Hi, Senate government operations. It is Friday, September, yes, right, April 23rd. It's cold enough down here today to be the end of September, but it is April. And, oh Steve, I see you have on your nice colorful spring jacket. Thank you. So committee, we're going to be looking at and the house did pass out there bill today on third reading. So that that is there. We will look at that bill also I guess so that but if we've made enough, if we make enough changes, it might be easier to do it as a strike all than to try to do amendments to the bill. I, I find it very confusing when there are a lot of changes for somebody on the floor to try to explain the bill and then go through and say, but we're going to change this up and have 20 different changes. So let's, Becky did post a new draft and I am just going to say one suggestion. Where is the appropriation for the task force? Oh, it's on page 21 of her, her, the draft that she just sent us is on the bottom of, is on lines 22 and 23 and 24 on page 21. Does everybody see that? No, I'm just getting pulling it up. Sorry. But just tell it on what page? It's page 21. And it just simply says, I mean, we should talk about the other language there, but it simply says that a sum of not more than $250,000 in general funds, we're going to cross that off. And we're just going to say that the support for this and I have the language from Jane, because they're putting it in the budget. Because if we have this in our bill, then it has to go to appropriations. So they're just going to put it the appropriation in the budget. And then our bill doesn't have to go to appropriations. Okay. Page 22, Madam Chair. Oh, on page 21 of mine, but maybe my printer is wrong. Anyway, that's Jane's suggestion. So we'll just take that out and put her language in. If that makes sense to everybody. Yeah, well, she could just take this language and she has language that she's put it in. She has suggested to us. So I'm just going to use her language. Good. Okay, great. So committee, should we start thinking about the changes that we have here that she's given to us? And and I think that we kind of went through all these changes the other day. So I guess what I'd like to do is have people start to comment on the changes that were the proposed changes that we're suggesting. So with that, I think I'll go to Tom. I have a question for you that's come up is and I'm not sure I completely understand this. What I have heard is that you've just sent out an RFP to have someone work with VPIC around best practices. Is that the same as the consultant in here that's going to work on how to create it as a standalone agency? Because the concern that's been raised to me is that why are we making these changes if you're just looking at best practices and composition? Well, Madam Chair, I can explain that really easily. That was set up at our seems like a lifetime ago at our March VPIC meeting before this even came to be a bill. And so we had proposed that we would have a study committee in lieu of making changes to VPIC this year to come up with some alternatives. Obviously, that's not the case anymore. And so we did issue the RFP that week. We have a meeting next week. And it's my intention to recommend we review how we want to restructure that proposed RFP and possibly reissue it. The language in the legislative bill says by July 1. So we have plenty of time to alter that and fit it. So it works in with the legislative languages in the bill at this point. So I would anticipate that we will simply redraft that RFP and reissue it after next week is my intention. So that it is more in line with how to create VPIC as a standalone. Yeah, and to add in the compensation issues and the transition with the Treasurer's Office. So it was set up before we started this process and that seems a lifetime ago. So you're right. It is somewhat not meaningful. We did get a response for it, but we haven't accepted anything. And we're planning on talking about it anyway on Tuesday. So our going ahead with the new structure of the governance of VPIC is timely. It's very timely. And it actually fits in exactly with our goals for VPIC. So we'll work well. Perfect. I just wanted to get that out there because it had been raised as a question to me. Senator Rom. How much does that cost? What's the RFP amount? Well, we had put up to 100,000 in our original VPIC discussion points when we didn't really know what the focus was going to be on. With it being more refined, I think we can get more detail on that. I don't anticipate it would be more than that, but our bid that we did get back was, it was like an hourly rate, and they had like six or seven people working on it. So it looked in that bill or in that one that we got back about 100,000. And that's what we're hearing from a lot of the consultants that it would do. I don't anticipate it would be that much just because we scaled down the work product. But we'll know more after we reissue it and hopefully get different proposals that come back. And that's paid for, those are paid for by the funds, right? Not by the legislation. That's right. That comes out proportionally from the funds. Any of the expertise that's hired by the task price will come out of this 250, right? Yeah. This doesn't come out of the 250. This is over of that. Senator Rom. When you say the funds, you mean the retirement funds? The retirement funds, yeah. All of the fees that we incur that we allocate come out proportionally by the fund balances. So, you know, you look, so they look at what the proportion is between Muni's state and teachers in terms of the balance. Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, it still just strikes me that that seemed important at one point. And we haven't heard from anyone. I mean, I know we don't have a lot of time left, but you know, we haven't heard from other governance folks about all of these changes and whether or not they had set that in motion anticipating that that would yield some sort of interesting thoughts on paper that everybody could review instead of making these changes now before that report comes in. Well, we intend on still having asked the question and incorporate a large part of that RFP. And as we wrote it, we want to incorporate more of the legislative language in this iteration just to just to cover the requirement for that report. But I anticipate that it will be we'll try to use as much or get as much information as we can out of this study. Other questions, concerns about that? I just want to be clear. Excuse me. The concern would have been if we were changing the governance now and then the study came back later and said we should do A when in fact we did B. So I just want to make sure that what you're just what you're saying you're putting out as an RFP is not necessarily going to. No, it will compliment what kind of impact it has on our decision making now and later. No, I anticipate that it will compliment what we've done in this bill because it really meets the goals and objectives of EPIC that we've enumerated as a body. So I don't I anticipate that what comes back will be an Eric, you can you can maybe fill in more about what we anticipate from the study because the idea would the idea would not be that horse, but the idea would be that if there's going to be good information coming out of this RFP study, we should wait before we make any decisions. We should wait and see what they say, but you're saying it's not necessarily going to be the case. No, I think we've started this process and I think where we're at right now is is significantly further along than we were when we contemplated that and we got where we were for free basically. So I'd hate to start that over. I would add just a few comments if I may. So the language in the bill reflects testimony from our consulting firm in the house who is well acquainted with best practices in the industry. So much of that has been built into sort of the base structure of this bill. We envision the governance review is providing helping us flesh out what's in the bill, helping us flesh out the basic structure. We have received a proposal as Tom indicated. We'll be discussing it with the committee next week and hope to come to a decision on should we proceed with what we have as proposal. Now, can we transition the current proposal into something that would give us exactly what we need or do we need to reissue the RFP altogether? But I would say that what we have done to date with the House God Box committee reflects best practices throughout the industry as has been testified by RBK in those hearings and anything that we do would build upon this. Okay, thanks. Senator Rom, then Senator Plena. Who has to agree to the consultant that you choose? Is it all the boards? No, this is strictly a VPIC decision. Okay. Well, it affects all the boards. I mean, I know people are looking at me weird, but, you know, it these governance changes affect all the boards. So we don't anticipate I think at the scope of I don't anticipate that we'll review the underlying board structure because the legislature hasn't made any changes to them at this point. So unless you want us to cover that structure, I think our plan was just to cover VPIC and VPIC governance and VPIC transition from the trend and the relationship with the Treasurer's Office and best practice in that regard. So I think that was more our intention. I was thinking about some of the re-delegation of responsibilities and tasks, right? You all set the actuarial value in this new proposal setting actuarial value, unilaterally, etc. So how do we know those are best practices? So the challenge we've been setting the assumed rate of return in the past has been that all four bodies have had to agree to a reduction in it specifically before that reduction could take effect. It was our view and the view of our consultants that the seven and a half percent rate of return was too high and that it was important that if we don't lower it to something that more closely approximate what we think the portfolio will actually earn could lead to some systemic underfunding of the pension plans going forward. The extent that that assumed rate of return is set too high, you're essentially reducing the required contributions from the employers and while the annual actuarial valuations will sort of catch up to those calculations over time, you are embedding some underfunding. And I think surely clearly this was a policy decision by the House and the House Committee on GOV-OPS in assigning this to VPIC, but I think the concern was that by having those four bodies have to agree, if you had the case where one of those bodies would not agree and we were unable to lower the assumed rate of return to something that better reflected the current economic realities, again you could be creating some underfunding potential in the system. And we did indeed see that back in the fall when in the first round of debate with the four pension plans we did not have consensus to lower the assumed rate of return and the groups did have to reconvene. So in this case I think this was a clear matter of putting the responsibility for the assumed rate of return with the investment experts that are on the committee. The intent, certainly our intent has been to clarify that VPIC is really the investment expert body and you won't see us weighing in on the level of benefits, retirement agents, things like that. Those are clearly workforce issues, policy issues that are beyond our scope of expertise. In this case the intent is to really consolidate the investment expertise within the body that has responsibility for those matters. I would just say without having the voices of some of those other folks who felt it was important to weigh in on that decision, I just love to hear from others a little bit about that. Well the chairs of all the underlying pension boards testified with us at Housegov Ops and we can get you here. And so they and I've spoken with all of them in regards to their opinions in regards to the structure of VPIC and they've all supported this this measure of moving that was proposed in the Housegov Ops bill. So I apologize I didn't bring that up. We did speak with all the board chairs and they have been in contact with Beth the Treasurer and I in regards to this process. I thought we did have something from either them or from you that indicated that. Yeah they've all indicated to me and we've I've called them and explained different impacts and expectations in regards to a continuation of appointments of individuals and in the past they always consult with me in regards to future or past appointments in regards to what what they think would work well and what type of interaction they want to have between VPIC and the underlying pension boards. So there's been a good relationship between the chairs and I anticipate that will continue. Can I ask one more what if they had some kind of egregious concern with the the anticipated rate of return that you sat? I mean would they just try to go to you privately and address that? I mean what happened last time? Well it wasn't egregious rate of return you know the differences on the committee were whether we go to 7.15 or 7 so it was that that was the difference in the half the committee wanted to go to 7.15 and half the committee wanted to go or half the boards wanted to go to 7% so it ended up being that discussion and the problem with that discussion is each body had an essence of veto power and if we didn't come to consensus it would have been seven it would have stayed at 7.5% and we wouldn't have addressed the issue and so this this bill addresses that that concern where they would go and how they would address it they obviously our meetings are public and they can participate in these decisions the actuaries will present to all the boards the whole report they're not just gonna you know which includes the information on benefits so we see all that and they will see the investment rate of return recommendations based on the experience study so it's all based on that so it's based so the actuary does a very good job of spelling out why they come up with their recommendation this year they came up with a range we happen to prefer to be towards the lower end of the range versus the higher end of the