It's finally time, you know, I usually do not do reaction trailer review stuff I actually don't encourage watching that many trailers we lose the art of suspense and just excitement over watching a movie but with this with this particular nerdy movie the demand has been great with my friends and family and YouTube colleagues or whatever you want to call them Everybody if you know this channel if you have come into contact with me, I'm a pretty big Aquaman fan he is my favorite DC superhero and This has only happened once in my life Where I was so genuinely excited and that was when oh gee spidey with Toby McGuire first debuted I was just floored and enamored at what I was seeing up on the screen and watching spider-man In a live-action movie for the very first time that was a magical experience and I will never forget and now I get to experience that for a second time with My favorite DC superhero like I mentioned Aquaman. I love the character so much I have been doing videos all throughout the year on the character the different books There are plenty of videos up ahead. Don't worry I have a ton planned because we've we have another couple more months until the movies released So yeah, it's a couple hours the trailer as of this moment this encapsulated moment in this video It hasn't it hasn't dropped it hasn't been shown but I am excited nonetheless and Yeah, I I will do a Little reaction video for you guys Well ladies and gentlemen, it's time Let's go ahead and watch this bad boy. Oh My god, okay. I am I am literally in tears focus camera What the hell did I just witness?  He looks so Friggin amazing Black Pranta, I mean it is literally reading one of my Aquaman books It is literally picking up One of those books and reading it for the first time and just I Am I'm speechless I gotta watch it again and again and again just seeing like the trench monsters and For the first time watching the city of Atlantis and how beautiful it is and how amazing it of an underwater Place it all really is It's all just spectacular my hats off to James Wan for just taking Such an amazing property and elevating it to a super stardom level that the character has always always Deserved it's been 70 but it's been more than 75 years. I'm stumbling. It's been more than 75 years And now I honestly feel like this is the turning point where people realize that this character is Just as great as anything else that's been written in comic books and in fiction and in what? ever I typically do not Curse on these videos. I try to keep it PG-13. You know keep it light And I'll try and do that, but my mind is saying otherwise I mean the submarine scenes and and and seeing Thomas Curry seeing Former Queen Atlanta all these wonderful characters for the first for the first time it It's really going to be interesting and to see how Patrick Wilson plays Ocean Master and him trying to persuade Atlantis to not care about this half-breed Aquaman and why the surface Why the surface world is so evil and all that stuff. Yeah I'm speechless. Hopefully you guys loved the trailer and are interested in picking up Aquaman I have done a bunch of reviews already this year 2018 about the character. Hopefully you guys want to check those out and be inspired or motivated to pick up books Whether it be a new 52 whether it be Rebirth Peter David Golden age silver whatever all the ages of Aquaman if you if you're interested in that there is a rich source material that will Wow you with its awesomeness. I My god, I can't wait. I Literally I want to cry because it's It's that special to me. It's that awesome seeing these guys for the first time in such grandiose fashion like I was so freaking happy when I saw Aquaman in the previous DC films But now to see him in his own movie. It's it's just spectacular it's that guardians effects gardens of the galaxy where you have these Heroes that if you were a longtime reader you knew about them and you enjoyed them And now you get to tell everybody like look at this awesome thing that I have been enjoying here you go Wow that underwater battle with the crabs and the sea dragons and all that stuff Guys the hype is real I don't know how I'm how I am going to contain myself For the following months because it's a long as wait, but my hat's off to you my my Metaphorical hat because I don't got one. This is awesome. This is a spectacular beautiful time. I'm not gonna I'm gonna I'm not gonna continue onward But if this trailer seems to be taking the best parts of everything It has a little pure David history with the Atlantis Chronicles. I saw some heavy new 52 influences from the trench Black Manta very the others ish Throne of Atlantis all those stories from Jeff Johns and even the Jeff Parker stuff. It has that swashbuckling Superhero action that Aquaman needs and and the tone is just right and I love it and and I cannot Fucking wait for this movie. I am so sorry the movies gonna be awesome. Let me know down below what you thought What was the best part of the trailer that that's it for now? I got a I got a I Got a recuperate from that I will catch all of you on the next episode like comment subscribe do all that Wonderful stuff that you guys do. Bye


