phase thank you that's really helpful I was struggling for the term but it is really a sharing of that dual responsibility and it would make sense from my perspective that it's shared with the CFO but I would defer to the your expertise and the expertise of when and in terms of what to build on what Commissioner O'Brien just commented on the themes that we're emerging in terms of conflicts not only legal but just conflicts throughout the organization and the personal relationships that you've noted have not been terribly carefully defined I would just say and I think you've highlighted it that we want to remember that that what makes this more difficult would be the imbalances of power that are also associated with those definitions so that was of course very important to us in our decision and we know that moving forward that will be certainly part of just making sure policies and procedures reflect that that theme and the training I you know we one of the things that we bring up in the report as well is the importance consent and you highlight this in the decision in order as well consent is a complicated very complicated issue as we're all well aware and so to have that ongoing training and communication and sensitizing all levels of the company but particularly those that are in the positions of power to what is and isn't consent to the extent that it can never be put in a box but at least to recognize where there are questions or issues and that that can be properly escalated will be an opportunity that is an opportunity that we identified that we'll be looking to guide the company to fill in the next phases thank you that takes us so slide 11 training and guidance and that is back to Preston and and Alejandro you mentioned training I think you've seen this well training guidance this is an area where again we we've had I think there's work done before we obviously we're on board and it's one where we may be able to save some time today but of course we want to answer your questions broadly training is an essential component of any anti-harassment effort same with this with discrimination but to be effective the training has to be part of a holistic effort undertaken by the employer and it's something that the EEOC tells us in the 2016 report the company has devoted considerable resources to its training program we've seen that we've had the opportunity to see their training conducted on a couple of occasions and it's clear that the company has kind of done a real double back on its training to make sure that the message is that they want to communicate to the employees are being queued clearly communicated to employees and managers covers obviously anti-harassment anti-discrimination and certain diversity and inclusion topics too we talked about focus groups at the beginning of this presentation throughout we'll talk about them again focus groups conducted that we conducted during this assessment suggested that training has been well received but that additional training is required and particularly function-specific training for certain roles and functions with responsibility for implementing or enforcing important aspects of the HR compliance program one of the things you see that we talked about is additional training for example for for the board and other stakeholders by way of recommendations one of the keys one of the reasons why the training that we witnessed worked is because they had an attorney on staff who was responsible for conducting it and did a thorough job with it and that position needs to be built now because then attorneys no longer with the organization the as you said we talked a little bit about personal relationships in this in the past segment we think that the board should receive training on personal relationships we also suggest that the compliance committee again is one of these groups that has responsibility for the HRCP that the compliance committee needs to be trained on anti-harassment anti-discrimination and the company's investigation protocols particularly as those protocols begin to evolve which we'll talk a little bit about in the investigation part of this in the industry generally training has gone from focusing on specific areas of discrimination to just appropriate conduct right and so I think the past trainer that the company used had an eye on evolving the training right as it becomes more as the as the EEOC and other agencies focus on evolution the training so that needs to continue to happen another thing we talk about in the report is the importance of using the company's existing communications channels such as pre shifts to conduct briefings on a regular basis to reinforce messages from trainings and we've seen that with other employers it works and the reason why we say it works is because that's often what employees remember the most it's one thing to sit down one time and hear a trainer but if you hear it from your manager on a regular basis on pre shifts it takes on another a new life to it and becomes more part of the culture and then lastly to ensure that the company's training is effectively communicated and conveys its policies the company should identify methods to continue to test its training program for example if you train employees on issues A, B, and C at the end of that module are you having your employees answer questions about what they've learned so that that's another way to really ingrain all right what you tested or what you what you trained them on so that's training and guidance happy to answer any questions or Alejandro or Ann may want to add to it as well I think one thing that is worth highlighting is when we you know all companies will tell you training is mandatory that is a good thing one thing that we look to though is what the company actually does to ensure that everyone is being held to that standard we tested that at win in a variety of ways and the company should be commended it really does do a very good job of ensuring that all of its employees top down our mandatory you know we heard both in in Boston and in Vegas