Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Hello, Mary. What's happening? Welcome

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: everybody to the committee on housing in general, and today is Friday January 30, the last day in which the legislature is in session in January. Better get it done today or Rip all those bills off the wall. No. So, we're meeting today, just for those who are watching online, and Emilie, hi. We're meeting today now to consider an act relating to a mediator position for the office of the Vermont Labor Relations Board. And this is a kind of a committee discussion and markup discussion. And for those who are not familiar with this online, when a bill is introduced by an author, just to be clear, the author owns the bill and works on the bill and works on the bill until they like it, and then they take it with the assistance of legislative counsel, it's drafted and they introduce it. So once a bill is introduced and referred to a committee as this bill has been, then the committee owns the bill, not the author, and it's up to the committee to decide what to do with the bill, including change it, alter it, whatever. And this is one of those sections where we discuss the bill and where we discuss it with our counsel, Sophie Thetany, who works on labor issues, and decide what we're going to do, and that's what happens. Whatever happens, it's not labeled today as a vote. We're not gonna vote on the bill today. We may change the bill, but we're not, but we're not voting. So that'll take us to lunch, and then after lunch, we are going to have a joint sector with the Committee on Commerce and Economic Development, and that will meet in Room 10 Of The State House, and there what we're doing is walking through page seven seventy five, which is a broad, a bill that looks at rural Vermont and looks at housing production and what can be done to improve housing production in world. And that will be at 01:00, but right now we're going to take up the bill adding position for mediators. So there we are. Yes, ma'am. Can I start it off, please?

[Speaker 0]: Okay. I have lots of thoughts and would love to bring some of them to the committee. The first being, last year, we kind of talked ad nauseam on the need for additional help for the Neighbor Relations Board. And we have had testimony last year that didn't necessarily back up what we were continuously hearing for the needs. And yesterday, I think we finally got some of that testimony that the board really needs additional help. There's a pretty severe backlog. And after hearing testimony yesterday, I do feel that the mediator position is important, but I would like the committee to maybe talk about, and I would like to see that we actually add an additional attorney to the Labor Relations Board. And I didn't know if people had questions or thoughts, but I think this is a really great opportunity for us to address this problem.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Can I add to that Please? A Oh, Gayle, go ahead.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Do we know at this point how much money extra funds that means?

[Speaker 0]: So the answer is no. When in conversations, and Sophie can give a more direct answer, but in conversations with Sophie, she had said that the 115 was just kind of a placeholder.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: For the mediator. For the

[Speaker 0]: mediator. And so understanding, I'm not sure what the best number would be. Did, in all transparency, I did speak to Sophie this morning about this, and we were talking about maybe $2.50. At the end of the day, we know it's gonna be completely trashed and taken care of in appropriations, and they might have a better idea of what that would look like. I just, I really want to, again, I personally think at this point that I would even, and helps to the labor board, I would almost, and this is again, my personal thought, I would even prefer an additional attorney over a mediator, but I really do feel the value of the mediator. That's why for me, I would like

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: to see both positions in this bill.

[Sophie Thetany (Legislative Counsel)]: I just want to clarify, the 250,000 would be for both positions, correct?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: About $250,000 Elizabeth?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I agree about the usefulness and importance of this, and also, in terms of money, feel that we don't have any, and I feel an urgency about supporting the Human Rights Commission above everything else if we're going to spend money on supporting any of these instruments. Because this is just one area, while the Human Rights Commission and also Vermont Legal Aid are serving several areas at one time. So my preference would be to prioritize those in our budget. So this is also budgetary. It's not just a policy. So without knowing how much, without knowing what our capacity is, I can't support it without while holding it up against the increasing pressure on the human rights commission. I

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I have thoughts, but you're next.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I think Saudia

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: can Well,

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I was just going to say that we also heard testimony asking for an even broader, not just with contracts, but did

[Speaker 0]: we already cover that? No, that was a question I figured we could Yeah, not talk

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: so we heard testimony saying we'd like the purview to also include not just contract negotiation in passes, also not termination of what was it?