Excellent. Welcome back after our afternoon break. Right now we are going to welcome Annie Noonan to come and talk with us about recruitment and retention and given your long tenure in state government would welcome you to just help folks who are sitting around the table or watch from home to know who you are and how you've come to have a deep understanding of this issue. Well thank you very much. And Annie, feel free to take off your mask. I am vaccinating you. Thank you very much. Thank you committee members. Welcome for some I know others I'm meeting for the first time. My name is Annie Noonan. I currently work in state government. I am here today not in that capacity. I'm here today in a very different capacity reflecting my prior work history in and around state government. I was asked to and I have copies of my testimony which I'll turn in at the end. Thank you senators. I was asked to speak today on behalf of Montlabor community members of the VSEA Vermont Troopers Association. I do believe my comments would also represent sentiments of many Vermont Annie members. My perspective on the issue of retirement changes, recruitment and retention of state government is founded in my 30-year career at VSEA, 15 of those as executive director. In that role I served as director, chief negotiator, head lobbyist for VSEA which during those years included representing the members of the VP who are now with VTA. I monitored and lobbied on the state employee retirement plan and served on study committees including those that did make changes to the retirement system over the years. Following those years of VSEA I served six years as the Vermont Commission of Labor from 2001 to 2017. In that capacity I oversaw workforce development, unemployment compensation, economic and labor market information and this workforce development board. In that capacity I worked with almost all of Vermont employers in the employer community in every county across the state. Magnitude of the loss in the spring of 2020 as a result of COVID has had no precedence since the end of World War II. More than twice the number of jobs were lost during March and April of 2020 than during the Great Recession of 2007 through 2009. COVID related issues, job loss, childcare loss, erratic schedule schedules and fear of the continuing virus are keeping current workers out of the labor force today. In addition economists were already noting the lack of entry into the workforce for many years prior to the COVID collapse either due to job skill, lack of job skill, lack of job opportunities particularly in minority and rural areas, lack of confidence or over commitment to non-work activities such as electronic games. Vermont's economic engine of Chittenden County and the Connecticut River area near Dartmouth and to a lesser degree parts of central Vermont have skewed Vermont's wage and job numbers higher than what the other counties have experienced. Been traditionally harder for Vermont's other counties to recruit and retain employees. I am seeing this every day in my job in state government as a labor relations manager. In my current role I oversee the recruitment and retention of a small state department approximately 175 employees with a mix of professionals, attorneys, law enforcement officers and administrative staff. Since April of 2020 we have seen an average number of turnovers but a very limited number of applicants in almost all counties. When examining the demographics in the general workforce we see the difference in the generational variation from baby boomers to Gen X to millennials to Gen Z. The largest percentage of the workforce in state government falls into the millennial category at this time and studies show that 92% of those that group of employees indicate that money and benefits are their top priority when choosing an employer. While Vermont state government has good wages we are often less competitive than private employers except in the area of benefits and that has been our way to secure employees and talent to the public sector. If the retirement plans are overhauled and redefined to make them less attractive to applicants I believe that we will not be able to repeat as we should for the best and the brightest nor keep our Vermont children here nor those who come to school in Vermont for college. Product underfunding to the actuarial recommendation has plagued Vermont's readers. Our public employee unions warned of those adverse consequences as far back as when I was working with VSEA while employees contributed their share of the funding that was asked of them. I applaud this committee for whatever efforts you are making to thoroughly examine all the factors that created the current fiscal problems but recognize that the problem was created by the employees the fact that employees are living longer should not be held against them. Unfortunately it is clear to me that state employees, troopers and teachers don't feel that their voices are being adequately heard and I believe the collaboration in determining whatever changes you need to make is critical in order to avoid the erosion of employee morale and trust. I'll go off script here for a moment to share with you that during my tenure at VSEA we were seeing very large rises in the health insurance plan so much so that employees wages, COLA increases were being immediately eaten up by the premium increases. We spent a 40-day period of time with a mutually chosen consultant who brought two actuaries with her, Mary Harrison out of the Midwest and we worked with them and over a 40-day period made structural changes to the health care plan that resulted in low single digit increases to that plan for many years including as many state employees here will recall premium holidays that were occurring sometimes as many as four times a year but that was a very very deliberate collaborative process where employees if someone you know if either management or the employee group seriously objected to a particular change we moved on until we found enough changes that would bring us the money that we needed to bring that