range. I would add that each board adds has a a designated person on BPIC that person has a vote and a vote of six is required to change that assumed rate of return it's essentially a super majority requirement for that that one measure everything else will be a simple majority but the super majority for the assumed rate of return changes. Jeff. Quick note Senator Rom it was also as Tom pointed out discussion about which which number two go to and then there was also discussion about how quickly to go there so some were talking about marching it down and other you know so we're going from seven 7.5 to 7.0 or 7.1 and how do you get there and how quickly and the other factor here is 2005 for example there was discussion of raising the rate of return I think it was 8.25 back then for 8 to 8.25 or something so it goes up and down and the variable there means that the appropriation necessary to cover the actuary able to determine the employer contribution to ADAC lands in the legislature's lap as to how much so if they have the rate too high or too low and the legislature in its infinite wisdom thinks it needs to be adjusted if you will the way you have the final say in the matter is to appropriate the amount that you believe based on whatever you think it is so there's a there's a the VPIC will have the ultimate authority to set the rate but you have the ultimate authority as to the appropriation amount and there's a interplay between the two. Okay so then it sounds all the more reason why it was important to be less prescriptive about how close we were to the 2021 ADAC payment or what have you because that allows the group to do their work without that being a concern. Who has the authority to set the rate here? Yeah I think you've got the four boards and that what the wisdom is and I don't necessarily disagree is that the VPIC got a habit one entity. Yeah so um and we'll go back to that question and whether we have the language right here or not but I saw Senator Plena had had a question when we were talking about that. Not really so much anymore it was just a procedural thought of going back to that consultants report that we're expecting to happen at some point I was hoping that it would come back at least in time for October so that when the interim report is issued by the study committee they could consider any comments from that let's see that consultants report it was just a procedural thought. We plan on doing it right away so I'm not waiting till January to finish that that the deadline is to have that report back to you by January 15 but we'll do that over the summer and if it's ready we'll submit it right away. Yeah it's just a procedural thing. But will the consultants report the task force is talking about benefits and um employer employee contributions it's not talking about investment. That's true you're right I get it. Consultant I thought was just talking about the VPIC structure and the investments right. That's correct yeah yeah no that's true I get it. Okay all right I thought I'd missed something there. I think I missed something. We all missed something and I missed being in the state house that's what I missed but anyway. I missed the spring time because it's still snowing where I live.  So are there any more uh have we kind of put that to bed the question of why don't we wait until we come back with the report? Okay I just wanted to bring it up because it was brought up to me and I um okay. So let us um look at the Becky had made the um changes and I think she took out that um the section about um the person disclosing there. Yeah the independent it was section in sec it was a b it maybe it was c it was c but it was in uh section well it was under definitions in section one. In section one right yeah yeah she took it out. Are we okay with that? Yeah did you see John Pelletier's follow-up email about independence that the chair there's no place that it stipulated the chair be independent? Yep we haven't gotten there yet but I did see that. I just wanted to tag it and I think that he also had mentioned that everybody should be independent but I I think that that's the three members that come from the three boards may or may not be independent and I don't think we can require them to be independent because they come from that board. They're there to represent that group of people and that those boards right? Tom? I can you know part of the reason for not having that requirement um particularly under the uh I know the Wiemers side I had strong opposition to including that because it would have excluded um uh superintendents or principals or certain people you want at the table from the Wiemers perspective and uh it was it was language in the in the original where they did have that independence requirement for more uh that had the biggest unintended consequences because of their membership spread you know throughout the state you know hundreds of members and 50 000 beneficiaries could trick trip them up and and it would really put a constraint on Wiemers side to to have uh to have that limitation. I think you're talking about Vesters right? The teachers uh well no or Wiemers? I'm talking Wiemers had the big issue with that oh I see discussion on this because it would have excluded um uh superintendents and also town managers from the committee because their employment status would make them a beneficiary of the plan and as that definition was listed and so that's why they didn't particularly for um uh it would exclude a lot of valuable people that we want at the table. And did you originally come to the board through Wiemers? I originally came to the board through Wiemers yeah and I would have been I wouldn't have been excluded because I was not just I was just on the um city council I wasn't a beneficiary of the plan but it would have excluded um say Bill Frazier in Montpelier wanted to be a part of the employee group or somebody of uh like a school board chair if they wanted to be a part of the group. Somebody's not muted I hear lovely music. So um we can add the independent for the chair though. How do you feel about that because we we thought that was actually a good idea. Somebody's phone is going off in my mom's house and I don't know where it is. It's okay sometimes Senator Clarkson gets these um magic uh phone call things that seem to come from some of the pictures behind her I don't know. I apologize it says somebody came over through although one of them no longer can call me directly anyway. The independent aspect of the chair you know having a definition it is listed under you know there is like a two-page document under the standard policies and procedures for VPIC that I referenced with when we were looking at this. I didn't want to include that whole thing I know I sent you that link but I think the language we gave you in regards to the chair requirements was actually quite good and if you can you can reference the the language listed in our operating procedure for VPIC and it's even more extensive it actually goes further than what that expert definition lists. So does it does that include I can't remember we talked about leadership and management skills I don't recall the independent piece. Um it's part of what page it does it does say oh no it doesn't say uh for the chair it doesn't but it lists a requirement it lists a reference to the VPIC current policies and policies and procedures which does have more extensive um requirements I can send it along to you so you can see that document um I think I courted it on one of my I think it's on my document page uh the page that was listed. We may want to make it a little more explicit here it's 1a d1a. We could we could essentially just add one word we could say financial investment leadership governance expertise independence as required by policies stopped by the commission. Yeah I think you could just add the definition and I think that would be fine. Okay we'll flag that for Becky. So I don't know if everybody knows the the procedure here that we've decided we are not voting this out today and this is not going to go on the budget bill. This is going to be an independent um bill when we get it from the house we need to be pretty prepared with our with our changes because um there isn't too much time so we we will probably get it I don't know if it has to I don't know if they um suspended rules to uh message it to us or not I asked them if they could and they weren't sure but we will get a Tuesday or Wednesday and we should be prepared to um be pretty finalized in our deliberation so that we can vote it out because we will have some changes we know that whatever they are and it'll have to go to conference committee. So I just wanted everybody to be clear that that's that's where we are. Okay what else do we want to talk about today? Allison you're muted. Yeah you wanted feedback from from people because we presented these ideas but we hadn't gotten feedback from everybody so I think that was where we were. Yep and I'm asking people to weigh in on whatever changes have been made here and then I also realized that the one change that we have not made that people do want to weigh in on is the makeup of the VPIC um and so we'll take all those comments if anybody wants to um start the comments who would like to lead off here? Yes Tom. I'll just comment I did see you you left out in Rebecca's document the chair term so I didn't know if you wanted me to comment on that. We've got a big X there right now. I don't think that means 10 years. I don't think it does um I would say the chair serves at the pleasure of the commission anyway. I you know I just reiterate my point that it is a different position than a member and it's a different position than an alternate um and I think a board should have the right to choose who they want to represent them or lead them and I think if you get close to the end in some term limit that's tied to prior service as a member or an alternate I think it limits the future board and I as a policy I just think that's that that should be avoided if possible so I would recommend eliminating it if if possible but if you want to have a year just make that least enough um of a current board member which is 12 years um so and and not to include prior service. So I'm going to comment on that I I tend not to like term limits particularly and um they've always been suggested for legislators that you know you've been there too long you're I don't remember oh we've lost our edge and all kinds of stuff and Bill Doyle used to always say we do have term limits every two years we have the voters can kick you out and that's a term limit the members can kick me out tomorrow so I have the ultimate term limit it's right Tuesday when they meet you kick me out right okay anybody else have any thoughts on that actually that just confused me a little bit I mean would the chair then have the same term limit as everybody else it just wouldn't apply to their position as chair like what you wouldn't have a term I think he's suggesting you wouldn't have a term limit for the chair so everybody else has a term limit but not the chair what if they no longer are the chair they just go back to having a regular term limit I'd be off the I'd be off the commission oh so you don't you don't function otherwise it's a regular member that's right so I don't really have a term so it's at the pleasure of the commission and they're not part they're not really part of the nine the nine members come from different appointing bodies and the chair is hired by the commission itself from the outside or it could be from the inside but it's probably so they don't ever serve you you said something about prior service but that might might it affects it affects me so how would you define that you know I oh you remember okay yeah I've served as a member and then I served as an alternate before that and then they elected me from the body to serve as chair so I came so now I don't really have a term I just to serve at the pleasure of the commission or the committee at this point so it's it's kind of you can't really compare them it's apples to oranges to some extent okay but we're not precluding someone from coming from within the no chair but if you don't face the term limit well if you if you counted past service so say for example you have a good member that's been a member for 11 years and the commission really wants to hire them as chair because they've retired now they have more time they could actually fulfill the job and they're an expert and they're independent and they meet all the criteria if you put a term limit and it really limits that future board to say what if it's 12 years and he's already served 12 as a member then then your board future board is very limited that's why I say it's hard because it's a case by case basis that I think a future board should like to have that flexibility Allison I don't know any nonprofit or any most boards in this state have term limits of up to nine years 20 years is just to me you know way way long I I get your point I think it's also a political thing which is if you have set stuff up it you could you know at the pleasure of the board while you could arrange all sorts of things I really think that people give what they're going to give in a certain period of time and I just don't I just don't think 20 years is appropriate it's it's very long I am really leading any organization very few CEOs stay in in in those positions for that long I I'm not saying I'm I'm not saying I'm staying 20 years I'm just saying I know so I think you're I'd love to take your point which is that it might be the service plus some so you know I'd be I'd be happy to look at as chair for for for 12 or possibly 16 but 20 to me is just unacceptable we need new blood we need new thoughts we need you know leadership needs to be refreshed and and rejuvenated I I just I you know it it just goes against the grain to have a CEO in place for 20 years I think you could say the same thing about me about it's not like about Senator Sears Senator Mazza I mean it's different we don't serve full time and we're elected it's a very different situation I don't think this person is elected also they're hired by the board right that's different that's true for every board in the state your your chair of your board