[Speaker 0]: Would be grievances. Grievances, unfair labor practices and collective bargaining. Right. And I

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: also share your priorities, and I think that this will be one of those things where we say, we like this, we like this, we like this. I'm asking, will our process be, we support this, we support this. And then in the end, we can prioritize at the very, very, very end of session. Like, it's not as though we're saying well, no,

[Sophie Thetany (Legislative Counsel)]: not at the very end, but, like, before

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It'll be before When the budget at the end towards the February. Right. It has to be before break when our letters will be due to the budget committee. Yes. Yeah. So, just to clarify, before I say what I think about this, and Emilie is in line, and you're in line, We have a bill now before us, which is a vehicle. So, if we want to do it with this bill, if we want to, we can put it in this bill. Mean, that's well within our purview. If in it so that's one way we do things in terms of the budget committee. Put a budget number in a bill knowing that it's gonna be stripped out and put in the budget or not, and it's their discretion. The second way we have influence is by our letter to the budget committee, which has to go to them late February, I'm not sure of the date, and I guess the earlier the better to a point. And there, we need to prioritize. And if you may remember, last year, rather than prioritize everything, we did it by tier. Tier one, tier two, tier three. That is a broader, that letter is a broader device because it doesn't have to be a bill that was before us. So, for example, using the Human Rights Commission as an example, I'm unaware. I wrong? I don't think we have a bill on the wall about the Human Rights Commission staff staff levels, but the Human Rights Commission has a budget request and they have an amount in the budget, in the governor's budget, and it may be and it's up to us to review that and comment on it in our budget letter. So, for example, if hypothetically we were to decide we wanted to put this extra attorney position in the labor bill, but we also looked at the Human Rights Commission and felt they needed two FTE, you know, whatever is more than in the governor's bill, we would say both, and it would be a question of what tier do we put those in. Sure. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that. So, this bill is before us. Procedurally, we can do or not do what Ashley is suggesting. And at this point, right now, we don't have to prioritize. We will have to prioritize.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yes,

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Saudia? Well, if we're not prioritizing, if this is not a conversation for right now, then I can table my question. It was just more around the numbers and the $2.50. I'm still stuck on the cost of the location space. That's a stick for me, so I'm just, that's where my thing is, but

[Speaker 0]: I think that's a conversation to have as a whole, because I have a lot of questions. I really think it's the least important thing in the mail, and it's what I'm getting stuck on a lot too, so I think it'd be a really good committee discussion. I'm not sure if that's actually really needed, but that's my own opinion. I'm sorry, I can't remember. Is there a location in the bill? So the bill says, section one, the Secretary of Administration shall, upon request by the State Labor Relations Board, the Board the responsible use of public buildings under the Secretary's control and furnish heat, light, and furniture for any meeting or hearing called by the Board. The Board may employ such employees and agents as it deems necessary and may employ a reporter for taking and transcribing testimony and hearings. If This is all new? New language? No, but in Judith Dillon's testimony yesterday,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm sorry, I missed it, yeah.

[Speaker 0]: One of her concerns They're out of space. Right. Was the ability to

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: create space for mediation.

[Sophie Thetany (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. To clarify, I mean, my understanding of her testimony was not so much office space, but just if remediation was going to be held at the physical office or the Labor Relations Board, and again, I know we've got union folk here too, but typically those occur elsewhere. I mean, they haven't historically been held at the Labor Relations Board. Often they're held at the either, for example, at the VSEA's office, at the employer's office, depending on why there's room. So to the extent her testimony is that just the BLRB should have these additional spaces, I'm not sure that's a It's a small part of the building.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: But like I said, it could be table, that was my question, but it doesn't have to be an hour.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, just again, by way of back, oh no, I guess oh, Emilie. Thank you.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I guess I'm confused, Marc, by the process because I it was my assumption that if we pass a bill with these things and appropriations in it, then wouldn't it go downstairs and they'd have to approve that?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. So then how can we have a delayed conversation about where money is appropriated?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Gonna decide what to approve until they've looked at the whole budget, and they have our letter.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No. But it I'm so you're saying the bill would just stay on the wall?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Of their wall. Yeah. I don't think I think that what they were gonna do mechanically is they'll strip out they'll just strip out all the requests of all the bills, and they'll and after they get the letters from the committees, they'll decide what they're gonna do.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Is that for sure? I just because, like, today, a bill got sent to appropriations. Right? And so every single bill that they're not gonna take up anything until they decide everything