plan into cost containment compliance. So I do you know I do urge the collaboration for whatever you're working on to continue. Many long-term employees are talking about leaving state government. I don't think that that is a surprise to you at this point. My friends and colleagues are saying that they are watching what changes may be on the horizon and that they are ready to leave if adverse proposals are adopted. The exodus of employees from their position in every agency department in school district will have a devastating effect on Vermont public services. The knowledge skills and institutional memory of long-term employees and educators will be lost as well their crucial role in mentoring and assisting new employees coming into the workforce. The process should not push forward changes to the plans that are unfair to employees who have due to financially contributed as required to the system for many years with the expectation of being able to enjoy the rewards of their dedication and service in many many difficult roles and situation in state government and in the teacher community. This crisis as you know has did not occur overnight. Proposals do not have stakeholder support should not be adopted. It's critical to identify options with state employees, troopers and teachers at the table to find the solutions that do not demoralize and potentially break the trust with public employees. Thank you for allowing me to testify today. Thank you, Amy. Any questions, comments, responses? Yes, I'm a state employee. Just from your perspective in state government, what are you seeing in terms of the demographic challenge, demographic factors that might be influencing the retirement situation? So I think it's on both ends of this spectrum. I think the more senior tenured employees are looking at the proposed, for example, the proposed increase in the age component. Many people saying I don't want to work till age 67. I also think at the younger end, you see employees who are not necessarily as committed to one employer as my parents were, as many of us in this room were, where we came to an employer and we're glad to be there for 30 years or longer. So I think it's a shift in both attitude towards employment. It's also at the younger end of the spectrum, but I also think it's a shift at the older employees who are saying, you know, at this point, I'm tired. I would like to be able to do something with else besides work and enjoy some retirement years. I don't know that that's necessarily anything more than just an observation, but I do, I do interact all day long with 175 of our employees in my department and can I ask them how they feel about things? How are they looking at what's happening with the pension discussions? A good friend of mine left DCF, a very talented manager in DCF, left because she was so concerned about what was the potential potential to the plan. She was fully vested, but a young employee like a mid-50s, another very good friend of mine is an engineer with state government and has fully vested could go and said to me just last weekend I'm waiting to see what happens with the pension plan, but I will go if I think things are going in the wrong direction. That employee probably was planning on working seven more years for state government, but as an engineer she has other options and she's fully vested. What we don't want to see happen is people who are really important to the public service delivery system in this state leave state government because they don't know what's happening or they're fearful of what's happening. I think to the extent that this committee can find the best balance possible to address the fiscal issue of the plans, which I know that is what your main goal is, but I also believe too that don't lose sight of the fact that we may lose some very important and critical body of knowledge, institutional knowledge and skill set if people feel that these changes are untenable. One of our charges through acts so many projects to explore how any structural benefit changes impact women specifically in the workforce and knowing that the majority of people receiving a pension from these two systems or systems are given insight or thoughts on how that might impact the female workforce with recruitment or attention. I think we're having that issue. Thank you. I think that's a very good point. State government, the split of women to men in state government is pretty much what I know in terms of the education community. It's predominantly women. In Vermont state government our issue right now is keeping people keeping women in the workforce as a result of some of the challenges that they're facing with childcare, lack of childcare. I mentioned erratic school schedules, you know, kids are in, they're out, they're in, they're out and we, you know, I think most people, probably everybody in this room had hoped that by this point where we are today in August of 2021 that we'd be further past this virus crisis, but we're not. Our issue right now is trying to be as creative and flexible with our employees who can potentially work remotely, telework, and Suzanne, Secretary of Administration Suzanne Young has been very supportive of asking the agencies to look at that to a large extent. It is, as you can imagine, in my view, is a woman's issue because they generally have the, the bulk of the obligation for, for childcare and elder care too often. So I think that we're lucky that we have a leadership in state government that is indicating telework think through think how you can make this work people. And so I think that's true. I think in the education community, when