So this is Senate government operations. It is Friday, April 30th. We are going to try to finish up the retirement bill. It is H449, and we need to get it out of here. So we have a bill. So what I'm going to do is, and thank you all for joining us again. I did get a message from Chris Rupes that said that he would be joining us, but he has to be on appropriations and he'll join us as soon as he's free. So what I'm going to do is we have, Becky has given us it's draft V number five. I was confused by that because I was looking for draft five point something. But it is posted on our website and we all got emailed to us in addition, I guess. So does everybody have the right one? Right. Version seven. What? Version seven, I believe. I think that version seven just has one change from version five. So I'm not printing it out again. So I see under Becky Wasserman, I see as passed by the house, I see DR1.7 and then I see under Jeanette's name, version five on our website. Is there a new, is there an updated one? Take the latest one from Becky. Because I believe there's only one change from version five to version seven. Or just check your email, Alison. Gail sent it out. Probably like an hour ago. I know she did. Okay. All right, let's. So the way we're going to do this committee is because we have very limited time. We're going to start going through it section by section. And we'll see if there's agreement on a section. If there's agreement on a section, we are done. We're moving on to the next one. If there isn't agreement on a session section, then we'll pass that one over and come back to it. And so that we'll make sure that we get all the ones that are agreed on done first. And then move on to the others. Does that make sense? Okay.  And I apologize if I do, but so, okay. So section one is the definition section. And this has not changed for many days. And it is, are we agreeing? Are we in agreement on the definition of independent? That's the change we made. And what we did is we took out the section that says that they can be considered independent if they simply sign a disclosure form. We took that out. So are we okay with this definition? Yes. Yes. Okay. Any comments from anybody in the, in the, I'm looking at the rest of you here that aren't, okay, great. Everybody's okay with that. Done. Okay. Moving on to section and to the 522, the VPIC committee, we have made no changes on the makeup of the VPIC committee. Are, is everybody okay with this the way it's written? It has one by visas, one by VSTRS, one by the MERS, two by the governor, the treasurer, the chair who's appointed by the other members, and DFR or Designee and VLCT and the School Boards Association. Is everybody okay with that? Yes. Anthony, Keisha. I'm trying to read, I'm trying to, this hasn't changed in a, in a few iterations, but it has not changed at all. Oh, okay. We've made no changes to this. Did we, in a different draft, did we, or is it new this, we're talking about the new board? No, we have never made change to the, we've never agreed on a change to the makeup of the VPIC board. So that's it as it was passed by the house. I need to look at my notes. I thought we made some suggested changes. Well, we made suggested changes, but we didn't agree on them. Okay. So are we in agreement with this or should I put a question mark beside this one? I would take question mark. All right. I need to sort of review it and sort of. Okay, so going on to the next change we made, is that we under member terms, we said that members and alternates of the commission shall be eligible for reappointment and shall not serve more than three terms, provided however that a single term served as an alternate shall not be used to calculate a member's total term. Are we okay with that? Yeah. Okay. We then have a big X. The chair shall not serve more than X years. Any comments there? Can we agree on something now or not? I thought the Madam chair. Yes. I had thought Tom would be okay with 16 years. But remember, we didn't make any changes. So I'm asking now if we have suggestions for changes that we can agree on. Senator Collomar. Thank you Madam chair. I believe that we also talked about no term limits. Yeah. And originally the house sent us 20 years, as I recall. Right, yes. So where are we with this? I was still most comfortable if we made it clear we care about this issue, but we're waiting for best practices to come back. Recommendations on best practices and to decide next year. So just to take out the term limit for the chair period and let it come back. Because somewhere else we ensured that term limits was part of the study that's coming back. Or I don't know. Yes. Okay. Yeah, then yeah. Okay. Tom's it's part of Tom's the VPIC study, right? Yeah, we were going to add that back into the VPIC study. So can we take out the line the chair shall not serve more than X years and just say if the chair is unable to perform his or her duty. The committee shall elect an interim chair who shall be financial expert and independent. Yes. Yeah. I am a really reluctant yes on that. I'd rather leave it 20 years and not change it from the house and then reintroduce a new term than have unlimited terms for anybody ever. I think unfortunately or I'll vote it on that one. I know I'm hearing you. I'm just want to voice my concern. My father, I'm channeling my father. So the next change that we made is chair and vice chair. The chair of the Vermont Pension Investment Committee Commission shall have the financial investment leadership and governance expertise as required by policies adopted by the commission. The chair shall be a non-voting member except in the case of of a tie vote. So do they not count in the 10? Is that what I'm recall? No, they count in the 10. There are nine and then the chair makes the 10. Okay. Okay. I'm fine with this. Yep. Okay. Anybody else out there have any comments? Okay. Great. Okay. So I'm going through just the changes that we made because a lot of them, we didn't have any issues with what the house had come up with to begin with. So. So I think the next change that we made. Okay. I'm on a, I think I'm on a different version, but what is it, Senator Colomar? Yeah. It's at the top. It says make recommendations of best practices and necessary actions to transfer the commission to an independent entity. Oh, right. Instead of standalone. This is kind of weird, but I don't have page numbers on my thing. And I have different page numbers. So, but it just. Is there a section? Yeah. Three. Okay. Where did the young. Three little B. It was just a bug a boo of mine. It said standalone and we'd always talked about independent before and now we said standalone. So I just asked them to change it to. Independent to be consistent. That's all. I just so the page numbers are usually on the bottom right, but this one has them in the top center in case that helps anybody, they do exist. And Anthony, it would might help if you, if you were on the website under Jeanette, the V five is seems to be what we are going on. Okay. I'm going to go there. So I was working off of the email. I think we can also make it clear what section we're in. Sure. So sorry, there should be a new draft that was, I had emailed out to, to Gail. That's not version five. So you did Becky, you were there and I had printed out version five. And I just don't want to print out another full copy since there are some few changes, but also when, as Anthony just pointed out, when you're following along from an emailed copy, it's all one continuous document and it doesn't have pages. That's not true. That's not true. Oh, really? You have a different. Stay focused. Let's just stay focused here. I'm on the website. If we can, if we can identify sections where we are. Instead of trying to figure out if we're all on the same. So the, I don't, I don't think we had any other. Any other recommendations around. The VP. At all. The next one I think is the task force section 10. Right. There is. I'm going to make a recommendation here on the task force membership. And see what people think about it. We currently have. One member of the house, one of the Senate. I'm going to make a suggestion here and see what you think about it. Two. From the house. And the problem with only one from each body is that. You can't get any. Political party representation at all. You really need to have. Two. So two from the house. Two from the Senate. Two by the governor. The treasurer. Three by the NEA. Two by the VSEA and one by the VTA. And the reason that I said three, two, and one is because. That means that there are three coming from each of the. The VSTRS and the TERS. The teachers for system. And the state system. So because VTA and VSEA, although they're separate bargaining units are the same. In the same system. So that, that's my suggestion. I just compare it to the. Initial one again, the, the initial one was two legislators. The initial one that we talked about. Yes. One in the house. No, the one, the one we were comparing to that was the last thing we talked about. That was 10, I think is that what's written into here is the last one we talked about. Um, I. I'm out if you want one. Okay. I see it now to go. Yeah, go ahead Brian. That'd be great. The last one we had was one from the house, one from the Senate, two from the governor, the treasurer, two NEA, two VSEA and one trooper data. I have to time. Madam chair's recommendation is we increase that. So it's two from the house, two from the Senate, two from the governor, the treasurer, three from the NEA, two from the VSEA and one from the troopers association, which now adds up to 13. So. I guess I, so I think what I'm think we're doing anyway, what I'm doing is balancing. You know, the idea of increasing the number of people, which we heard just like may or may not add value to the overall. Conversation that kind of less is more. With. Having more legislators. Which. I was really compelled madam chair when you said that, you know, it was you and, and representative Terry McCague. A while back at, you know, I think. That feels sufficient to me. I don't know that I think we need that many more legislators, especially since we're now doing a new oversight. Joint oversight committee with legislators. It feels like a lot of legislators, which. I remember the task of this is very different than the joint, than oversight committee. The task of this one is to come up with a benefit plan that we can adopt that will be the benefit plan going. Well, we'll be presented to the legislature and we'll be the benefit plan going forward. So I'm going to put a red mark on this one that will come back to it. Okay. Okay. So then. The next change we made was. Around the. Designation of the. Appointee by, and I think we can take that out. It's C. It's big C. Little. It's to see upon designation approval. It's C. It's C. It's C. It's C. It's C. It's C. It's C. And that was the. Appointee of the. HR or DFR. And if we've taken them out, we don't need that. Agreed. Okay. And then. Here's where we have the potential change. It's C. It's C. It's C. It's C. It's C. It's C. There right now. That is the. And everybody's only referring it to as big A. It's the. The goal, the fiscal goal. And if you see that new language. Does everybody see that? Yep. Okay. So comments on that. That is simple. It's easy to understand. But it's not. It's not. It's not easy to understand. Looking at them. With the current amortization schedule in mind. And getting. Coming up with. Options for getting to the. Where we need to be. Anybody on the committee have questions about that? And if so, I'm going to. Let Tom. Answer the questions. I think it's much simpler. And. And. I think it's great. Okay. Committee. Okay. Senator. Yeah. I mean, I, I think it. I like the language about developing a range of strategies. I think they should understand the costs and benefits without being kind of. Backed into a corner. And so I think this is what the language does. Senator Polina. I agree. I think it's certainly simple. It's nice. And I feel like it gives them more options. I was afraid before that they're going to be wedged into trying to meet certain goals that were not necessarily. The most important goals. Okay. Other member other. People with us. Tom, would you like to address this just to. I think it would be a great idea. I think it would be a great idea. I think it would be a great idea to accomplish, make it simple. Link it to the amortization schedule. So it wouldn't be an easy out. If I just reamortizing. And also to create, give the. Task force of flexibility in determining what. They think is the best. Recommendations to make while also maintaining some goals in there for, for the treasure. I think it would be a great idea to do that. I think it would be a great idea to do that. I think that's the. Difference from our conversation yesterday. So. I think we left it out originally and then we put it back in. So. I think it accomplishes those three. Goals. Treasure. Yeah, I think that. Why we want to have different variations. It's almost impossible. For instance, if you said. To lower the unfunded liability by 25%. And then you take a look and say, you know. You want to also lower the ADEC by 25%. The only way to do that would be to change the amortization schedule. When I'm looking at this, just as a matrix. I'm seeing 16 different versions. Plus, if you wanted to have a no change. You would add another four. You're up to. 24. Just standard variations of a theme. Just do all this. And then you have the nuances of everything in between. And again, that's simple methods. You know, you're going to have an incredible number of scenarios doing this. And you can't do. 25% of one and then 25% of the other. Without changing the amortization schedule out to. You know, to, to an incredible period of time. And then you have to do it for each. So if you said 25% UAL, the unfunded liability. And then you needed to schedule the 25, the 50, the 75. I'm looking at the wrong one, Beth. If you're looking at the one that says 25. 