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, they they may hear the bill, but I don't think they're gonna weigh them against each other. I mean, this bill Right. This bill, you're right. This bill will be heard by them when they get to it, but they're not gonna decide on I don't think they're gonna decide on all the appropriate And

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: so then they're gonna you think that they're gonna then look at our letter of prioritization? You know, I'm just I'm just trying to think that out, like, and then and then be like, oh, you know, they actually said that they want like, go back and, like, have the time and capacity to go back into everyone's bill and be like, actually, they said that they would rather have human rights commission, so let's strip the I'm just trying to think, like, it just seems like we should be working on those policy things in our bills would be my preference, but that is just my preference.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think we should pass the bill that we believe in and we feel good about. And I think that, yes, and then the bill will be heard. And when they hear it, whenever it is, they'll have witnesses, including, frankly, someone from this committee can go. It could be me. It could be anybody on the committee. We could ask to be to testify about the committee's view on this bill. But in the end, I think they aren't going to make decisions, Emilie, about what finally goes in the budget until they have our letter. They depend very strongly on the committee's letters, and they are very clear about that. They look to the committee's letters and the in the chairs' meetings, the chair of appropriations spends a lot of time and effort emphasizing how important it is that committee chairs get those letters to them.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. So you're so our plan as a committee is to pass the bills that we believe in and have appropriations in them. And then after we pass all of our bills that have appropriations, then we're gonna make a letter that the committee has a discussion on and prioritizes that?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Correct.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Now in just to let me talk about this bill. By way of background, I wanna mention two things. In the last session, we added one, I think, employee to not a mediator, one attorney employee to the Vermont Labor Relations Board, and that amount was not approved by the Appropriations Committee. It was cut. I think it was probably cut in part. My own view is because perhaps the Vermont Labor Relations Board could have more aggressively advocated for it than they did, but perhaps they've they're they're going to do differently this time. I'm not sure. But we felt it then. One of the reasons that we felt it is that there are several bills on our wall that have been proposed that are there largely because the labor relations board is not functioning as well as it could because and so their decisions on grievances are so delayed that labor feels like by the time the grievance gets, you know, reviewed, everybody's the employees quit and gone somewhere else, and that they really need more capacity. So several of the bills that were introduced, their clear motivation was to try to deal with the incredible backlog at the BLRB. So when this bill came, the mediator bill, at least my view was, I thought, wow. Given the status quo, which was that there wasn't a lot of inclination last year to add employees, that this was a pretty compelling case. But I have to say, I would support adding adding I I would support us going for broke on this and adding we're not broke. That's wrong. I I would suggest I would suggest well, the wrong word. Yeah. I would suggest I would suggest that it's a good thing for us to say I would support the idea of asking for both a mediator and an attorney, because I feel like we need a minimally functioning BLRV, and that that would be a real boon to both management and labor to have these things resolved faster. I do also feel that when the budget comes in for well, first of all, we're going to have more testimony from the Human Rights Commission, but I suspect that when their budget comes in, we may hear that the budget as proposed by the governor is inadequate and that we should add to it, and I am very open to that. But that's my view. I just feel like this is something that's addressing a long standing problem and that there's bills on our wall that really are because of that problem. That's but others I don't if you have one. What today we have to do is we have to give instructions to Sophie, and those instructions, as I can tell, there's two, there's one definite one, which is to expand the role of the mediator, right?

[Sophie Thetany (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, so the current language is to provide free mediation services, blah blah blah, upon reaching impostor and collective bargaining, so as I understand it, you're looking to add grievances and unfair labor practices as

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: well. Right, and the question is, do we give her, just to be clear on procedures, do we ask Sophie to draft, redraft the bill, or add to the bill an attorney position as well, and we'll put in a placeholder of two seventy. No. What is it? Two fifty?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Two hundred and fifty thousand.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: 250. And that doesn't require a vote, but I'd sure like to know where people are. All we're doing is instructing her how to do it. Then she rewrites the bill, and it comes back to us, and we vote on it. And for example, someone could always say, well, I don't like this part and I will move to strike it. You know, we can do that, but it's today is the day is a chance just to give her instructions on what the next draft looks like. Yes. Hi. So

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: hiring of the mediator is a role that was not within the office and works outside of the office. Hiring an attorney full time will require office expansion, right? I mean, I'm imagining what attorney will be working.

