Good morning, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. We're here this morning first to chat with some of our business organizations about the Unemployment Trust Fund and to continue the discussions we started yesterday with the Department of Labor, just to see if we're on the right wavelength of trying to make sure that we take care of the trust fund as best we can, but also not trying to put too much pressure on businesses at this time. So with that, and then after at 1130-ish, we'll be talking to Kevin Gaffney. He's the Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Financial Regulation. We asked him to take a look at the Workers' Comp model during this COVID time to see if there may be a need for us to apply some CRF dollars as a backstop. So that has been completed. So we've asked him in to just go over that report with us as well. So who would like to go first? Bill, did you wanna start off? Sure, I'd be happy to. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, William Driscoll with the Associated Industries of Vermont. Appreciate the opportunity to talk about this issue. We have a long history of trying to work on protecting and refining the UI system. We were very much involved in 2010 and the reforms that we put into place then. And it's an important issue. I think that's kind of brought home by crises like we're in here now. So I think yesterday's discussion framed a lot of the issues and some of the more immediate possible approaches pretty well. I think just in terms of backing up and looking at what our ultimate goal would be that I think everybody can agree with is how do we, from where we are now, what's the best path toward restoring the health of the fund in a reasonable timeframe with minimal shock to employers? And I think in addition to sort of the questions and runs that you guys were asking for yesterday, I think sort of talking over amongst our peers and whatnot, there's some basic questions that I think would be important to look at and trying to frame into some sort of response. I think the first question is what should the actual target be in terms of where we're going to restore the trust fund to? Where do we want it to get back to in terms of the level? I think it's fair to say that at $500 million or so the fund was supercharged at the time of this crisis hit. It may have been, it was fortunate that it was in some ways overcharged in a way, given the magnitude of the hit it took. But that's not necessarily to say that that should be the ultimate goal is to get back to say $500 million. I think it should be a good discussion as to what the target solvency should be for the fund in order to be able to survive what might be the next normal if you will recession and the other stresses that naturally come to the fund. And then the next question after that is how quickly do we want to get to that level? And this raises some issues. I don't know if Matt with the department might have some thoughts on this. It's an inherently difficult task to try to forecast recessions. But I think there's the question out there as to given the unusual nature of the economic situation we're in right now being caused by a pandemic as opposed to the natural sort of ebb and flow of the economy. Are we looking at a situation where we're restarting the traditional assumptions in terms of the clock about when we might expect another recession and therefore when do we want to have the trust fund at our target level? Or is this economic crisis existing independent of what is otherwise going to be the cycles of recessions which we were in a way kind of overdue already when this hit? I think those are questions that might be difficult to answer certainly with any certainty but I think those are kind of things be good to get some feedback from experts in terms of informing when you want to where you want to set our path to get to our solvency goal in a reasonable amount of time. And I think once you get those two questions of where you want to go and when you want to get there then you can assert see how gently we could adjust that revenue path to avoid shocks on the employers that are going through the experiences that they are right now. And beyond that getting into sort of the fine tune questions I don't know at the top of my head if what kind of differences there are but looking at the two mechanisms of the two tools that you've discussed so far and either adjusting the change between tax schedules or and or adjusting the taxable wage base it'd be good to double check whether and to what extent either of those two changes have a different distribution of effect or distribution of cost on employers based on what their experience ratings are. And you could come up with arguments I think initially pro or con whether you want the cost of this to be born more or less by employers who have a greater or lesser experience rating in terms of having history of layoffs for whatever reason. So that's not to make recommendations to which way that distribution should be moved but I think it's a good question to ask and a good information to have on hand when you make that decision. And then finally, I just raised this just because I think it's an inevitable question as you actually come up with legislation as to whether how temporary you want these changes to be. You know, I think again the trust fund was at a very supercharged level going into this crisis that might suggest that the tax mechanisms are more aggressive than they have to be but then on the other hand, I think people could argue that we were kind of overdue for a recession normally anyway so that may explain why the trust was so high. I think that we would generally recommend not making fundamental permanent changes to either the tax schedules or the taxable wage base. I think it would probably be good to tailor the response to just kind of adjusting that initial track to the target solvency and then leave maybe more fundamental reforms for a later date when we have even more time and perspective to sort of analyze what happened over the last 10 years and what happened to this immediate crisis. So I think those are just some of the questions or issues that I think would be good for the committee to get feedback on to sort of frame what I think is a fairly straightforward goal that seems like everybody is in general agreement with. Okay, any questions for Bill? Thanks, Bill. Oh, Zach? Sorry, Mike, thank you for trying to find my raise hand. Bill, you keep on saying a couple of times that the trust fund is supercharged. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about where you're hearing that it's supercharged and why it would be supercharged. It was supercharged in the sense that it was in the $500 million range, which now it's been a few years and obviously inflation can have a certain effect, but I know when we were looking at restoring the funds in 2010 and shortly after, I think the general assumption, not that there was complete agreement always in terms of where you want your target solvency to be, but I think it was more in the range of 360 or a million or something like that. 500 million is much more money on here than you would normally need to have. And so you don't need that sort of an aggressive tax income in order to sustain that level of a fund. Now, obviously the system is designed to be self-correcting as was in the process of happening in terms of the tax schedule going down to one and the scheduled $2,000 drop in the taxable wage-based schedule for January. Now, how long that may have taken to sort of bring that 500 million down to a more reasonable level? I'm sure Matt can have rounds that what could have been, but that's what I mean by supercharged. It was at a very, it was at a necessarily high level right before this crisis hit. And what that's relevant to, I think now is, if you're looking at how you're going to adjust your tax revenues coming in, going forward and where you want to go, I don't think, certainly if folks feel otherwise and can make an argument, it'd be very interesting hearing it. I don't think that we should be shooting to get back to 500 million dollars. The reason I ask is just because we're not through this yet. So we actually don't even know if 500 million is going to be enough. We're halfway through it and we're not even through the year yet. So I think that the assumption that we're somehow supercharged when the recession hasn't even actually hit yet is a false assumption until we actually know when till we get out of this. I mean, we are in the best position arguably in the whole country. And I think our department of labor has done a phenomenal job in making sure that we've got enough funds in the bank. So I think that the phrase that this somehow is supercharges is political and who knows where we're actually, how much money we're actually gonna need. Right, which is why I led off with that first important point. And again, just to be clear, I would say it was supercharged. So it's certainly not supercharged now that it's been reduced by some 40%. The question is, it was supercharged before the question is now that we're trying to look at how we're gonna change the pace of revenues coming in. What is the appropriate target that we should be shooting for? Lynn. Thank you. When I was here in 2009 and 10 and we worked on this, I believe it was at $350 million or something in that range. And it was, it had been going down. I mean, we saw that, that was because we indexed the benefits or we didn't index the taxable wage base over a period of time previous. But $350 or $360 million was considered pretty good. We were at schedule three and my experience as an employer who paid these taxes is that schedule three was probably the norm. That's where it had been for a long time. And that's probably as low as I could see at ever getting. And then after we went through the Great Bargain and came up with the things that we came up with and we went to schedule five obviously because we were in the red and borrowing money from the feds. I remember thinking that we would probably never get to schedule one. It just seemed impossible from my personal experience that we would get that much. But the problem also was that we had negative balance employers, a lot of negative balance employers, seasonal employers who were constantly taking out more money than anybody was putting in and raising one of the issues that came up was raising the taxable wage base was a really important part of this. We obviously were decoupled from the automatic indexing of the benefits while we were borrowing money from the feds and we had to stop doing that and we had to get ourselves back into the black. But the taxable wage base from what I recall was that when we raised that taxable wage base, we ended up solving maybe not all of them but a lot of the problems we had with the negative balance employers. And I remember in the next administration when we had other issues that we had to talk about such as the Irene repercussions for employers is that the commissioner of labor came in and announced that probably 250,000 was about what we needed. That's where we would probably start to see where we back unstable ground. Obviously we've gone way beyond that. I thought 250 was probably a little low but that was what she pointed out as our goal. So I don't know, if we still have, there was a lot of discussion in those two years that we worked on this about how could we not shock the employers and yet get the thing back as quickly as possible or in a steady, slow rise up to where we could be solved it again and rebuild that fund. And it sounds like we did pretty well. We made a couple of exceptions like I say during Irene and we expanded a couple of things that were just sort of nibbling around the edges but we did okay. I don't think 500 million is necessary personally. I mean, it's great to go back to schedule one but I'm not sure that's a normal place for us to be or if we should be more like schedule two or three. I don't know, but it's, I don't know. I mean, I'd like to hear some of the other representatives about what's the retail people are gonna be hit by this and the hospitality industry and the chambers are gonna be hit by this, they're members. So it will be interesting to see where we end up. Jim. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, you pointed out that 500 million was unnecessarily high and had we not been hit with, yeah. I don't believe Bill is a commissioner. Okay, sorry. Maybe he's trying out for it, I'm not sure. I think you could sell tickets to that confirmation. Well, I'm not, perhaps I'm pushing up your pay grade but nevertheless, the question is, had we not had this unnecessarily high amount of money, let's say 300 million and we got hit with 200 million, we'd be down to 100 million. Now, let's say, if we had kept it at 300, 350 million and we go to a second hit with COVID-19, where's that gonna put us? Right, and those are the kind of questions that you wanna ask and try to do some runs with the department is to see where you wanna be. Generally, those sort of solvency goes again and there's a range of, I don't know if you wanna call it risk aversion or acceptance in terms of where people tend to come down. I think historically we've, and certainly coming out 2010, I think we kind of leaned a little bit on the higher side of what solvency should be. And again, looking at the, whether it's 360 or in the 200s or something like that. But there are formulas that you use in terms of the historical experience to kind of figure out, okay, if we're gonna hit every session in the next two years, how much do we need to have going into that in order to, obviously there'll be a big dip but have had that sort of self-correcting system kind of weather that. So yeah, no absolutely factoring in whether we have, whether the COVID effect is prolonged or again, as I brought up before, are we looking at, there could be a, what we might call a natural recession any moment now that we were kind of overdue for perhaps after 2008. Or are we kind of resetting the clock in terms of our expectations and we may not expect another recession for a number of years down the road. Again, those are not questions I, those are questions I can pose. I'm not gonna be able to answer those. I think Matt and others may be able to draw upon what sort of thought folks have given to that around the country. And then that will inform though, how, what your pace of revenues you want in order to get to that sort of solvency target in a reasonable amount of time to be prepared for the next hit. So we're not back here again with more shocks coming swiftly on people, but also being able to sort of moderate that revenue flow, get there in a way that causes the least amount of disruption right now. So do you have a recommended level of solvency? I do not. I would like, I think, I don't think it would be difficult for the department to look at the sort of the traditional formulas and translate that into now. Like I was saying, I think 10 years ago, I think we were looking at something in a 300 range. And again, that may be updated now. But that's the normal, that is squarely in the bailiwick of the department to be able to provide some guidance on. Thank you. Stephanie? I was just going to say that, I think these are pretty obvious questions that I'm sure Matt Berowitz has thought of and is looking into. And I think it's certainly a good idea to see what our optimal amount is going forward. So the safest amount so that we don't put a increase our tax, the taxable amount for businesses, especially in this time next year. I mean, this is gonna be a tough time for every business. So that, and I'm sure that Matt will also be looking at the other states who are doing well and what their level is. And I think that there can be some sort of, definitely some sort of goal that we can come up with that would be worthy of a discussion. Thank you. Yeah, for sure. Okay, any more questions for Bill? Bob? It strikes me that the question is, are we going to set a reserve based on anticipated recessions or are we going to bake in a pandemic? Obviously, if we bake in a pandemic, then 500 million is probably an appropriate figure. But if we believe that's an anomaly and that what we're really concerned with as we have been in the past up until this year being able to have sufficient funds to and the trust fund to cover unemployment compensation in a period of recession, then I think maybe the 500 is a little on the high side. If I wasn't quite sure the numbers, I thought somebody said 360,000 was the number that people were talking about in 2010. Wages have gone up a good 20% over that 10-year period. So if it was 360 back then, that would bring us up to about 430 million. Yeah, and I want to be quick. So 360 was just a general idea back then. That was, I think to be fair, that was on the high side of what a lot of other folks were sort of throwing around. Again, I think it's something that the department could certainly speak to. The one thing I would add raised a very good point on if we are trying to look at what our goal should be, where do we put this COVID downturn into that context? And again, folks may have different thoughts on this. It would seem to me, it'd be my inclination that it would not be advisable to build up the funds to be able to withstand a COVID-style economic shutdown in any given year. Whether it's gonna be another 100 years before we have a pandemic, maybe not that long, but it's not, I think it's fair to say it's not gonna be with the frequency that you have regular recession cycles. And also, I mean, say what you will about the gridlock in Washington right now in terms of responding to this. I think it's also fair to say and fair to factor in that however many years and maybe even now that you have something like this, there's not like a regular recession, but something really truly dramatic and national that Vermont would not be addressing entirely on. So I don't know if there would be a federal assistance or federal involvement. Now, obviously we can't predict exactly what that's gonna be or guarantee that. But I think if you're looking at especially in the context of trying not to overburden the economy now by trying to really raise a lot of revenue in the short term, I would think it'd be advisable to not set your target based on another COVID shutdown. It would be based on trying to survive the next normal for lack of a better way of saying recession in a reasonable amount of time. Gene? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would just wanna echo something Bob just talked about. When he was talking about wages having gone up about 20% that while we're discussing 300, 500, we're talking about absolute numbers, I would urge us to think of them as a percentage of gross payroll and what does that percentage look like? Not what those dollar figures look like because you're looking at a 10 year old numbers and we're bringing them forward into the current discussion. So because we have an economist on our committee, I'd urge us to look at the relative, it's how the relative numbers and the reserves play out to the base core of the total net of wages paid to Vermonters because that's a better market. And I think as we go forward, we're using that metric will be more helpful. And I think with a pandemic, you have both a rapid decline and a somewhat more rapid recovery. So while I agree that we need to have a large enough reserve that should a pandemic hit, we're not like the other states. I think we've handled ourselves very well. At the same time, we really have to look at this in the longer term and context of recovery and what does recovery look like and where are the optimal numbers for us relative to the number of employees relative to our population relative to our wage growth growth. It's just a way of looking at the numbers. Thanks. Yeah, I think it's a good question that we'll work with the department on and something that we really need to think about is should our trust fund, we continue to look at it has something that we have reserves for a recession that happens, do we need to? And I think there's going to be some thought or some feelings that maybe we blend something that helps a little bit. If something like this happens again in the next 10 years or whatever, we don't know. I'm not sure. And I think some of it's going to come down from the federal government, from the federal DOL on their recommendations to us as well. But certainly we have been fortunate that we did have this amount of money in reserves. So Bill, thank you very much, appreciate it. And we want to, we'll make sure that we have you and everyone else on board when we discuss this again with the department. Aaron, would you like to just talk a little bit about our association of retailing, retailing grocers and what that might mean for them? Going forward. Yeah, Aaron Sigrist, president of the Vermont Retail and Grocers Association. First, I want to thank the committee for allowing the opportunity to speak. We certainly appreciate the conversation about proactively addressing solvency in the UI trust fund. I think that I will echo Bill's comment about what is the solvency goal. I think that we need to see the numbers and continue to work with the Department of Labor here in Vermont, but also as the chair just shared at the federal level on what that number looks like and what we should be shooting for. I was not part of, or I was not here when the grand bargain was settled upon 10 years ago. So I don't have all of the backstory for that, but I do think we do need to look at today, not what we noticed or decided on 10 years ago. I would strongly encourage not only working with the Department of Labor, but maybe having some healthcare professionals way in to help us anticipate what we can be looking forward to, whether this is a 100 year event or a 50 year event or I think having that information will help us make some educated decisions as well. I do want to share also employers, as you know, will be struggling to come out of the COVID-19 impact for years. Nationally, retail is seeing about a 20% loss in business. I don't anticipate that Vermont will see a 20% loss in retail, but I do anticipate double digits. And so we need to take that into consideration as well. If businesses are struggling to come out of this pandemic financially today, they will certainly be struggling to come out of it next year as well. And so we do need to keep in mind the significant losses that the country and the state may be facing. I do appreciate Representative O'Sullivan's comment about the percentage of gross payroll. I think that that's certainly something that we should also take into consideration. So I appreciate that comment. The other piece, of course, that we do continue to stress is just the fluctuation if there is a way that we can get to an ideal solvency goal to keep employers within the one to three, schedule one to schedule three instead of ending up at a schedule one and then jumping to a schedule five. The tripling of costs for unemployment is certainly untenable if we continue to see those fluctuations. I unfortunately do not have numbers from members yet, but I have reached out to members to see what that impact would look like financially. But I'm happy to continue the conversation. I'm looking forward to hearing from the department after they present their runs. And I'm happy to be part of the conversation as we continue to move