50 and 75. Okay. Apologies. You need to be looking at the one on our website. That is under Becky Wasserman. That's draft. There we go. Okay. Okay. I'm, I'm looking at the wrong one. My apologies. I have one that was from. In the chat version. Is that the one I should be using? Yes, it is. Okay. So let me pull that one up. And again, as that gets to the point, that would be great. Let me get down there. That's page. I had a 19. 19. My apologies. I. I was, that was my comment a few days ago and thankfully, thankfully it looks like we'll pass that. Okay. I'm good with this. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Not said, you're good with it. I am. Okay. Steve Jeff. Mike. Wait a minute. I'm not good with it. Hold on. I'll wait for the treasure. Okay. So even though you've taken it and made it more simple. If I'm reading this, let me do this again, develop and make sure I'm reading the right one. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll chat. Develop and evaluate a range of strategies to lower the accurately determined employer contribution and unfunded accrued liability. Based on the actual area of assets and so on between 25 and 100% of the size of the increase from 2021. Okay. Am I reading? Okay. And. As reported. Okay. So now you're only dealing with the UAAL here. No, it says both. So the number of permutations that you're going to have on this or combinations are going to be extraordinarily large. You know, if you, if you started with the UAAL and said 25 to 100, then you can take a look at what you would need to do with an amortization schedule. But if you, if you combine these, it simplifies the language, but it gets to the same point, which is that you're going to have to do that. If you have to do it against 25, 50, 75 and 100 on the, on the unfunded liability. And then 25, 50, 75 and 100. No, it isn't 25, 50 and 75. It doesn't say mention that at all. There's no 50 or 75 in there. Okay. It says between 25 and 100%. Okay. All right. It's going to be an incredible number. I'll be fine with it. I'll be fine with it. It's going to create a lot of different variations, but I'm fine with it. It might, or they might come magically come up with something. Yep. We'll be fine. Right. Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks. Jeff, Steve, Mike. Well, I like the language and maybe to, to respond to the treasurer's comment there. It does allow for some flexibility for the task force to actually look and see what works or doesn't work. So it puts them in the, one thing I have, I, I don't necessarily like a lot is maintaining the 20 38 amortization schedule that was established in 2010. So that's an old schedule, if you will, and we're looking at everything. And I think that ought to be in the mix, frankly, but, but I think this does give the task force enough room in which to operate. You're right. There are infinite numbers of possibilities. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I'm not a man treasurer, but it does allow for them to figure out. How to do that as well as they can, given all the other things factors that they're supposed to look at, they go on from there. B through J. I think it does. Yeah. So, Jeff, if you look at D, however, it does. Give you, give some flexibility there on the ability to maybe change the amortization schedule for a year. I think that would do, but not to put it off to 20 58. I mean, there's, yeah, it does give some flexibility. Absolutely. This works. Again, you're going to have a lot of iterations, but which ones you want to do. It's good. Yeah. Mike. Very simple. I agree with Jeff. Okay. Steve. I'm not sure I'm looking at the right version of this, but I'm going to be seven. Yeah, I don't, I'm having trouble finding that, but I'm going to go out in a limb and say, I agree with Jeff. It's page 22. I think that's very smart of you, Steve. Take that for the rest of the way. Everybody agree with me. I think we'll have. I think you need to have that carved into something, Jeff. I think it's a little bit like. Our Lieutenant governor said the other day, and I think she's right that we need to have all have t-shirts that say, Senator, could you please unmute yourself? Anyway, okay. The next change that we had then was identifying potential options for limiting the growth in actuarial determined employer contributions to no more than inflation. Okay. Assessing the impacts associated with any modifications to the current amortization schedule. So if we did change that. We would have to. I mean, we, if it was changed, it would have to. Have any impact that would. A crew. Yeah. Community committee. Are you. Yes. Yes. Okay. The next schedule. The next change said, um, proposed benefits structures with the objective of adequate benefits, including an evaluation of a risk shared risk model for employer and employee contributions. Cost of living adjustments with a focus on reducing any future. Increases to the actuarial determined employer contributions.  Which of those many words. Actuarially. I think it's very hard to say. It is. Any comments there, questions, concerns. Well, good. Well, I mean. I'm just. I'm just sort of reading it in the context of later. It asks it, it calls for, you know, them to look at revenue and other ways of. Making this a sustainable fund besides just. Changing the pay in amount. Right. And it. So it, I guess I'm struggling too with the word object. Objective of adequate. Benefits. This section just feels a little bit. Kind of. Prescriptive to me as I read it now. Focus on reducing any future increases to the actuarially determined employer contributions. What, what exactly are we saying there? I mean, Tom. So may I talk to this. Okay. So if you're talking, you know, benefit structures and then what you're saying a risk shared model. That would impact employee contributions or cost of living adjustments. Our thought was. This is a little different than what I saw in the house, but our thought was that you would look out five, seven years or whatever. And if you see improvement, for instance, that you would make an adjustment to employee contributions or cost of living adjustments or some other area. So the idea is that at our end was that if you saw improvement, you should give the folks a break on some of the areas of pain. I think that the way this is written now, it says that it goes both ways that if there is a. A shared risk model that if there, if you didn't succeed, that that you would look at these as well. It is a, it is what's called a, you know, a risk sharing model. And in its full both ways. Our recommendation was that to be very candid that, that the employees have already done some painful hits and that we should only be looking at what. We could do to reduce those five or seven years out. If in fact, we, we saw improvement. I'm pretty sure that this would not, that it would not fly through the Senate unless it was a shared risk model and there was some attention paid to that. Yeah. Can you say more about that? Well, okay. I don't, I don't. I mean, it, it is a. It is a shared risk. It isn't. It isn't just the employees or the employer who needs to take the, if there's a hit that needs to take the hit. It's shared risk. I believe that that's. So is anything changing about that? I mean, is there a reason we need to spell it out this way? Is it, is it already shared risk or. Is that changing Tom? I think this gets the idea shared risk. There are some states that do add shared risk. Programs into place if they don't meet certain investment rate or return assumptions that it's sort of. The overage or underage or whatever it is would be. This language is very vague and it gives the committee. It gives them the flexibility to look at some of those other structures that are around to maybe think of different options that will work here in Vermont and it would be a way to share the risk between employees and employers in that situation. I don't, I think it's a little vague for on purpose. So it gives them the flexibility to look at those states. I would argue a different, different perspective, but it can be dealt with in the committee. There is a mistake in this, which is that if you're talking about employer contributions, that is the ADEC with a focus on reducing any future increases to the ADEC. So I think that's what you really want to be saying there is any increases to the unfunded liability. Right. Yes. Yeah, that's the same. Changing the increase in employer contribution, which feels like that doesn't make, that doesn't make. Especially since we, when you've got that up, you know, the employer and employee contributions employer does mean the ADEC. So it's a risk model for that. And then impacting with, and then trying to reduce it when you might actually have to increase the employee and the employer together. So again, I think what you're looking at the measurement is if you're unfunded liability continued to increase, then you would look at contributions and you would look at cost of living adjustments. So. And I, and I would add to that that I think part of the issue with this subdivision is that it's, a bunch of different edits being put in a different time. So when it came over from the house, it was just the employee contributions and cost of living adjustments as part of that shared risk model. I think at one point, your committee discussed adding in the employer. Contributions to that. And then, then another iteration was adding in the ADEC. So I think that it. It is a combination of, I think that it is a combination of a bunch of different suggested edits. And, and so. But with the treasure just said, I think it's correct that if you're adding an employer to the shared risk model, then the ADEC sentence doesn't make as much sense. So do the question is, then do we just end it after cost of living adjustments period? Or do we put with a focus on reducing any future increasing increases to the unfunded liability? Madam chair, if I could, if you just leave it at cost of living adjustments, you don't have a benchmark and why, why you're doing it in a shared thing. So again, I would just change that future increases to the unfunded liability. Now, again, when I'm on committee, I'm going to argue differently, but that's fine. I would, I would further propose that instead of saying adequate benefits, we say competitive benefits. Competitive with who? Well, adequate for who, right? I mean, I think either we, that, that word is really subjective as well. And