employees will not be allowed to clock in if they have lapsed in the training that they are supposed to be taking in Vegas it's now managers and supervisors who are actually scheduling employees to training so it's not left up to employees to to restaurants for training so those are steps that are reasonable and as far as you know we can see have been effective it was when in focus groups employees were most emphatic when we asked about training and we said as a mandatory said oh yes clear they understood that training could not be missed which is which is helpful so all the more reason to Preston's points of ensuring that it speaks to not just the policies and procedures but really gives one concrete examples to help employees understand these HR issues and and how they play into their enforcement and implementation This is Gail Cameron I had one one comment question with regard to training I know that I read something about you know IT systems and being able to track better what is happening and you know making sure that you're it's a way of mitigating risk right tracking properly is there any and I didn't see this for those individuals home who may need additional training you think you can keep them as employees but they they may have had an issue with one or two of these you know something that they've done that they would require additional training is there something in place for that kind of additional training if needed we've not seen that formally we have not seen that happening it is something that we recommend they will we have seen instances where people are trained supplementally but we haven't seen a formal process to identify where additional training is actually needed and you know one of the things that we've seen companies roll out is you were a lot of policy you particularly for roles that are responsible for enforcing that policy and you actually do a little bit of a quiz right to ensure that that is internalized and something we did at the company where I worked was if you didn't score a certain percentage you had to retake those modules to make sure that they are truly internalized now do you need to do that for every employee you know but you should identify any employee that has an enforcement or oversight role so that again you're making sure your managers and supervisors absolutely understand what their obligations are that is that is an opportunity that we do identify when we talk about testing the effectiveness of the program and enhancing the effectiveness of the training program is what we would be looking to thanks one of the things is very briefly that the company we understand the company does now is in some investigations and trying to get to a real conclusion they've identified some opportunities for employees to be trained but making that more formal along the lines of what Alejandra is describing is something that would be important right because it's one thing to put it in the file but then are you tracking it right or you're making sure it happened right are you then making sure that the employee understands the point on which they've been trained so that they're not back in the same position you know a month or two from now having done the same thing yeah and I guess to to T up does that answer the question commissioner camera it does thank you to T up investigations next that that is oh no I'm sorry we're going to in sentence investigations next so slide 12 one of the areas where we've recommended additional training is on investigations to ensure that human resources and other functions that are involved in investigations are trained to do that to the company standards the other thing I'll add and then I'll press it I'll pass it on to Preston is in the investigations protocol that we reviewed there is a requirement that where there is an allegation that perhaps has not been corroborated that the person against whom the allegation was made is followed up with and also the complainant is followed up with and one of the opportunities there is to ensure that part of the discipline process is to speak to the person who was alleged to have engaged in offending behavior as a reminder almost as a doubling down on what the company's expectations are so that if the allegation had proven to be true it's clear to the target of the complaint that it would not be tolerated and would result in heightened discipline so Preston internal reporting and investigations yes so so and we'll talk as you said we'll talk a little bit about the the training that we suggested for investigators but stepping back for a moment and again thinking about context we talked about context at the beginning and risk factors we understood very clearly coming into this that investigations as it has been in the case in other you know employment monitorships that the EOC has seen investigations were a real concern that you've voiced to the company and we also understood from the company that it knew that it needed to improve its process you know for example you simply cannot have in any workplace senior executives who are accused of violating the most important rules in the company's code of conduct and yet they're not investigated all right you can't have you cannot have a groundswell of reports about harassment and have a company any company sit on it on its hands if they're taking its rules seriously the company has shown that it does understand this is from our discussions with various folks in the legal department and others in fact at the very top in the board it is extremely important that the company continues to make sure that employees know how they can raise compliance concerns and and these channels need to be socialized and need to be part of the the the the culture and you don't want there to be roadblocks to employees who feel that they want to raise a concern because the fact of the matter is any employee who steps forward typically is is going to do so gingerly if you have a roadblock to that employee then you know stepping forward and making a complaint that complaint may not be made and that's