is always brought on is always elected by you know the select board but not from the outside anyway it's very okay to have 20 years may you know there are lots of places that you know almost anyway the model is there for for refreshing leadership which I think I would say actually that the the experience of this board suggests that refreshed leadership earlier on might have been effective the leadership well okay I would be look I'm gonna let other people weigh in here because I know where I how I feel so Senator Polina I like the idea I mean this is a brainstorm the idea of a 12 year term not counting 12 years served on the as part of the board so personally really a person could be there for 24 years so I would say a term limit of 12 years as chair not counting any of the previously served time including committee time that I've already served excluding that okay so solely as the chair right and not the committee I guess that's right and the chair of the of the B pick Brian you're gonna ask me next I think I fall on the side of if you are in a situation where you're forcing someone out at the exact time that they're really functioning as well as could be expected I don't see that as a positive thing so I don't know that I would favor term limits in this situation I understand what Senator Clarkson saying but I also understand what Tom saying this is is it an annual election Tom it's at the they do review me every year and so in essence is an annual election the concern I would have you know if you do institute 12 years I've already been chair for five six so I want to help see I want to help solve the problem and so if I can do it or if I can help that's out to 2038 I'm not saying 20 I don't I want to do it but I want to have the option to be able to help as long as I can or as long as the board will let me serve I think in the next seven years you're going to have significant challenges particularly if the markets become more volatile and so you do not want to have a lot of forced transition if the board feels it's not in their best interest you know will I be here in five years 10 years I don't know will I be here in a year that you know I I enjoy helping I think we've done a lot a tremendous job over the past five years I'd like to help to continue but it's up to you in what you feel the proper term if any is you know going forward I guess I'm saying I think there's enough guardrail in place to if and not you Tom but if another chair stumbled and really made some bad decisions and just was mismanaging things terribly I think the board would just or the commission would just vote them out or her out and that would be it so that's what I can write before me yeah so I think I'm I'm okay with no term limit so location well I mean I don't I don't want to take us on a tangent but I feel like I don't have enough data points about the average time people have served how they go back out and find a new chair I mean yeah I don't know if it's a year long search process that you know maybe that should just happen every 12 years just so that they can reconfirm that they want the same person but they can see who else is out there so I'm just I don't know the process it sounds like you were just picked out of a bunch you know that was there already so is that common or do they usually do a no they actually had a search treasure pierce okay search and I think I put the qualifications under on your website under documents last time I was here and I don't think they had any other candidates at that point and so they interviewed me they brought me into the VPIC meeting did they do a regional search or a national search too did you just say um I'd have to ask treasure pierce on what okay did with that I put my name in the hat when she submitted it as a as an open and you were the only candidate I believe I was at that point okay that's an interesting data to me so and then what happened so you went through an interview process with the rest of the VPIC it was a committee of the whole decision so they had a special meeting where they had an interview they gave me submitted some questions I answered those questions in front of them then they had some give and take I left and then they debated and deliberated what they wanted to see and then they got back to me and offered me the position as chair so that and there's only been two chairs of VPIC so I don't know if you're going to have much data point so I don't know what they did with the original one okay deliberations at that point where we'll how to we did have those deliberations amongst VPIC members because I was a VPIC member at that point and I and we did see a need for change and we did we did bring it upon ourselves to initiate that so that that just is a follow-up to what I would have asked which is how were the other two VPIC leaders dismissed or did they want a cord or were they asked to retire it was on his own accord I think he was time to leave I think membership was getting to the point where we want a new leadership and we want to change on the VPIC board take an active step to make sure you had new leadership was there an affirmative action on the on behalf of the board to take make change no there was no vote to take make effect change the chair resigned and we we looked for a new chair and you don't need to have an active vote to somebody can very gracefully when they see the writing on the wall and they say that they don't like me anymore can resign you don't have to have a vote to say we're firing you I mean I always happen that nicely no but it often can happen that nicely and and and if it can that it seems to me that's a much better way of doing it I I um I do understand that people think there needs to be a term limit I will say that on most uh Alec and Senator Clarkson you talked about um non-profit boards but on most non-profit boards the chair is actually a member of the board and so the same if there are term limits the same term limits apply to the chair as to every other member in this case the chair is not not always it depends on the bylaws of the organization but in this case the chair is not a regular member of the board Kasia has a yeah I see that Senator Clarkson from so here's what I would say maybe to get us out of this spiral I guess I would just say I'm not hearing a best practice I'm hearing that there's been two people and and one really wants to keep serving which is great you know for now but maybe this could be added to the things that we explore in a study of what the best practice is around having a chair this kind of commission but we do we do plan on doing the exact okay compensation is for January we conclude chair and I know we will include chair terms and compensation of issues as well as employee compensation and issues that we should include so then I'd say let's leave it without a term limit until that's included and we get a best practice analysis well or we could look at other states what you know other their other states have the same situation and I'm sure they have best practices that we could look at Eric you may know that you work for New Hampshire Texas Pennsylvania and some other places so typically on a public pension fund board the chair is a member of that board and is selected by the membership and really their their term and their terms of membership on that board are no different than those of the other members they simply preside as chairman typically you don't see a lot of term limits from the funds I've worked with but I think that the difference here is that Tom in your case you're not appointed you're not a member of the board you're hired by the board in a paid position typically these are simply a board member agrees to step up as chair and the other board members will elect that person as chair I am going to say that I think that Senator Rahm's point here was well taken that if it's going to be part of the study that comes back to talk about compensation and if it isn't in here we can add the word term limit potential term limits if it's not in here because compensation is in here and have it come back and if they come back and say you need to have two year term limits or none or whatever that that that we can change it then because that report is going to come back so I think that Senator Rahm that was I agree with you so Senator Clinton I saw you had your hand up yeah I was going to just second what Senator Rahm said I agree I think we're not reaching an agreement right now and I don't think it's through or die situation we could put off the decision until we hear more we don't have time to look at other states and all that kind of stuff so I'd be more than comfortable just to wait on it I'm fine with that okay so we will strike that out that line out and make sure that it's in included in the study which I think it is but we'll make sure I'll add it I'll add it as one of the line items that we need to add into that review okay all right well we've made a huge decision here but anybody else want to weigh in on on that or any your other issues oh Steve I see you have your the yellow hand up thank you Madam Chair I do not wish to involve myself at all into the discussion about term limits of the of the chair I think I'll leave that to you but I do want to just state the VSEA believes or has some question about whether the changes that are proposed in the House bill that you're considering to VPIC need to be made this year and whether or not it would make more sense given that Tom is working on the report that VPIC has has commissioned and the task force is going to be meeting to decide different issues but issues that would have some impact that we that we wait until next year to do the changes to the government governance of VPIC all at once rather than doing it this year but we what we question why there there needs to be a change this year I I thought we had decided that I thought we talked about that the RFP and how it was it really it was looking the point of the RFP now because most of the things that would have come back from the report as I understand it have been included in here as best practices having come from outside experts that and those same those same recommendations would have probably come back as best practices since that's what's been what's come back already and and that the the focus of the study now of the consultant is to further look at how this how this becomes a truly an independent body as in removing it from the under the Treasurer's office and that that was the point of it I may have misunderstood that whole conversation but so I'd like others to weigh in on that I think you're right madam chair I think my point was the question is whether this change to the governance of VPIC has to be considered this year whether it makes more sense however that report whatever those issues that the report that Tom referred to and you discussed earlier includes and the changes that are being suggested by the task force to the other important aspects of the pension system whether there is maybe some thought that we ought to just wait on the whole governance issue until next year so that we can have a more complete picture here before we go to I just I I'm looking at a document that says VPIC governance proposals it's three pages it just looks like it's written by Tom and Beth is that this fabled report that we're talking about no that was the original response to the bill her proposal VPIC structure okay and worked out with Treasurer Pierce and I and some other interested parties and so there was a it was an aggregation of of core ideas or core principles that we thought would help start the discussion that's why I say it's important to continue the progress we've already made because I'd hate to lose the momentum we have makes I think there's a lot of good changes to governance that are but is this is this like report under your name where would we find the report to our committee about the best practices around the governance changes isn't that what you're saying exists somewhere well we haven't that that report was rfp for no I thought you said you're already folding in best practices that have come from where are these best practices coming in right now boyco is the president of rvk which is our investment consultant and he's a nationwide expert in this topic he actually does he gets paid speeches to do this around the country he testified at house gov ops to this effect okay some of the language in regards to reports that are in this document are directly from his participation with a uh we had a conference call with uh uh representative gannon and uh representative kopenhans is so that's why I say we've made so much progress and brought in people and we brought them in for free as sort of an add-on to our existing consultant relationship that we already have with them so there's a video we can watch of house gov ops asking him question yes okay and his name is jim voidco and he is the president of rvk he's our investment consultant lead investment consultant for the state yeah I didn't mean to imply that there was a report but that they had received best practice suggestions from an expert in the testimony so eric did you thank you madam chair just a brief comment on why this is important now versus at some point in the future this bill if enacted sets us on an into a process of really charting the course toward autonomy from the treasurer's office the issue as I think we've testified already is not that we have concerns about treasurer pierce treasurer pierce vpik myself and chairman galanka work seamlessly together the concern is about a potential future treasurer that might have a different political agenda than vpik beyond that having an autonomy an autonomous committee really makes it easier for the committee to attract and retain a professional investment staff because that staff then is not concerned about turnover of the treasurer during elections so we think this is very important we think it sets in course in in in motion of a series of events that are very will be very beneficial for the long-term success of the plans and the investment portfolios these plans take a long time to design and implement investment strategies it's important that we have continuity from year to year regardless of who's in the political offices