Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good morning. This is the House Congress of Economic Development Committee. Today is Friday, April 3, and we are here It's 11:24 in the morning, and we're here with our interns. One of

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: our interns this morning was holding down the port for the block. Good morning. Good morning. Abbott Sales, an intern from UBM. I'm going to be talking about a couple bills that are in Senate's economic development frontier, and on policy, we're going

[Herb Olson (Member)]: to talk a little bit

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: about S-one 173, actually, for ticklish lung rehabilitation. So starting with some Senate discussion around H512, prevent ticketing, some questions from the committee that came up during testimony from a couple of companies that did ticketing. So from Chittenden, he asked if there was an example of a repeal price cap that caused the transition into the black market, and that was to seek aid. And they pointed to Massachusetts, but there was some pushback that the Massachusetts market is much different than Vermont. There's some support there. Senator Chittenden was also strongly questioning the 110% price cap. And there were two folks testifying, Adam Webb and Jason Webb, who both cited around 110% to 120% being a studied price cap. And Jason Webb runs Tixl, which is a ticket company. And their business models have any price at around 110% to 120%. And that's worked very well with them. Senator Clarkson also asked if primary ticket sellers are willing to promote their own tickets. Just that to Vermont venues in competition with resellers. And the response there is that primary ticket sellers in Vermont really can't compete with the large resellers when it comes to marketing. So that is the simple case. From Senator Chittenden, he asked, what if resellers start bundling tickets with other services to justify price increases? And the response there, that's not likely to have much of an impact on market, where high price bundles very helpful. Moving on to H639, an acronym relating to data privacy, and some questions there. Some there was big discussion with ancestry.com who was testifying, especially around private right to action. Senator Clarkson questioned ancestry on whether a tenure period would make the private right to action more acceptable to them, which, of course, they were against. And Ancestry said it would be a step towards reasonableness, but they would still prefer AG only enforcement. And Clarkson, Bushback, during that Vermont, already has general consumer PRA in statute. And questioning deletion, Senator Chittenden asked what happens when consumers request deletion, but federal law requires there the retention of genetic samples. And there's going to be an exemption that they add, which says, except when required by state or federal law. So they will be able to retain it in that case. And then on biometric data versus biological samples, Senator Clarkson and Chittenden asked some questions about why biometric data shouldn't be in the bill. And so she's reply was that biometric data is fundamentally different from genetic material, and regulating it would create uneven rules. They suggested making that to a separate biopsy drug. And then in law enforcement access, witnesses confirmed that age six thirty nine could not constrain any criminal justice work. And then briefly on S173, and I relating to location rehabilitation, the change is for Vermont that removed a separate screening process. Most states do not currently have a separate screener as the extra step to referring someone who qualifies for VR to a counselor. The basics of this one is that someone suffers an injury that's covered by workers' comp. A worker must be unable to return to their pre injury job, and the employer is unable to offer alternative work. That's the basis across all states. Where states differ is the time for VR to activate automatically after continuous disability. The amounts would be ninety days. VR is also triggered when injured worker reaches maximum medical improvement and still cannot return to their old job. The wage threshold may differ between states as well, with S173 containing language that workers may request future services if their ability to earn pre injury wage is effective. And regarding credentials for counselors, in Vermont, a master's degree in counseling or rehab counseling is required. And this is consistent with many other states, especially those that don't require a certified rehabilitation counselor or certificate.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: And that's all I have for this week. Questions

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: for Kevin?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Vermont is one of those states that does not require the CRC, right? Vermont is not.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: Thank you. Thank That's helpful, thank you. Very helpful.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Thank think we're doing this.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: Before we, yeah. So you know that

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Bailey did post his report on the date, so you can get that. He was looking at the right for care facilities to play around that. So there's, yes, ma'am. Great.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: We have time Thank at the end of 08:37. We'll go through that if now you have homework. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for joining us. We're now switching and taking a look at 08:37, which again is an act of landing the rounding cash transactions. We have seen Shane Switzer with the. Thank you

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm here today to talk about the Kath Ramenville. My name is Shane. I own Lindenville Redemption and also the restaurant The Pizza Man in Lindenville, Vermont. Public speaking is not my thing. I didn't bring any bourbon or pizza but I listened to the committee discussion that you had earlier in the week and I just want

[Herb Olson (Member)]: to come

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: in and maybe answer some of the questions from a business perspective. And so what we're dealing with now is back in the fall, the banks abruptly said, you can't get any more pennies. And retailers are like, oh, what what already? We heard about it, that it was coming, but we didn't know it's going this soon. So we started scrambling. And and so since then, they have been releasing small amounts of pennies. You can get them here and there. So what's happening now is in Vermont, you'll notice if you go to any of the the Maple Fields or the big chains, you'll go in and they're rounding in the customer's favor only right now and what they're trying to avoid is the consumer protection laws that they're dealing with here. I think this bill addresses that and what's important about this bill is it'll give us a consistent guidance to follow. As

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: was mentioned before, it mostly follows the Treasury's guidance on this. I did a little research on my way in and there's a number of states that have similar bills and progress. Some of them have already passed. And the summary of those that I came up with is that they're they all mostly follow the treasury's guidance here just like this bill does, but there's a few variants.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: Some of the

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: things that came up last time that I wanted to talk about, is is if it should be optional or not. And and there's a couple of things to that. But as far as if it should be optional, if you I I think if you are rounding, this should be the it should be this is how you do it. But I think rounding or not should be optional. And the reason why is, you know, thought there is if there's no pennies, what everyone's gonna have to round. But yes. But, in the meantime, there's the software, the POS software might not be ready to go and I'll give you an example of that. I'm gonna where so if the POS software is not ready to go, most stores have POS systems these days, if it's not ready to go they're forced around. You might be causing some confusion with the cashier and the consumers and things like that. Whether it should be optional or not, my take there would be, yes, optional if you want a round or not. And but if you are rounding this should be the way