[Sophie Thetany (Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding was that they had office space, it was more around the conference. For meetings, for bigger, okay, Alright. I was

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: just taking that into consideration if the office space issue was not very well resolved within the

[Speaker 0]: It's more of like an It's about the meetings, not

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: the negotiations. Okay. But that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: don't think that they're That

[Speaker 0]: comes up with a good Brings up something else. Thank you. I'm sorry. The Ashley Bartley translator. Love it. Judith had brought up who the mediator would be accountable to if things are not mediated and then have to go forward. How do we legislate? What mechanism is there that we can legislate to ensure that what is said in mediation is confidential? Confidentiality. That's important. That's important. I'm gonna be really honest. I have no idea, so I would.

[Sophie Thetany (Legislative Counsel)]: I think that they, I mean, the board itself could hire a mediator. I think the issue is more just their in office procedures to make sure that any information that a mediator learns during the course of a mediation is not then shared with the decision makers, with the board, probably with Judith as well. Because if you land up going to a hearing, the whole point of the mediation is the confidentiality piece. You can say stuff, you're not bound by it, you you say it in mediation and it stays in mediation. What happens in mediation stays in mediation. And so you just need to make sure to maintain the integrity of the mediation process. If people had reason to believe the mediator was sharing information that was provided during mediations with other folks in the office, that's going to destroy the trust in the mediations.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And you put something in the draft?

[Sophie Thetany (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, can have a go at But that. I think it could be housed within the BLRB. Think the board could even hire someone, they would probably be in a good position to know who could be a good neutral third party that's familiar with the law to make the relations laws. It would

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: be more of a job description issue.

[Sophie Thetany (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, and they would just need to have in house procedures to make sure that any in There's a Chinese war, I guess we don't say that anymore, but you know what I mean. Historically, there's a wall between what the deviator knows and then what the rest of the office knows. Okay, great.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I guess my question is, do people feel comfortable asking Sophie to redraft it? Two, I'm gonna summarize. One, to increase the area, increase the Scope. Scope of the mediator's work. Two, well, two, to make sure confidentiality, and three, to add an attorney position for a total cost of $2.50. How do people feel about that? Yeah. Okay, I think that you're okay drafting that. We'll just have to see when it comes back to us how people feel finally. But I'm comfortable with that.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I'm good with that too.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I I will you, Emilie.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I would like to say for the record, I would like to continue the conversation at another point about our priorities, but that's a different day.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Well, also, I think I will check double check with the chair of appropriations just to make sure that the process that I described to you is accurate. I mean, I'm I'm pretty sure, but I wanna make sure.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Because I I agree with Elizabeth, and I I believe it was Saudia as well. Just there are some other things in our jurisdiction that that I think prioritize money as well.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. HRC. Yeah.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And I think one of the things that'll be interesting to find out and I think, Miriam, is it right that we have HRC coming back here at some point, or is that just not yet been scheduled?

[Miriam (Committee Assistant)]: It's been there

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: When? Next week? In the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: week after? Okay. We're we've talked about having the Human Rights Commission in here for a budget discussion because we're gonna have, if you think about it, the Human Rights Commission, DHCD, those are the entities whose budgets who else? Said up to BHCB. Rachel Whoever we have subject matter jurisdiction over, whatever agency, we need to kind of be up to date on their budget, and we've asked people on this committee to be liaisons and find that out, but we've gotta have them in here at some point before we write our letter. So Emilie's desire for a discussion of priorities, I I I concur with, and we will have. We just need information. And I have to confess, I haven't had the time to read, even know really what the administration's budget proposal contains with respect to all of these agents.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I'm sure yeah. And I'm sure the agencies will let us know.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. I think so. Well, we already know, for example, that one issue is DHCD wants very much that VHIP VHIP's budget be put as face rather than one time, for example. That's a really and it will probably be in the administration's budget. We have to decide how we feel about it.

[Speaker 0]: Wanna know how I feel about that? I was just gonna

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. What we're gonna do now is adjourn for lunch, and then we're gonna come back at 01:00 in a joint hearing with OutConverts to discuss a walk through and then some testimony on eight seven seventy five, which is the Rural Housing Initiative film. Thank you, everybody, and we are adjourned