there thank you uh steve i see you have your hand up thank you madam chair i didn't mean to suggest that we put these changes off forever but that we just simply wait until next january before we consider them and unless somebody knows something i don't know uh i anticipate that secret that treasurer pierce will still be the state treasurer next january um so um it won't really impact um i think the points that mr henry was trying to make okay uh we heard that senator clarkson so i i think given the recommendation of both tom and eric and the treasurer and the incredible amount of work that the house has done on this i would be reluctant to make changes in this now and i think it sounds like it should be in it that the vpik got changes are important to be done now um so i i i think as steve well knows the legislature can change things at any point and if it's not working we can review it but i think that uh the work that's been done and the recommendations that have been done would encourage encourage me to support the the composition of vpik as it's been sent to us by the house uh senator colomor i agree senator polina i might agree i just feel like i would need to look at it more just be perfectly honest not opposed to the idea you mean opposed to the idea of waiting or opposed to the idea of staying i'm not opposed to the idea i thought you were saying allison senator senator clarkson was talking about supporting what the house is done it there are two different things here there's that there's um supporting any changes to the governance the issue of who's on the governance who's on vpik we haven't even addressed yet but whether or not we put off any changes to the steve's suggestion is we put off any all of section well i mean all of the first part of this bill that deals with vpik so there are and i think that's what senator clarkson is saying that she doesn't want to she doesn't believe we should put off any changes right now we can still talk about the details in it and whether we agree with the details but um she's saying don't put off any changes right now i believe that's what she's saying okay senator rom yeah i mean i think that's maybe the stake i would put in the ground maybe there are some reasons to change some of the kind of procedural elements but i didn't hear anything compelling about why we should have 10 to 12 percent less representation from the labor groups in it it went from three out of seven to three out of 10 is what i understand so that i would want to have that conversation yeah we'll have the conversations about the details the question now is shall we do we agree with steve's position that we should just put off any changes to any changes to the the governance structure at all regardless of the details we'll talk about the details later i guess it's hard for me to say sure without the details but um the hill i will die on is around the sort of makeup rather than putting it off but i think if we were to i haven't heard anything compelling about the change to the makeup in a material way and i'm really interested in that conversation before i say i'm okay with with the change of all all right so let's go there then let's go to the makeup of the no so are we agreed that governance that we will continue that governance should be included i think governance is essential i mean we have the the professionals you know we have the treasures i mean are we i i don't want to i think senator clarkson and senator columnar and i believe we should go ahead with changes in the governance structure i think that senator ron and senator polina have not made a definite decision about that yet until they hear the details of what's in the change am i yes that's the right time reserving yes yes yes so it's good to know what what i'm voting on before i vote on it so we we don't have to vote on this right now i think the sense is there um so let's go then to the makeup since that seems to be a sticking point for people so senator ron do you want to talk about your position um yeah i mean it's just i think with the governance change governance changes we've talked about one of the big ones has that we haven't quite delved into is makeup and i would be curious if tom or eric want to start by talking about the compelling reason to sort of have keep it at three members of those groups when that kind of shrinks their overall representation on vpik and to follow up on that can you tell us exactly who remind us who was on the vpik board before okay um you know the the idea was to expand vpik and how do you expand it was their initial question that we went into when we were talking amongst ourselves you know the treasurer myself vpik members union representatives with best different interested parties that would have their different opinions um we kind of wanted we wanted to maintain equity and and that is very important maintaining equity in regards to representation but we also have to understand that this is a investment committee not necessarily a benefits committee and so from an investment committee perspective we wanted to make sure we had representation from um municipal side representation from the teacher side and representation from the state side and then rest representation from the governor and representation from the public which is more some government appointees we didn't look at it from a union versus non-union union basis we looked at it from those pools of funds because it's really they're the beneficiaries of the trust and so we tried to say three three and three from each of those different you know sort of pool pooled groups um you know the administration um the the pension boards and the general public um and so that that was kind of our overriding initial stab at how we came up with this mix we also want to maintain continuity by including the existing members so all the existing members have a transition period embedded in them and we also wanted to add in more features in regards to training and common best practice because we already have significant policies and procedures that we use to onboard people we just want to make them more formalized as well as training specific investment training for people that can come into the trust um how it landed at these numbers it was it was a a combination of different factors and I don't think we ever meant to say we want x number of union members and x number of non-union members that was never the intent the intent was to try to get the best people at the table that we can have that we can train that we can work with remember all of these people are going to have a fiduciary responsibility and in that fiduciary standard uh they really are uh their hat is going to be on for the beneficiaries of the trust uh that's their number one objective is to is to do things in the best interest of the beneficiaries we will not be looking out for political interest and that's that's the reason for separating it from the political process and we have fiduciary training we had a four hour training session in November to make or have our members really aware and understand that so we view that as very important we think is the best we think that this is the best shake out of how do you expand it and how do you bring in the different members and we're very comfortable with this mix if you tweak it here and there I think we'll be comfortable with it I don't think it should hold up the process okay thank you so just a question when you when you made your your kind of three three three I'm looking at this here and so we have the the three people from the boards is pretty clear who they are and then your three kind of public representations are the two independent people appointed by the governor and the treasurer and then the three um kind of management or whatever people are the vlct vsb and dfr that's correct that how you kind of broke it down yeah at that point was the commission of finance when we first started so that that was a change but that was basically how we created the equity you know the uh taxpayer group the employee group and the employer group and it seemed to give us a good balance and acceptance amongst uh everyone that was discussing it okay and can remind us again um who was on there before how it broke down do you remember well it's six members so there's the treasurer and there's one member from the visas veemers and visas so you get you get one member for each of them you get one alternate for you so this is really complicated you get alternates for each of those as well the governor gets two members right now and he has one alternate so he actually has three right now and he's going to end up getting three go tom can i just clarify something when you talk about a member and an alternate so does that count as two members or does that count as one member and one person shows up if the other one can't now both members always show up and that's the one thing we've had with our board is that the members and alternates do participate equally um they just don't vote unless they're the one that has the voting power at that time but i found that our alternate members uh make a good contribution and they do tend to attend most meetings just to keep them up on the issues and to be able to step in if anything uh so in terms of voices at the table it's really two people from that group whatever group you're talking about when you're saying one and an alternate you're really talking about two voices yeah the beamer's board uh elects two one voting one non-voting the beasters board votes one and non-voting beasters same thing and then the governor votes two voting and one non-voting and then the treasurer and then they elect myself so the alternates don't get a vote for electing me so it does whittle down to the smaller body and that's it's important to get it up a little bit more in terms of numbers particularly if you're giving us more responsibilities in regards to the assumed grade return i think it it needs to be around the 10 level just to have that supermajority and so you're not doing it with three out of six or four out of six you know having that that much authority so i i think the 10 is it's a good number um that works they asked me that question when we first started this process and best practice is six to ten members in a body of this size and we were at the higher end but i think it's worth it remember the original proposal was 17 members so we felt that we were really coming down from the 17 members and it landed somewhere in the middle in that 10 10 range number so i'd like to hear if uh committee members have any questions for tom about this and then have um steve and jeff wayan senator rom so i just want to make sure i understand there when there's a vote needed for setting the rate of return and you need six members to vote for that right there are three voting members from the other boards there's two voting members from the administration and there's the treasurer those are the people yes the alternates can also vote alternates don't vote so you're saying it's essentially you need a unanimous decision we no no no you're talking about the difference between the proposal and the current oh sorry okay i was like that only sounds like six people to me okay so that's why yeah i was talking about the current so we want to go back to the proposal yeah the current um the current first of all we don't have that responsibility we just have a simple majority on any action and we're pretty much consensus you know we don't really have split votes it's usually strong recommendations from staff um and uh background and then we have education so i haven't found that we've had split votes i will add all all of the uh underlying pension board chairs have endorsed this as well and not just uh not just treasurer appears to myself and we've discussed their membership requirements uh veemers had more more issues in regards to some of the independence language because they they were more concerned over that but um the uh i've spoken with all of the the board chairs and and they all are in agreement that this is a a good mix that works with them senator calmer i think you had your hand up and then senator polina again thank you madam chair so tom under the proposed vpik composition i count 10 people um there's the three uh representatives from the uh retirement boards there's two gubernatorial appointments there's the treasurer there's a chair there's the commissioner of financial regulation there's a vlct appointee and a school board association appointee uh are you saying though that out of those 10 if there is a vote the chair doesn't vote right so there's really nine votes there that's correct yes i'm getting it i'm getting it thank you senator polina actually that's the same that was nice that was i was going to ask the same question i want to be clear on that because when people are talking about the governor having three votes and the the boards having three votes but we weren't talking about the municipal employer and the school employer but in those contexts i just want to make sure that we all understood that they were there as well they're there and they were the valid billion dollars of the 5.5 billion is municipal money and so they have a strong interest in in this uh trust and you need six to do a simple majority of five to do some things and six to do the rate of return that's correct yep so if i may yes senator parkson so i'm i'm uh i guess i'm just simple enough i i see 13 voices at the table four of whom are alternates but they're conceivably 13 active strong voices at the table that's correct is that what i'm seeing and so we subtract four alternates but that leaves me with nine and i don't know how we get to 10 i don't see where your 10 is because um i see 10 on but you know i just don't see where you get nine and then eight voters and but anyway i'm i'm clearly not i see two four six eight and then nine 10 11 12 13 13 voices at the table you take away the four alternatives alternates that's nine and then you take away one who can't vote which is the chair so you're left with eight voters is that correct no no sorry are you looking at the task force or the commission commission commission at fee pick okay yeah it is it is only 10 if sorry becky waserman legislative council if you want