I think we still need to be in the larger picture of this piece. We're trying to pay attention to, are we still competitive in our region and being able to offer benefits to people? Well, I think I actually, I think that's addressed farther on. When saying adequate benefits, I think is a, is too subjective of a statement. Okay. It is the task force that's going to determine whether they're adequate or not. Right. I mean, this is part of their job. Their job is determined whether it's adequate. Adequate is in the eye of the beholder sort of, sort of. Well, So it was competitive. Right. Yeah. So it's competitive that, I mean. If somebody proposes 10 something, I know whether 10 something is adequate or not. It's a matter of opinion, but if somebody says 10 compared to 12. Competitively, I know that I'm, I'm at the lower end. Yeah, but. Okay. Well, I do, I think that. We have to be really careful about. Thinking about how we're competitive with other. Other places and other states because they're very, very different. The benefits in Maine, for example, are very different because they're not a social security state. They get no social security. The teachers don't. So that's, we can't compare ourselves there. We can't come. We can't even compare the benefits for the troopers. With the sheriffs. I mean. They're not. I think we need to stay with adequate here because. And, and my guess is that. You have six people representing the unions here. And if they are, if they come to a decision that whatever they come up with, what this task force comes up with. Is adequate. That's their. That's the decision they've made. I don't know. I think the way it's the way. Wasn't this the original language from that came from the house? Yeah. It was. And one suggestion is perhaps you can just take out. With the objective of. And without any descriptive words, because I think part of what this task force is doing is that. Yeah. It is looking at all these financial impacts and. Different benefit structures. And so to try to describe. Give a descriptive term of a benefit. Structure before they. Do all this analysis. I think would be hard. It's a hard. It's a hard thing to describe before you have the information. I think. So what would you, how would you rewrite that? So one option could just say propose benefit structures, comma, including an evaluation of a shared risk model. Rather than try to describe what those. Benefit structures would be before you have that. I see. Yeah. Yep. Okay. That's make sense. Before we move on, I just want to make clear. You said there's six labor people on the task force, which is true, but it looks like there's seven non labor people on the task force. I actually. I am considering the treasure. It is true. There's six labor people and seven non labor. But I'm, I, I think that if we start trying to. Look at philosophical differences here. I'm considering the treasure. A neutral. Position. I don't. I know that nobody is actually neutral, but I'm considering the treasure here and neutral position. But we're going to go back to that. We're going to go back to it. Yep. This might be what we spend a long time. And I have a feeling. Today. Okay. So Becky, we can change that to proposed benefits structures, including an evaluation of a shared risk model for employer and employee contributions, cost of living adjustments with a focus on reducing any future increases to the unfunded liability. Is that the way it would read? Is it, is it the correct term, the unfunded actuarial. We accrued liability. It's the UAL. So the unfunded actuarially. Accrued liability. Okay. Nice Becky. We need to get that term actuarially there in there somewhere. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. And welcome Chris. I didn't see that you had joined us until this moment. I apologize for being late. Okay. So I think the next change that we had made was. How proposed benefit changes for new members may reduce the impact of future actuarial assumption losses. Madam chair. I know that I'm just speaking out a turn, but if you go to the one right under that line, 18, an estimate of the current. I know it's there and it hasn't been negotiated, but there is an issue with that. An estimate of the cost of current and any proposed benefit structures on budgetary pays you go in future accrual basis. If this is just pensions, but if this is just pensions, the page you go should not be in there because the last thing we want to be suggesting is that we start doing pensions on a page ago basis. Funding basis. Okay. That's fine. This is the way it came over from the house. I don't think we even address that one, but so we'll cross off pay as you go. Yes, please. Everybody okay with that? Really good. Okay. Thank you. So the one that I just read. With the new members. I'll wait till you finish with your folks. Well, I haven't heard anything from anybody. Okay. You're on age, right? And we just got rid of pay as you go. No, I'm not on age. I'm on little. I'm on Roman at four. Oh, you're on Roman at four. I thought that we were talking about pay as you go. Oh, it's up above. Okay. Got it in Roman at two. Got it. Yep. Okay. I don't hear any. Beth. It's complicated. It's complicated. It's complicated. It's complicated. I don't hear any. Beth. It's complicated. I guess it can be done. You have to do something called an open enrollment. It's expensive and it's inaccurate, but we can do. We'll figure something out. Never mind. I think it just gives them another option to work on. Sure. Steve Howard, are you trying to talk?  I'm just trying to figure out where you are. I've lost track of where you are. We're on the top of page 21. If you have one with page numbers. Okay. There we go. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Is there any other. Thing before we get to H. Nope. H. Do it. Yes. Plan for pre-funding. Identifying. Including identifying. Long-term impact. Yes. Yes. Everybody okay with that? Yeah. Okay. I think that. On the next one on I, we did add to both active and retired school. Employees to lower healthcare costs for employees, retiree school boards in the state. We added that language to this. House. Madam chair. If when your members finish, I do have a comment on that. Committee. I'm also. Me too. Okay. So this is a really big scope. Number one, you're talking active and, and, and retired. You're talking about benefit design. It's a long effort. It's a long effort. It's a long effort. When you went through the state act is in the study committee, you had. Jeff, I think there was a few years ago. It was a long effort. This is really. A subject in and of itself. And it really gets away from the. The focus. If you were to do this, it eats up all of the time and it will eat up all the dollars. It's a long effort. We're not, we're not talking about how, when you're talking about health plan design. And for all of these groups, it's, it's, it's something that, that's way beyond what I think. You're able to get done in this period of time. And I think it, it diverts attention away from them. The main issues that we have. And I think it's something that, you know, has. In an effort to be able to do that. I think that's a great way to get. I think that's a really good way to get to the point. Of the context. Committee and others. I don't know what to say about it. I mean, it's part of the benefits, isn't it? Isn't that what they're supposed to be looking at? Well, I think they're what it's asking them is to look at. Completely new, new ways of doing it. Like. Should we, I can't even think of. Innovative. Design benefits designs. We're going to have concierge people are going to pay a certain amount to a doctor for concierge. I think that's what it's called health care, or we're going to have our own, we're going to institute our own doctors in the state, and they're going to treat all our state employees. And I'm trying to think of innovative health plan designs that. Well it does. It is part of benefits though a center column or said it's kind of, I think eventually it'll be hard to avoid talking about health benefits. If we're talking about retirees. Right. And what it says there is it says to, it says a plan for a plan to study health benefit design innovations. Oh, right, right. So it doesn't mean that I don't think it means they had to get into a great detail of all of all the options, but they have to give consideration to the options and then maybe come up with a way to follow through with some kind of planning process. You're right. A way to further study. We recommend that there be a group that studies all these new innovations and. Okay, okay. I always go back to the question of are we setting this group up for success. Are we giving them the requisite, you know, time, money, and charge to actually accomplish this by October. I'm really lengthy and kind of, I would side with the treasure just just in terms of, you know, this one more thing we're asking them to plan for a plan, you know, can the new oversight committee do that and they do something because this is too much to ask one group to do. That's a good point. I don't agree. I mean this is a whole piece of the benefits. I agree that it's an important benefit but I don't agree with the committee. I mean this is a lot to ask. You just passed an amendment. You just passed an amendment to pay for the OPEM. The healthcare piece. I in the budget. I think it's all needs to be addressed and I think then do we give them another six months to do their work. I mean this is just a lot for basically four months. We're going to ask people and we'll see how far they get and if they need more time they'll ask for it. Maybe what we maybe what we do in here is just somehow make it that clear that they're not, they're not going to necessarily be studying the innovations in health benefits, but that they're going to suggest a way to evaluate them. I'm not sure. That's my understanding is that what they'll put in place is a way to stay current with healthcare innovation and that they may or may not want to be addressing in the future. I don't think it's to come up with the plan in those in the time frame we have, Kasia. I think it's to put in place a way to stay current with healthcare innovation or healthcare benefits. And who knows. We have changes at the federal level that would make a lot of this, you know. We may end up with a single payer system at some point. Exactly. I think we're not. They write that great. So Becky is there a way of wording that so that it's clear that they aren't coming up. They aren't going to be studying all of these but are going to kind of make it clear that this is something that needs to be addressed as we go forward. If I may, Madam Chair. This is about teachers and retired teachers. We operate a little bit differently than than the state employees, the troopers. So that's why, you know, in some respects it's there because we are different than they are and that's the only way we can explore that. So I think the idea would be to have this task force explore benefit design innovations. I mean, it's not, we're not asking, I agree that the use of the word plan is a plan to study that if that's not clear or does it if that is more deep into the weeds. That's not the intent. It's just sort of an observation that we we operate differently than the state employees and the troopers and to acknowledge that the post employment benefits are healthcare and we should look at how we do that. So that's what we're trying to get at the because you're right, Senator Clarkson was just a few minutes ago you just put something into the budget is just part of the package. So rather than a plan, would you want to say evaluating health benefit design innovation so that they're not coming up with. Oh, we don't want them to. Madam chair speak to this again please. Yes. Well, when you when you're looking at the charges and what was going on. Historically, there were two issues one was the pension in the unfunded liability the growth in the a dash. And at that point, we were looking at whether you have structural changes and or revenue or combination The issue with the teachers, I mean with the OPEB that we were addressing was the issue of pre funding and strategies to get there and Senator, we might