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that you have to round. In

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: our case at Limbic Redemption, we have we're a eight zero two spirit store, We have two POS systems at our store. One, if you ever went into a liquor store and bought a bottle of liquor and a if you come into our store and you bought a bottle of liquor and a deli sandwich, you you have two transactions you have to complete there because the state all the liquor gets run through the state POS. Everything else gets run through ours. And so, in our case, one of our POS companies, are on the store side ready to go. They're just tell us when you want us to switch this on. We'll start rounding. You're you'll be good to go. On the state side, I don't wanna speak for the Department of Liquor, but, they've been in touch with the AG's office. I believe they're gonna speak today, but, they're saying you gotta wait until we make something happen with, you know, not make something happen. But you have to wait until there's guidance on that this is gonna be okay, though. Think of it. And so what that means is that, you know, this bill passes July 1, and then the state can engage their POS vendor and go back and say, they can create the update for this. That might take a few months. And and so there's 80 something, eight zero two Spirit stores that likely have two or guarantee they have two different ways to take money there. If one of them is ready to go and one of them is not, it creates some confusion. If it's optional or not, if we say on July 1, you have to round, in my store we're gonna have one rounding and one not, and it's just gonna create confusion for the cashiers and One of the questions that comes up a lot is, is it in somebody's favor if we're rounding or not? The research that I've done, there's been some studies, the Treasury did a study, Canada has done studies on it, they've been doing it for years, and there's another country that I don't know off the top of my head that did a study that does rounding, and all one of them showed a very minute amount on the customer side, one of them showed a very minute amount on the business side, the other ones showed that it was even. So over thousands of transactions it ends up being it evens out. In my notes here, it did come up, should we do all transactions? The easiest and simpler answer to that is no because, because of the POS software isn't gonna be ready to isn't isn't ready to handle that. So Vermaat will be the only state doing that, and it would just create a nightmare with the POS vendor. So My other ask is that please, please, please July 1. I know there was talk in the committee about possibly pushing it off and taking a further look at it. While I appreciate the further look at it and make sure we get it right, I would say, please make this happen sooner than later. It's gonna we need consistency throughout Vermont. What we have right now is some people are robbing, some aren't. Some can still get pennies. Some may be able to get pennies for a while. And so, we if we get this guidance in place, then we have sooner than later, then we have the framework to say, here's here's what we have going forward. I would just ask if we please get that going or or please make something happen in July if it all came to be possible.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I don't think that we were talking about studying it further. I think it's just pushing the effective date off. Well, that makes sense. Right. So as you talked about, at one system that the POS system is set to go and the other one's not. And so should we push the effective date out maybe until September or 01/01/2027, or have it go into effect July 1, knowing that it's going to take time

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: for those My thought there would be, if you made it if if it was ready to go July 1, the effective date was July 1, and it was optional whether you round it or not, then we would, give the elbow.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. I don't think we're saying you have to choose one or the other, round or not round. I think we're saying it's not an option. This isn't guidance. If you are going to round, this is how you have to do it. Yeah. We are not saying, you know, I don't think we are going to say that you either have to choose to round or choose not to round. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Any other questions? Great. Thanks, Shane. You know, appreciate it. Yep. Chris? Chris?

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: Good morning. Good morning. Mister chair, members of the committee, for the record, my name is Christopher Curtis. I'm an assistant attorney general for the state of Vermont. I'm also the director of the consumer assistance program, which is a place in state government where we receive complaints from consumers about any number of matters that might come up in their day to day lives, where they're seeking information, questions, expressing concerns, or making complaints, and we try to rectify those situations for consumers. So really appreciate you taking up this question of grounding in the marketplace, because I can share with you today that the consumer assistance program to date has received, I don't think we've actually received any formal complaints about the question of what's happening with pennies out there in commerce and consumer transactions on a day to day basis, we've received a couple of inquiries about what's going to happen. I've heard this is happening. How might that affect me? What is the state doing about that? So your timing and taking up this legislation is important. As you've heard in prior testimony from the business community and from advocates, I think this is a question that will, it does invite scrutiny and that you're quite right to be thinking about providing certainty to the marketplace so that consumers know they're being treated fairly. The bill contemplates disclosures, and the bill offers a path for rounding

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: that

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: is readily identifiable, the business community can engage in, and consumers can take part that they're getting benefit of. The question of whether or if it should be universally mandatory or whether it should be optional really is a policy determination. I mean, our office, as the Consumer Protection and Enforcement Unit, our office will enforce the laws as they were written and crafted by lawmakers. So it's really that question of just, I think, hearing from all the interested parties and then making the best of our monitors that you can. I think you've just heard testimony this morning sort of suggesting that, well, you're either kind of rounding or you're not.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: Mean, if

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: you have exact change in pennies, then you can issue that. The business may do that until they can't. And so at some point, there's going to be a question of rounding. And what I just heard the chair identify is like, yes, and this is the road map for rounding if you have to engage in rounding. And so I think that helps provide some clarity. In some ways, yes, it's discretionary, but I think if there is a model to be implemented, the legislation is quite clear that the question of unfair pricing or variations that may or may not conform to what you are articulating in the bill still may be subject to inquiry and potential enforcement if someone was abusing or rounding in ways that this legislation doesn't want to play. So I want to assure the committee, like as I read the bill, as it stands today, that protection is in place. It basically says if you are around them, you're going to disclose it, and this is the way you're going to do it. So if somebody came up with an algorithm or was using AI or was using a software system that they're, maybe it's a multinational corporation and they have chains all over the country, including Vermont, and they're sort of hiding the ball in their receipts or in their service delivery at the point of purchase, if they were doing that in a willful way that was abusing the system or if they weren't doing aggregation in a final price, but they were trying to do it on every single item purchase, rounding there, All of that would still be subject to scrutiny, investigation, enforcement under the existing Consumer Protection Act because we may come to a conclusion that that is unfair and deceptive. Well, you are not doing what the legislature said you were supposed to do if you were rounding. So that you have correctly anticipated and built into your proposal that that is still a live issue, and you're not abandoning protections or creating some kind of massive safe harbor where people can indiscriminately round and not be subject to scrutiny. So it feels like you're in a place where you're balancing the desire for certainty with consumer protections that have always existed in terms of pricing and fairness. I can't speculate about over time or by particular industry whether or if there might be, in general, more instances of rounding up or rounding down. This will be a transaction by transaction process unless or until pennies are eventually phased out altogether and pricing begins to track in more round numbers or by the nickel. So I can't speculate as to how, in long term, how it balances out or whether it's more slightly harmful to consumers or more beneficial to consumers, it may not be able to ascertain that until after some period of time has gone by. But I think you are putting your finger on something important, which is there are rules of the road there are going to be disclosures. So that is the only other point we always view in consumer protection world that disclosure is kind of the first and one of the most important points of consumer protection that one can have, because that's the place at which the consumers can become notice, hey, this is what is happening with respect to a given trade flag. So in your proposed legislation, you have a notice requirement. I suppose one question might be whether particular business the question was, should the rounding itself be discretionary and mandatory? There's also a question of, as to signage, should it be discretionary and mandatory? And if you adopt a rounding methodology, it might be that on one day I have pennies, and I can pay out cash to the penny. On another day, I may be out of pennies, and I can't get them, so I have to round. So there's some fluctuation there. So what does the consumer know or anticipate? And do I have to have a sign on one day, but then not on the other day? So to your question about mandatory or discretionary, should there just be a universal, should it be made clear that every retailer or every business that is engaged potentially in cash transactions around it just shall have a sign that says what the policy is. You are the consumer. If we have changed, we might be able to pay it out to you, to the penny. If we don't, we may be rounding. If we do, this is how we do it. If I was a consumer and I walked into one place and there was no sign, I think, oh, they're not rounding. Then what happens if they have to round? Are they now out of compliance, now am I complaining? Another business might have the signage, but on that day, maybe they have change in fact, and so they're not rounding, they're paying you out. Is it simpler to just have a template where everybody could use it and just say, Hey, everybody, if you're operating commercially and you're doing cash transactions, there's just some universal signage and here's what it might be. That could be simpler for businesses too, just to say, Hey, there's a form and