teachers have and paraprofessionals and school support staff have to be into in the, in the building, you're going to face some of the exact same challenges we are. You're a more difficult time in terms of retaining employees, I believe, not necessarily because they don't love what they're doing, but they are faced with so many challenges right now with the collapse of childcare openings and all of that. So it is these recruitment and retention problems in Vermont are difficult anyway. I was looking, you know, if you've not looked at the Department of Human Resources workforce reports, they're fascinating. They really are. They capture so much incredibly good information. And I went back and I started reading from, I took randomly the other night, I took like seven reports going back to 1996, 1999, 2001, I started reading through trying to get a sense of what we were looking at for changes. And it, and there are times when the turnover in state government is as high as 12%. But that's, and then I looked at where that placed us in regard to other New England states, because that's the comparative model that is provided in those reports. And for the most part, except for some years, we have lined up very closely to our term rate with other, with other states percentage wise. But there have been some troubling years in Vermont, in terms of recruitment and retention. And, you know, when DHR took a look at that, they were looking at, to a large extent, the lack of applicant pool. And that's what, you know, in terms of the recruitment issues, that concerns me a lot in terms of Vermont lack of applicant pool. I saw a statistic, I said, I think that said there were 4.1 applicants right now. Frankly, from some postings we just did, we just posted an IT position pay grade 22, which Eric knows, because he's in state government, it's the pay grades go up to a pay grade 30. So 22 is a pretty, is a pretty good range for getting into a good salary and we have benefits. Two applicants. It was posted for, it was posted widely for like 20 days to applicants. And, you know, we, that's not uncommon. Attorneys in our non Chittenden County area, sometimes two applicants, Bennington Wyndham, two applicants, Caledonia. So it's challenging to get people to apply. And that will be our problem, and we have to really dig into getting, as you've heard the governor say, getting more people to Vermont, getting more people into the workforce and being the best, you know, public sector needs to be able to compete as an employer. And I think everybody here who works in government agrees that we would be really in tough shape. We can't have a good ability to recruit for ourselves. So I just have a question about the balance between, I mean, we talk about retention and recruitment kind of together, but they're, and I'm not sure that this is true, but the way I see it is that they might be a little bit different in terms of what you were talking about people now who are applying for jobs are not certainly thinking about staying for 30 years. And we have the issue of people who are, who've been here for a while, who are thinking about their retirement and about staying. And then you have the issue of people who are trying to recruit who might not be thinking that I know I just told a couple of people last weekend who had applied for state jobs and the salaries were less, the health benefits were pretty comparable to other places. And the retirement benefit was clearly, and they both said, I don't need to think of our retirement now. I'm 27 and 32 years old. I need the money right now. So how do we balance, how do we create a system that balances the fact with the people that are already there so that nobody gets, there's the brunt? Well, let me first say that one of the things we do when we are meeting with candidates and interviewing people and we talk a salary, generally salary, we always show what the benefit structure is in terms of the percentage of your salary. And people are often amazed. And, you know, I have this opportunity of kind of looking like the, kind of like the old grandmother type, which I am. And I can say to them, listen, you're young. And I've done this with, I think BGS should actually probably give me some sort of an award or plaque as I'm talking to the younger employees telling them, listen, there's a lot of opportunity in state government. And you're young now, because a lot of the kids that are coming through for their maintenance and custodian positions are younger. And I say to them, listen, somebody else might think it looks good. Somebody else is, you know, offering $2 an hour. Let me remind you about your benefit structure. And I tell them all about it. And we do the same thing when we are interviewing people and we're looking at trying to make sure that they've caught somebody's attention. And we talk a lot about those benefits. And I think that that has made a difference. I think I've actually, as I said, I think I've convinced a couple of kids to stay with BGS. And I know that I've convinced a couple of younger employees to come to us. And I've said, you know what, when I came to state, to state government, you know, when I was talking, you know, in the labor position, I said, I was talking to younger employees, I used to go down and we would have those conversations about what's working, what's not working, you know, and money is not necessarily always the driver for people. And I think that we've learned a lot through probably the only big bright spot of the pandemic is that we've learned that we, you know, that that telework can work. And we should trust our employees. I mean, I fought for so many years to get the state of Vermont to adopt the telework policy. I'm going back many, many, many years. I've been out of ESEA for 12 years. And I'm going to say it was probably 25 years ago, I was knocking on DHR's door and showing them the policy I'd written. And they were like, no.  