Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Thank you. Welcome back, everyone. It is 02:32 forty, and it is still Tuesday, 03/10/2026, and you are still watching the House General and Housing Committee. And we are taking up page four fifty nine. I am going to, first of all, welcome our August Legislative Counsel for Labor, Sophie Batney, who will testify in a moment. Sophie, you want to spell out your name for the record, and then I'm going pose a question to you.

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Sophie Batney for the Office of Legislative Counsel.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Thank you, Sophie. So, in order to kind of move things along here, I'm going to pose a question that comes from various people's hopes, concerns, issues around this bill. And I posed this question to counsels off the record, and now I want to pose it on the record, because I think it's important for us to face up to it. The question I posed is, is it possible to frame this bill such that in the situation where an individual worker is eligible both for workers' comp because they've been injured on the job and for Vermont FVFLA, Vermont

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Parental Family

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Parental Family Leave, P. F. L. A. Is it possible for us to frame this law so that it is up to the employee whether or not the two run contemporaneously or just to reserve their PFLA for a later time, if they should need it. Sophie, you want to respond to that question? Or not? Perhaps you want to tell me that, no, I don't want to.

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I did listen to the other testimony that you've had in committee, including from the attorney general's office, civil rights unit. I concur with what Julio testified to, which is that under the FMLA- That's the federal medical leave act. Once an employer has enough information for them to believe that an individual's workers compensation injury also qualifies as a serious health condition under the FMLA, they are then required to start the FMLA clock. And as Julio testified, there hasn't been any state of Vermont decisions on that in terms of the parental and family leave act. I think if the legislature goes down this path, it's possible that the law could be challenged and it could raise some preemption issues in terms of what the federal law requires. Generally speaking, the employees get the benefit of whatever is the most protective, most generous provisions. And I think there are valid arguments that the FMLA, there are employee benefits under the FMLA that's an incentive to require employees to provide the leave concurrently. So for example, the continuation of healthcare benefits with a twelve week period, the reinstatement rights are stronger. So those are grounds that at the federal level is why employers are required to run the FMLA concurrently with workers' compensation. Now the Parental and Family Leave Act is more generous than the FMLA, so it applies in different situations. So for purposes of where there's a discrepancy between the FMLA and the PFLA, it could be that if you had that employee choice requirement, it would apply in those places where the PFLA is more generous than the FMLA. I think it's getting awfully complicated for employers to manage the different feedbacks, so as a practical matter, that could be One question and then I'm going turn it

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: to you. In the requirement that they run at the PFOA run contemporaneously with workers' comp, assuming dual qualification, Is that in statute or in, where is that in federal law?

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: At the federal level? It's under the Code of Federal Regulations, and then there are opinion letters issued by the Federal Department of Labor on interpreting the regulations. So that is sort of generally understood. It's not explicit in the statute itself. But

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: it's regulatory. Right. And by case law, not judicial case law, but

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: administrative case law. Right, under the Department of Labor, the US Department of Labor, under opinion letters that they put out on the FMLA. Do

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: those opinion letters, are they just opinion letters, suis pante, or excuse me, their own, issued on their own? Or are they in response to administrative litigation?

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Typically, there'll be an inquiry to the Department of Labor, like this is a scenario, how would the Department of Labor interpret it? And then there'll be a detailed response, and

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: then it'll say, this is limited to the fact

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: that So it's an advisory letter in this situation.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: So, it's a combination of administrative rules and advisory letters by the Department of Labor.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Man, it really helps having a lawyer as a chair or something.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: That

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: One

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: of the

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: stuck out was that they were made unaware sometimes if they were That was interesting. Remember that? How the employees were unaware that they were either in What's your opinion or the committee, that piece? What about that?

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Employees are required to notify employees.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Yeah, didn't like that unaware.

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: They are required. And if you don't, you can bring a claim of the FMLA interference with FMLA.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Okay. So what they experienced with that is not allowed. Right. That's not a bill that we would or legislating. That's not allowed. That was a part of it that was really striking to me as one of the big problem of it. So, that's something that they should be bringing those claims forward then. You can't give them legal advice, I can.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: But how will they grant that claim for it?

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: If you find out that your employer has considered your leave to be covered by the FMLA and you were never notified about it, that's considered an interference with your right to take FMLA. So you can file a claim for that and you would I don't

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: like that for them.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: A claim to who?