get part of the way there with what's in that, what's in the Senate bill and I'm extraordinarily appreciative of of the Senate's efforts there and thank Senator Kitchell quite a bit on that, but right now the teachers in the state and the teachers, actors have very different plans than the than the retirees extraordinarily different plans. If we if we start looking at this we're walking away from the focus of how are we going to fund it to lower the costs. And again, I would agree with Senator Rahm that this is going to get into a diversion and even the way that Jeff just described it. I think we're getting into structures and understanding and what those structures are to develop a plan that divert us from from the main attempt which is to lower the cost. And in the case of the teachers in the state it's how do you get to a funding mechanism. I do believe that you need to take a look at issues with several years ago some folks discussed whether you pull the teachers in the, in the, in the state employees into one, one health care. Yes. That said, it's outside of the range of what we can do here I would recommend a different study for that. This is going to to overwhelm the committee. Once we get into this discussion. Okay, I've been trying to push that for years. Madam Treasurer that everybody, everybody who's employed with any public dollar should be in the same health care system. Any public dollar. Yeah, so I think that you, we might want to explore that with a different committee I think that again this is going to bog us down and just defining what it is and what things we should study. And what things we should not study. And it gets us away from the purpose I have every interest in looking at health care as do you. But I don't think it's, this is the committee to do that. I would love to have conversations. We're going to be submitting something that's going to significantly lower the liabilities without changing benefits for the, for the teacher system. That said, going through a process of trying to do it in this committee is, is, I just don't, it takes us away from the, the, the, the most important goals of this committee which is to lower the unfunded liability for both systems, and you get to pre funding for both the state and the teacher system. Jeff would you be a Senator calmer. Thank you madam chair so about the you suggesting we don't make any reference to health plans at all in the bill. That's okay. Could we just sort of make it really generic and say that the task force could gain an overview of health. I don't know how to word it, but for both active and retired teachers and just leave it at that. So that they at least look at what is what is in place now, and what could be in place at some future date but not getting deep into the weeds. But again, I think it's an important enough issue. I would, I would hate to not at least say something about it. I would raise the point. Oh, sorry. Yes, please Becky. So the task force, ultimately is is working on a report that's going to be recommending legislative action. So with that in mind, if, if it's, I don't know how helpful it is for the task force to just be looking at an issue if they're not going to be ultimately recommending anything in association with it. So I'm just wondering if it's, you know, this could perhaps be something if you have an oversight committee. That is, you know, one of the tasks of that oversight committee could be to to recommend to the committees of jurisdiction that they could work on this issue or something something to that effect but it does seem like for this, this task force with the ultimate goal of making a recommendation for legislation that if they're not going to be coming up with some kind of recommendation. I don't know if that's the appropriate place for them to just be looking into it. Well it is the only place I believe that we mentioned health benefits at all. I mean we, everything else is aimed at the pension. That's, that's the whole goal of the task force. So maybe they could be recommending to committees of jurisdiction. I mean I, I'm perfectly happy actually to just leave this out and say that this is something that has that has to be addressed but not necessarily by this task force. But then, who does because it is a huge piece of the cost of retirement for anybody. The health care benefits are different than the pension. Right. They are but they're necessarily tied together is that they're paid for with dollars. Thank you. Yeah, they are tied together we just saw it tied together in the budget. I mean, we just had a stark illustration of this.  May I comment again I, if that's all right. Yeah. Okay, I like I think what I heard from Becky was perhaps moving it to the oversight committee and saying the oversight committee would deal with pension and other post employment benefits which is healthcare. And, and take a look at that. You know, right now. The, the change that we just made was about funding. Senator and the changes that we need to make to, to, to lower those liabilities by 1.6 billion dollars is how do we pre fund, not necessarily the benefits that said the oversight committee could certainly hear here. Thoughts on that and make recommendations and I think that would be a better place to put that. I haven't said much. I'm in a quandary over to tell you the truth. I think it's really important but I actually think it's really a big job. I would lean towards leaving it out I think just because I don't think they could do a good job at it in the time they have given everything else they need to do. I say that with regrets to be quite honest because I think it needs to be looked at, but I think it's impractical to expect them to be able to do it. But it's asking them to put a plan, put a plan into place to address it. Right. I thought that's all this was doing. It needs to be addressed. Let's make it clear then that all they have to say is in their recommendation is we would ask the oversight committee to look at a plan to look at how to study health care benefit design innovations and with this in mind. We're going to tell that we're all we're going to do in this. This is going to take five minutes of the task forces time to say, we're going to tell the oversight committee to look at this. And they're going to say why didn't government operations just tell them to make the oversight commission. Right. Exactly. All right, where are we. I guess as long as somebody does it. Yeah. We're on page. We know where we are. I meant, okay, where are we in making a decision. I said where I was. Yeah, I think I'll agree with Senator. And remind us Anthony, what are you recommending with regrets with regrets. I think we should not impose this this this task on the task force. As much as as important as healthcare issue is we all know how important it is. I don't think they could do it justice while they're doing all this other stuff between now and like what is it September October I mean it's just it's really asking a lot. And many of the people who will be on the task force will know the kind of discussion that has been held here and I'm sure that the NEA will make sure that somehow. I think we should make a recommendation to the to somebody look at this. Am I also think that it's pretty, it's, it's pretty unlikely that this task force would meet and go through all the stuff and never consider healthcare they're it's going to come up in their conversations without a doubt. Right. So they may decide to do something about it, but we're just not telling them if they have to come up with something specific. Right. I can't imagine them going through this whole process and like at the end of it said, oh we forgot to talk about healthcare. I can't even tell them. Okay, you should make a recommendation that it just, it just, it just, it was, it came from us and I'll just be honest with you and say that it's, it's because healthcare is such a big component of the puzzle. Yes, it sort of felt like we're ignoring that big piece, particularly as it relates to the educators, because we operate differently. So, it was just a thought if they're, if they're looking at overall benefits the pension healthcare is part of it. Certainly we will advocate to the task force that they, they look at about creative and innovative ways to offer healthcare that for actors and retirees. You know, it's been a big source of discussion in the state house for several years now we all know. So it was trying to put into play and have them look at it. But I understand, I understand numbers well enough to know. What if we just said, I don't want to backtrack but what if we just said that we asked them to consider alternative health benefit plans. Wow. That's telling them to, that's telling them to do it. I honestly think just leave it out and tell that and that it will come up in the conversation as Jeff said. The members of who are appointed by the NEA will make sure that it comes up in the conversation. Well, or, or you could ask them to consider to address it how we integrate healthcare benefits into the whole pension system. I mean, how do we better do a better job of that. And because one of the challenges now is they're not integrated right Jeff I mean they're kind of separate. And, and they're completely a part of it. So the question for me is, how do we better enter plan, how do we better integrate these two things and I do think that's something this task force could look at without it bogging down because it's, it's, it's a major cost. And it need, you know, we need to deal with it. And it's only increasing unless we can do a better job bringing it under cost containment unless we can figure out a better way to deliver a healthcare at a reasonable and sustainable cost. So, I think maybe the question is how do we integrate long term how do we integrate healthcare benefits into the pension system. That is a whole study in itself. That isn't something that this group can take on and do with everything else I have to do I just don't believe that they can. But they, they could say, we need to do this. Right. And I guess is that Jeff will make sure they do say that. Okay. I mean, was this in the house version as it came over. No, this came from the NEA. Okay. I'm comfortable. As I said before, as long as someone looks at it, leaving it out. How do we make sure they look at it without stating it as, as one of the goals. I mean, I just, I think if there will be members of the NEA on this committee and my guess is they will bring a recommendation back to the legislature that you need to take. You need to do more study and you need to figure out how to better integrate the healthcare into the, if they don't, then it isn't a big issue for them. Let's call the question. Okay. We can't do that in the Senate. I know. But where are we? We could do anything we wanted. So, Obi, I'm just channeling Obi. I think that if it's a conversation we need to have, we should ask them at least to make a plan for how we have that conversation. That's all this section is asking. Have a plan to have that conversation on how we integrate in a sustainable fashion, healthcare into a pension system. I'm sorry. You can make it one of the duties of the oversight committee. Right. And that's what the treasurer suggested, I think. Yes. So we could add that. Okay. So can we take it out of here? Yes. As long as it's somewhere. Okay, take it out. John. Jeff, we're leaning on you for that. Conversation. All right, let's go on to Jay. Okay. I think we have a sort of a awkward sentence on line 16 and 17. Economic and economies are both in the same sentence. I think if you've just said evaluating the intermediate long-term impacts to the state and local economies. Or say economic impacts. It just seems like it's. It doesn't need to be said twice. Yeah. But I think, oh, right. That's a pretty good one. I think that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. So if it's a little bit economic in front of the impacts, I think that reads better. Thank you. That reads better. Any other issues with that one? Everybody okay with that? Yeah, the other, the other thing is, and at the risk of not being very popular saying this. Lines 19 and 20. retirees who identify as females or people with disabilities. I mean, I understand the emphasis there, but aren't you already saying that by saying all retirees? It just seems, I don't know. Maybe I should just let it go. I actually already see all retirees. It says their potential effect. Retiree spending power. Yeah. Retiree spending power. It doesn't say, oh, okay. I think this is just, as Jeff has said, we know that the vast majority of the NEA retirees are female and a huge percent of retired women in the state are live at poverty level. And I think they are actually a special group that need to be addressed in some of this.  