I could fall on trip in the office too. You know, it was always one thing or another, but it is the one bright spot of what we've learned. Motivating employees in terms of getting them to come in, you know, money, communications. This is a generation of kids of my say, kids, people, young, young adults who, you know, want their youth, they want to communicate and they want answers. They're so used to flipping up a phone and getting an answer to whatever they're asking, you know, whether it's a restaurant review or anything they want, they want that immediate answer. And when they send an email and there's non responsive, it's, you know, it's not responded to, they're just like, I think they're shocked, you know. So we've had to talk with our managers and supervisors about responding to people. Do not, do not walk away at the end of the day. I don't care if it's 430. If you've got emails from your staff that you haven't responded to, please answer your staff. Please make sure you're responding. This is a generation of young workers who crave that. And they also crave their downtime, some of their personal time. Thank God that there's a little bit more perspective on work-life balance. I think we're all learning that, but I think younger employees are very concerned about that. But again, I think given some of what we're looking at, money is a driver and it is allegedly the driver from millennial. Now, I wonder that report was done a year or so ago. So I wonder if it would be different today post COVID, if people have perspective has changed, it might be. But student loan debt is a real thing to and professional loan debt is a real thing for people going to law school, medical school and stuff like that. We have to make it make people be able to afford to confirm on. That's another storyline. Telework has expanded in a lot of places and it's open to doors for people to come work in this year. At the same time, I think people are going to be more drawn if they have quality school systems, good teachers, and a well-functioned government. Do you have any thoughts on how the provision of critical public services are needed by the public? You look at employers statistics of how much it costs them to train employees and that when employees leave shortly after they're employed, like what it costs. And there was actually a stat in one of the workforce reports of DHR that talked about that. And in positions like Trooper positions, for example, when they're sending people off to the academy for weeks and weeks and if they don't stay the cost of all of that. So I think that we need to get people into the system and into Vermont. Telework's a great option for us and I think we're going to see an expansion of that. I also think that we have opportunities and I want to remind folks here who are in the legislature and policymakers that if people are coming into Vermont and they are, for example, English second language, if they fall within any of the categories of the workforce integration and opportunity act administered by the Vermont Department of Labor through the U.S. Department of Labor Fund that immigrants, for example, automatically qualify for workforce training at no cost to the community or to the state. They're going to be able to be eligible for that. We owe a funding for workforce training. What can we do creatively? We can actually take a look to see how do we support new people coming to Vermont and refugee communities and all those folks because there's lots and lots of money that comes into Vermont from the U.S. Department of Labor for workforce and training. And it's just a matter of whether it's apprenticeship or specific work classes. It's all there and I think that we need to look at utilizing that money in a better way and I don't think that answered your question. Let's hope we'll look. It's just our larger demographic challenge can go a long way. So I thank the committee for the work that you're doing and I know that what you're doing is a challenge and lots and lots of stresses on all of you individually from the work that you have to do to try to figure this problem out. And I do think that I applaud as I said on some of these committees over the years. I remember sitting with Bob Greenmore and Jane Woodruff and lots of people in this room for a long time working in retirement over structure or overhaul. So I know it's easy. I applaud the work that you're doing and I just offer the perspective of collaboration and engagement is really important and trust among your community is really important here too. So thank you for the opportunity to share a few words on behalf of Vermont Labor. Thank you. And I will say that I'm sorry that Leona Waj, who's a state employee with the armed corrections in Springfield, was not able to meet your today. They hear your testimony. Thank you. And do look at the state Department of Human Resource Workforce reports. They're fascinating. They're a tremendous wealth of information. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