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: For litigation, you can file a civil action over that. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Yes, you had your hand up.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: Yeah, I'm not allowed.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: It's not good.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Debbie? I mean, we just had testimony that legal aid is backed up.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Yeah. Human Rights Commission.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: We don't enforce a law in Vermont. Yeah. Right. So it's

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: Thomas. Just from understanding. They have to they are on FMLA, an additional workers' comp, they have to inform the employee. Okay? There also seem to be in the impression that if they are on workers' comp for a serious illness or injury that it's automatic. And I can see where the confusion lies that they if their understanding is, yes, serious injury. Therefore, it is in motion. They I'm wondering how many of them just don't realize you're supposed to tell the employee anyways. They think it's Yes. Probably a lot of

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: From my experience, there are a lot of employers who have no idea what labor law is asking them to do. Just like a little anecdote that I can share is that, so every employer is supposed to have a labor law poster. And I will never not have a subscription because both state and federal laws change all the time when it comes to labor law. And I have had several employers say, Why can't I just go online and print it off one time a year? It's just, there's not the understanding. A lot of employers have their industry, like that is their bailiwick. I mean, we've heard testimony that 90% of Vermont businesses have under 10 employees. So they are focused on their industry. They're not necessarily focused on the industry of human resources, labor law, anything like that. I'm not saying that employers are bad, I'm just saying I think there is an education disconnect on what is in statute and how that works in the workforce. Unfortunately,

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: candidly, problem with the people who spoke, it's not a small company. So that's annoying to me or whatever. But anyway, unrelated to the bill. I have a question related to the bill. And I'll share with the committee. I everyone knows me. Labor love labor bills, love labor queen. I have some concerns that this bill and where it's at now might have some unintended consequences for workers. Is there someone smarter than me either in the committee or you if you're able to? Do you could you articulate is that allowed? Like, don't I don't I don't know. Can someone I can't form I didn't have enough time to formulate those that discussion, but it's my understanding that there could be some unintended consequences for workers if we pass this bill like this.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Right now, the bill I'm gonna just pile on.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Right

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: now, the draft of the bill says it prohibits Stubble County, correct? And I raised the issue of what about making it up to the employee? And you said, I'm just confirming, you said in either case, you're really courting the possibility of litigation for that those interpretations of PFLA would be contrary to Labor, Department of Labor regulations and opinions under the FMLA, that we could try to separate the PFLA from the Vermont law from the federal law, but that that would be a very complex thing for purposes of employers, and that even then we could get litigation questioning or arguing that the federal law trumps the state law. Am I saying that's right?

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right, I think there's a risk that the law could be challenged by employers if it passed as is, as being preempted. I also think there's a valid point to be made in terms of it being Gayle, I think, to a sensitive. Charlton's point, I mean, it's already incredibly complicated for employers. So if you pass the bill as drafted, arguably to the extent that PFLA is more protective than FLA, the you might have an argument that that's a place where an employer could not double count, but again, it's just layers and layers of onions excuse me to sort of get through what I thought it would be.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: Think, one, I want to thank Sophie for the time and the energy and the research you've put into this, because I think this conversation started last year as we kind of heard about it, it brought up some questions. I think we still have a lot of those questions. But for me personally, I think I, I mean, we are at crossover, I would much rather spend our time talking about, kind of going back to an earlier testimony, completely unrelated, when Kim came in and said that these types of issues are really on the shoulder of those experiencing discrimination or it's complaint driven. And I think as an individual on the committee, I would much rather see the committee spend the time trying to get into the minutiae of what we can actually do to help that issue of complaints happen, how come it's taking so much time? Or this is already not okay, how did this happen? Why did this happen? I'm not asking this of you, Sophie, but how we move forward to make workplaces a better place.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: That's what I'd like to do to tee this up. Let me tee this up this way. I'm going to say this when I am hearing and pose a question to the committee. Okay. In a little bit, we're going to, towards the end of the day, talk about, well, gee, we've got a few days left, but how do we want to spend it? And I'm going to tee up that I'm hearing not this. What I'm hearing is that we've done a lot of work, right? We've become knowledgeable. We've heard testimony. Our lawyers heard the testimony. Our lawyers looked into it further, and they're really open questions that are unresolved. And I would rather I'm gonna not talk about myself. Let me just say I'm posing to the committee. Should we just let this bill, despite all the work that we do, should we just let this bill lie for now and take up the issues it raises next term, not this term? There's questions of preemption, there's questions whether we could even do what I thought we wanted to do. I don't think we have to, you know, I put this in consultation with the vice chair and ranking member and Miriam. I put this again on the calendar to talk about and make a decision, and this was just markup, but I'm really wondering whether we should just let this go. So, I'm asking the committee, what's your wish? I