Ah, I totally forgot. The commission on women? Yeah, the commission on women, but what's the chain, what's the- Oh, change the story. Change the story. It's been called out and really articulated well in change the story. I think that Brian's point is that it says, including retirees, if we want to put special emphasis on them, then we have to say that. It is a potential effect on retiree spending power, including if we want to have a special emphasis on women and people with disabilities. And we have to say that. We can't just say, including women and people with disabilities. And I'm not sure what- I see what you mean. And just say, especially- Steve, did you have a comment? I see your little yellow hand up. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize. I don't have a comment on this, but unfortunately I'm going to have to swap out with my colleague, Tom Abdenor. I'm scheduled at 3.30 to get my vaccine. I just, if I could just state two important things for the record before I go, not on this section, but VSEA strongly believes in the 50-50 balance on the task force. And we would hope that you could add another labor seat there. The only other thing I just wanted to put on the table is in the last meeting, we had stated some concerns about the oversight committee. We have had those concerns addressed and we no longer have any opposition to the oversight committee. Thank you, thank you. Good luck. We're turning it over to Tom Abdenor and there's Tom on my way to get my vaccine. Steve, is it your first or second? Second. All right, so are we, I mean, how do we want to address that? Do we really want to have this task force spend time trying to determine that? I guess this is something else that we need to address but is this the task force to do it? My feeling is you end the sentence with spending power, period. Knowing that the folks that are on the task force are going to be well aware of some of the things we've already talked about and we leave it to them to sort of focus on folks that they really think should be focused on. It just seemed to me to be kind of a weird thing to add. We could take a vote on it. We could have more discussion. I'd love to have Jeff weigh in because it's actually a huge percent of Jeff's retirees. And they are a vulnerable population, I think. Right, I mean, and I think I testified to this a few weeks ago now or whenever it was. I remember being in Seneca about 15 years ago, sometimes in the early dots, where we had to, as a state, elevate teachers' pensions because they were so far below the poverty line and the vast majority were elderly women. And so this was born out of that history and trying to understand, okay, if you make changes and they may be appropriate now, what are the long-term effects on those people and their spending ability? The retired teachers association annually puts together a report about the amount of money their members spend in the state. And I'm sure the State Employees Retired Association does something similar. So they have an economic shot in the arm, if you will, Steve just departed to the local economies. And if you reduce that ability to have that shot in the arm, what does that mean? And so it's sort of a way to just have this task force look at their possible decisions and the possible impact on the local economy. Can I just make a suggestion here for a word change? Their potential effect on retiree spending power, particularly those who identify as female in persons with disabilities. Right. Instead of saying including those because they're already included. Right. They are included and we'd like to have them spend more. Okay, can we agree to that or not? Yeah. Yeah. Did you get that Becky? I got it. Okay, great. Thanks. Okay, moving on. Okay. And this deals with the issue of recruitment and retention. Right, I'm fine with this. Okay. Senator Ram. This is, are we, did we move on to the new, a new statement? Okay. Okay. Looking at it now. And we've made no changes to this since it was put in. Right. Yep. Senator Collamore. I will however know Madam Chair, it's kind of interesting. Line 23 and 20 and then the next line and evaluation of any proposed changes to current benefit structures, which could include healthcare. So, go back to it again. We could call it out. I'm fine with leaving it in. I'm fine with leaving it in. I just wanted to point that out. Yes, I see it. Thank you. I mean, as the one who originally had the concern about layering too much on this group, I have come full circle to see that it's fairly benign if it feels like it's going to keep coming up any way for them in their consideration. So, you know. What, what are you talking about? I'm sorry, we're talking about healthcare again. I thought, so I just say. No, I didn't know Senator Collamore wanted to stay there. I know, I'm going to tell Senator Collamore never to say that again. I'm sorry. I have to. Because we don't want to go back there. We don't want to go back there. I promise I won't today. Okay. Madam Chair, if I may, I think I need to correct the record. I said I didn't think it came over from the house. In fact, there was language in the house going back to just the healthcare. So I know that the word that Shanafi spoke on apparently, but it is, it was included in the house version as passed differently than this. And hence the yellow language. I apologize. I said that incorrectly. I missed, I forgot that. Well, so, so. I remember this is always also all so going to a conference committee. So if it came over from the house, it'll be in the house version. That's true. Or we could add here on line one on page 22, including healthcare benefits. No. All right. I think we need to, the issue of healthcare benefits is unique to the teachers. And I think we need to acknowledge that that is a unique issue that needs to be addressed in a very thoughtful way. But it isn't this task force is dealing with the whole, how we pay for this and how we get to there. And I don't think while we need to do this, this is unique to the teachers. This doesn't affect the state employees. That's because they're self-insured. It's because they're. Well, like you said, it'll come up in conference committee. So I don't think we should, we need to worry too much. Can we move on to Kay? Yes. Is that, are we okay with that? Yes. With Kay. Okay. If I could add just a comment, it's going to be almost impossible to do. We tried to do this for the pension at the request of the retirement boards and board of trustees. And actuaries cannot predict future behavior. So we will do what we can to do some scenarios, but it is impossible to say how this is going to, until you get history and you see the results.  It's just not something that an actuary can help us with. We could look at history of other places perhaps, but it's, I mean, this is not, this, I needed to point that out to you. We tried to do it for the retirement boards and failed. And it is a question that because of the way people, there's a whole different attitude now, I think, among people about what they want out of a job, how long they're going to stay. Is a retirement benefit, does a 20 year old really think about their retirement benefits? Or I mean, my nephew turned down a job with the state because he needed the money now. He didn't need a retirement plan. He needed a higher salary now. And so he took a job with a higher salary because, so I think that there's some differences also in the way people think about their jobs and how long they're gonna stay. And most people don't stay in jobs for 30 years anymore. Anyway, we can leave this here and see what they think. Sure. Okay, let's go to the task force. A fiscal assistance from joint fiscal office and state treasurer. Okay, with that. I'm not sure what line we're on. Oh, there we go, yeah. Isn't, so I would think it should say the office of the treasurer because the treasurer is on the task force. There you go. At the moment, we haven't had that conversation. Well, I mean, let's say the treasurer's on the task force, then it should be, I understand why in the office, but otherwise the treasurer can't do both. And maybe that's, thank you for saying that, by the way. Well, whether she's on the task force or not, it probably should say office. Yes, thank you. I'll make that change. Yeah. And on two, was this a question, Becky, about whether it's the office of legislative council or the joint fiscal office that contract? Yeah, so this was a question. So both joint fiscal and lege council do contracts. We typically work together. You know, it's something we can work on together. I think JFO has been working with the actuary already. So I don't know if it's more appropriate for them to sort of be named in the legislation if that's the case. I mean, I am the person that does the contract. So I will state that I can happily help them if lege council is not named on there to draft it. It's just a matter of who's actually issuing the contract. And I think that they have been working with the treasurer's actuary already and have, I don't know if there was a contract in place, but with that in mind, it might be more appropriate for them to be named. And I think I would also mention that some point 250,000 was mentioned for this. I think the budget has gone forward with 200. So I just don't know if it's kind of too late to change it at this point. I think it's probably too late to change it at this point. We had 200 was in here originally. And I think that's what the appropriations went with. And my guess is that if there's an issue with it, it'll be dealt with somehow in budget adjustment. Or we can deal with it in conference committee. I mean, it's just on its process. So I mean, it's just in its little progress over to the house right now. So I mean, it's about to be because we haven't voted on third reading. So I don't think the appropriate, the house appropriations had anything in there. Right, but we can, anyway, we could change it, try and change it if we need it to. Okay, I think, but so Chris is JFO the appropriate. Madam chair, I would make this suggestion if this doesn't violate too many drafting conventions to say office of legislative council like and joint fiscal office or joint fiscal office because between the two of us, we can figure this out. And both offices are funded from the general assembly. So Becky, however you word that will be okay. Typically we just name one of them, but I will run it by Steve or Catherine and JFO to see how they wanna word it. Okay, so you'll take care of that, but we are in agreement that that's the way we should be doing it. Committee? Yes. And would you like me to change it back to 200,000 for now? No, we're taking that line out completely. Oh, so no appropriation? No, it's in the appropriations bill. It's already go, I see. Oh, I see, I see. Don't pull it out anyway. Let's finish with this first. Okay. Okay. Which one, the legislative council thing? Yeah, and Becky will come up with the right language on that. Anthony, you keep popping around on my screen. I can't keep track of you. I haven't moved an inch. I don't understand it. There's many things about the technology we don't understand. Yeah, Adam Fair, anytime anyone else comes in or out of the meeting, it shifts. Okay. So we need to take out the whole appropriations line because it is in the appropriations bill. Okay. Yeah, I think about that. Now we're talking about the appropriation, right? Yeah. I would appreciate what Senator Clarkson said in that. I know it's live in the appropriations bill that we passed out of the Senate. And if somebody who feels qualified to could start to talk to us about like a more itemized budget or I know