that's a lost opportunity amongst other suggestions we recommend that the company make sure employees who speak English as a second language know that the reporting channels are multi-lingual and that's something that we understand the company is going to focus on and and include in this next generation of this reporting tool it's also important that the company ensures reporting channels are fully accessible to employees for example you know the if you tell me is an employee that I can go to a certain place within the company to make a complaint but yet because of the hours that I work that place is not open that's a that's a barrier right and again the complaint may not be made can be a lost opportunity once complaints are made the company needs to make sure that the team that investigates those complaints is fully trained and effective and this is what goes to what Alejandro said about the training you see that you know as a centerpiece of this section we've suggested factors that the company should focus on in training its investigators and we understand that that training has has already started which was good to hear and we'll continue to focus on that in conducting investigations we want the company to focus on on several important aspects of the process right so including improving timeliness ensuring investigators are themselves well qualified do they know how to follow up on a question for example right and that's that's easier said than done do the investigators understand the importance and this is central to any workplace investigation do they understand the importance of making a credibility determination we talked about this I think maybe a little less than a year ago when we first met you but that that he say she say problem in workplace investigations cannot be where the investigation stops if the company can at all help it right simply saying well this person said the accused says this but the accuser says this and there's no one to break the tie so we're going to throw our hands up that is something that that an employers whoever you sophisticated workplace investigation program know that they've got to they've got to do a little bit more than that and credibility determinations is one of the ways that they do that and understanding how to make credibility terminations using formalized even criteria for within the training so that and practicing it for example in training sessions for investigators is something that we've seen used in other in other settings so with that I had are there any questions with respect to investigations or comments for man or all 100 yes I think just to highlight the company does have in place internal reporting channels that are known and accessible to employees we have seen through focus groups in our own our own review an opportunity for the company to make clear as we started to say earlier that its expectation is that employees will use these channels we've seen evidence that they are being used we've seen a number of allegations of all types in Vegas and in Boston what we hear from employees though still is some confusion as to the anonymity of reporting or where and how they can make anonymous reports so critically important for the company to encourage deliberately a speak out culture so that those reporting channels are known not just known but also understood we spent time talking to employees and focus groups who raised meaningful questions as to whether or not anonymity was was real and in some instances particularly in Boston a bit of confusion as to which the reporting lines were that they should be using so one of the things that we like to see companies do and this is standard across companies and industries is signage that says that promotes the obligation to speak up signage in common areas that employees can see every single day of where the website is of what the phone number is of where they go to make these allegations is an opportunity that we see particularly with respect to Boston on the investigation side the elements that Preston walked through are critical to an investigations protocol the company has a protocol in place that speaks to some of those elements but does need to one build it up and to focus in on the training and the expectations that it has with respect to how these investigations are going to be carried out we have investigating sexual harassment discriminations allegations are very difficult and what we perceived from interviews was necessary the need for further clarification on how those as Preston refers to them he said she said situations must be addressed where there isn't corroborating evidence that what is alleged actually happened the company should train it's an it's a char function and it's management and supervisors to understand what steps it can take short of termination if you are reintegrating reintegrating someone because you haven't corroborated the allegation what are the safety nets that you can put in place for the manager the supervisor the person who complained to ensure that every party understands what is acceptable what is not acceptable and that if there is a recurrence there will be heightened escalation of discipline so those are again when we talked about areas in the program that were in need of additional maturity this is one of those areas that we view as one most critical to the success of the HR compliance program but also an area that can benefit from from additional formalization if you will any any questions with respect to this area you know yes I I and maybe you already touched on it the notion of difficulty but I can imagine scenarios in which having a very robust protocol itself may in terms of investigation even calling it an investigation might have the unintended consequence of putting somebody you know in in in a position of being the offender of defensiveness of saying you know you just you should have just come back and talk to me or whatnot can you speak a little bit more about the dilemma that arises from how important it is to meet something in the bud by getting you know all