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: we know what to put up

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: by the register and it's not left to us to kind of figure out what works and what doesn't work. So there might be a benefit, one to flag for the committee, maybe it's just in your signage provision, that it's just like there's going to be one signage, everybody can use it, it's very simple, here's what it is. And that would remove some question on consumers' parts about if I walk into one establishment and there's a sign, and I walk into another one and there's not, what's happening here? That's a question for you all to address, but I know sometimes when we get complaints, it's like, well, they didn't tell me, or there was no sign. So that could be the case here, I think, if it's not entirely clear whether you're using the routing mechanism or not, whether you have to have some potential.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So I I think having that universal sign is a good idea, because I'm channeling my grandfather who lived to 01/2004, and he would have gone into a store with exact change. So

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: there will

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: be instances maybe where the store doesn't have change, but 103 year old Louis Duke wants to pay with $0.38 not 40. So there's the paying. There's the giving change, but there's also the paying with exaggeration.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: So I just thought I'd flag that for the committee. That's often one of the first stops or the questions or concerns we might get at the consumer assistance program is, hey, they didn't tell me, they didn't let me know. Or I looked up the law and it says there's supposed to be signage and there was no signage. So now is that a violation? Then all those questions could be addressed by your committee or by legislature if you just sort of said, hey, you have that capacity on a given day or not, that may be discretionary and up to you. But if there's a universal sign, which just says that's how we're doing it, that kind of puts everybody in notice that there's a law, there's a notice provision, and everybody's using the same one. Just a thought I wanted to share with you all that

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: put away some questions or concerns. Jonathan, I think I heard you getting this extra one

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: that you haven't been receiving lots of calls about I think if memory serves, we can do a search and sort of look, but if memory serves, I think my team is flaxxed for me on two occasions, and it might have even been one consumer and one retailer that had the question. And so we've been letting folks know, really at this point, it's a question of fairness and letting the consumer know what you're doing. There is no law that governs how this is going to work right now, and it's still early. So this is going to develop over time as kind of just become more scarce. Like I said, we didn't have a formal complaint where we were asked to call somebody and get them back the 3¢ or a nickel or whatever they thought they might be entitled to. We haven't had, and I guess I should clarify, we haven't had calls or concerns saying, Hey, I'm alleging system type abuse. That, for example, I got charged an extra nickel on every item I purchased or anything like that. Oh, and that was the one other thing I did want to offer to your committee. I know that Weights and Measures and the Agency of Agriculture does have an inspection team, and they're tasked with actually going out into retail environments to make sure, mostly about making sure that the weights and measures associated with certain products on store shelves are correctly priced, and so what you're paying when you check out is the same as what's offered on the shelf. So they already have some pretty good understanding and awareness and knowledge about how the existing framework for costs and pricing works today. I don't know if they would have thoughts or suggestions or constructive ideas for you about this particular rounding question. It could affect their work, I'm supposing. Part of my question was do you

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: recall the last time you detailed with any detailed signage requirements about guessing it was COVID stuff? I mean what are the things that are actually

[Herb Olson (Member)]: looking for? What was the

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: last time we either manually sign this? That is a great question for

[Herb Olson (Member)]: you.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: It's also a good question for the Department of Labor and Lottery because there's a lot of signage that's mandatory around behind the backlights. But as

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: you're putting my post, I will have to check on that and

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: get back to you. I'm not sure whether or if our office was tasked with offering any guidance on those questions, but it's a great question. So I will chime in.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: What I'm curious about are mandatory, those requirements going to be determined in a piece of legislation or are there subsequent determinants of how big, where it is? I think of when I'm out and check out how many sides am I seeing? And there's usually five or six, some of which are about the superhunting the stars, United States, others of which are about how old I am, what the days to days. To understand

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: how operations absorbs and if there are standards within state government or if that's done through legislation. Great question, all great points. There's also, in consumer law, we just think about clear and conspicuous disclosures. So I have seen, for example, in practice already, there are some establishments that will just put on the door that you're walking in, pennies like are scarce, we may not have them. So they're kind of doing what

[Herb Olson (Member)]: they

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: can without the kind of more specific legislation that you're considering. So there might be a question about, is it that sufficient that they just, on a big print, they disclose it on the front door as you're walking in. Others, maybe it's a sign that you buy the register. Those are all really important questions. It might go to, I can look back to see historically where they've been with their signage requirements and where they've been prescribed and where they have in terms of how the establishment presents it. But I think typically from a legal standpoint of consideration, we think about clear and conspicuous. And so that can come on a receipt. Sometimes that's clear and conspicuous. It can come in the form of a sign. It can come the storefront. It can come with a register. Some of those are maybe policy determinations that you all will make informed by your constituents. But clear and conspicuous is generally the rule of thumb, and then how that is made clear and conspicuous might be something that you might want to consider or not. And maybe you can just say, here's the language, then it can be determined by the I'll circle back on this because these kind of get sticky, the questions of signage. But it's a question for you all to grapple with. These are not easy. They seem like, I looked at the bill, it's a short bill, and I know you deal with bills that are, score is pages long, so it seems like a simple thing in that the devil's always in the details, and so it's not always as easy as it. So I appreciate the challenge of trying to help both businesses and consumers that you're trying to navigate. If there's anything else that our office can do or ways that we can assist, we're happy to do that and offer those thoughts. If you, as the legislation progresses, if you have a question, something comes up that