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: with your Well, I guess you kind of You remain Switzerland, but you proposed a question based on your analysis of the temperature that

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: we're in. The federal law.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Yes. Thank you.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: I have done this before in previous years. I will make a commitment if reelected that I and the lead sponsors, if they're not here I'm happy to work on this over the break time and get some more questions answered and bring it back. Like, I do think this was a good It wasn't a waste. We learned a lot, and it's important for our committee to do that. But I think, again, even me, who's like, let's do all the labor, I think that I'm concerned that there could be some issues that I don't know about, and I think passing a bill is a big deal, and I don't want to do something that could be harmful.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: Yes, Elizabeth. Oh, I was gonna just

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: gonna say that, we couldn't have known about those issues had we not embarked on that inquiry. Right? Absolutely.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: For a

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: reason that it's not. That's what I mean.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Yeah. No. The journey was was a good journey with all of us.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Other people, how do you feel about letting this go for now? I mean, I'm asking. Ashley, you seem to be saying that's where you were headed. Yes. Others?

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Yeah, I'm in favor of

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: Yeah, I don't know how to resolve all of these questions this week.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Today. We're gonna call it. Impossible note.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: You know, my view is to hell with the litigation risk. No, actually, I don't feel like. We're alive. I did want to ask one question of you. Do you, if you're free to say, is there a companion bill on this in the Senate?

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No, there's not.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Okay, alright. So if we drop it everybody, we're dropping it for this term.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Well, doesn't the Senate? There's other bills.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Yeah, if someone, again, we're gonna have our priorities discussion, if someone in the committee comes out and is like, I love this, you know, then

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Well, yeah, there will be probably senate bills that come to us, and if we learn something more that we could attach this to, we will, or we can't, and will you commit that you'll keep on this? Also, Sophie, I know you just have all the time in the world. I'm just wondering, do you feel like there's any more research you need to do if we wanted to consider revisiting this in the context of another bill, or at this point, you know what you can know?

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Think I know what's available right now, so I have spent an extensive amount of time trying to figure out at the federal level if it's required, and it does seem to be, that wasn't how I initially read the Code of Federal Regulations, but it does seem to be generally understood. There is a Department of Labor opinion letter that seems to echo that, and again, would also be respectful of what Julio Thompson testified to. There are unknowns in terms of if you do it, given the PFLA is different to the FMLA, could that mean that there's some avenue there? I think one of the challenges, and to representative Krasnow saying, I mean, the unintended consequences, I think particularly the health insurance piece is significant, the reinstatement rates aren't as strong, So again, an employee may think this is desirable to have it not run concurrently and not realize that there are actually some significant negatives to doing that. And again, an individual, agree it may make perfect sense, but collectively I think the potential for unintended consequences for employees is challenging.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: One more thing, sorry, I'm really on a roll today. And let me be, I want to be 100% clear and for the record that what those folks have experienced and what they have experienced with not all those things are not okay. That's not okay. And I am completely against that. I just think that this needs more time to figure out everything. But if they're listening or whoever, their lived experience was powerful and not okay, what they went through.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Okay, opinion is with the rest of you. I feel that I was really looking forward to moving this because I felt that the obvious compromise was to allow employees to elect whether they wanted them to run contemporary at the same time or not. And now I'm realizing on advice and counsel that that has substantial risks. I So, feel like we're going to have to take a run at this from a different direction. And so I'm okay with just leaving this, and we'll adjust Miriam accordingly. And I'm hearing that that's the sense of the committee, I think.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Think

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: that this is my decision. Well thank you. But I don't care. I think it's the committee's. I'm delegating it to the committee and I am reflecting the committee's decision to let this lie. Okay. Sophie, a thousand thank yous.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: You haven't heard the last of us.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: The next item up, and actually we're almost on time,

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: is

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: an act relating to crime victim status under FIBA. And at this point, we have one witness who is the Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs for the AG's office, Saudia, join us.

[Todd Delos, Assistant Attorney General]: This is really helpful.

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: I I

[Todd Delos, Assistant Attorney General]: think one of those in the world.