forward. Happy to take questions as well. Thanks, Aaron. Any questions for Aaron? Okay, great. Thank you. Charles? Thank you. Charles Martin, Vermont Chamber of Commerce. Thank you to the committee for having me here today. I suppose it pays to go third in the pecking order when the two witnesses before you are more or less stating the testimony you were going to deliver. I think all the questions that were raised are definitely pertinent. Central to this conversation is with this UI fund, we're trying to create a fund that mitigates disaster and pandemic or a fund that mitigates recession circumstances and economic decline. I don't know that I would feel comfortable saying what level that fund should be at. I don't know that's the determination I can make. I believe that to the state economists. But I do think it's sort of two different conversations. And I know in 2020, depending on the feds can be kind of a daunting prospect. But typically speaking for disasters and things like pandemics, the feds do kick in additional emergency appropriations that seem to mitigate to a degree some of the concerns that we have in the UI front and other fronts in the state. I'd echo what Aaron said. I'm moving from schedule one to schedule five because I think Cameron mentioned would triple taxes is also sort of a daunting prospect. With all that said, seasonal layoffs this year is certainly going to be a lot worse because typically speaking in the hospitality sector you don't see seasonal layoffs occur quite to the degree that they're about to occur in the food services industry. And that's going to be just a result of capacity and not having outdoor dining. There won't be enough staff. We'll be less staff to justify the decrease through put a customer based on all the sort of restrictions that'll still be in place this fall when things cool down. So it's definitely something to consider. But I think, yeah, again, I won't go on and on and restate what the previous witnesses stated but I do think we just need to determine what healthy solvency is in the UI fund and then have a justification that can be communicated to employers as to why that is an absolutely necessary threshold that justifies the corresponding schedule increase or not. I guess I'll leave it there rather than going through all of Aaron and Bill's testimony again. Thank you. I think we all appreciate that. Any questions for Charles? Great, thanks. Matt, anything to add? Yes, thanks for having me. Matt Musgrave with the Associated General Contractors and I promise to not repeat what the other folks just said but I am in a full agreement with them on that, particularly on changing the schedule. I mean, if it was me, I would be supportive of something below three when we get above three, I would start to get a little prickly about that. But I think to some of the points I think we're looking at here, it's really two different issues going on. I'm not an expert economist, I'm not gonna suggest what I think the appropriate rate would be at, but it seemed like 500 million was satisfactory for this situation. But what we're also dealing with right now is we're paying these benefits through a unique situation right now to Vermont employees. And it's not based on a recession on our due to the way our economy is operating, which is what we were expecting was a recession based on our economy. And now we have one that's based on a natural disaster. And that's put people out of work. And some of those people aren't gonna come back to work. I mean, it's just an unfortunate fact of the situation that we're gonna be looking at two issues here. One is today we're talking about unemployment benefits, which unemployment as I understand it is really a temporary vehicle to get you from either a layoff or unfair termination to your next income opportunity. It's supposed to be a vehicle to get you from point A to point B. When we're looking at the pandemic, this is a human service issue. And we might be well suited. I know that they have a lessons learned conversation going on another committee, but this may be one of the lessons learned that we need to look at separating our unemployment system from what really is a human service for a lot of these folks that aren't gonna come back to work. So that's one point. We're looking at two completely different things and it's really hard to forecast health and the economy at the same time. So I really appreciate DOL, Matt left the call, but thanks Matt for being able to wade through that. But on a personal note from my association right now, when I have the conversation with anybody about increasing expenses anywhere, it's just, it's falling flat. And when we talk about tripling rates for unemployment, particularly for contractors, and I unfortunately not well versed in the other verticals that spoke on the call today, but our industry is generally based on a bid and proposal system. So if you have a system that is based on bid and proposals, not only are you getting Vermont bidders on those projects, but you're getting people from around the state and around the country that are also bidding on those projects. And we understand full well that when an out-of-state employer brings labor into Vermont, they're actually paying Vermont income taxes and that's great, which is also a component of our UI. But the rest of their year out of state, they're able to pay at the rate they are in their other states. So I would be cautious to look at what kind of parity we have with other states because if it's less expensive for me to operate my business over in New York, do 75% of my work over there and maybe do a quarter of my work over here, I can come undercut Vermont bids because I'm paying maybe a lower rate over there. I don't know what the rates are in New York. What I'm suggesting is we wanna look at some sort of a parity so that we don't have a huge disparity over state lines. And then the last thing, we're tracking right now a 12 to a 13% reduction in construction for the year in Vermont and we're estimating that it's gonna go to 15. I cannot tell you what's gonna happen next year, relatively confident that we're still gonna have transportation dollars for roads and bridges, but in private construction and commercial construction, I have no way of knowing what's going to happen over the next two years because we're seeing the workforce just changing to tell a remote work. Some businesses aren't opening. Some plans that had been started have now fallen by the wayside. So I would urge caution for the committee. If it's something that we can wait through the end of the year to make a decision on, that would give us some more information as to what to expect within the economy. That might be the most prudent solution, but our request would be to please just consider that there's a lot of one, 2% increases that employers are bearing right now as a result of COVID, whether it's PPE, whether it's loss of productivity, loss of efficiency, every 2% or 3% conversation that we have is already coming from a pot that's really run dry from at least this year and probably years to come. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Any questions for Matt? Okay, thank you. Last is someone on the other side of the aisle representing labor. David, do you have anything to add to this discussion that we've been having? Very brief. Thank you for having me. I'd like to think we're all in the same theater, so trying to work towards a common goal. And I appreciate it. I'd love to hear that. Well, I appreciate the pressures that are on employers right now. And we also, I think, can take a moment to appreciate how important the UI program is. And I know that this committee has spent a lot of time on that and can appreciate that it was the thing that saved many people's lives and injected much needed money back into the economy. In terms of what you're discussing now, again, I think a couple of points. One, I think we do have to rely on the department to a great extent to guide us in helping to determine what, in fact, the right level is of risk. Obviously, if the program, if the UI fund is underfunded that risk benefit cuts at a time would be really devastating for folks. So we want to certainly avoid that. A couple of points related to that, I think it was representative of Sullivan said, mentioned yesterday, there may be sectors of our economy that are actually booming and being very successful right now. And the question is, can you parse them out? Unlikely, but it's just something to consider for those employers that are actually doing quite well, whether there's an ability to parse that out and see if there's a possibility to not perhaps change the rules of the game for them, given that they're benefiting during this time. And then another question, not for this bill, or not for this immediate time, but something to consider and something which is being discussed all over the country. And it really came sort of laid bare during this time is whether or not the state is actually collecting what it should be from those that should be paying into the UI trust fund. So for instance, we've had a long time discussion about transportation network companies and states all over the country now are looking at whether, in fact, they should be paying into the UI trust fund. And so as we talk about the pressure on Vermont employers, there's a question. And right now our policy based on transportation network companies is based on a three or four page memo that the Department of Labor put out a few years ago saying that they are not employers. So that's the basis for it. But I guess when we look to all sort of work together to solve this problem, we have to look to see whether some major employers who otherwise should be paying into the fund are not. So that's something to consider as you wade through these difficult waters. I will agree with my previous witnesses to say, I don't know what the exact amount is, whether it's 300, 400, 500 million that's sufficient. Obviously the concern from our perspective representing employees is that if the fund becomes dangerously low, then benefit cuts are right around the corner. So I'll pause there. I guess I should say, David Mickenburg on behalf of Working Vermont, thanks for letting me testify today. Thank you, David. Any questions for David? All right. I think we have two issues in front of us right now. The first issue is making sure that currently the trust fund stays as healthy as possible without putting undue stress on our business community. And I think that's a short-term discussion that we need to have with the department and with you all. The long-term discussion after we come back, maybe in January, if we have better data, we may not. But I think the next discussion is where's our target? Is it 360, 400? I don't know. But I think that's a really pretty good-sized policy discussion that we need to have. So I don't anticipate us weighing in in those waters right now. I think it's the short-term issue that we have with the trust fund and the schedule jumping from one to five. So if there's a way that we can lower that schedule jump and still maintain the trust fund to make sure it stays semi-healthy at least. And I think we've done a good job for now. Lynn. Yeah, thank you. When we talk about gross payroll and the wages of remunerates, DOL should have all that information. And David Miklenberg's discussion about some sectors being, I mean, and Jean's discussion about some of those being more successful during this period of time than others. Some of that is related to what you pay anyway. You know, there is a taxable wage base and you only pay on that. But the more people you have employed and the more money they have that the business pays out the more likely you are to