me to go through who those are no i can see them i'm looking at i see four yeah start start here okay start on i've got two four six eight if you look at all the ones that have two members one is a member and one's an alternate oh that the alternates are not counted as members i found my problem i found it okay yeah the the alternates are not members they're i think of them as um their voices at the table is they they can be voices at the table but they don't vote and i think of them as when you have a jury you often have alternate jurors who sit there and listen to all the testimony in case some juror gets sick and has to go away they at least know what's going on but they don't get any kind of a vote unless they're actually bumped up to be a member of the jury that that's the only thing i can i i also view them as a training ground for future leaders and build up the level of expertise um because you these could be members that have absolutely no investment experience and this is a great way for them to to learn um what we have where risk is how do we measure risk what's their fiduciary responsibility and to have that four-year period where um it really can be valuable a training ground okay so senator call uh polina i think you had your hand up no i didn't oh okay so what i'd like to do now is then shift and hear from steve and jeff now that we have it straight who's there so which one of you would like to go i'm going to start with steve so confused you shouldn't be three three three it's already simple it it is i was i'm just kidding so i think vsea would say that we prefer the current structure of the vpc board but that any changes you'll recall from my original testimony we believe that the members of the the each individual retirement system uh the folks representing that system on the vpc board should be equal to the folks who are who are not members of that of that board that's the driving force i think in our suggestion we had something like six and six but with an independent chair so i guess my my question is we are thinking of the because there are really three kind of um legs to this i think this is senator clarkson pointed out the other day that there's members employers and the public the the the kind residents of vermont that that and granted those members are also residents of vermont but there's a whole bunch of us out here who are not members and also need to have a voice in this as who are the taxpayers who are helping finance this also yeah yes so we're not disagreeing with that madam chair we're just saying that we believe that the the members who have the most skin in the game who are dependent on the system for their livelihood and their survival once they retire should have equal power to those who don't okay so okay jeff you're muted jeff yeah i know i know i'm trying to find sorry jeff in vermont in ea thank you um so i recently testified about balance we were very concerned about the balance and i think steve's right it the current structure of v pic is preferred the other question i have is i see the governor is getting three appointments the governor in subsection four gets two members in one alternate appointed by the governor with they have to have financial expertise or in independence but then also the commissioner of finance and regulation dfr is also appointed by the governor so in fact the governor gets three appointments and i question that um whether the wisdom of that that does then fall to the numbers i get it it doesn't turn into three three three is is the treasure and tom suggested um but i i think that just drives back to a more balanced board that's that has currently exists in v pic okay so what if you um considered uh no never mind okay um um uh senator poli senator column or did you want to weigh in on this at all oh uh i'm fine with the way that the house grew it up i think we've uh we've moved our position on the task force um and and for my vantage point gave in a little bit there and um i'd like to see the proposed v pic composition that came over uh remaining where it is senator clarkson did you have your hand up yeah no i i i i agree um i think that the it's a good blend of expertise skin in the game and i would argue everybody has skin in the game taxpayers and uh participants uh we cannot afford for this pension system to go belly up we have to manage it well we have a huge amount of skin in the game if this state goes bankrupt it is because of the pension theme uh it we've already seen the pension uh affect our our grading our our our our triple a grading that we had that is no longer as a result of our pension so taxpayers are are impacted by the pension system a huge to a huge degree and our general fund is impacted by pension so i to say that we don't have you know that the taxpayers have a huge piece of this and i think it's important for them to be well represented and i think that the others i would view as sort of the the sort of the the expert uh voices that are independent of of skin in the game and so i i think actually it's well balanced and i would support what came from the house so i'm going to call on senator plina and senator rome in a minute but i i have a very different feeling about this board than i did about the task force because the task force the goal there is to work on what is a good blend of uh the benefits and the employer and employee contributions and how we how we do that and that's and that's the um the what the board the three boards do the three boards determine the benefits this is so i understand it this is an investment committee this isn't negotiating whether um we should have we should pay four dollars from our salary or six dollars this is an investment committee that is tasked with making the best investments possible to keep this system alive and i don't i don't see it as coming down to to sides here and this is not this the other the other boards might be in a position to kind of negotiate benefits um the employers and the employees but this isn't a uh a board that does kind of negotiating it it should be listening to the experts out there on on investments and so that that's just how i feel about it i i had a very different um feeling about the task force because that was that had a different um different responsibility and so so anyway um senator polina do you well i first i agree with what you said about the differences between the two two committees i think i agree with that but i still think that the people from the boards the labor folks if you want to put it that way deserve to have at least equal representation on the on the on the commission and the way it is now as jeff just said the governor ends up with um at least three voices then you got the municipal employer and the school employer so you got the governor's three people and then you got the employers whose interests may not be quite the same as the people who are beneficiaries so i just think that i would like us to find a way to better balance things if that's possible very actually their interests should be exactly the same i know they should be i'm not saying this is an investment committee their their interests in investing should be to make to get the highest return possible sure so but there could be different ways of looking at how to get there well i'm sure they're yeah there may there may be but their interest is all the same and we want this fund to be well invested and well managed and produce the greatest rate of return it can we want this fund to be sustainable for the future and this is critically important to our financial health of the state i i think i want to i don't disagree with any of that obviously so but i see the implication is you it's about making the best investments but people with different strategies as to how to make investments and how to get from point a to point b just want to make sure that voices are really heard in the right way in order to get there okay get that senator ron so i i'm looking at the makeup and i'm is just hard to see everything so bear with me here for a second but i think what i i share senator polina's concerns and what i would propose is either adding another member of these serves because they have different interests like the troopers and the state employees and removing one of the governor's appointees or i what i think senator polina and i share is a concern is that the governor just has a lot of influence on the way that people's philosophy like people's philosophy around investment and what good return on investment looks like and what smart investments look like and so i would take one of those seats and allow the treasurer to appoint another person who's a financial expert because right now we kind of just give the governor the ability to say you get to choose two members and one alternate who you believe have financial expertise that feels like a little bit of carte blanche to skew things towards a particular philosophy around what investment looks like and i would break that up a little bit and either give that to the troopers or the state employees given that they're kind of underrepresented here in that sense or i would have the treasurer appoint an additional financial expert wait you said give one more person to the troopers well so visors has one person right but they am i wrong there's no one for the troopers if you consider the troopers different give the troopers a seat or i would at least have another independent financial expert appointed by someone else than the governor in my proposal of treasurer i see i see okay okay so the i was i'm thinking about that i the treasurer the treasurer also could have a very different philosophy of investing our current treasurer probably we might all agree with but we could have a treasurer that would be more reflective of what you're afraid of with the governor's appointees than the governor's appointees themselves maybe we should have the chair appoint an independent financial expert i i that's fair to have them sort of just you know thinking out loud here but i just think the governor you know having that much ability to direct those seats i would break that up a little bit i would put a financial expert on there who's someone else chooses you could also have if you're just brainstorming you could also have the three the committee groups the labor groups for lack of a better way of putting it have them appoint an independent person with expertise help them represent the point of view would help them move forward in addition to adding another person no i would say either i would actually question why i'm not sure why the troopers are not represented directly i know they're affiliated with vsda but they also are independent in large large sense they're part of that board right not independent of that board right so that either either give them a seat or allow the labor groups to appoint a another person who's independent with with financial expertise i kind of like having the chair appoint an independent expert because the chair should have no no i mean i don't know that i don't know that we're even thinking that of the three boards that they would the people that come from those three boards would would all agree on the investment strategy that there you have nine people here and there might be nine different positions about how you should be doing investments i don't think that we should say that the just because they're beneficiaries they're going to have a unified um idea of how to do investments so anyway tom had his handbook yeah and eric does too so thanks right here um in regards to me appointing um since they're in essence my bosses i don't think that would be appropriate okay unless you change that structure i wouldn't go there um um i would i'd argue again i just i will say we work by consensus and so i don't rec i've never voted in six years so there's never been a tie um we are proud of that i think we do work through the best investment policies i think we have brought in the experts in regards to staffing and our intention is to improve that um i have never seen a problem with any of the underlying pension boards in fact they all support this so i don't think there's an issue with how we've structured this right now where we need another member but i i i i hope i wouldn't want to cause another issue that comes up and i also will say the governor currently has two voting members so none of three though right because it's the it's dfr and two no no no the old in the old right but i'm saying it's going from two to three you you were saying it's two now but it's going to three well dfr is is bound by the sec fiduciary standards and federal law i that person still appointed by the governor right i know i'd argue that position has a bigger higher you know the sec has strong powers um in regards to regulatory um processes um so that expertise i view separately than a governor appointed but that you know you may disagree but i i think the sec and finra and government regulator regulatory bodies are very clear on fiduciary standards and fiduciary responsibilities and no one coming into this room holds the hat of whomever appointed them so it's it's really an apolitical body in that regard but that said people who have money and have vested interests do belong at the table and we've tried to balance that out with veemers with visors and visters the league um as well as the taxpayers and so that's where we came up with our current number i do think that um i mean i i don't know how to even think about balance here because the the it isn't the unions that are appointing these members it's the boards and the boards have agreed with this um with this makeup and i do understand that uh i i i in this case as opposed to in the case of the um the task force i don't see that that we need to say that okay so on the when the board i'm going to call on you and it's just a secondary but i'm trying to think here the state employees retirement system they're going to appoint somebody to this board and they're going to appoint an alternate so there are two voices from there say they uh decide that the most the the board is made up my i believe of both employers and employees am i right about that the board itself yes okay say say the um board decides that the very best person to appoint to