[Herb Olson (Member)]: you hadn't

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: anticipated, those that come

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: and try to help as best

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: as you can. I have a of a what if question, and I hate to do that, but I think I'm gonna do it anyway. If this legislation gets enacted and a business diffuses it to prices in a way that only rounds up. They price at the number that only round up. Is that the kind of thing that consumer protection agency could get a complaint about down the road? Or is that I don't want to incentivize something, but

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: It's a great question. So I suppose the answer is always it depends.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I would if it depends. So

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: what I would suggest is if somebody is willfully ignoring the roundup, round down methodology that the legislature adopts, and they're only rounding up always in every circumstance to the detriment of consumers. I would say that is not the legislation has prescribed, and that falls outside of the exemption or safe harbor relief created for the entities that properly disclosed and are properly rounding up and rounding down. So I would say that may constitute a pattern in practice that is arguably or maybe clearly deceptive or unfair to consumers, because they have deployed a device that is only doing it one way every time. So one might argue that that is, by design, is willful, and it is actually attempting to evade the protections that you're trying to clean this with post legislation. Does that answer your question?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, there will be cases that are clear, and there will be cases that are not so clear. Yes,

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: and the flip side of that, to offer the perspective is that it could be that somebody inadvertently or by mistake, and they might even have like a manual register, engage in a transaction once or twice the wrong way, and the consumer complains. And they're typically going to complain to consumer assistance program at our office. We're gonna call the retailer and find out what happened here. And my guess is if it's inadvertent, if it's a manual error, it's a mistake, and it's not a systemic, willful series of violations that are just essentially flouting the law, it's written nine times out of 10. And in this instance, it's going to be like 99.9% of the time. The vendor, the business is going say, my gosh, I'm so sorry, I had no idea. We're happy to give them their nickel back. In fact, we'll give them a quarter, or we'll give them a gift certificate for $5 or whatever it is. Very often there are what appear to be on the surface reports we might receive of some kind of conflict. And when we contact the business, it's in the context of, We got this complaint. We want to hear your side of what happened. And the businesses very often, good actors and comers are like, I had no idea that that person's so upset. If we've made a mistake, we're happy to correct it. And that is not something that's a pattern or practice that represents a major violation of the Consumer Protection Act. That would be something that's treated on a case by case basis. If we are getting scores of complaints about a particular actor and they are repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again, or it's discovered that there's somebody who's just continually only rounding up, that's a different set of facts and circumstances. So I can't say that it's like, yes, is there like a quote unquote violation of the statute? Have you sent it out? Yes, but if the business, I would also argue if the business cures it, then is there really a violation at all? Answer is it depends a little on the nature of the complaint and whether it's a series of complaints. Is it all about one actor who's engaged in the same kind of conduct that might be questionable? Or is it something that we get one call, it's one complaint, it's a really de minimis amount, and it's quickly and easily corrected, which is, I think most businesses I know in Vermont want to do the right thing by their consumers, they're trying their best, and especially when the landscape changes and suddenly there's no pennies, it'd be very unusual for somebody to really dig in and say, No, they're wrong. We are dug into this thing. And then the question is really how would it be common for a consumer to pursue a matter that's that small or modest? Don't know how much time or effort someone wants to put into making a contest of that. But we take every complaint as we receive them. We try to work these things out on a case by case basis. If we see a pattern or practice that's larger and involves a particular actor, that might be something that's ripe for investigation enforcement. And this law does not provide a universal safe harbor or inoculate bad actors from potential investigation reports, if they're accusing a radical

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: case study that you all pass and perpetuate?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, our goal is very clearly to make it a known system for businesses to work in the state of Vermont. We want our businesses to be successful. We want them to have a clear path. We want all of that. And my question is, are we creating a perverse incentive? And I don't think we are, but I just wanted to put it out there as a ROE.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I think there was a report that we saw from Canada that there were some retailers that would price their items so that they ended in eight or nine, or three or four, that way they But are always rounding that's still within the law, right? Because, I mean, we gonna price $50 or $2 how they've

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And the market has to And I think as long as we're clear, it's the final price, it's not each item.

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: We don't

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: round each item, it's just rounding the final price.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: Yeah, something that's $1.44 if you buy three of them, it's getting rounded down. Yeah. So I think I think

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it would be much easier. Easy for

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: the AG to figure this out, because you would have to put policies in, let's say, limit two per purchase or something like that for you to really take advantage of those. Yeah.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: Not if you buy three. I think the chairman has put a finger on something that could be potentially important, which is before a party gets to the register, could it be the case that somebody adjusts their pricing to essentially dictate that when you do get to the register, it's always a redoubt. So it's not really the rounding question, because they're implementing the rounding as articulated. It's that there's an adjustment through software or maybe artificial intelligence or by other means to say when we're dealing in mass quantities, we can make it so that the pricing insurers, they probably have to figure out about the tax too, that somehow it's always coming out so that the house always wins. It's always gonna be rounded up. That would require a great deal of sophistication. That obviously would be a real goal regime. I do think when you look at the applicability section, again, this is just a question for you all. The question would be, so the application section, subsection D of the bill, says notwithstanding any laws of the contrary, rounding under this section shall not constitute an unlawful price increase in charge for

[Herb Olson (Member)]: the protection of this commerce for discrimination.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: So that's as to the rounding. The price fixing, that would all still be subject to investigation, antitrust principles, consumer protection, unfairness, and so on. The key question might be, how does one know? Does the average consumer know? If it's invisible because it's done on the pricing yet, at the register you're saying, oh yeah, they're just rounding the way that the law says they're supposed to round. It's hard to know or to see necessarily that there's been some adjustment on the price point. Again, this might

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: get into some sort of weights

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: and measures question, but on

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: the price points, it's always leaning towards or removing you towards rounding up when you finally get to the register. Again, are small, assuming it's all aggregate pricing, these are small individual transactions for the most part. I suppose one question I haven't fully thought through is, does this get into commercial actors, larger shipments, multiple thousands of shipments of goods and prices, then how does that all play out get into wholesalers and retailers, and are the retailers somehow paying? Those are questions that are maybe outside the scope of the bill, because this is really about what's the consumer paying, but I could imagine circumstances, and

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: the question for you all might be