collect more money from them for the UI fund. And the people who have more layoffs and declining business, their experience rating is affected. And so it's sort of built in there. It'd be nice to hear what Matt has to say about how those things relate because it seems to me there is a factor in there that's already accommodating that. I don't know exactly how that can be changed or adjusted but you know, it's something that we need to hear from Matt and look at how the DOL determines that. Yeah, I think if we all remember when we left in March and then ultimately passed the bill that was sent back over from Senate Economic Development on UI that we did have a, we let the experience rating. We gave a pause to that. And I believe it's still paused right now. So that's not affecting the businesses at this point which is a good thing, but it will affect the trust fund. Yes, and I will say that as an employer that we would never have put all these people on unemployment in a situation unless it was something like this. You know, this was employer, we would have had some other way of compensating people but there wasn't any cash flow because you couldn't make any money. And so whether it was a retail or something else you really, you had to depend upon UI as an employer in a way that you would normally never do. And the, you know, not resuming, not counting in the experience rating made it possible for people to actually do that to get money into the hands of their employees which was good for the employees and good for the employers and it was a win-win. But a lot of employers wouldn't have done that. They would have just, I don't know what they would have done but they didn't have the cash flow and they didn't have, they would not, they would be really burdened if they had like 10 or 12 or 25 people that had to be laid off and have that impact or experience rating when they're not used to it. Yeah, it won't just again realize that it won't affect the your experience rating until July of next year, July one. So you did have a one year pass but we did, we did relieve the experience ratings on everyone during this period. Any other questions or comments from the committee before we move to our next subject matter? Okay, great. Thank you very much all for joining us and invite you to stay on and listen in to our discussion with Kevin and Steve Monaghan. On the workers' count funding possibility and the report that Kevin's going to give us. And Cameron, thank you for being on with us this morning so you could listen into the discussion. Hope it was helpful. Yes, sir, it was. Thank you. I appreciate all the conversation from everybody and we're looking forward to coming back and I took a few notes and hopefully we'll be able to provide some more information once we're back with hopefully later this week. Sounds good. Thank you. Yes, sir. Good morning. Thank you for taking time to come and give us your report on the workers' comp. We appreciate it. I think everyone had to report earlier and Amy has just posted it to our webpage and I think she sent it to the committee again. Very good. For the record, Kevin Gaffney, Deputy Commissioner of Insurance and Department of Finance Regulation. The department undertook this study after the passage of Act 150. And I just, before I get into the report, I just want to thank not only our staff, Jill Rickard, Director of Policy and Rosemary Arrasca and Pat Burry and my staff. This was a rather extensive report for the time that we had. So appreciate their diligence and work and but also want the committee to appreciate that we had a certain timeframe to get this done. So we tried to capture and answer, I think as many of the questions or at least raise as many of the issues that maybe perhaps allow the committee to make certain decisions. So I want to thank them and also want to thank just the other agencies, Department of Labor, the Department of Health, the Office of Risk Management, the Inter-Municipal Trust. There's a lot of input and feedback and work that we did. And everyone was very responsive to assisting the department and getting that information together. So the report is kind of broken down into six sections. And I think I'll be happy to go through each section. I probably will focus on certain sections more that are germane to the key issues, but I guess I'll just allow the committee to stop me if they have questions or certainly ask questions at the end. So in section one, the summary, I just want to just cover the charge that we undertook here in doing the report. One was to determine the average cost of paying a COVID-19 related workers' comp claim in Vermont. What factors influence those costs of COVID-19 claims, including medical costs, average time a worker may be able to do that. Average time a worker may be able to work any applicable deductibles and then the other factors. And also the third item is the potential impacts on experienced modifiers for employers based on Vermont and other states COVID-19 infection rates. And so I will get into that in section three. And the fourth is the amount of funding and then the legislative acts to be necessary to substantially mitigate or eliminate the impact of COVID-19 and then the requirements for structuring such a fund so that the monies from the CARES Act can be used in compliance with the appropriate sections of the act. So I already kind of discussed, but I'll just go through all the stakeholders that we did engage with. Certainly as the workers' compensation insurance is regulated in a bifurcated manner, I would say really the lion's share of it is regulated by the Department of Labor in terms of the administration of workers' compensation claims. Obviously the Department of Financial Regulation uses a lot of that information, the output of claim results and all in reviewing rates and reviewing forms. We did reach out to the Department of Health because it was helpful in the midst of this pandemic to get the broader perspective of the COVID-19 on just the general population in Vermont as we then assessed the impact on workers in Vermont. And then additionally we will discuss in the report to the extent that many of the employment types that are addressed in this act are often through either self-insured arrangements or inter-municipal trusts and they present a meaningful, if not a majority share of the workers' comp market. We also consulted with our National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the National Council on Compensation Insurance NCCI which is the advisory service organization that establishes the rates and loss costs and forms for use in Vermont. But more importantly, as a response to this pandemic developed a COVID-19 modeling tool that the Department used in their report. I think folks are generally familiar with the workers' compensation system in Vermont. So I will just, if there's questions about section two I'll be happy to address those. I guess what I would highlight is just the components of a workers' compensation claim are the medical and voc rehab expenses, right? That someone may incur if they have a work-related injury, the indemnity portion of their loss which is their lost wages, which will obviously be dependent on their wage level and the state rules around wage replacement. And then in the case of a serious event of death, the death of burial and funeral expenses and survivor benefits that the system provides. And like many states, I think it's 38 states, Vermont utilizes NCCI as the advisory service organization. So they do provide the backdrop. There's some states that have their own monopolistic system but most states utilize NCCI. So in item, in section three, we just wanted to capture for the committee the infection rate of infection in Vermont and just capture from a broader scale the total number of cases. Obviously, this is a moving target. So I'm just reporting to you what we had as of the date we reported this. So in Vermont, as of the August 14th, we had 1,501 confirmed cases which represented 0.24% of the total population. I think many model estimates estimate that the ultimate that the actual percentage of Vermonters infected is close to 2%, which is about seven times what we have as reported. And then we did also get additional information from a data scientist, Yu Yang Gu who is with MIT and the CDC and their ensemble utilizes much of his data that utilizes machine learning as well as Harvard. And Dr. Gu had estimated that the total infections in Vermont would grow to 3% by November 1st. So workers compensation claims in, I'm on the top of page seven just for the committee members that are following the report. We did summarize and did get this input directly from the department of labor. As maybe many of you do know, but in case you don't, all employers are required to file a first report of injury and certainly Steve Monahan can talk to labor's role better than I, but we thought it was helpful to get this input from labor. So we'd have kind of a level set of the claims to date. And so there's a chart there that outlines the first reports, 156 claims. 65 of those are denied, 11 paid without prejudice. And oftentimes, I would let Steve explain that in more detail, but oftentimes there's payments made at the initial outset to address medical expenses before the insurance carrier will actually accept the claim just as a goodwill. And we have six claims accepted. So the remainder of those are still open claims. The average cost, so in section four would we get into the cost, the claims costs and the factors and our projections. And the cost, the average cost in the insurance terms is really called claim severity. So I may reference claim severity. So the impact on claim severity are items like how long someone is hospitalized, the type and volume of medical service provided, particularly if there's any critical care or prescription drugs, the employer, employees average weekly wage and the amount of time the employee isn't able to work. And whether that illness actually results in any partial or total disability or is fatal. So in again, I'm at the bottom of page seven of the report of the claims reported, the average incurred loss was about $7,500. That average paid, the average paid loss was almost $3,900 and the average reserve totaled approximately $3,600. And on the top of page eight, while most of, while those averages reflect relatively low claims costs, that is the case. We've seen 90% of these claims are mild in nature. We do have at least one that has paid out 150,000 and has a reserve of over 50,000. So it does just kind of give you in our small sample size a window into the potential severity of these claims when they do become more critical and require more severe medical services. Mike, can I ask a question real quick? Thanks, Kevin. I was curious, the $150,000 claim, is that factored in with the average or is that- It is. Okay, so then it'd be interesting to see what the actual payouts ended with 150 on one end, it makes me wonder, probably the payout on the lower end is probably a lot less than the 3,000. It certainly is, and Zach, and the reason for that is that many of these mild cases, you think about it, many of these mild cases, somebody is infected and they basically have to stay home and self-isolate for two weeks. And so, yes, so many of these cases may not have, may have minimal, if no, medical expense and may not even have a wage expense if their employer is accommodating them in other ways for the two week period. So, yes, you're right, many of those are much lower than that average, those smaller claims. You might get into this, and sorry if I'm jumping the gun, but what, do you know what the payout might look like if somebody dies of COVID through- So, I think Steve