this board is an employer from their board does that then upset the balance here between member union members and non because they're an employer here so if we're thinking if we get ourselves caught into this who's who's um management and who's not and who's a participant who's not i i'm i'm getting myself very all tied up in a knot here thinking about this so eric did you thank you madam chair i just wanted to provide a little bit of perspective on this idea that the people at the table will come up with different paths to maximizing investment return the way this works in practice is that the role of the committee is to set policy hire the consultants hire a staff and hold us all accountable the actual implementation of investment ideas germinates with the staff and in consultation with the investment consultants we then take proposals to that board so it's not like we have nine members sitting around the table saying consider this small cap manager or consider this bond manager that work is really done at the staff level and what when we take them recommendations it's really a matter of them approving or not approving recommendations it's helpful so where are we here i i would i think i'd support it as sent to us this this composition and i think we're gonna have plenty of time to to review things given the work that um that the the board that vpik is currently undertaking and given the uh i think this is going to be pretty present with us for the next year and a half so i'm very comfortable with it i feel like the treasurer's office and the vpik professionals have weighed in i feel like the house has done a lot of work on this and i think i'm i'm fine with it as as sent to us by the house so i'm going to ask a question of steve and jeff if the the boards in the retirement system the retirement system boards have approved this concept and this makeup where is the opposition to it coming from because your boards you are represented on the board can somebody help me out here either steve or jeff steve's waiting on me i think i think i lost uh it's just a question of balance and so you know throughout the whole bill um you know balance has been a concern of ours so you know just for a minute just looking forward into the task force that was a that was a significant piece of the puzzle for us and so we you know striking the right balance there is really extremely important to us here uh you know certainly the interests are aligned and trying to invest well and wisely but um making sure that the plan is doing that in a way that doesn't forget that it's it's really looking out for the plan participants that's the mission of the the of the v-pick group um as well as the taxpayers of which they are many so it's a combination of that we're just trying to strike the right balance because it is looking out for far more than the plan participants if it is if it's only i mean it has to be solvent right and i'll just point back to you know 20 some years ago it was a teacher member of the of the teacher board who really raised the issue of the underfunding by the state in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s it was a teacher who actually filed the lawsuit suing the state for underfunding it was just you know that settlement resolved itself into requiring the governor to put into the proposed budget uh either the full funding for the adec and if not an explanation letter as to why he or she was not fully funding the adec uh and of course that led to just a letter for a series of years until 2007 in the teacher system and not the the state employees but saying that oh the the investment returns would make up for any underfunding well we know that didn't happen so i mean that's just kind of you know i come at come at this with the knowledge that it was a teacher who identified significantly the problem of the underfunding it was a member of the board who was a planned participant who raised the the the the issue uh that hopefully then got it addressed some years later almost 10 years later but it took that long to to constantly nudge and so i think that planned participants come at this certainly as as much as of an interest if not more than general taxpayers because it is their pension that they're talking about and so that's why we're trying to strike that balance um it's it's an imperfect balance i understand and if you um i just i wonder frankly why the the governor is getting an additional pick at this point no matter who the governor is the legislature ought to be you know cognizant of that i think um and we're just trying to make sure i you know i don't it's an imperfect science here on this and i get it i do understand but we're looking to strike the right balance and steve did i put your that up too badly or yeah yeah of course he's gonna you're gonna agree with me of course so um it it's not he's always jeff i almost always agree thank you steve um i that's the the challenge here madam chair i have another proposal right out great um and the steve steve can react to the cv1 so let's just say we were we let's say we were talking about some semblance of balance i'm not just you know just balance of perspectives and and whose interests are being what kind of questions are being asked whose interests are at the table so let's take out i'll take what tom said at face value dfr is its own creature it's beholden to you know sec rules and regulations treasurer you know different let's let's take the treasurer out so then you have you know one municipal member and vlct and you have one teacher and one member of the school boards association has chosen then you have two governor's appointees and one go back to the you had one from the vlct as the muni muni employee and then you had then you said you have one teacher and one vs vs va right school board association or super yeah but you said one teacher one sorry vsters oh you're you're okay i'm just i'm just sort of going through and saying you have one person who represents a planned member has those interesting question as a vsters member you have someone from the school board association you then have one person from the state employees and two governors appointees if other things are going on in the world that affect everyone's perspectives etc that feels imbalanced to me and if we do nothing else maybe we just add another vsters person and you have two governors appointees two vsters person then it's likely that the troopers and the state employees would be representing you have an 11 person board the state employees are and the troopers are already represented on the board i don't think the troopers are an issue here there let's leave the troopers out but you have two governors appointees and you have two people who are state employees just for that balance of perspective you don't even have to take away a seat but giving the making one state employee you know sort of function in the same space as two governors appointees plus the head of dfr it feels it feels imbalanced in terms of the perspectives to me that are at the table i don't see why we couldn't just add someone from vsters because that's just a lot of people tom tom yeah i think a good way of looking at it is basically looking at who are the new members and why are we putting those new members on and it basically means there's three new members one is the financial regulatory body and the other is are the two financial experts and independent ones that have the special clarification that we just we just put on and so that's was the whole beginning of this process you know how do we add to the existing vpik membership and not necessarily address the balance that was before but how do we complement that with extra benefits and skill sets that we think vpik was missing and so i think that's the disconnect here i think you have to look at it from the new members not the other ones the other ones are what they were the governors always had two voting members and one alternate the vsters and the vsters have always had theirs veemers always had theirs we just the house as i as i understand representative gannon and representative copan hansis wanted to add these financial experts and independent people onto they're still appointed by the governor i mean i just i you know why can't one just be appointed by somebody else i mean that's what i go back to then because independence is very hard to to sort of make an objective statement around and it's still you're having the governor appoint two people in the in the overall balance i just don't see why we can't have someone else appoint one of those folks i guess the governor is the default appointee on most things but i don't know you know that's up to you what if you what if you had one one governor's appointee and then that other financial independent expert gets appointed by and they're going to have to agree here the three boards one person that the three boards together they better be talking to each other and they they pick one person who's not a member of the board of any of the boards to represent them and find an independent financial expert and not a member of any of the unions either i mean really no not just it has to be independent financial expert i see steve is his hand up senator plena you have your hand up so i'm going to go to senator plena first well i was just going to agree with that i talked about doing that before the idea of having the what i said i called the so-called labor groups come together and pick one independent person with financial expertise i think that's a good idea and i think putting the governor back to one would fit the balance back in the governor maybe i heard you say it and it just seeped in and it just got there great minds it just got there i thought currently things take longer over zoom if we were in the same room you would have gotten it sooner i would have gotten it sooner i thought the governor currently had two appointees right we're suggesting that maybe he only have one in this because he also has dfr dfr and dfr is as i think tom says dfr it may be a govern governor appointee but dfr is slightly different i mean they have to be a regulatory securities expert already it's not just like one of the regular appointees it's not like some political hack here i mean this is somebody who is one of the most important financial whizzes working in state government so um i i hear what you're saying but i do agree with tom the head of dfr is slightly different we're not talking about taking dfr off the plate dfr's still going to be there we're just admitting that he's that the person from dfr is appointed by the governor senator colomar thank you madam chair i remain where i was with senator collection despite the very good suggestion you just made i just you know with all due respect to tom we're changing the whole body right we're adding more people there's going to be sort of a different set of overall interests we've shaken it up i don't think just saying we're it's it feels like selective reasoning to me to say well they always have that so we're not changing that we're just adding other people who have other interests it it feels like we have to look in totality at the new group we're creating and recognize that there is it going to be a different balance of perspectives how come i only have eight people now you don't you have the same number let's see one two three four five six seven eight i have eight okay uh tom i see i would comment i like the idea of having me a point one out i don't think having multiple boards appoint someone is a good idea i i think we've had that problem before with the rate of return assumption and i think adding it into an appointment process would subject to that position being left vacant and i worry that that would be a vacant position i think the goal is to get people here and we'll work with whomever is is appointed and we'll pull it together whether it's nine or ten i i feel the work of the the house has they've done a really good job embedding these issues and i and i would hate to change it just at the last minute and add somebody which would then go back to the other groups for reasons that i'm not really here to represent yet or i don't remember why that came about at the house so i respect their work i think it's a good balance and i think we're always willing to add members next year if we come back with our study that says that or if there's concerns or questions we can always add more um it's hard to take away uh if we if we were to find that it it doesn't work you know um oh steve i'm sorry thank you madam chair and i just want to reiterate just two things one is what what jeff said it uh you know the issue of balance certainly on the on the benefits uh task force was absolutely crucial um to our members one uh suggestion i have i do this at some risk because you know i don't do math in public and sometimes i don't like to just suggest things off the top of my head but what if you the chair is selected by uh by the entire membership of the committee could the two financial experts be decided by the by the committee i think the issue is having the governor choose them whomever the governor may be i mean she may be perfectly qualified to choose whomever she wants but um perhaps uh making having the whole committee do it is a simpler way of doing you have to have some governor appointees you've got to because the governor represents the i'm just talking about two financial yeah i know but that that's those are the only people that the governor appoints are the two financial experts if you take them away there's no governor appointee so maybe one governor commissioner of dfr yeah but that i think that we've removed that as a uh you could you could just take that one person is one financial experts chosen by the governor plus the commissioner dfr and the other is chosen by the entire committee the same way they choose the chair so when when you have a meeting and you have alternates there do the alternates um participate in the conversation they just don't get to vote right they that's correct i was an alternate for a number of years and i participated um i helped initiate uh the digitization of vpik oh we got i i started the process where we got ipads and so now we have historical data going back to 2011 or 12 when i first