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: in the applicability section, can you preserve and say, if there's a willful pattern and practice of placebo, could put people on notice, say, don't be doing the back end chicanery that's going to always result in one way, because if you do, we're putting you on notice. Like that is still subject to enforcement activity. So you could modify or just gently tweak that applicability provision just to hold out. That's not the local Vermont business, but could there be an entity? And also, in fairness to you all, we don't

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: know what we don't know.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: This a penny problem, this penny issue is going to play out over time in different ways. And there's sort of like this initial shortage or scarcity here and there. Then long term, eventually the pennies are going to disappear from circulation altogether, and then you're going have questions around price points and so on. So it's a little hard to anticipate in totality where it's going. I think your committee and its body generally is grappling with the right questions, which is like clear and conspicuous notice, how do we go about that? And then what are the rounding principles? Which is gonna generally deal with most of the questions most of the time. If there was a bad actor out there or somebody seeking to take advantage, some sort of larger player, and they're doing this sort of price manipulation, I think the antitrust principles and consumer protection are still going to apply anyway, but the question of how do you find out or you get noticed or do you have a basis for investigation might come from consumers. And so if you wanted to introduce another aspect or really make that explicit in your applicability provision in subsection D, you could include some language that gets at that question to say, you might be rounding the right way every single time, but you're not inoculated if there's some kind of willful activity that is resulting in price manipulation. And then at least the businesses who are the bad actor can't say, well, nobody ever told us. We just relied on the shield. We were doing the routing, right?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good questions, really good questions.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I mean, would have to say, because you have to provide price, so if you're somehow trying to finesse that, that would be you're charging something that is not what the written price is and I'm assuming that's illegal.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: It happens all the time. It might happen all

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the time, but I'm pretty sure that it's not something that is allowed, because that definitely fall into false advertising. So I don't know if that would be too much of an issue.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: Well, your point, that's a great one because that is what Weight to Measure does. They'll go out and they do price scanning, like on the unit price, what's the per pound price, and they look at that and then they say, well, and

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: then if we go swipe at the checkout, does that

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: all match up? So they do that. There's a regulatory regime, swipe correct, would be unlawful. And there are corrections that get issued or sometimes we'll get cited or what have you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But if somebody, let's say, I'm a convenience store in Coventry and I know that every single time I get, daily I get somebody that comes in, buys one candy bar, and I know that it will round to $1.02. And if I just change my price point by 1¢, I'll go to 3. That's but it's written down. I'm not saying that you would ever do that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's not worth stories.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh. I can't sell with

[Herb Olson (Member)]: chocolate baker without her too.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: Go ahead. You can

[Unidentified Committee Member]: make it a The that I'm the price fixing on that, I mean, it's it's not you can't you can't price fix without coming afoul of of I

[Herb Olson (Member)]: mean, you can set the price.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Right. But I can set my price

[Herb Olson (Member)]: So long as as it's available to the public. Right. Your price is the same for you and for you for you for you. Correct. And if it's So you can set a price so that it will ramp up.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Right. But I would I would I I mean, it is icky, but I don't think it's false. I wouldn't say that it's mean,

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: that would be This is the point that you're trying to grapple with. Think exactly this, which is what the chair's question was, if it ends up being that the prices were adjusted to always round up, then the question might be, I do see that price fixing or price adjustments to result in a certain rounding process is different than adopting the rounding process itself. So somebody could be compliant with the rounding process, but on the back end, doing modest changes to their disclosed pricing, that results in always pricing upward. I believe under existing either antitrust or consumer protection principles, if we were made aware of that and we could see that that was a pattern of practice and it was always resulting that way, that still would be a basis for investigation enforcement even today. On the other hand, if you want to be explicit about that in your bill to put people on notice and say like, Yes, this does not absolve you if it's always resulting in that. We know that that, maybe it's an abstract potentiality, but just in case, we're letting the whole community know, don't be doing that because this is not a safe harbor for them. You can't pull in your pricing with your rounding and come up with something that's always detrimental to the consumer. So that would be a consideration. But like you said, I think even if you didn't adjust that applicability section, to me, if somebody was willfully manipulating pricing to always do that, there would be a question

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: about whether that is a violation,

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: and I think there would be a basis for looking into that.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: There's a lot of what ifs, and I think, you know, we put a system in and then we find out, and I think that's what the office is there for.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Could I mean, we could write into bill this, you know, reference consumer protection laws. Right? I mean, this way people are aware. We've done that with a couple other bills in the past. It doesn't doesn't affect anything. It's just there as a Just so you know.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Cameron's behind you. We talked to him.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Would just It's been a while since I've been in that area of the law, but there's It's not really clear cut. So if you just reference a body of law, and I'm sure there are some pretty clear cut cases. There's some cases that might look kind of funny at the outset, but then when you get into it, it's really, I mean, defenses to those kinds of things from this as well. So I think we need to be careful about just saying referencing the body of law and think, well, this will clarify things.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: And I think for your purposes today, it came up, so I can mention it. And the truth is though, there is a difference between rounding at time of purchase for purpose of providing change and pricing, deceptive pricing. So I do believe that those are distinct. And so even if the legislation doesn't speak to that issue specifically, I think if we had paused to view there was something going on that was price fixing that resulted in a rounding thing, this legislation does not mean that that business is absolved from bad acts that result from pricing. So I think that's true. It might be a question of interpretation and a business might have defenses that they want to raise. And so that would be a question that could be either looked into, investigated, maybe there's nothing there, maybe there is. It could be litigated, it could be settled. So there's all kinds of ways that those things end up getting resolved.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I'm just saying that I'm sort of comfortable with the applicability section as it is. Once we start getting into the weeds of what sort of pricing is anti competitive or unfair or whatever, you might have a longer Is unfair if I price my product instead of 95 to 99? I I don't know the It's been a while, so I don't know the analysis.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I just if if we're concerned about it, you know, referencing it, but I'm not I agree with you, Herb. I mean, think it's fine. Like you said, it's already in current statute, so I guess he had I don't know

[Herb Olson (Member)]: if Maggie provided it. There was a I saw the report that was done on the Canadian system. Maybe we should take a look at that and just read the report that came from the Canadian system. I mean, they've been in well over ten years now.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So, if you