Monaghan could probably speak to that a little better than me, but no, but I would say it depends on the age of the individual's beneficiaries. So there's a lot of different factors that would go into that decision on the compensation level, but I think in the NCCI tool, they estimated those severe cases to be just the fatality claimed to be in the neighborhood of 450,000. Thank you, Steve. Kevin, sorry. It's okay. So the chart at the top of page eight goes over the, again, this is the hypothetical tool. And I guess I'll just say to the committee is, remember we had 156 claims. So it's up to the committee to decide how they wanna use the report that the department offers, but we really felt that that number of claims and to your questions act, it's just, it's hard to make kind of real good assessments of the data of that small claim set. So we wanted to include the model because the model does contemplate these factors on a much larger scale. And I will say that the model, this model and other models will get revised over time. And those revisions could result in maybe those severity levels being contemplated at higher or lower levels, depending on data as time goes on. So remember that model that NCCI put together was probably put together by mid-April, late April. So certainly we learned things weekly with this disease. So I think those updates will be forthcoming. I think and I anticipate that we will see another update to that model probably early 21, if not sooner. So what we did is we looked at a couple different scenarios based on utilizing the model and scenario A in here has a hospitalization rate of 10%. And then of that, of those hospitalized a critical care rate of 15%, a fatality rate of one half a percent. And then you'll see the average COVID-19 claim costs. And scenario B is just a more severe, I won't say severe, but it's not a mild kind of experience with COVID-19, just for illustrative purpose who wanted to provide that. But not just that. Workers comp is a long tail type of insurance. So that's just the nature of workers comp, right? You have a workers comp injury today, there may be a claim today, but there may be longer term effects, whether it's a physical injury or an infection like COVID-19. And those long-term effects may not present for decades. So we're learning with COVID-19 that there are several long-term health effects that can impact that. So we did want to illustrate something that was higher than where we currently are, just so the committee can understand that should things develop that these are what those impacts would be. So you can see the average claim costs goes up to over 10,000 with scenario B. We did get input from the inter municipal trust, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and they gave us some information on the mild cases that they've experienced. And those claims range between 1,000 and 5,000. So fairly consistent with what we're seeing with the overall state data, obviously the wage replacement benefits impact, the indemnification side, and you can see the medical costs being between 100 and 2,500. So that's just an example that, oftentimes these very mild cases are just self-quarantine and maybe it's really very little if any medical expense. And the next section three talks about the average cost of a severe fatal claim and the overall average of that claim is 540,000. I think I said 450,000, it's 540,000. Which consists of, yeah, 540,000, right. Which, oh, I'm sorry, which consists of wage replacement, the death benefit is actually 475,000. So to the earlier question, I was relatively close and then the medical costs of 64,000. And then the impact on various employment types can also vary. And I'll get into that in a little bit. The next section on section one on page nine talks about the long tail. And I just wanted to just reference in here some other data that was provided in our study. And it was from the JAMA article on cardiology. And that found that 78 out of 100 people diagnosed with COVID-19 had cardiac abnormalities when the heart was imaged on average 10 weeks later. So that just gives you another insight into the early studies of this. And while we're still relatively early in the pandemic is showing some indication that there may be longer term health effects. And those effects are considered similar to what was experienced with SARS and MERS with reduced lung capacity and ability to exercise and mental health problems that can be related to this. Additionally to just emphasize the long tail nature, NCCI in a paper in 2013 estimated that 10% of the cost of medical benefits for workplace injuries will occur over the one or two decades post the injury. So there is 10% of the claims that we'll just present in that very long tail nature. We also did look at workers compensation deductibles. I don't spend a lot of time on it but there certainly is the ability to have a deductible with your workers comp policy. What we found was 9% of the NCCI and any IC study found 9% of total policies had a deductible. Generally, those are larger entities that can withstand that expense. So that percent in Vermont, I don't have specific but my sense is it would be a little lower than that in Vermont than it would be on a national level. But that information is there for you to see. And of those that have a deductible, a little more than half have a deductible up to 100,000 and then 46% have deductibles of greater than 100,000. So again, those are large risks. And looking at the tool, the department utilized a number of, kind of captured a number of issues here with looking at that of the tool. One was the assumption utilized in the modeling cost impacts, the predicted costs for those scenario models, the impact on frontline workers and compensability presumptions and the approach on frontline workers and experience rating. And then finally the reinsurance and potential COVID-19 related impacts. I will go through those. So the assumptions used in the NCCI tool, they assumed that 90% had mild symptoms eight and a half percent had moderate and one and a half percent with severe symptoms. In terms of hospitalization, critical care and fatal rates, the department assumed a 10% hospitalization rate, 15% of those hospitalized required treatment in an intensive care unit or ventilation and a half a percent fatal rate. And those assumptions were not the department just picking those out of, we actually engage with directly with the department of health on that to give kind of a fair estimate of those. And so we did get input from the department of health. In terms of compensability rate, the 75% of the first responders and healthcare workers and 25% of the total workforce would be would have a compensability, would be entitled to compensation based on our presumptions. And then the report rate. So report rate is just when someone will report that they have an injury, right? They make that first report of injury to the department of labor. And we assume 40% report rate for the total workforce and 50% for first responders. And I'm not gonna get into the math on this, but basically the point is that there's many, many folks are have COVID-19 or asymptomatic. So that's why the report rate's not going to be 100% because there's a large portion that are asymptomatic. So the two leading COVID-19 models estimate that the Vermont infection rate is between 1.1 and 1.8% of the population. And one of those models predicted that this will raise rise to 3% by November 1st. So that's why we use that scenario B just to account for what we've seen out there with those projections. On page 12, the predicted cost impact, there's three charts. One is for the total workforce, one for first responders, and one for healthcare workers. So the average cost for workers compensation claims for the total workforce is 6,600 and 13. The average for first responders is just over 7,000, 7,067, and the average for healthcare workers is $7,292. I think some of that difference is intuitive. We did look at the presumption in the bill in the act that makes some of those costs, potential costs rise. We also just see that the exposure for healthcare workers is slightly higher than that for even first responders. Now I'm gonna go to the rates and the experience rating. One of the things that the committee was concerned about is what the impact of these claims will have on employers and the cost of workers' compensation insurance. So there were the NCCI filed two rules. One was to identify COVID-19 related claims to create a code for COVID-19 related claims. And the other was to not include those claims in any experience rating that the employer would. So right now the employers are not. And I think the last time I was in front of the committee, I was asked whether even though those claims will not affect an individual employer, will they affect the rates on an overall basis and then ultimately kind of goes back to impact in the cost of all. That's still being worked through with NCCI and their rating, but their initial guidance to us is that they didn't anticipate any inclusion of any COVID-19 related impact for the upcoming rate filing because it's just too early. There's just not enough information for them to react. And so when they file for the 4-1-21 rates, there won't be a COVID-19 claim component in that rate filing. We also looked into reinsurance and the impact on solvency. And certainly that can be particularly impactful for the commercial market or the self-insured market. But to the extent of the claims that we know in Vermont today, I think the reinsurance is available to all both the commercial market and the self-insured. I think the self-insured market relies more heavily on those reinsurance agreements to create a vehicle to be able to manage those exposures. So I think when you look at those retention limits, depending on what the committee decides on available funds that could have an impact on the costs of their reinsurance, depending on what their exposure will be for any of these potential reimbursements. So in terms of a special fund, we did look at some mechanisms that exists that are being considered in other states. And they did look that in Minnesota, they looked at a retention limit for self-insured of 100,000. And so we've illustrated on the bottom of page 19 two retention limits. 