started because of that so yeah alternates can have a significant impact and they can learn a tremendous amount in order to become a future member so if you look at this then if you look at the conversation that's going on here and the input and the ideas that are being generated what you have is you have the three boards having six voices and so they are they have six voices now they don't they only get three votes but they have six voices in the conversation to bring forward ideas the um school board and muni have two they have one and then dfr and treasurer what if you took away the alternate from the governor's appointee and just had one just had the two appointees and no alternate so that you really have two voices coming from the governor's appointees but you already have six voices at the table from the boards right they still the governor still gets two votes in that case you could have one appointee an alternate but but and i i understand that and i just know that if the philosophy of the of vpik is to operate by consensus that you probably there are very few times i would guess when you have a vote i was on the select board in patney for nine years and in nine years the only time we had a vote is if we had to record it and then we had a vote of three to nothing because we operated by consensus for nine years and so i i don't see an issue with the votes here because i think that they're going to i i see more of an issue with the the voices at the table there are 14 voices at the table now so which is robust very committee well i'm going to suggest that we think a little bit more about this and at this point it sounds to me like where we are is that three of us seem to be okay with this and two of us don't and that we will be coming back to this next week when we do some kind of a final vote or but are there other issues here in here now that we need to well i mean i just i would just say you know open invitation to tom and eric and whoever else i i will try to review house government operations testimony but if you can articulate this as more of a best practice because you were originally saying three three and three so the three was kind of governor's state level voices which which then you said okay no dfr is different than the two governors appointees so i'm just i'm just would love to hear from you later over the weekend or whatever a report something that compares to other states something that articulates this configuration as a best practice not just what is coming to us i have not heard that the problem every state is different some states will have pools of hundreds of different some have one some are schools only some are police only and so it's hard to compare trust like this that have you know multiple governance structures you know best to me it goes back to having a best practice study and and then doing it so that's why i wanted to reserve that sort of concern because i'm just not hearing the best practice so if you want to articulate it over the weekend you can but i'm not hearing it well i'd be happy to articulate and try to maybe try to answer your question a little bit better but i i will honestly say this decision probably won't be that meaningful in regards to our policy discussions over the next couple of years whether we have nine members or ten members okay we're going to have robust discussions on policy direction but at the end of the day we we work well together and and i find that the issue by adding more though is pushing us up towards that 15 people as you said at the table and that isn't best practice you know we were already pushing the limit at 10 we're adding there and i and i was originally advocating at gov ops that the alternates be just converted to regular voting members and then keep it lower they didn't and so now it's it's 13 14 15 you're getting into the level where it is becoming unmanageable um i would argue that i will add this and then we can get your answers in regards to government study governance study but i don't i don't want to just wing it and say okay well pennsylvania does it this way or new hampshire does it this way and south dakota does this way and i don't think that would give you a good enough reason for why i think the best number to look at is what treasurer pierce looked at is in regards to the number and she was really adamant that once you get over 12 it gets very difficult and we're already maybe we take away one of the governor's appointees because they now have dfr on there and then we have eight i think the best practices akasha exist with this jim voica voico's testimony i mean i think that's you said that he he presented the best practices so they exist i mean you don't need to be happy to test he'd be happy to testify to if this committee would like to hear from jim voico uh he is an industry expert um i imagine eric and i could convince him to to testify at some point whether we could fit into the schedule of the short timeline that we're working on here i don't know but we could do our best to get to testify but his testimony already exists so it right on the doesn't answer senator ron's questions but she could pose them to him at that point and eric could maybe answer more about that but he did testify didn't he did inhouse gov ops yes and the language on reports are directly from him he wrote that directly based on best practice reports that you should be asking as legislatures from their investment consultant and that's how he posed it and he came back with some interesting notes on why he asked the questions or why he entered those documents the way he did um and it was definitely best practice eric thank you madam chair i would echo tom's comments that the outcome of this decision is not going to have a meaningful impact on our investment process uh to me these are public policy issues that are above and beyond the investment process may i ask a question of tom madam chair yep so tom i i love the fact that you operate by consensus i think that's essential i mean i i think it's great but you won't be chair forever not every chair has that philosophy um so i i i i guess that's also where the well that brings up the issue of numbers uh it's it's a lot more difficult to manage when it gets 1314 15 if you don't have a good management style so i i agree i just i just wanted to say well i appreciate i mean i appreciate that you operate by consensus and i think on this where it's investments and we all basically want the same thing in many ways um it's uh that that that is often not easier it's never easy to lead by with consensus always but it's uh i really appreciate that thanks can i ask one more question madam chair sure i don't think i was and i can listen to the testimony but while i have you all here i i wasn't you know often we have commissioners etc as expert witnesses part of the process so what felt important about adding the commissioner of dfr to this rather than having them present and available why why do they need to be a voting member now well the original proposal from gov ops that beth treasurer pierce and i uh had originally proposed was the commissioner of finance because we figured that was a direct link to budgeting and appropriations um house gov ops changed it to financial regulations to get that skill set on the board and so you'd have to ask house gov ops why that switch out occurred i i feel both are equally valid and and made sense to be on as as appointees um they were concerned that the commissioner as i understand it the the dfr position would always have that specific skill set where the current finance commissioner may or may not and so they were more concerned that make getting the skill set was more important i think that's the reason why they switched it out but you'd have to ask them i don't want to put words in their mouths and why that switch out occurred but that was that one position yep we could hear from john but i think the question was more not so much who it was but why that person could not just be an expert you know who participates but does not vote why does that person have to be a voting member as opposed to just providing expertise uh i didn't i didn't consider that but that's that's something that could be considered if i may madam chair chair um going back to your question senator rom there is um representative gannon i have gone back and forth in this a little bit and by all means you know bring it back and he and i went back and forth a little bit the other day on this so i agree with i hear i'm agreeing with tom on this uh to a board that's too big is not a best practice so the boston college what is it the retirement uh policy group whatever the heck it is at boston college has issued a report that talks about best practices nationally so they take a look at all the states and and tom's right every state does a little bit differently there's a variety of food packs out there and everybody's got different uh things in their food pack uh their their retirement makeup what they did say was a smaller board is good having it over we were right in the sweet spot i would say currently under vpc and that going to 10 is at the outer limit right and i think tom said that earlier and going to 15 or 13 or something is is beyond what they would recommend as a best practice this is where representative gannon i went back and forth he he was fixated or focused more so on the the boards having financial expertise on the board i don't discount that but i also heard in the report and it is in there that it's important to have uh planned participants have a voice so we're we're saying the same thing he's looking at one particular portion of the report i'm looking at another fair enough we we do that all the time to our you know we focus your attention perhaps where we think it's important i think where we all agreed was that having too many political appointees is actually not a best practice within the field so having fewer political appointees has produced better results and investment results than having more uh political appointees for whatever reason i don't know you can read into that what you will boston college did not try to get behind the wall and figure out why but that was not a best practice so those are the few things some financial expertise uh some planned participant uh participation as well as fewer not more political appointees and not a huge board as tom pointed out he gets unwieldy then those are i think the sort of that's the round up well good i mean thank you for summarizing but otherwise was supposed to dig for but that to me just is let's take one of the political appointees off or or dfr can just you know go back to being a kind of expert support to the group and dfr doesn't have to be on there and dfr could be appointed the governor could appoint the head of dfr as one of their two people madam chair yes so these are not just political appointees these are financial experts who have been identified and appointed it is i would hardly call these just political appointees there are a lot of financial experts who a political person could appoint that's still what it is definitionally yeah i i i i tend to agree with that they they are financial and in experts and independent but they also will will no doubt represent the philosophy of the appointing governor because and there are different philosophies of investment i would assume and so they they are financial experts and independent but they are also political appointees so i i think heidi sherman's uh amendment addresses some a piece of this and i kind of like to see this before we what does she do but i also um uh i i also think that there isn't a governor no matter what their philosophy or party is who doesn't want these pension funds to flourish and succeed there is there is no reason that you would ever appoint somebody who wasn't going to enable a robust and healthy pension system there's just like no reason you would ever appoint a person who wasn't wanting who wasn't didn't have that goal i mean these are incredibly important to the state that we succeed our our bond rating has been degraded because of our pension performance i mean that has big impact on us that means it's more expensive to borrow i mean we the the state and the you know we all have impact when the pensions are are not performing as well as they should it's like i can't imagine everybody isn't on the same page on this well i think that i think that that everybody does want it to succeed but i have to tell you i i know nothing about investing i know nothing about finances i will admit that right up front but i am a trustee on a on a trust down here that that gives money to um to nonprofits and we changed our um for years there was a very particular investment kind of strategy and we we actually got rid of that person and got a different one because so there are different investment strategies and and it was a um right we just and so people there there will be different different approaches i i don't know i i mean that's bound to be the case and they'll all be it's a little bit like the legislature we all want the best for vermont right every single one of us wants to have vermont flourish and have people um happy and economically um solvent but we have a different approach on how to get there and my guess is that there are different investment strategies and approaches and i don't i don't i'm not saying that they're going to that because they're planned participants they're going to have one strategy and if their governor appointees are going to have a different strategy but i do i believe that there will be different different approaches and different strategies just like there we all have different approaches to how how we're going to make um how we're going to spend our money how we're going to make vermont a good place to live how we're going to um how we're going to save our environment we all have a different approach and so maybe that i shouldn't have gone off the rails but i see okay it's great idea to get john gannon and we're just sort of chatting around it i think they made specific choices for reason and it would be interesting to hear from john gannon who's most invested i think in this particular um i would hear from other from people outside the house committee they have made