Hi, this is Joho Sapil Bhartia and welcome to the 2023 Predictions series. And today we have with us once again, Kate Stewart, VP of Dependable Embedded Systems at the Linux Foundation. Kate, it's great to have you back on the show. Thank you very much. Great to be back here. Yeah, I'm going to ask you to grab your crystal ball and share some predictions with us. But before we go there, just quickly remind our viewers, what is the Zephyr project all about? The Zephyr project is a real time operating system that is meant to be used when Linux can't be used because Linux is generally too big or has, you know, there's constraints on battery. So it's for resource constrained situations and systems. Now it's time for you to pick the crystal ball. I'm sure that today a lot of crystal balls are powered by some kind of RTS or Linux kernel either way. Certainly, I think that there's a lot of wearables, a lot of devices that do have embedded Zephyr and other embedded OSs in them to help have interactions with people. One of the things that's a prediction for this next year is I think we're going to be seeing a lot more Zephyr products emerging on the market. I'm starting to see even more towards the end of last year. We've started a product page and the project and we're learning about a new one pretty much every week. One of the cool ones was I don't have it yet but I want to get one if I possibly can is a sound shirt that has Zephyr wired in such that when you're touching this shirt you're basically interacting with things. So being able to interact with your environment, be it like on a video game, be it in real life with colors and fashion, I think we'll see a lot more interactions and Zephyr being used as a key component of that. Next prediction I guess is that we will be starting to see that we're going to be seeing Zephyr being used in systems with other OSs and other configurations. We're going to be seeing a lot more of that type of generic enablement. We've got various members that will be releasing products this year that had Zephyr Linux going and Zephyr going. These channeling certain types of responsibilities. So I think you'll be seeing more of these types of multi processor multi OS configurations emerging where Zephyr is a key component. And in fact one of them was sort of already hinted at earlier in this year which is I think Google's Chromebooks will be should be coming out on the market and they should be having Zephyr but that's just one of many that are sort of queuing up here to be using Zephyr in a powerful system. The other areas I think you're going to be seeing a lot more focus on how to handle security and safety critical environments like where things are critical infrastructure and so forth. And we're seeing a lot of people looking at Zephyr as a component for secure elements and so forth. So I think you'll be seeing more work going on in this effort project about hardening up security as well as getting our safety certifications for 61508 and so forth so that people can know that they can take trust and work with it from a certification perspective. Thanks for sharing those predictions. If I ask you what is going to be the focus for the project in 2023? The focus for the project in the 2023 is you know we will be continuing to advance all sorts of technology areas and incorporate new communication stacks and information getting it so that we are ready for the safety certification is one of the project focuses this year. Another of which is making sure we have our project coordinated enough to be able to work with the scaling of people and more people being added to the project over time. You know we're seeing you know hundreds more people showing up pretty much each release we have about 100 new people showing up and so there are people that are coming into Zephyr finding it useful extending it for us and being able to scale and work on that scaling problem is I think one of the challenges we need for development and then quite the other thing the project could be working on is making sure that our documentation has kept up with the change in paces of the code. So we've got focuses on you know growing the community and managing the developer's ecosystem as well as resources for developers. One of the challenges that you see are going to be there you talked about adoption is growing so a lot of new players are coming who will be using Zephyr project so talk a bit about what are the challenges that you see will be there and how Zephyr project can help some you know these players to kind of navigate through these challenges. We have a lot of good start material out there on the thing on our site already but I think where we're looking at is getting that next level of training and making it easier for people to understand how to move from being sort of like oh I've got my first little experiment going to actually contributing into the upstream project and so figuring out how we can make that part of it easier is definitely a focus area for the group. Okay thank you so much for taking time out today and share these predictions, focus of the project and of course the challenges ahead and how you folks will be helping the industry there and as usual I would love to have you back on the show to discuss the next year to discuss the next set of prediction also check which of your predictions turn out to be true so no pressure there thank you. Thank you very much and thank you very much for having me on appreciate it. Take care.


Hitting the ice for some girls hockey wore out visiting these Grand Forks east side with a chance early, but Emma Brunel stood on her head and shut it down tonight was all about the goalies Brunel gets another clutch save off the loose puck to keep this scoreless and then EGF's Livia Pesh with another good look but Brunel misdirects the shot with her glove. She gets the shot out this one ends in a zero, zero tie. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.