100,000 is not insignificant. So we modeled something that was, does someone have a question? No, we modeled something half as much with a $50,000 retention because we're not seeing the volume of severe claims. So we wanted to just look at that as an option for the committee to consider. And we just laid out how much funds would be needed to reimburse 20 claims. And then you might ask, well, how did we come up with 20 claims? I think we just chose a number that we thought was conservative as to what we're gonna see in the near term. Arguably, it's unlikely we're going to see in excess of 20 severe claims before the end of 2020. But I can't predict the future and what the flu season will bring and whether we have an effective vaccine. And so we just wanted to provide some conservatism as to what we estimated. So with the 50,000 retention limit, the amount required for reimbursement would be $2 million. And at 100,000 retention limit, the amount would be $1 million. So what the department is recommending for commercial insurers, those through the normal markets is to impose imposing a $1 million or a $500,000 retention limit. At those retention limits, as you see from our data, it would probably result in little or no requests for reimbursement. And then for the self-insured and the Interinitiable Insurance Association, we would recommend a retention limit of 100,000. But we did illustrate the 50,000 for the committee just so they could look at those options. If the committee decides to allocate CARES Act monies, we suggest that there be an statute of mechanism for reviewing the amount allocated in the fund by a specific date. And what we're getting at there is, we don't see an emergent request for reimbursement, but again, we won't know what the fall and the early winter will bring. And we thought it would be good to have, if you're going to earmark funds for this potential reimbursement, that those funds could be unencumbered on a date that you choose, we're suggesting November 15th. And what we're saying is if it's looking like little or no funds have been accessed and you allocated, let's say $2 million that you might want to unencumber a million of those at year end minus 45 days. But that's just something for the committee to consider. We did look at what the reinsurance impacts may be here. We just, it's difficult to really tease and assess all those. I think reinsurers are also looking at this data and how they will respond. But we just didn't have the sufficient time to evaluate that fully, but certainly will be in regular engagement with these parties that we engage with during the study to see if those trends develop, if there's reinsurance availability issues or pricing issues, we always want to be sensitive to those. And we usually will get feedback from those parties if there is a market issue, but that's something we can continue to monitor. I think I'll stop there. And we'll allow the committee to ask any questions. Any questions of Kevin? I believe that was pretty thorough, Kevin. Thank you and your staff, all the staff for, and every department that worked with you on this to put this together for us. It's much appreciated, Lynn. Yeah, in the very beginning, you talked about the number of Vermonters that have been affected, and I got to find it here. It was 0.24%. And you said that the model said it was going to be, it should be 2%. There was a big discrepancy there. Does anybody? Yes. What is that discrepancy? No, that's a good observation. And we state that in the report. And the reason for that is that we didn't feel like, and I think I may have expressed this when we were asked to undertake the study is that it may be challenging to come up with conclusions on kind of actions, because I think we felt our charge was to make, to provide the committee with some tools to make decisions on whether to set aside funds and to rely on the reports between when reports came in, perhaps in April, late April, May timeframe through August, solely was going to be a weakness in providing some considerations. When we knew that the modeling that NCCI has used and what that model kind of contemplates, we felt that was a more reliable parameter. I think I even may have testified to this previously to the committee that our sense is that Vermont will likely come out below that 2% level, right? But to what degree below, it's just was difficult to make that decision. We felt like we had, we feel like we're at that low end of the range, but most likely below, but it's hard to know where we're gonna end up. All right, thank you. Any other questions for Kevin? Charlie? Yeah, I wasn't sure, Mr. Chair, to be honest, because thinking about the return to school, potential number of increases of cases coming from the school system, for someone saying that I contracted COVID-19 at school, if that 0.2 going up to 2% suddenly becomes more believable. But the set aside, your recommendation is to allocate some funds and put them aside that could be reallocated by the end of the month, the end of the year, I'm sorry, December 20th, and setting up a fund possibly. I read through, is it the administration's opinion that that is a wise policy choice now, Kevin, or is it something that we don't need to do at this point? I think, I think we're trying to respond to the committee who was considering to set aside a fund. I don't think we make the decision on whether that's done or not. I mean, I think we lay out kind of where Vermont is currently, you have the snapshot of where we are. I think you do lay out some potential changes in our mobility and return to school and return to higher education and perhaps influx of more out of state activity and a whole host of things that are difficult to anticipate. So I think we are recommending that if you're, I mean, it's really if you're going to decide on setting aside funds that this hopefully provides you with the mechanism to make that decision. Thank you. Any other questions for Kevin? Okay, thank you. Kevin, thank you. I guess, can I just maybe stay one more thing on that? I will say that as you know, we did kind of bifurcate our evaluation of the marketplace between the commercial market and the self-insurers and the inter-municipal trust. And you know, from a solvency standpoint and from what those mechanisms provide in the state, particularly if you're talking about the some of the inter-municipal trust that provide benefits to many of the more prominent exposure type occupations, frontline workers, those mechanisms are more, can be more greatly impacted by an uptick in these exposures. So if you're, and if you see how we've laid it out, I think the retention limits really establish a level that most likely the benefits would go to those more vulnerable markets. And that was, you know, with design knowing that what their kind of purposes enroll. So I think if the committee is going to consider that just to focus in on that component of the report. Yeah, one last question. When you talk about creating the special fund and that's the recommendation with CRF where the department's recommendation is for UCRF funds for this, for the special fund money. Does that mean that that qualifies it to be used for the be done with it and be implemented by the end of the year? I mean, this is tail money from what I understand. What was your, this is what kind of money? Money for the tail. I mean, it won't be used necessarily if there's a tail for these extra first responders, for instance. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, no, I understand the comment. Yeah, so that's right. The tail, the long tail exposure here is likely not going to be served by this fund, right? Because many of these things may present after 2020. So they do have to be expended in 2020. And that's why we put in, we suggested a date closer to the end of the year where you might have better insight. School will already be in session for a solid two months. You can then assess whether you unencumber 50% or more of those funds so that they can be used elsewhere. Okay, thank you. Okay, any more questions for Kevin? Great, Kevin, thank you. Well, Steve, how are you? Good morning, perhaps, good afternoon. Yeah, we're a little over now. So it's afternoon, good afternoon. Thank you for taking time to listen in and to speak with us today. Yeah, for the record, I'm Steve Monaghan, Director of Workers' Compensation and Safety for the Vermont Department of Labor. And I don't have a lot to add specifically to the report. I can say that, well, to my knowledge, and Kevin may know better, the administration hasn't actually decided whether this is a good idea. This is just if we were to go this route, this is what this would look like. And one part of me suspects that since the money has to be expended before the end of the year, that we simply won't have enough clients. I mean, I do have some concerns because for the most part, we have been through a period of very little social mobility. And now, particularly with colleges and students back, that seems to be where rapid increases around the country have occurred and in schools opening up as if people become more mobile and more social, there may be an increase, I don't know. We have received as of this morning 181st reports of injury related to COVID, but 136 of those have been denied essentially because they were reports of possible exposure, but there's never been any diagnosis or positive test result and therefore no injury. The remaining claims are primarily relatively small. They may have involved up to two weeks of temporary total. We have one case that I believe is involved hospitalization and that may get more expensive. We do have a couple of cases where people seem to be in that long-term of testing positive. Now the health department has advised us that I think it's after a certain number of weeks, they may no longer, they may still test positive, but they may no longer be contagious and could return to work. That has not happened in part because one of the requirements I had put in place was that your return to work offer has to be able to inform the employee and the other employees, what's being done to protect people from transmission and the offers that have come out have not addressed those factors. So those people are still receiving temporary total. And we have no information at the moment on what any long-term effect or permanent impairment might be. And so that's pure guesswork at this point. I can tell you that the lion share of the claims both exposure only and accepted claims involve either municipal, police, fire, emergency workers, state troopers, corrections, mental health employees or employees in the healthcare sector often connected with nursing homes and those types of places. And so I would second Kevin Gaffney's suggestion that the real impact may be on insurance trusts like Visbit or the League of Cities and Towns or those types of things or even the state system where the payout is coming for those self-insurance. And UVM Medical Center is self-insured, Central Vermont Medical Center is self-insured. Most of the nursing homes, those types of facilities, residential care facilities are through private insurance. So there could be an impact here. That's what I can tell you in a nutshell. I think you give me a moment. It was earlier some question about what if it was a call, I think Representative Watson, what was your question? I can ask about the cost of if somebody dies which Kevin was able to answer. So you might not be thinking of my question. Yeah, well I sort of was if you wanted some actual numbers. Certainly, yeah, thank you, Steve. I had plugged in, for example, you had a nurse that would be a high earner whose average weekly wage was say 3,600 or so which would mean that their maximum compensation rate would be only 1,350 a week. So let's say they were sick, they were out to positive diagnosis, sick admitted to the hospital in May, the condition deteriorates and they pass away middle of June. And if they have a 45 year old spouse and two children ages 10 and 12, in that claim, the nurse would have received 13 weeks of temporary total disability or 17,500 roughly. They would be payment of the funeral benefit up to $10,000 and then the spouse and two children would be receiving compensation at the maximum rate or 76% till the children reach age 18 or no longer enrolled in education. The spouse is guaranteed benefits until age 62 if eligible for social security or until remarried but a minimum of 330 weeks. So the spouse doesn't remarry and is eligible. They'll get about $1,196,050. It would be somewhat higher because there is a code that gets applied annually. And it's difficult to determine what benefit the children receive. If they interned 18 and be out of college, then that million would have covered them. If the spouse maxed out prior to that, they would then collect until they were 18 or out of college or other educational program. So a fatality would cost, in addition to what the claimant received prior to their dying and the medical expenses, at least $1,196,000 possibly higher. So as you can see, that is expensive although it is over times, time in that case. And there is also, that's the dollar