[Herb Olson (Member)]: look at that, and there were some stores that raised their price to 99 so that things rang up, they weren't getting an extra 2 or 3¢. How much money did that amount to at the end of the year? Not a lot of money. So it's, I think it's all de minimis and I think what we want to do is provide a clear expectation for businesses to rely on how deal with rounding up and rounding down.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: And just to reiterate, I mean you would need to adjust that price on a per transaction basis because if I'm buying something that ends in a four and I buy three of them, you're rounding down now.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: But if you're sending things up at 99, you're still staying keep keeping up the currency. It's I mean, if we were talking dollars, we're talking pennies.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But we're talking pennies now.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: We're to get rid of money altogether. No. And then we have to remember, this is only cash transactions. It doesn't affect your paying with a check, it doesn't affect if you're paying with a credit card, the pennies are still involved here.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: You so much for

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: your time today. If you have other questions or other things, pop up on line. Feel free to call on us and

[Herb Olson (Member)]: we're happy to come back. Appreciate the thought of weights and nudges too.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All the time. Stay

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: around, there's nothing because then. We're generally in support of this bill. This actually basically mirrors some informal guidance that we were preparing to try and issue in this space. I just had one comment that's really related to Abbey, the representative Duke's grandfather. On page three, it says under paragraph E, optional sections shall not prohibit much consumer from tendering exact cash unless the person or business has provided notice of their rounding. Think you should be able to provide exact cash if you want. That's really good. Well,

[Herb Olson (Member)]: that way you can get some, might be able to get

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: some more. I need read precisely.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Okay, question for Erin.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Signs, I kind of noticed you give to businesses around signage today. Could you have it signed on your website that a business could download so that they know exactly what to post? How did that work with your office?

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: Yeah, within the banking division, we don't have any requirements like that, we just require that you put the notice so that your deposits are insured, so it's not really doesn't go that deep for us, I wouldn't consider any requirements there.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: We did years ago, and we allowed stores to require a certain amount to use a credit or debit card, so I think it was up to $10 There was a requirement that they had to post that at the register. Yeah. Customers knew that, you know, in order to use a debit card, it doesn't say it went up from 0 to $10. So

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But it's not DFR.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: It's it helps.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I don't think that we created a sign. It was just the requirement to post the sign.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: Yeah. Yeah. I don't

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: think it's DFR. I think that's really just general comments, not really

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: financial institutions.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I know a couple of years ago, we required a sign in gun shops to share information about appropriate storage. But I don't know that anybody owns it. I don't know who owns the sign, they know it's in law. So, housing snake was better.

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: Yeah, like I said, the draft guidance that we were preparing to try and issue, which really didn't have any legal teeth behind it, was going to say,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: as long as you disclose this,

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: so senior

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: for this whole country.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Other questions? Great. Thanks, Terry. I'll just find her. Just giving you a few sentences. You're

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: making a sentence is helpful.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Sean, do you have a

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: I I was just looking to see if I could confirm it, I'm pretty sure that I read that pennies are being circulated until 2028, and then they're out of circulation. So, just to the point here, want to make sure that after they're out of circulation we don't want to be mandatory, we still take those. So if we get into that too much, I just want to make sure that the thought there is.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I

[Herb Olson (Member)]: think you can still bring it to the bank or you can still use them with customers. It's still legal tender, so I think if you have a customer giving you pennies, you can still give them out as well. Even if the Federal Reserve is not circulating in any

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: They will still take them at the bank. The banks will until

[Herb Olson (Member)]: You bring money to a bank, and I guarantee you they're gonna take it. Cameron, is there anything you need from us or direction? I guess the question is, is the language written now so that it's optional to round or not round. But if you're going to round, then this is how you're going to do it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir. For the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel, I appreciate the testimony from the general's office. They validated a

[Unidentified Committee Member]: lot

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of the assumptions that we all had and discussed when we first walked through the bill. So they are the enforcement mechanism. As long as they're reading it that way and I think that that's a kind of plain language reading of it and they're comfortable, I'm not sure that you need to make any adjustments there. I agree with them. The statutory framework is you may do this. So if they found that some employer or entity was doing something willful to circumvent what they authorized in statute, I do agree that they could then investigate that from some sort of unfair, deceptive practice. I agree with their comments too about the pricing. I thought it was a great point that was brought up. If you try to manipulate price to have something in a transaction that's going to allow you to round up, that doesn't account for then somebody who's buying a second or third item. And you're going to get to a point where it could then ultimately round down. It would take a very sophisticated system to be able to ensure that in every instance it resulted in a roundup. And I would say at that point, as the AG's office mentioned, it's not really a rounding issue at that point. That's more of a price gouging deceptive act that the entity is doing. And full confidence the AG would then approach it from that perspective. So I think what you have works in that regard. I acknowledge what the AG said about the signage. It may be worth it to have some discussion about having a standard sign. I can agree with the AG there. You could end up with different versions and people may become confused. I was going to comment that it was such a good recommendation. Maybe the AG's office wanted to do that. I think that could be problematic because they're the ones who are then enforcing against said unfair and deceptive, very conspicuous messaging, etcetera. So it may not be a good thing to have them do it and then turn around and be the one forcing against the signage that they've created potentially. But I think that is potentially a good recommendation. As far as the last piece or one of the last pieces that was mentioned about individuals paying in exact cash, it's a policy decision for you. But I think that could also become problematic. You're saying to a business, hey, we recognize there could be a shortage of pennies. And so if you're essentially trying to get out of the penny business, we're going to let you round. And you can round to nickels. And then to turn around and say, but if somebody is going

[Herb Olson (Member)]: to pay you a nickel, you've got

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to take them. And you can't round in that instance. You're creating an exception that may just then become difficult for that entity administer and go to court. So there's that exclusion that says that it doesn't prohibit somebody paying an exact change unless the business has demonstrated, provided notice that they're going to round. And I would potentially keep it that way. If the business wants to round and you're saying this is how you can round and we're blessing you to do so, somebody comes in and says, but I won't make an exact change, I think it would potentially become problematic to force the business to accept that. It's a policy decision for you. I'm not telling you to do that. I'm it was something that came into my mind as I was sitting there thinking about it. So as of right now, I'm not aware of any changes that you directly ask for in regards to the bill, but happy to start to pencil things out as you deem if you want to make them.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I have lots of questions. Go ahead. Yeah,

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I appreciate your thoughts

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: on that, Cameron.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I'm not as convinced that allowing an individual customer to tend to cash would be huge. I mean, maybe hear from businesses, but that's in fact, I'd like to hear from businesses whether I would be in a position because I would think that they you know, right now that I think, like Cher said, that you can just bring them to the bank. They'll give you something and make sure it's all those things. I don't know. And as to the notice, jeez, I thought the AG had they did a lot of they do a lot of things, I think, by rules and regulations when they're trying to give guidance about how to enforce, or anything about the administration of a statute. I don't know that they actually do notices, but it wouldn't strike me as

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And they clear and conspicuous is probably enough for them sometimes.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. Would be fine with me too. I'm just saying that, you know, it doesn't concern me all that much if the

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We can have Chris come back.