it's one thing to kind of live within what exists at 200,000, but we've added a lot of different pieces to what they're charged with. And I just feel like it's worth knowing if 200,000 feels adequate or not. Well, I would say that I don't think there's much chance of changing it now. It is in the budget. And we would be asking them to change their budget. And so I think that we have to stick with the 200,000 that's in the budget. And if it looks like it has to go over that, then we will try to make some changes in either other money that's in the legislative budget or in budget adjustment. I don't know how we can do that now. I just have two options. We have one option is to go to our House counterparts after the budget actually gets, has third reading and suggest that this increase would be appropriate. And if they argued for it on their side, that might be great in the conference committee of the budget. And the second option if that fails is there's always money that can be played with if things go over in legislative budgeting. So because of all these study committees, there is flexible money for study committees and support for that kind of thing because you never fully know. And so within our legislative budget, this isn't so expensive that it would throw anything. Right. I think that that is the better way to do it. I don't remember that in the original House budget, if there was, I mean, Bill, that there was an appropriation, I don't think there was. So if there was not an appropriation, it's gonna be hard for them to argue for a higher appropriation than the Senate. It's never, I think that we should, I think we should just leave it at $200,000 and we should trust that if it goes over that, there will be money somehow in the legislative budget. Right. I think I just want to name the- There was, just to be clear, there was 200,000 in the House version. Oh, there was. Okay. And now we- In the House version of H449, not the House. Oh. Not the House budget, but in the House version of H449, which came to us. Okay, I would recommend that we end this conversation. We have $200,000 in there in both budgets. And if it goes over, there will be ways of dealing with it because it isn't as if it's a million dollars. It's, there will be ways of dealing with it. And I don't think we should be any more prescriptive on how they spend the money. That's gonna be up to the task force to work with JFO and Ledge Council to say what it is that they need. Yeah, Senator Rom. As we put this issue to rest, I just want to say for the record, my intent in raising this is that I wouldn't want any of the stakeholders here or who are watching to have the argument made to them.  And so I'm just raising it now so that everyone's clear, there might be the ability to appropriate more and nobody should be shutting down debate around expert testimony because of cost. No, no, I think, I mean, if it gets to $500,000, I think we probably need to shut it down. But yeah, okay, so we're okay with taking that out. And let's go to the Legislative Oversight Committee and we heard from VSEA that they're okay with that. Committee members, where are we? No, we're at the top of page 23. No, I didn't mean where are we in the bill. I meant where are we with the joint fiscal, with the Joint Oversight Committee? But I said, where are we? I don't mean where physically in the bill. I mean, where are we in terms of our agreement or disagreement with the issue? You just skipped the date. So I assume that you're assuming we're all okay with the dates. So are we gonna check that off? Oh, well, we hadn't changed them since we originally talked about them. I know we haven't changed some of the things, too, that we visited. So I assume we're all okay with the dates. Yes. Right. Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay. Oversight Committee. I appreciated Steve Howard's comment. Can you remind us? I said he was okay with it. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm happy with it. I'm happy with it. I'm okay with it, too. And I think we kind of agreed that on page 2500 powers and duties, we make some reference to the provision about them looking into the health care stuff. Yep. I didn't get it right. I'm sorry. I didn't get it right. The health care. That's it. Into the retirement system, into the pension system. Sorry. Can you, can you restate that change? I didn't quite understand where you were putting that in. Which one? It wasn't a change. It was an addition. It was right. And then I thought charging the pension, charging the oversight committee with reviewing or looking at the alternative health care issues. I didn't say that very well, but that's what it meant. It's really the question of how do they integrate the health care benefits in with the pension system? So the pension oversight committee is in statute. And if you want them to have a separate, like a specific reporting requirement, I would then make a different section to say that they would look at this issue and report back, you know, by a certain time on that. So do you have a timeline for when they would come back to the legislature with that? Well, I thought we were just putting it on their to-do list. Like an ongoing. Yeah. So they stay current with health care innovation, health care changes in health care nationally, statewide. I don't know, Jeff, you've got ideas, I'm sure. Yeah, so I was wondering if it, so it's already there, Becky, you know, they've got a charge. So I assume this is adding to it. And I think the assumption I was working under is, if it's not going to be in the task forces charge, you'd pick it up and lift up what's currently there and put it into the oversight charge, the charge of the oversight committee. Because, you know, what we're coming at is teachers are different to the same employees and should the oversight committee look at that exclusively, not- Maybe that's the way we say it, is that the oversight committee needs to look at the difference between the teachers, OPEBs and the, I mean, and how to integrate them into, I don't know. I thought you were going into the place. That's why I was shaking my head, Madam Chair. I think that's right. If you just look at the teachers and retired teachers, because they operate differently and the question is, should they, is that good or bad? I don't know. Right. So they're going to review the, how the health benefits relate to pensions for the teachers and how they might and in terms of innovations that are helping, happening around the, in healthcare. Would you make that charge number four? Yeah. So I have a thought. Yeah. So I actually don't know what, besides, it says, you know, the committee shall convene during session at the call of the chair. Are there other ad hoc or the kind of non-standing committees that have, it's worded differently. So they do meet more often during the session. Okay. Because legislative, when I was on legislative IT, we met during session. Right. But that's a different, there's... Right. I just think it's valuable if this committee meets during session. You should be able to meet whenever it needs to meet. But I think that oversight committees don't, because during the session, we're in session and we're the group that addresses this, just like judiciary addresses judicial issues during the session, but during the off session, you need a group that keeps track of and has oversight over those issues. If we start, I think it's very, except for things that specifically dealt with like legislative IT and legislative management, whatever that was when we were dealing with hiring an HR person and that kind of stuff. That does meet during the session, but oversight committees and other committees just, you would, first of all, it would be impossible to have Senate members sitting on other committees that meet during the session. It just is impossible. And... I mean, I can see they're having unfinished business that they wanted to take action on or something or make a recommendation on and meet it in the beginning of January still to finish that up. I mean, I... Well, that says that they, at the call of the chair, they can meet. Oh, great. Then that's fine. But I don't think that they should be a regularly meeting committee during session because we, it is, we are, I don't know. I just, I have really strong feelings about setting up other committees that meet during the session that take time away from standing committees and there just isn't time for them to meet otherwise. Well, or we're just all tired getting up early. So we did move it to the following year, right? Yeah. I would say that it shouldn't even start until January, 2022. Right. That's what we agreed on. Yeah. Yeah.  I just, for the record, I still don't get it. But if it adds value, great. Well, it's, it's, there are many, there's the boards and commission sunset committee. There's the government accountability committee. There's judicial oversight. There's a child welfare oversight committees. Those committees meet during the off session to make sure that things are heard that they need. I haven't heard that they've like changed any conversations, particularly. I think they have, I think, hugely, I mean, justice oversight. So our whole mental competency, they're all very active in the off session. So they all make a lot of, I mean that, why do you serve on one? I mean, I've only heard that the ones that are left are pretty active and pretty thoughtful. Brian chairs the government accountability committee and we meet at least five or six times during the summer and we have done many things. He is also on the boards and commissions sunset committee with me and we have eliminated something like, I don't know, 80 or 90 boards and commissions. That's what H-122 is. Comes from that committee. Yeah, they're, you should get the list and ask people who serve on them. Cause I think everyone who serves on those oversight committees feels they're pretty. And we'll serve on them too. Senator Rahm, I know that you feel, but you were appointed to the GAC and there has only been one meeting since you were appointed. So that's why you've only been to one meeting because it only met once since you were appointed and it doesn't meet during the session and it will meet five or six times over the summer fall. I worry that I don't know who's coming in to speak to that group. I don't know if it feels like people whose pensions are in question should be watching it all the time. It just feels like more of something that would produce anxiety for people then make them feel like, wow, the legislature's really watching this because I mean, I just don't know what their authority will be at the end of the day. So that's still my concern, but I'm still voting for the bill and I'm not advocating that you take it out at this point. I would hope this would give people more confidence that actually the legislature is going to be more thoughtful and stay on top of these issues more consistently. That's how I view this. Yeah, me too. I think that's what oversight committees do. And the oversight committees have no authority to make any changes. They're not gonna say, okay, now we're gonna decide that we're not gonna pay for, we're gonna increase the co-pays on primary care. I mean, they can't do that. Even if they wanted to, they can't do that. They just make recommendations. They just keep, and I can tell you the Mental Health Oversight Committee was really valuable when we were going through the mental health plan over for the state. It made sure that the retreat was part of the plan. It made sure that there were step-down beds that were part of the plan. I mean, it made a huge difference. So anyway, Chris. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to raise one point to maybe help clarify this conversation a little bit. The treasurer has noted in prior hearings that she provides a lot of, her office provides a lot of reports to the General Assembly about the pension systems. Some of those reports are timed to land when the General Assembly is not in session. So the annual evaluation reports, which are probably the best opportunity to sort of take a read on what's going on with the Pension Fund, those land in the fall prior to the legislature coming into session. So I would imagine that those are the types of things that this oversight group would focus some of their attention on whenever the legislature is not in session. Thank you, that was very helpful. Madam Chair, I don't have a ways-hand thing, but if I could talk to two issues. Yeah, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna limit this conversation because we have got to get back to the, unless there's something else that needs to be done about the oversight committee. Well, there are two issues. One is, and I have no trouble with the title oversight, but when you talk about exercising oversight over the Vermont State Employees, the word oversight means control, manage supervision. And I know that's not what you're trying to do. That's what the word means, okay? If you take a look at what a Board of Trustees do, they have, as I mentioned at the last meeting, two areas of fiduciary responsibility set up by the IRS. I like the word oversight committee in the title. What I'm suggesting here is for the purpose of receiving reports and receiving, I'm not sure, receiving reports on the activities and the status of the fund or something. I think that if you say oversight there, you run into an issue of you're running a file of the definition of a Board's fiduciary responsibility under the IRS. This is a different Board than some of the others that you have. We can change the wording here, leave the oversight there, but change the wording here so that it doesn't suggest that the legislature could intervene in the Board's decision-making process. I mean, you definitely have decision-making around benefits, but getting into the issue of the sole fiduciary responsibility, the exclusive benefit rules that the IRS has. So I'm thinking just a wording change there would help. And then- What word would be changed? For the purpose of set of saying exercise oversight, for the purpose of receiving reports, receiving a report on the activities and status activities of the retirement boards and the status of the funds or something along that line. And I would also recommend, including that every year that the Board chairs and the treasurer do an annual report to you folks. Well, okay. I guess I will ask Becky if that makes sense, but I think if we limit it to them just receiving reports- Nope. You'll make recommendations. And providing and working with and providing assistance to other legislative committees. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, Becky can we change that? I would just suggest just saying there's created a joint legislative pension oversight committee for the purpose of working with and providing assistance to other legislative committees unmounted related so that you're just avoiding, because I think it's saying the same thing in the second part of the sentence without trying to go into too much detail on that. Yeah, I didn't want to run a follow the IRS. I try to avoid that and all things, but good idea. All right, okay, so we'll take out that section. Am I adding in other post-employment benefits here too? Sure. On three, I mean on four, yeah. Yeah. And the last thing I would suggest is that you require us to report to you annually the three board of trustee chairs and as well as the maybe I'll let Tom discuss that whether it should include the VPIC commission or whatever we call it. But the treasure and the retirement boards to give you an update. And I think that that's important to have that hearing. And I would agree with Chris that a lot of our stuff gets done in November and December when you're not in session. So I think it would be a good idea to have us do an annual report to you as you're getting ready for the next session. We could put that in there. Yeah. And I don't know how Tom feels about that for VPIC but I think it would be a good idea VPIC the treasurer and the retirement boards. One last suggestion Madam Chair. I talked about this last time, I think on Wednesday, Tuesday or Wednesday. And I don't see it in here Becky. So correct me if I'm wrong but I thought we talked about having this oversight committee start after the task force. Yes, July 2022. That should be in the effective date. I don't see that either. I don't think it's in here. It's not in the effective date. That's what I was looking for. So any section 11 needs to be effective. Yes. I can make it July 2022. Yes. Yes, I have a note that we needed to change. I thought what we agreed to. Yeah. But Madam Chair. Yes. I would take out the number of times it meets. Line 17 on page 25. I know. I would get rid of, it'll just meet. It will meet during adjournment and they need, I mean, it just, I don't think we have any idea how often it will meet at this point. I think that oversight committees generally have a limit on the number of times they can meet and then they have to get permission to meet more than that. I think all summer, all non-session committees have a number of times that they are authorized to meet. They can meet up to, they can meet, and then if they want to meet more, they have to get permission. Isn't that pretty standard, Becky? Yeah, that's typical language. And I think it's also a budget issue, because if you're providing compensation and reimbursement, it's typically tied to an amount of money per meeting. And I can, I mean, this is, like for example, I'll bring it up, but I think the legislative, the Justice Oversight Committee, I think most of them have like an amount of times that they meet. What does Justice Oversight do? And let's just do what they do. I mean, I hadn't built it, it was so prescriptive all the time. So Justice Oversight meets six times during adjournment? They may meet six times. They don't have to meet six times, but they may meet six times. Why don't we just add that and just make it? Right, that's, yes, I don't think we want to take that out. But it says X at the moment. I know that was a question that I was going to ask of how many we put in there. But then it was suggested that we take it out. Yes, that's true. Well, I thought, well, I have a limit. Because we don't want them meeting every day like a regular committee. I mean, that's great. Yeah, OK. So are we all OK on the Oversight Committee? And then the effective date will be July 2022. And then that also means it doesn't have to go to the Appropriations Committee because there's no appropriation in it for this year. It'll be a next year's budget for the prudiums. So I was going to add in a subsection H for reports to say that the boards and VPIC would submit a report by an annual report to them. But I think you want to pick a date that's between when session starts, like before session starts. So are you thinking something like November 1 or something like that? When are those reports usually issued, Beth? So the actuary reports are done at the last week of October. We finalize everything, get them out the first week in November. By November 1, we're required to send to you and the governor what the ADEC recommendation is. The OPEB usually gets done in November. It's a little bit behind the pension. So the reports and the valuation of the OPEB funds are probably in mid-November, if that's helpful. So if we put December 1, by December 1, absolutely. So annually, on or before December 1, each year, those entities would send an annual report to the Oversight Committee? Or would report to? OK. And can I read just so I make sure I got this right for the powers and duties? So I added in a new number three that was the same language that was in the task force. So I said the committee shall evaluate and make recommendations on issues of public policy relating to health benefit design innovation, state regulatory measures, and alternative methods of providing pooled health care benefits to both active and retired school employees to lower health care costs for employees, retirees, school boards, and the state. Was that the intent of the committee? I think so, yeah. OK. For me. Yeah, I think so. Thank you. That was. All right. I think we have agreed on everything with the exception of two issues. And one is the makeup of the VPIC board and the other is the makeup of the task force. So which would you prefer to go to first committee? May we stand for a moment and take? We can. In 20 minutes, we're back on the floor. So I don't want to take too much of a break here because we're going to have to come back after the floor. I have heard from the PROTEM that it's going to be very brief. Also, it may be less controversial question to at the beginning of the bill that I just want to make sure that I got the right information. OK. So under the definitions for the new VPIC for independent, I think I missed whether you accepted that change for independent, which was taking out the disclosures. Yes. So there was an amendment on the House floor which wasn't reflected in the version, I think, that you all saw that made clear that. Oh, Heidi's Heidi's amendment. So that the individual. So right now it says an individual has a director indirect material interest in the plan. If if the individual is a beneficiary of any of the plans in the version on the House floor, it also added to that line, the individual or the individual's and the spouse, parent, child or sibling, I believe. Just have to double check that. So do you want to follow that or just keep as is? I think the idea was that when you took out the disclosure. Sorry, they added or the individual spouse, parent or child as a beneficiary of the plan. So when you took out that disclosure, there was nothing in there that addressed whether somebody was a beneficiary of the plan like through their spouse, for example, or their child or parent. I thought we got rid of that of it. I this only refers to the governor's appointment, right? That's correct. Yeah. So the governor could not appoint somebody who has any relationship to one of the plans. If the relationships or if it's their self, their parent, child or sibling. Where are we committed? Sorry, parent, their spouse, parent or child. Those are the only relationships. So, for example, OK, if your spouse is a beneficiary of the plan, then you would be considered having a sort of indirect interest in the plan because of that relationship. Right. OK, so, Tom, it would affect me, too. The one concern I have with this that I'll bring up is that, say, for example, one of my kids comes home and gets a teacher's job. Would that automatically exclude me from potentially serving as chair? I think you open up a can of worms in that situation. I can see the benefit of not, you know, particularly if, say, they work for a school district in Burlington or whatever, would that automatically exclude a board member? Because one of their I think it. I can understand the spouse situation potentially, but I think if your mother is a. Teacher, I think it's overly broad and with 50,000 beneficiaries, there's a lot of unintended consequences that may prevent good people from serving. You know, my kids are all getting out of college. One of them come come home this and decide to take a job with that automatically exclude me. So I throw that out there. I don't. I actually don't agree with that. I think that the when even in Masons, when we talk about conflict of interest, it's if if you have more of an interest than the general population.  That is ridiculous, I think, because you voting on this would have no more to gain than anybody else in the broad population of beneficiaries. And that's the that's the way Masons address this conflict of interest. So I I think that we we could put spouse in here, but I don't want to put child or parent or child. It doesn't think you know that. No, the the maybe we should leave this as it is. OK, because the house now has child, parent, spouse or self. And we can argue for taking out parent and child. I find that compelling, I mean, a lot of people are related to teachers. So yeah, spouse says something.  Maybe impact your thinking to know how your parent is doing in the system. But I don't think that's too close a conflict. I think you're thinking about them as a as a human being, who you care about, which you could do with people you're not related to. But a spouse is right there with you all the time.  