figure. There's an enormous emotional impact on a family that may result in much more costly costs for other types of care that would not be picked up by the workers' comp system. You know, including was the deceased spouse, the source of medical insurance, those types of things. So there are a lot of costs here. So there's a lot of workers' comp costs as well as social costs. That's why you hear me in previous testimony talking about the importance of prevention first. So you don't have to sit down and calculate this out. Are there any other questions or? I'm not seeing any. Okay, Mr. Chair, I did send you a copy you on a bulletin that I'd sent to the insurers. I want to make sure that you'd receive that so you knew what the department was doing after the passage of that one. I believe I did see that. No, try to dig it up and get it to the committee. Or I may have already sent it to Amy, I'm not sure. Thank you, Steve, I appreciate it. I think at this point, it may be prudent for us to just keep track of what's going on out there to see if there's more, if we start seeing more cases developing without putting any money into a fund right now, there will be a mechanism for the Joint Fiscal Committee to be able to move funds around that come back of COVID funds. So I think that may be a good process for us to think about and an area where we would be interested in joint fiscal putting money if it came to that point. Any other thoughts of committee members? Okay, well, we're at 12.20, we're a little bit ahead of time. So I think we've completed our work for today. Remember, we had the caucus of the whole at two o'clock. I think the, be going through the budget so there may be some questions for us out there and then at three o'clock we're on the floor. So I think with that, I appreciate Kevin. And Steve for being with us. Damien, thank you for listening in and thank you to all that were from our business groups and labor groups that have been with us today. We appreciate it. And soon as we have a time, a date from Department of Labor to continue discussions on the trust fund, then we will get back in touch with you and invite you in with us. So with that, thank you everyone. Have a good afternoon.


The Labour Party in Lagos has discounted the result announced by INAG for the state. The state chairman, Pastor Dayo Ekong, has insisted that the concluded governorship and state assembly elections were flawed and cannot be accepted by the party. He said this after INAG announced the APC's candidates, Gov. Abadjidi Sao Wulu, as the winner of the governorship poll. This was just as the resident electoral commissioner, Professor Shegu Abadji, called for calm. Our correspondent, Paul George reports. Party agents, journalists and international observers gathered in this hall at the INAG's office as they await announcement of the winners of the 2023 governorship and states out of assembly elections. At 1.25 a.m., the returning officer in Lagos, Prof. Adenike Temifayo Oladiji, declares Gov. Babadjidi Sao Wulu as the winner. Sao Wulu Babadji Olu Shoram of APC, meeting the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected. Signed by Prof. Adenike Oladiji, this is the 20th day of March, 2023. State chairman of the Labour Party, Pastor Dayo Ekong, challenges the process. She accuses the resident electoral commissioner, Prof. Shegu Abadji of Konaivans, to rig the election in favour of the All Progressives Congress, APC. This election is a shock. In the election march by Wallace, he reported his case in the post-election as nothing was going on. I want to tell you, Mr. Adenike, the rep, that you have failed youth, you have failed masses, you have not done anything. To state at the moment that the Labour Party rejects all the duties with the march cancellation on this election. Similarly, Leger State Chairman of the National Rescue Movement, NRM, Temilola Akande, alleges that the Labour Party and the People's Democratic Party duplicated INEX agents' cards for their parties. The agent tax that Labour Party and PDP used, it was fake. And I tried to challenge them, how did you get this? So I discovered it was printed by the party which was wrong, because INEX printed the original, and I tried to check the APC that has the original to the fake one. So because of that discovery, I was able to correct 17 polling units. But the last one I tried to check, which was a 10 polling unit, the guy was so aggressive that I can't do anything, so I had just let go. Responding to the rigging allegations leveled against him, the resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor Shagun Agbaji denies favouring any party, saying that he stands for justice and equity. Agbaji says as the wreck, this is the first time Nigerians would witness the highest number of PVCs collected by the youths in Lagos. Agbaji led this team of agents and electoral officers to bring us youths to come out and register. He brought them out to also welcome to go around the state to make them collect their PVCs. We need to make the same collection in Lagos today. It has never happened before. That we need a many youths to attend their PVCs. So I don't know in what area, or in which area, Agbaji does not like to use Lagos today. Nigerians await as the counter accusations of rigging continue while some governorship candidates say they will seek redress in court. Paul George, Plus TV News.


We are committed to each other and we also date other women in hopes of finding somebody to be in our committed relationship with us. If you meet someone that's better than me, I hope you take that opportunity because I'll be very disappointed. You did what? So a billionaire asked you to have this amazing life to travel all over the world and you said no because you want to hang out with me. I don't have no respect for you. I think some misconceptions of our commitment type is that we feel trapped or that we feel like we want other people but I have no desire for other people. It was not easy working through what some of these people had to say because some of these people were my own family members, my mom being a devout Christian and I do that because mama come on girl. This video is sponsored by Squarespace. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is an all in one platform to build a fire online presence and run your online business. Squarespace is where Shan hosts and designs her websites, including your personal site and the game of Desire.com.  Hey there, lovers and friends. Has anyone ever asked you before what level of commitment brings out the best in you or how do you like to connect romantically? Well, today we're going to answer those questions by popular demand by going over the 10 different results for my most taken quiz, the commitment quiz. And we're going to find out if currently you are best suited as a casual dator, a serial non-committed dator, a traditional monogamist, a modern monogamist, monogamish, best suited for a free relationship, a moonlighting relationship, an open relationship, polyamory or asexuality. In addition to breaking down all of these commitment styles, I'm also going to be introducing you to people who currently get down with them. Hi, I'm Sakai Jinn. I'm originally from the Bay Area living in the DC area and I am an open relationship commitment style, but I am in a relationship with a traditional monogamist. Hi, my name is Ellie. I'm originally from Chicago, but I've been living in Guadalajara, Mexico for about a year now. And I am a serial non-committed dator. My name is Allie. What's good? I am Australian. And I am Chico, also known as Jimmy, and I'm from Dominican Republic. And we are in a free relationship. That's what we got from the commitment style quiz. Both of us got that, actually. Very similar answers. So that's a good sign. Traditionally monogamist, we don't really have any interest or desire to partake in anything that's polyamorous or anything beyond monogamy. Hi, my name is Yane. I'm from Chenolad and Tobago under my commitment style is modern monogamist. For me, it's very important for me to maintain my integrity, my personal freedom, the decisions that I know in my heart are best for me. If I'm ever in a space where us being together is going to compromise that, then we're going to have an issue. I'm Brian and I'm in a monogamous, open relationship, i.e. I don't desire to have sex with others, but I should be free to engage with others. All right, so before we go any further, if you have yet to take the commitment quiz, now will be a good time to do that because it will make the rest of the video so much more applicable to you. If you already know your result, go ahead and write it in the comment section below. And did you know that this quiz, along with all of my quizzes, are hosted on my Squarespace website? So right now, open up a second tab, go to thegameofdesire.com slash commitment, do the quiz. And while you're doing that, I want to tell you more about Squarespace, how I utilize it to share my ideas and how you can use it to power your next big idea. All right, so you all know Squarespace has stunning templates so you can design your dream site. But here's some things you might not know about. Simultaneous posting, auto post your content to Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr. Traffic overview, gain insights into the top traffic sources, products, device types, browsers, and operating systems. Basically, Squarespace gives you in-depth analytics so you know where to focus your marketing at. Subscriptions, easily sell subscriptions to products and services on a weekly or monthly basis to generate recurring revenue and build customer loyalty. Email campaigns, stand out in any inbox with Squarespace email campaigns. Site management, Squarespace blog lets you manage blog comments and entries on the go.  And when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com slash Shambudi to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Welcome back. And without further ado, let's dive into things starting with casual dating. So I read this study that said that millennials move an average of 11 times in their life and will only keep jobs for about four years. Life is not as stable, predictable, and as linear as it was for a parent's generation. And a lot of people need their relationships to go with the flow in the same way. So as a casual dater, what's attractive to you is getting to connect with cool people without any commitment or expectation. Now, you might currently want to do this because you travel a lot. Two, you're going through a life transition and need a lot of flexibility. Three, your current attachment style is avoidant because romantic relationships tend to conflict with your larger goals. Or four, you may not believe that you can fulfill others or that at this time others have what it takes to truly fulfill you. Now, people who are interested in dating those who are casual daters, what you need to understand is what they're offering you in the moment is what they're offering you, period. Serial non-committed daters, you love the idea of what relationships represent. Friendship, frequent communication, shared history, shared beds, and some level of partnership. However, you don't like the expectations and commitment that come with the title. Now, this is different from casual daters as you do want your partner, Zuh, to rely on you to some extent, but not in the full way that you perceive a committed relationship to be. In short, serial non-committed daters are looking for medium levels of commitment without high levels of accountability. And in order to exist in this sweet spot, you must communicate incessantly since you're giving people the relationship experience without some of the formalities and of course, the