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: Yeah. Did. Very specific, for example, the crypto kiosks.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That was DFR.

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: Oh, that's DFR. Oh, right. It was an AG.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: CryptoKiosk, that was you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I was having flashbacks.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So sorry.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Is this germane to crypto? Sorry.

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: Was just thinking the disclosures, you all were very specific about how they looked, how

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they read, where they're at.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: In a financial transaction, not in a commercial transaction. Tony, did you have a question?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I'm good. If you remember the last time we took this, Mr. Weiss earlier had discussed with us, I think there is him on page three. Objection E2, require a person or business to accept cash if a person or business is supposed to be a policy stating that the person in business does not accept cash.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: I think we have a bill that's

[Herb Olson (Member)]: on page 24 that talks about I don't know that we want to get into that realm, and maybe we should take that subsection.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Up to you. Mean, it's there just intending to provide notice that if the business is not taking cash, then obviously the section's not going to apply to that business. I know that gets into a big hole, it's

[Herb Olson (Member)]: new record

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of getting a full bill that you have in positions of whether businesses should be required to accept cash or not so I don't know that it's not as necessary to have it in, could be helpful but up to the good and understood it may just invite frustration or confusion.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah, I feel like we'd be

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: opening a second alliance. Yeah.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I would I'm ready to are you ready to move on to the next?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. So I Well, just

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think that's right.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I agree. I mean, just now we're missing a few members, that's something you all agree with.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Removing that subdivision? Yeah. Okay.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I'd also like to understand if we take the sentence above that out, we're not prohibiting a customer from tendering cash. I feel like if they accept cash, we should allow people to pay with cash and exact change. And so come up with a way to say, if you have no way to ensure that you have appropriate change, then on an ongoing basis, is that appropriate language? I don't want to cause confusion, but I also want to make sure that customers can still pay for their things. So I'm wondering if you can explore that a little bit.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I want to think about it a little more. I will say this. Going down that road, you're potentially adding on additional layer of conditions and confusion to business. You tell them the bill right now is very straightforward. If you as a business choose to round your transactions, understanding that there is a shortage of pennies, and that will probably just exacerbate as we move out, And you want to round your transactions. We're telling you that you can do so. And then if you start adding in conditions that say, except if the person has the exact change, and now you do run into an issue where it's you happen to come in with a few pennies in your pocket, you're going to pay this price. If you don't have a few pennies in your pocket, hope you have some nickels because it's going to be rounded. And then if you then add on additional layers of saying, if the business is not in a position where they can provide exact change, then you can round. I would worry about continuing to go down that type of road because

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I think the AG's office would then subsequently

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: come in and say, you're making it a lot more squishier if we're trying

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: go after somebody who is a bad actor. And for the business community, I think you're making it a lot more possible confusion about when do we

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: round, when do we not round.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: They shouldn't have to use an if that flow chart to be able to track to every transaction. Exactly,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: and that's I think a great point of what I was simply trying to make is exactly that. You start from the premise of the bill, which is if you want to round, you can round, and here's what you can do. And then if you turn around and add in again a situation where somebody has the exact change, now you're creating if then circumstances. And so somebody pays me with a few pennies, now I have a few pennies, so does the next customer who pays in cash, do I have to give those pennies back? Because I have them now, or can I take them out of the drawer and put them over here and continue back to rounding? And I'm mentioning to you, I think it potentially invites more confusion versus just saying it's rounded.

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: That literally $0.04

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: and you only have three pennies.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And just before I cede the floor, the pennies will stay in circulation for a long time. So that's not whatever, yeah. So we don't have to, I looked at the Treasury website. Canada

[Unidentified Committee Member]: has been without pennies for how long?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: 2,000? Other than it's 20.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. They're still in circulation down here. So you're correct. They'll still be in circulation for a Yeah. I know. It's irritating. But that being said, regarding whether or not they bring exact cash in, except for the really old timey stores that have for cash registers, Most stores now have POS systems. And you're talking massive amount of coding for $02 or $1 in some cases. And I think that adding that I know, I know. But if it's the old timey store, it's okay. But most stores, if not all of them now, have a POS system. I don't. Oh, you don't? You have an old timey store?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's pretty You need to take a drive.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Well, you know what? You can choose to opt out. Sorry.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I got crank on it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: No. But it do you really have an old system like that?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I got a regular regular electronic catch up. Oh, well. Doesn't have to scan for a while. I'm like, price is down.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: You have to do the for the credit card?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: They do make side by chains with credit cards. Oh, yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Come up. I'll teach you every time. Might. And Matt. I'm just saying that I think we should not have that part in there. Either you do it or you And I know But because because legitimately Oh, god. It's a new tricks.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: My god. What am I gonna do? But but I can do this. But if you it doesn't matter if you have a POS system or not. When you tender your chain your cash, and if it's $20.01, I give you $20.01, you're gonna punch that into the register.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's gonna say, we don't owe you anything. But if the register is set up to automatically ground, you're unless the register is coded or the POS system is coded to say, if the customer gives me exact change, I can do this, which then you're relying on, like, Clover or whatever app is out there, whatever POS system is out there. You because you're not it's gonna be all internal and super quick, and then it's gonna mess up your when you click at the end of the day and you click print, you're gonna have to monitor what you're you're putting in.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Think we had a testimonial today. Some systems can do it easily and some can't. Right.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: But what I'm saying, it was if if you have a POS system, it's

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You tell it it's cash.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: It's been around.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But then that's another step that you tell it it's cash or you tell it it's a trust.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So I I can only speak for for the Clover that I've used.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Credit cards.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Right. But but the current for Clover, I know that when you get two options, you can pay via cash or you can pay via credit. You get a in in the place that I've used Clover, you get a discount for for using cash. The in order to do the do the rounding with the you can do cash, we you have to rely on Clover to code for that. They are coding based on treasury. My guess is they will be coding based on treasury guidance, and treasury guidance does not talk about, well, you can pay with cash and you have to modify your system. And if you're saying that, well, the cash says $5.00 1, but it rounds down automatically And you see that it's 5 0 1, but I wanna give you 501 or not 501, 504 versus 505. If you're asking a red person on the register to do that, they're gonna have to manually track that information unless the app that unless the app the the cash register is automatically doing that for you. And I can almost guarantee you they're not. Is am I not making any sense?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You are. I just don't think we agree with that.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Oh, okay. Believe