right somebody got uncomfortable let's speak to the other person maybe it doesn't rise to the level of harassment yet but we don't want to keep this going and then make sure you know end up finding out that it really turns out to be harassment but by doing so early formally and so on you can have somebody be you know offended turned off and and hopefully not retaliated later at somebody for having been you know raised their their hand to say you know I think this is unacceptable absolutely that is it it you know I'd say a vast majority of the allegations that you see would probably fall in that category right and you do you have be very careful as you communicate to two parties because as you explain or as your question notes overcorrection can have can have one consequence right of saying I raised my hand because it's going to overcorrect and I don't want to make a big deal of this undercorrecting can lead to someone who's engaging in that gray area fully understand where the line is so critically and the investigation protocol that we've seen contemplates that type of follow-up but greater guidance is important for the investigations teams to understand what type of communication there's a feeling let me back up there's a feeling that in order to protect confidentiality and anonymity you can't share any information with anyone about anything right and that leads to particularly when an investigation doesn't result in an obvious disciplinary action for people to think that the company didn't handle it correctly so there's that education process that needs to occur of you know you can talk to the complainant about what you've done to investigate his or her complaint right you can talk to the person who was accused of them as conduct about why this particular action doesn't necessarily rise to heightened discipline like termination but why it continues to be a problem right if it continues why it would be a problem that level of sensitivity we have not seen yet manifested in the investigations that we have that we have reviewed but would go a very long way not just to reinforcing the company's own protocols but going back to this theme of culture of really educating on a case-by-case basis what the company's expectations are and ensuring as the protocol requires that you check in you check in with the person who raised the allegation and say look you know we talked two months ago we determined that the incident that you reported wasn't a terminable offense but how are things now right and retaliation is something that the company does inform its employees about but stronger messaging there I think would also be very would be an opportunity for the company to continue does that answer your question commissioner yes thank you Alejandro just a follow-up you did mention this is Kathy that you there have been several I'm not sure if you know multiple reports made on sexual harassment and that the channels well maybe the anonymous channel isn't clear to all the employees that channels are working because you are receiving reports I think we'd be remiss not to ask you about whether the multitude of reports seems consistent with the industry norms that they're not out of line for risk with respect to the entity that's a great question they are not out of line and I would say in two categories one they're not out of line in the numbers that we've seen and they're not out of line in the nature of the allegations that we've seen so it's consistent with what we would expect to see in this type of company in this type of industry I would be remiss to note that we have not to note that we have seen also allegations made against management and for senior people within the organization and have looked at investigation files and confirmed that the company does investigate fully claims made against even senior managers within organization and we have seen appropriate disciplinary action be taken in those situations which of course will continue to be a critical focus given the historical events with respect to the number of complaints you know one of the one of the things that you see as you study this issue is that training right so more effective training leads to more complaints leads to a healthier system so you know we've definitely seen the number of complaints and as Alana Honda said they don't seem to be out of line but it in it in it in it in it in it in the number of complaints in and of itself is is is not always a a a bad thing as something will keep in mind as we go forward do we want to go into incentives and discipline any other questions on investigations if if not we can and of course we still have time if we still have Q and A at the end if time permits absolutely thank you go ahead Preston this may be an area where we can again save a little bit of time but but we open enough to all of you again just by way of context the the measures that the company takes to discipline employees who violate the company's business and personal codes of conduct and HR policies and procedures are critical right we see that they do have these measures in place which is important and will continue to focus on the use of these measures when they are when they become necessary the we've suggested that the company incorporate more formal guidance with respect to discipline so that there's a broader understanding of of essentially what misconduct leads to what level of discipline right and there's a lot of different factors that go into it if you formalize some of those factors then your employees and your managers can have a better understanding of consequences and it makes the system better it creates a consistency right in the discipline that's being given and a uniformity in it as well all right one of the challenges that the company faces is the lack of formal performance management procedures which as all of us understand can be powerful tools to drive desired behaviors senior leadership is also noted the need and it's been developing formal goal setting and evaluation process which it plans implement we understand first at the