their decision and i think that we if we want to hear from other people it should not necessarily be house members who are justifying the position that they made but other people who can come in and and give us advice that will lead us to the same conclusion or different conclusion so uh steve i mean no i saw jeff's first uh just two quick points um it's not say that people aren't they're making political decisions about investing remember that vpik actually sets also the rate of return and that has an enormous impact on the adec so for years it was rather high and that allowed the governor to lower what the adec was essentially not not the governor but it it lowered the adec and so could that person be politically motivated i don't know i don't think so that's i agree certain clocks i think you know i see but but there is a motivation there to manipulate or maybe that manipulates the wrong word but to adjust the rate of return in in for for various reasons so i throw that out there and as well um fitch just rated us again at double a plus we the the the bond rating wasn't lowered and in fact they they talked about the pension um being i think was not material uh to the state's bonding issue yes um so that just came out this week and fitch also said that the demographic challenges the state has overall that we are aging that is the more challenging issue for the state that that this is not a it's not a part of the pension just overall the state is aging and we're not bringing a new people to the state that's the bigger demographic problem the state at large faces that has nothing to do with the pension so that's the you know the driving ahead looking ahead that's the real concern for the state i would say stew well now i have to say that i'm doing everything i can not to age so that i can help the state's bond rating um but i i think i'm at risk of disagreeing with the majority leader which i never really want to do um and agreeing with the chair which i always try to do um i uh i just want to point out that it is possible that a governor who has a different philosophy about the kind of pension system that we have in the state could use uh his or her appointments um to um to try to achieve that goal and that is why um it's it's it's really important i think that we have balance it's about it's not really about it's really i think the fundamental issue is about um on the on these two appointments who who makes the decision so so balance between the folks who actually um are i think that's that's the point i'm trying that's i think that's the point it's not that somebody doesn't want um the pension system to flourish they just may want a completely different and this may be the vehicle to to to achieve that yes you said that much better than i did okay um i would suggest that we um think about this some more that we uh perhaps think about whether the governor might have one appointment and um an alternate um that um and that that i will say still wouldn't um be the six six that um jeff and steve are looking for it would um actually be um okay but it still wouldn't get the six six but it would um remove that one um what could be a political appointment um but that we should think about this and do our independent research over the weekend and watch the testimony from well how did you spell his last name again his name is jim voidco v o y t k o and i believe v o y t k o okay go okay and i think he has documents that we put up there but it might be under my my documents i'm not sure okay um i i have to leave because i have to go to an appointment so i didn't know if you had any final questions for me before if we're ending here i can say for about five more minutes um well i like us okay or do you want me to start do you have any uh and i apologize in advance oh no no no no that's okay i would like us to go um back spend just a little bit of time on the um change in language that becky gave us around the goals of the task force because we kind of went through them very quickly the other day and just look at them and see where where they are madam chair she's no longer with us i know she's not but she went she walked us through them the other day so now i'm asking us to look at them is this the same version or was there a new one today it's the same one with the yellow highlighting i i think the only change there was only i think one change and that was the taking off that um independent uh the conflict of interest issue i think that was the only change so it really is um uh her copy today has yellow and sort of turquoise yeah and i think that's the that's the um so in the copy that i printed out that she sent us today it starts on page 18 oh and goes to page 21 the number at the bottom of the page on this which is unusual so do we want to look at just yeah let's let's look at the language that she put in here that some of it came from us and some of it came from Jeff and just see what if if it actually says what we wanted it to say which is um focusing some on the um impact on women and people with disabilities and so there's some there's language in here that does that and i'd like just like us to look at that so that if we see anything that is really um off-putting that we can change it okay i think i'm in the right document the first document that we have posted from becky today yeah and at the bottom of page 19 it's got the new language around the charge it's under section 10 i guess and it is uh yeah it's section 10 and it is uh under c which is powers and duties and a is the new language and then on my copy it starts on page 18 but um it might be the way my printer yeah and just what's posted that this is the where we are so let's look at a that um i i think that um we need to have more conversation to see if a romanette one and romanette two if that really if the change in a satisfies that because it's still very prescriptive and so what i'd like to do is kind of jump over that today and and make sure that we talk about that more in-depth on next week that those little ones that are very prescriptive and that didn't change okay and go on to um if we go on to d there's uh some proposed changes there um because of any proposed changes to current benefit structures and contribution characteristics and their potential effects on retiree spending power including retirees who identify as female and retirees who are persons with disabilities right um did you have your hand up tom i did madam chair i just wanted to thank you all for listening if anyone has any questions over the weekend feel free to reach out by cell i can for you an email um i will pick someone up and uh they'll be great thank you okay and eric's here for task force so he can answer any questions okay thanks thank you everyone thanks so does that meet the need that we talked about i think so mm-hmm okay and then f is what we um add are we sorry i don't want to mince words right now i can even look at it over the weekend but retiree spending power just like i i don't usually hear that phrase when we're talking about sort of fiscal health like if spending yeah i don't know we're not talking about like can they buy a dishwasher we're talking about you know can they afford to live well okay well we can say on their quality of life yeah yeah uh or something i i think yeah i mean their their quality of life is so much more than their money so i i don't think quality of life is what i think the their on retiree you know financial well-being financial well-being something like that income or something yeah i i just i just think i agree with you kasha i think spending power is a little awkward yeah okay we're changing it to financial well-being so f was taken out because f was the one that talked about uh defined contributions and this new f is here it talks about uh recruitment and retention the impact on any changes on recruitment and retention is that what we want to say there goes okay yes and then i think that on i she added a sentence there at the end of it and at the big uh h there's a uh before you get to i she adds stuff in h too not on mine uh here she uh she adds a plan to study health that's i that's h oh i see i thought it was one and two no it's h one and two well it's it's it's h i j isn't it now it's just hi and then it it goes to another it there's number two underneath it so i assume that's one and two that's a roman numeral i it's not a one it's just i hi so it's a plan to study health benefit design okay got it friday got it okay i see river is so much fun okay i'm i'm lost i i've okay she's right she's exactly right one and two and powers and duties yeah it's probably you have to go way up to see that one he's way up there got it thank you yeah okay because if you're just looking at these pages it looks a little different so i is that what we wanted to say and i yes you're right okay and then she made changes in the assistance and has fight fiscal assistance from the from jfo and the state pressure and then in perence she has office of legislative council and joints fiscal office i think that um one of them needs to be the contracting um agency not the task force itself correct yeah lech council does the contracting well she put in one or the other and i think that we'll just um find out from from mike o'grady and steve kline who's the most appropriate and then we took out the the um appropriations was everybody here when we talked about that yeah okay okay and then our our um oh oh i have 10 minutes left can i put money in the meter you got it okay i wish somebody could feed me something to keep me going i think the sunshine that's outside should feed you well okay and the timeline is the same as what we we talked about before yeah but you know what changed and that's not a big deal we said december first i thought at one point and now it's the second it doesn't make any difference i said december second because that's a friday it's a thursday it's not a good time it's a thursday oh make it the third then if you want it to be friday i don't care which day i just didn't know if there was a significance between one two or three no i just think given the time frame it would be better actually to do it the week before like anyway it's just going to be a Thanksgiving ish probably yeah yeah oh you're right you're right you're right i think we should give them to the third and that's just november's so hard for people especially teachers i think well i'm gonna stick with the second okay that's your prerogative we'll make the house wonder why why we get to thursday no that was a mistake on my part sorry okay so i think that the two things we have left that we really need to talk about are the makeup of vpec and the those two the goals and duties the that are very specific and whether we want to whether the introductory language was enough to soften those or if we want to look at those again in more detail is that am i right about where we are i think so yes yes i'm fine with chris roup's addition to that so i think he qualified it all well and and and reaffirmed the need to have defined objectives yeah i i still just do have a question about whether the objectives are too specific or if they need to be more slightly more generic in terms of of making sure that um it's sustainable without necessarily saying this is this is what you have to these are the savings that you have to this is where you have to bring it back to maybe maybe it's only such a different number right it's just such a specific target that people could end up spending a lot of time worrying about that particular target and which would take away their attention from other ways of getting there and target though is is a vaguely sustainable one you might ask jane about that well there might be other sustainable targets that they could come up with that might even be better than these i i don't know i i do feel the same way about as i said setting any study and saying it has to be budget neutral it just boxes you into less creative thinking i think but i will check that out with jane and just see what she has to say about it and also i think then we should uh get um have um i guess eric and the treasure weigh in on on that and whether it could be more generic and still be aimed toward um being sustainable brian i will just say this is a rare day too that allison and i are going to agree on two things today which i i like um i i agree with senator clarkson that the addition of groups language to me makes what follows less troublesome i i think it i think it's okay leaving it the way it is with the roman f m but prefaced by chris's uh online here okay so i think those are actually because i i do want to um look at that a little bit more just because i think that it still says develop strategies that do that not that make it sustainable but that actually come to that decision so we've defined what the decision is they have to come to okay so and then the vpec board yeah for sure so um unless anybody has anything they really want to do a walk isabel where's isabel when we need her she's she's right there okay and just uh for your information i don't know if everybody was here when we talked about the the resolution that uh was introduced today about the um opiate awareness day i'm going to just ask britney to come in and quickly weigh in on whether flying the flag at half staff is an issue or whether we should just say fly the state flag at half mass or what we should do thank you and then we can get get that voted out i i appreciate that i won't give the the affected family member of someone who died of an overdose any indication of whether or not we'll vote it out but i might tell her we're gonna take it up really quickly yeah because that's okay oh well but it doesn't mean we could get it to the house yeah there's a lot more than one affected family also yeah yeah she had she and right we can just i just wanted to communicate with her so i just want to say that she is part of a group of families and they have they're kind of organized so she's been following the bill number she saw the bill number today so i just okay let her know that we're going to take it up if that's okay great thank you thank you okay anything else that we should do right now i have a meeting at 3 30 you're welcome to stay and keep talking without listening to me