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: that the way that it that it works is the transaction of Delta twenty o one. Still have to type in the amount, because other transactions in the system are you know the credit cards or whatever before you tell it what payment method you're going to use. You still have to type in if you're using a credit card you hit credit and you charge $20.1 but if you're using cash and you type into the register $20.1 it's still going to accept that as an amount that you told it that it gave you as a payment. And so the rounding doesn't come out the changes after that. And so if you're told that it gives you a,

[Herb Olson (Member)]: you know,

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: a different amount or whatever then it tells you what the change is after you type in the tender that you've told that you've received.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: You follow

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: me there?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: So what would it do if you were rounding and it comes out to $20.1 you punch in $20 Well, because that's what you're going to get, right, if you're sounding down. Well Then will the POS system round it down?

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: Good question, I don't know because my system doesn't know how it's around yet, I'm just

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I'm just getting Yeah. So I mean that's an internal thing that, I don't think it's gonna do any harm for somebody giving you the right change on a cash transaction.

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: I think it's gonna still let you put in 20.4, somebody that's what somebody gives you, your register's still gonna let you put in the exact amount that they give you and there's no rounding involved because there's no change involved at all. Right. You're not getting change back there. Right. They gave you exactly what you needed.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: believe you asked. My but my suspicion and maybe the answer is is that we get somebody that has one of those or, you know, that part of the, you know, a Clover industry.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I'm going to Canada Sunday, my in laws, and we're going to the store. And so when we go to the store, I'll I'll Send it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Pay cat.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I'll see what it does and pay the cat. Can you See what it does. Can you say that on live?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: There's some chocolates up there I would love to have.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I hope the exchange rate's good.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It is not about the exchange rates as well. Thousand dollar fine if you get caught with them.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I will not be doing that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Will not be doing that. Tinder

[Herb Olson (Member)]: eggs, they're amazing. Can I see if I can understand? Are we talking about whether to include that on last phrase? Yeah. E E one? Think e one. Yeah. To whether to delete that unwise phrase, I I I don't see any reason why we shouldn't delete it. I I prefer to delete that first. So I'm say

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: we're gonna explain

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I don't I don't have real strong feelings about it, other than I'm a cash guy.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think you could just give examples of how things might add is somebody comes to

[Aaron (Banking Division, VT Dept. of Financial Regulation)]: the wrist. Here's my assumption that

[Christopher Curtis (Assistant Attorney General; Director, Consumer Assistance Program)]: I not need to hear from

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: others. You have an electronic system, you then program the system to round on your behalf so you don't have errors at the point of sale from the cashier themselves trying to know which way to round it had it wrong. So you scan the item and then I turn to you, but that customer doesn't know that system, it's going to automatically round it, you're just going to tell the customer let's assume that you do tell the customer that, though. It's $20.01 unless you don't have pennies, which case it's 20 on the customer always been, think that's what you're

[Shane Switzer (Owner, Lyndonville Redemption and The Pizza Man, Lyndonville, VT)]: talking about. Going to get

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a few minutes back. So the opposite is, and you say it's 20.04, unless you don't have hints, in which case it's 20.05. And I imagine you could get that could cause some sort of confusion or frustration on the customers' behavior. If you're saying that you have to accept exact change, Again, decision for you, I just

[Herb Olson (Member)]: think it potentially Well, think it's saying that site shall not prohibit a customer from tendering exact change, unless the business has provided notice that they're bounding.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's how it reads now, I agree. And I'm saying if you're striking that unless piece. If you're striking the unless and you're giving the customer to say, and you shall accept customer is giving you exact change, that's the concern that I was raising.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: But at that point is it, so what if this constant is depending anyway? Even if they're rounding, is this saying that you can't do that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, doesn't require the business to round.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: And what if they are round, mean, so you are rounding.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so that's where I think that's

[Herb Olson (Member)]: And I guess that's still between the customer and

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the retail. And that's where I think as the business, allowing them that certainty to say, you can round and you can always round and here's how you're gonna do it. Because I think if a business were to decide in this instance, I'm going to take the exact change because you're offering it, but in another instance, I'm not. And then I might round in another instance, my advice to the business, you're opening yourself up to a lot of questions about potential customer complaints. Are you rounded for them? Or are you doing it in every instance or not? And to me, if I were advising the business, would say, you're potentially opening yourself up to a consumer complaint and then potentially a call from the AG's office to figure out what you're doing and is it compliant to the section. So But again, I also don't imagine these circumstances coming up very frequently.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: Yeah. But He's fine.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. I'll drop it. I don't see the ram in there, but anyway. Okay. So I told you I'd get you out of here at noon.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good job. I felt tired.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: He's not he's the man that's

[Herb Olson (Member)]: been running us down and driving So

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I do know at least striking the one subdivision that we talked about and just

[Herb Olson (Member)]: We have to think about requirement for I think we should be writing what it is. I'd like it to live somewhere so that the business can get on the website and just click on a PDF and print it out. You can put it on, you know, either put it in window, if it's your door window, or put it on your cash register. It's how we make it as simple as possible. Maybe we can have a discussion with the Department of Labor because they print out, they have a whole list

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Required notices.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Required notices. Fact, they've been dead for business and time, but required.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And if you also, as was mentioned, you have maybe say that again regarding weights and measures that I don't know to what extent they're having to provide notices.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah, we'll see they may have it and it might be more of a right place for that, especially for businesses that are skiing. Okay. Any more reports you want to go down? We'll be ready to roll.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Ready to roll. Alright.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you Cameron. Thank you Aaron. John, thank you for coming over, we appreciate it. Think what we're gonna do with this, we're put it in the economic development bill, that we can't. We have to

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: go to the economic development bill.

[Abbott Sales (Intern, UVM)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: So that's it for this week. We have an agenda set up. We're gonna go over with Jonathan. Just check here. Check the web page over the weekend, and if you had a chance we have that report, the Canadians report. Was that did you ever get that? No. I can't remember where I saw it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yes. But it was it's not on our posted on our page anywhere. Maybe it's an email.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Maybe Maggie knows. I can see if we get it, I guess everybody can see it. Okay. Thanks again. With that, everyone, have a good Easter. Get charged up again. See you Tuesday morning at 09:00.