top of the organization uh again making sure that everyone understands what the playing field is and what how they're being measured and what conduct is is appropriating and what misconduct is going to lead to to certain levels of this the key again in this area as we've seen here enough in so many other places is consistency and understanding of consequences with respect to incentives we have seen the company do a good job here and we recommend that the company continue focusing on incentives right so you know it's not discipline and incentives is not just they focus on discipline it's also on incentives right incentives to make sure that employees are doing the right thing are improving the culture as they go along and and so we've seen them use incentives that that helpful particularly in Las Vegas very recognition of employees who are doing the right thing we we have also recommended that the company upgraded its progressive discipline of performance policy provide additional guidance on how to determine again what the appropriate discipline should be Alejandra and yes so on the on what the companies do you know this is I should highlight this is an area that companies struggle with and it's how to on the incentive side right it's you know we we hear from our clients all the time is why am I supposed to be incentivizing people to do what's right when that's my expectation right the company has in place the programs that that Preston is alluding to are employee of the month recognition programs that we've seen deployed in Las Vegas and in Boston consistent with what we were discussing earlier of the company's focus on client service most of to those types of issues right employees who demonstrate exemplary client service employees who think creatively or show excellence which are the company's values as you as you've seen in the report what we would encourage the company to do and have made recommend encourage that platform to integrate these types of value the types of values that go to the human resources program it's not an easy thing to do but you know we we certainly believe the company based on the foundation that it has on recognizes employees can build upon that one critical point that the company is in process of developing is to build in incentives almost metrics or KPIs if you will in its performance management procedures of management on up that reflect that will include evaluation of how those leaders live the company's values and how they carry out their obligations under policies and procedures including in this space our hope and expectation is that that will include factoring in that behavior into promotion opportunities into discretionary bonus or salary salary determinations the most mature compliance programs incorporate those standards of behavior that cultural commitment from its leadership into its performance management procedure system that is something that is just starting at the company it's you know it's in its infancy but we're encouraged by the fact that it's being led by a professional that has experience developing these types of procedures and who anticipates incorporating these types of values based KPIs into the metrics by which management teams will be held accountable and assessed on the disciplinary side I think not not much more to add there except to say again we have seen just to reiterate the point from the investigations that we have seen appropriate discipline carried out throughout the organization including when it has involved more senior professionals so that will take us to slide 14 and we'll start to speed along we appreciate the fact that you've given us the benefit of a little bit more time here but we'll we will not take advantage of that so this takes us to risk based review you know just as our evaluation and assessment of the program is based on the company's operation on human resources risk profile compliance authority compliance guidance from EEOC and the DOJ expect that companies will conduct ongoing risk based assessments of their operations to identify where particular risks exist and this in commission as soon you gotta go straight to your point right is through this exercise we expect that companies identify what is particular to their risk profile that requires particular resources or program design to be deployed to ensure those risks are mitigated the company as with most companies has an enterprise risk management company process what we have not seen is our risk based procedures led by either compliance or HR or legal designed to identify the specific human resources risks that the company faces and how they materialize within the organization that is something that we make recommendations about we think the company can leverage other functions to help assist in that program for example security and given the sensitivity of security protocols we won't discuss those in detail but based on our review and our interviews we do see that physical security assessments take into account those isolated spaces we've talked about earlier and what sorts of risks employees who work in those spaces can take we think those protocols can more formally include harassment and discrimination risk as it pertains to the operations and can be leveraged in partnership with HR legal and compliance to inform the compliance program internal audit also as part of its annual risk assessment looks at certain processes and we were pleased to see in an annual plan that it all issues of integrity and ethical values this is an area that we did not delve into in the first days but we'll continue to monitor and engage the company to understand how its internal audit procedures can be leveraged for human resources process the company's review of sexual harassment and discrimination allegations on a weekly basis is one way the company does monitor risk and we should know that the risk that's monitored under that mechanism though is risk that has already materialized so it's it's a reactionary response to risk what we are encouraging the company to do here again consistent with