title. Now, there's something beautiful about this because you do prioritize relationships in many meaningful ways, just not necessarily the traditional ways. So as long as you can have that status chat a lot, you'll be good. I am not in a place in my life right now where I can provide the 100% commitment that a monogamous relationship requires, you know, is built upon. At the same time, I deeply value the connections that you can make, the unique connections that you can make through emotional intimacy with another person. I've found recently that I'm in a point of my life right now where I'm learning so much about myself. One of the best ways that I've found to do that has been through making deep emotional connections with other people. Traditional monogamy. I take thee to be my mate, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. I pledge thee my faith and I pledge thee myself to you. You might recognize that as the Protestant vows that are set at many, many weddings, but with a divorce rate for first-time marriages, around 50% in North America and 75% for second-time marriages, it's kind of clear that most people don't really mean them. But you do. As a traditionally monogamous person, you believe not in one person at a time, but one person for life. Once you have decided to commit to someone, you will do everything in your power to stay the course with them. In short, you are the ride or die that people speak about. And when you do find a partner that you see longevity with, it is extremely crucial to communicate to them just how seriously you take commitment to ensure they are all in with you as you intend to be all in with them. I think some misconceptions of our commitment type is that we feel trapped or that we feel like we want other people, but I have no desire for other people. Or that a traditional monogamous relationship could be considered limiting or holding you back. But personally, I've never really felt that way. I've been happy ever since I've been with Priscilla and I will be happy until we die. Modern monogamy. Monogamy used to be one person for life. Today, it is one person at a time, Esther Perrell. As a modern monogamous, aka a serial monogamous, your values are a mishmash of the old and the new, meaning you do believe in commitment, fidelity, and trying to go through the long haul with one other individual. However, you also believe in letting go of relationships that you don't think are serving you, even if that does mean divorce. But as long as you choose to be in, you are all in. Modern monogamy is by far the most popular relationship structure that North Americans choose to adopt, which is a beautiful thing on one end, but on the other end, make sure you are asking people those questions at the beginning of relationships, not just assuming that they love the way that you love. I'm in a partnership right now, and my preference is obviously that we grow together because we are together and we do experience this real deep and passionate love with each other, but you will either grow together or you could grow apart. I think that that is what keeps a lot of people stuck, thinking that the one is one person that you have to hold on to for the rest of your life. Monogamish. All right, so for all intents and purposes, this is actually a monogamist couple. However, the lines around flirting are a little bit more open, even though they are still sexually and romantically exclusive to each other.  As a result, things like going to strip clubs, going out in the town separately, flirting via social media, or even just like flirting in public might be okay, but engaging with somebody else beyond that flirting is definitely not okay.  Now, this is not a bad thing because after all, dancing is fun, but it does mean you have to be very clear with your partner about where the boundaries are and you must be comfortable talking about it often. Yes, I am in a committed relationship. I love the man that I am with and have been for years, but I do like talking to others of the opposite sex and I do enjoy their... Flirting. Flirting.  So I like that feeling of being attracted to someone. Moonlighters. Now, a moonlighter is in essence a swinger, but I decided to update the term since I felt a lot of people didn't identify with being swingers, but if you hear the definition, you probably know a few swingers yourself. Now, moonlighters are people who do want to engage in a traditional monogamous relationship by and large, but they have a desire for extracurricular hobbies within the relationship that are not so traditional.   Now for moonlighting couples, what is enticing to them is not a new emotional connection, it is strictly a new sexual experience. So they really strongly compartmentalize sex and feelings. And a lot of the times for moonlighters, their desire to engage with others has nothing to do with the dissatisfaction of the core relationship, but instead trying to invite more satisfaction into the relationship. Now, if you identify with being a moonlighter and you know for you that sexual monogamy is not of interest, especially over long periods of time, it is important to disclose that to partners pretty early on because for some people, it's a dream come true and for others, it's a nightmare and you won't know until you tell them. So try and tell them as soon as possible. I do believe in threesomes, I believe in exploring with other people because I feel as though we are not just put on this earth to just be with one person and one person only. Free relationships. You, my dear, are DTF. And by that, I don't necessarily mean down to what I really mean is down to figure things out with your partner. In a free relationship, think to start out as casual dating, switch to modern monogamy, go into moonlighting, go into open relationships and back to modern monogamy. In short, you are not committing to a relationship structure. You are committing to figure out what works best for the people involved at any given time. In order for this relationship to thrive, you must be a professional at communication and self-discipline. By saying yes to a free relationship, you are saying yes to circumstances and arrangements that you may not have been in before. And since you haven't placed any restrictions on your partners, there's a high probability this is going to happen. The only thing that is constant in this world is change. And as someone in a free relationship, this is not just your reality, it's your mantra. A lot of people think like, oh, you're in a free relationship, you, so I guess you don't get jealous if your partner is with someone and that's not necessarily the case. Like, you know, I might get jealous if I see some dude trying to approach, you know, you in some type of way. But where the free aspect comes into that is that I give you the power to decide how you handle that. I might voice out beforehand if the opportunity comes or afterwards of course, how I felt about what transpired, but it always falls on you in those situations to decide how you handle it. But I've also have come to learn to be honest about how I feel and something I used to struggle with before was being honest when I was uncomfortable with something. So now we've kind of come to the point where like, you can dance with dudes if you want, but I don't want to be there now. Open relationships. In an open relationship, you can have experiences outside of your main relationship as long as you keep the main relationship as the first priority. Now relationships that are open can be open to sexual experiences. They can be open to having full on relationships with others, romantic connections, et cetera. You and those involved get to negotiate what the boundaries are and everyone involved needs to know that. It's about deciding how you wanna honor your primary relationship and then going out and exploring what feels healthy between you and others from there. Open relationships are different from moonlighting in a sense that you aren't necessarily engaging in all connections as a couple and it's different than polyamory because there are still some boundaries in place as to how much intimacy you can share with your secondary partners. I don't want to leave this earth unfulfilled. And I don't wanna leave this earth not happy with how I chose to live my life. And I have met people in this lifetime where I have been instantly attracted to in whatever way, whether it's mentally, physically, whatever but because I'm in a relationship I have to keep my head straight. I really have desires to connect and to meet and I truly feel like there are several people that I'm supposed to come across in this lifetime but also I truly believe in the love and the partnership of one person. Polyamory, poly, many, amore, love. In short, it means many loves. A polyamorous person is open to having multiple romantic connections with other people and of course they invite their partners to do the same. There is one rule in polyamory and that is informed consent. A lot of people make comments like polyamory is giving permission to cheat but we have to remind ourselves that cheating is when people betray the structure that people have agreed upon but if you agree that love does not have any structure then it gets to be a beautiful fluid expression of how you may personally want to love. So a polyamorous person does not believe in a starvation model of love meaning if they give their love to one person they don't have enough to give to someone else. Polyamory is by and large a lifestyle and there's a lot of incredible communities that are centered on this and it also is a spectrum. If you are interested in learning more I will link some resources in the info box below. All people in the relationship are equal so it's not just him having the benefits or me having the benefits or the other person having the benefits it's everybody benefiting from each other. People see the concept like you said a man with two women they all automatically think of patriarchy and being chauvinistic and controlling and manipulating or pimp energy and like oh he's the man because he has two women. Let me put y'all in on a little secret. Tricia likes women, she likes men. I think it's a win for her or them. And overall we think it's a win for all of us cause I like to see her happy with another woman she likes to see me happy with another woman and we like to be and see each other happy all together. Asexuality, now asexuality is a brand new addition to the quiz results as I did want to know that there are individuals who experience drive intimacy and romantic feelings in very different ways than others. An asexual individual is somebody who does not have a lot of drive to sexually connect with others and in some cases doesn't have a drive to romantically connect with others. There are asexuals who do wanna be in romantic relationships but may not want sex to be a part of it and there are people who just find joy in friendships and may not see a need to have romantic connections. Asexuality is a spectrum I'm still learning about it and if you wanna learn with me I'll put some notes in the info box below. I don't really get hurt when people say hey I really like you but I don't wanna continue this because I can't have sex because to me that's just like cool thank you so much for expressing where you're at and taking care of your own needs and I'd rather be around people who want to be around me for more than just sex. All right so I have definitely done more than my fair share of talking. It is your turn now in the comment section below let me know what is your current commitment style. Also let's brainstorm how do you think we can go about having these discussions with new people that we meet or within existing relationships.