If you know your parent is going to be a I I think independent is independent. I I I really have a hard time. I think but I mean, Tom's right. Like what if your kid becomes a teacher and you're like a really valuable member of the committee, you know, it's it's really limiting because a lot of I have three teachers in my immediate family, you know, I don't think it biases me that much, you know, I think bias as you and I, as we all know, is often not necessarily something we all acknowledge. And I think that when you know somebody you care about and love and know is going to be affected, you may. Choose differently. I mean, you know, I'm trying to understand that. Decisions of EPIC would make that would trigger this because we're really making investment decisions that would be more involved with best practice or, you know, fiduciary standards. And we wouldn't be affecting beneficiary to my knowledge. So well, I imagine recusal would be important if we do. I just don't think it disclosure. I'm recusal, but not a child and parent as I mean. If we think about the number of retirees from the state and the teachers that live in the state of Vermont or the number of current employees because it's both current and retired, right? And then we think that the chair, the vice chair and the governor's appointee could not be related to any of those. And Tom is right. If his kid comes back to Vermont and gets a job with the state or with the in the in a as a teacher, he's out or as a firefighter or as any of the viewers members, there's so many different entities. This could be triggered by. I think it's overly broad. I I think it is. Well, I suggest we leave it just as we have it here. And the conference committee will work it out with the House because it's their amendment. We don't we don't have to agree with their amendment. But it's part it's been incorporated into the bill. I mean, what we're making, we are doing our own version of the bill. We are not looking at the House bill. I mean, we're doing a strike all version of the bill. And there are many things in the House bill that we don't have in here. I don't know why we would put this in just because it's in the House bill. Becky was just simply saying we had not looked at the House. Right. Fully as we might, because we had it had not been incorporated into our version at all. Right. Right. But I'm I'm saying that I don't think we should change hours because of their amendment. I don't know where our Senator Callemore. I say remain silent on it and battle it out in conference. Senator Polina. I agree with what Tom was saying about if you're only talking about making investment decisions in this particular group, we're not talking about benefits. If your son or your daughter becomes part of these pension plans, you're just going to try to make the best possible investments. You don't you don't get to say what the benefits are going to be. So I look at it that way. Maybe you should be required to be related to somebody. Right. You should have at least one teacher in your family. Right. OK. So I'm I'm going to suggest that we now have two issues, the two, the makeup of the two, the task force and the VPIC board that are the only outstanding issues that we have. Am I right about that? I thought what did we do about the the term limit thing? What did I say we decided to do about that? I think we took it out. We we decided to leave it out until the VPIC consultant makes a record. All right, OK. I remember now. Yeah. OK. I remember. OK. And so what I'm going to suggest. Is that we. Come back as soon as the floor is over, we have. Ten minutes until we're on the floor. It might be wise if we took a ten minute break and did whatever it is that we have to do during our ten minute breaks. I for one, I'm going to go pick a daffodil and come back as soon as we're done on the floor and hash out these last two issues. And then I am not exactly sure how we're going to do this in terms of. Becky, what is your timing here in terms of making the changes? We've agreed to all the changes now, except for those two, right? I have been I have. An amendment prepared that is edited as of before this meeting started. So I can send them the changes that you just made with the goal of having it edited after the floor, if that works.  Not a strike. I'll just I struck out. I mean, I did a strike all of sections to section one where the the commission section and the task force commission, just because you made a bunch of changes in those sections. And then I added in the oversight committee. But there are a few sections you are not touching, so I didn't do a strike all of the whole bill. So I have that in the works, I guess, just in terms of timing. Our editing staff is would need to know so I can send them the new changes right now that you just did. Well, the question I have is if if if if it's done as it wouldn't it be easier to do this whole thing as a strike all? Well, there I mean, you're not touching at all sections. I mean, I can do it that way. Whatever you prefer, it's just you're not touching sections two, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine. And you're making a very small change in section four. So I see a sorry in section three. So essentially sections two through nine. You're not really making changes to. Oh, OK, I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. So I struck out, I just did a strike all of this of the two main sections that you're changing. Got it.  So it would have been confusing. But the other sections of the bill, I I it depends on what you how you'd like to present it if you want to present it as the whole bill. But if you're not touching those sections, I wouldn't normally include it in an amendment. Right. I get that. I kind of misunderstood there. Yeah, that makes sense. And then when we come back, we can look at that and then make the decisions about the the two boards. And then if it's at all possible, it would be great to get this voted out today so we can have it on the on Tuesday so we can deal with it. Oh, it. Because we've got to get this. We've got to get this to a conference committee. Yeah, would just be on notice Tuesday. But yeah, well, I'm going to ask whenever it gets there, I'm going to ask us to advance it into all stages. So just so I know if you are voting it out, the two changes you have left to make are just I'm guessing they're not things that have to go through editing again, right? They're just the the composition of the board like the number of people on the board. Yeah, OK. OK. Does that make sense, committee? Yes. All right. OK. And other people that are with us and I appreciate when I go downstairs for my break here, my husband's going to tell me I again sound like a tyrant. So forgive me for sounding like a tyrant. You sounded just fine. And I think we're making progress. Oh, I think we are. Is there a sense of how long the floor will be just so I can go editing? It's going to be short like 15 or 20 minutes. My guess is we can't do anything in less than that. OK. All right. Great. I will. I'm on it. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. All right. Thanks. So just a question here, Gail, are we going to use the same link or will you send us a new one? I think we can use the same link. If I will send you one and yeah, just be watching your email. OK, great. Thank you. Thank you.


This study examined the performance of infectious disease forecasting models in California counties during the COVID-19 pandemic. It found that the models varied in their accuracy depending on the county and the time period. Additionally, the model's performance was affected by local transmission trends, variant prevalence, and county population size. To improve the model's accuracy, the authors suggest incorporating geographical heterogeneity in model coverage and performance. This would allow for more consistent model reporting and improved model validation, thus strengthening the role of infectious disease forecasting in real-time public health decision-making. This article was authored by Lauren A. White, Ryan McCorvey, David Crowe, and others.


The NGC346 cluster at the center of this Hubble image is resolved into at least three subclusters and collectively contains dozens of hot, blue, high-mass stars, more than half the known high-mass stars in the entire SMC. A myriad of smaller, compact clusters is also visible throughout the region.


The T15-ZR15MO TMZ alloy has been studied in recent years for biomedical applications, mainly due to its phase beta formation from the surface modification. It is possible to associate the volume and surface properties with a better biomedical response. This study aimed to evaluate the possibility of using anodization to obtain TiO2 nanotubes due to the presence of valve-type metal, ZR, and their composition. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, XPS, was performed to determine the surface chemical composition in both after-processing conditions, passive layer, and after-processing plus anodization, TiO2 nanotube growth. The anodization resulted in nanotubes with diameters and thicknesses of 126 plus or minus 35 and 1294 plus or minus 193 nanometers, respectively, and predominated anotase phase. Compared to the passive layer of titanium, which is less than 10 nanometers, the oxide layer formed was continuous and thicker. High-resolution spectra revealed that the oxide layer of the element alloys contained different oxidation. This article was authored by Reginaldo Toshihiro Kanatu, Daniel Duque Dominguez, Rodrigo Franca, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Hi Stampers! Welcome to Watch It Weekly Wednesday. I'm Jill and I'm so excited to show you this new suite we have from the mini catalog. It's called the Rock and Rolls Suite and the whole collection comes with a stamp set called the Rock Star and then the dies so and you have embellishments and designer series paper. Let me show them in person. They're really cool. There's the stamp set, the dies and then the embellishments. They're called Lightning and Stars embellishments and then our designer series paper. Oh my gosh I love this. You've got two of your designs have the instruments on them and the record player and then you have all these texture type of papers. They're amazing. I think they're so cool. Let me go ahead and show you some of the stamp projects I've already come up with. Now this is just a very simple card right here just done in black and the drumsticks. This I kind of bling this guitar up. This is done with the designer series paper and using that guitar pick as a place to stamp the saying in. I have the holographic trio paper on there. I also used it on the microphone there and the guitar. This is one of my favorite cards. I don't know if I go really slow maybe if you can see that. It's really cool. If you get this suite you have to add on the holographic trio specialty paper. Look at that. Oh just love it. It's all these iridescent colors in it. It has that one as textured. This one just has it but it's just solid the silver with the holographic. Now this is cool. It goes from blue all the way to the purple and pink and oh it's just so cool. It's just amazing in person. You just have to have it. Let me show you why. I went ahead and stamped these guitars already on the holographic trio specialty paper. This is the same sheet so you get one I did the blue and the pink guitar. How do you do that on this really shiny and kind of slick paper? Well you're going to use a Stazon stamp pad. Just make sure that you have it all inked up really good. I like to look to make sure it's all on there. What you want to make sure is when you stamp you don't want to move it. You want to stamp just go up and down and not move your stamp at all. Don't rocket stamp and then just press down on the stamp without moving it back and forth. Then you get a clean image after you stamp it. Then you've got that iridescent look on your guitar. So this is just an amazing look to have for the rock and roll. Look at that. Just love it. I've had so much fun playing with this rock and roll suite and it is awesome especially if you use that holographic trio specialty paper. If you like these products just check the link below and we'll see you next time on Watch It Weekly Wednesday.