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: Good afternoon. Thank you

[Todd Delos, Assistant Attorney General]: for having me. My name is Todd Delos. I am an assistant attorney general with the Vermont attorney general's office.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Todd, welcome again. Do not assume that people remember what 8087 is. So

[Todd Delos, Assistant Attorney General]: I will join you in that only in the sense that I brought a lot of papers with me for a number of other pieces of testimony, and as I sat down to pull out my notes on eight eighty seven, I realized that that folder is definitely sitting on my desk each billion, which is fine because this is a very simple, short and sweet piece of legislation. And I think a very useful exercise in kind of carrying through work that this committee performed last session. So to orient you, this is really about SafeLeave. So SafeLeave was a piece of legislation passed, I think it's Act 32, passed last session, that provided the ability for individuals who have been survivors or victims of domestic and intimate partner sexual violence or stalking to access leave under certain specific categories. And they can demonstrate their right to that leave through a number of different processes, including self attestation. They can get something signed by a provider. They can get lots of different ways to demonstrate. So that's great.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Under which law? The PFLA. Yes. Thank you. And

[Todd Delos, Assistant Attorney General]: that was the most important work in this space. What we recognized, and it's our folks in the civil rights unit recognized, is that there's now a little bit of an incongruity between your ability to access leave because you can demonstrate you're a victim or survivor and your protection under FEPA, the Fair Employment Practices Act or FEPA, protecting you from discrimination, from adverse employment actions, from harassment. So those are protect, one is a privilege, right? Your ability to access, not really privilege to write, to access safely if you've done that. This is requesting that the same language that you can use to access your own belief is mirrored in your protections from harassment, discrimination, or some kind of adverse employment action. And so what eight eighty seven does is take the language from the safe leave that you passed and simply add it to the definitions only for survivors and victims of domestic violence, sexual violence or stalking. That says you can be protected and demonstrate your right to that protection by these various different means. So again, it's just congruent.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: Ashley? Two things. One, thank you for being so flexible with this committee, because I know I know you have been bumped around quite a bit on this. And thank you for bringing it to our attention. I think this is incredibly important. I remember when FIBA came up and that this was a change. I remember being at a conference and everyone, like this was the only thing that everyone was talking about. And it had nothing to do with the conference. And so, I mean, just again, thank you for bringing it to our attention. Just again, maybe it's all about me today in my head, but this is something that I think is really important, and I do think it's an easy fix.

[Todd Delos, Assistant Attorney General]: Yeah, really appreciate you giving in time and attention so late in the session and providing an avenue. I think the committee is aware there is a companion in the Senate. Their language got changed

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: a little bit

[Todd Delos, Assistant Attorney General]: in committee. We prefer the language in August, which is why I'm here. We think it's a better, more appropriate access point. I'm happy to explain a little bit more, but it seems like this is a committee well versed in this space, so

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: I don't want to worry about that. For the committee's understanding where we are with this bill, we don't have a copy with a credit card in front of us. Tomorrow at 10:15, it's on the agenda for discussion and vote, potential vote, and we will have a copy to everybody then. There questions that people have of Todd? Yes.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: No, but Todd can listen to my statement. No, I'm just kidding. Thanks, Todd. I really appreciate, as the lead sponsor of the last bill, I feel like when we're in the legislature, things come up, and I really appreciate your office and the network bringing this to our attention. As we talk a little bit later, as a committee, this is a priority bill for me. And I would like to see our committee pass out our bill regardless of what the other chamber does. So, will be advocating for that, and I appreciate your testimony.

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: Thank you for sponsoring.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: And the work that your office does.

[Todd Delos, Assistant Attorney General]: It's civil rights unit.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: It's really Yeah, thank you.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Other questions of Todd? Okay, we are going to do is bring this up again. We will provide everybody a copy of the bill, although of course it's on the website, but we will have a printed copy of the bill, have final discussion and vote tomorrow. Any final questions at Todd? Okay, thank you Todd. Thank you so much for taking the time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Having sped through our calendar.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: I know,

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: are we done?

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Certainly or not.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Oh, I'm just joking. Oh, I didn't look.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Oh! Okay, so we only have one other item actually, which is a discussion of priorities. And it isn't priorities writ large, everybody. It's not like we're asking you, what do you really care about? What we're talking about is, we have a little bit of time left in the week and how do we use it?

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Wait, Marc, when you weren't here maybe where I gave the committee homework.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: What do do? Did they do it?

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: I don't know. To make up a room. Oh, it was to look at the ball, Tom remembers, and say what you want.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Okay. So, I'm going to lay out some possibilities and have a discussion. Okay? So, to clarify, already scheduled, right, that is, it's on the schedule, it's eight sixty one, the Disability Act Coordinator. And what I am proposing to do there, you heard the testimony today, I'm proposing to give some suggestions for paring it down a little bit on what their duties are and how many people you talk to, give it to the author of the bill, who happens to be on the committee, ask her to get in touch with Katie and produce a next draft for us to have. Yes? Can I ask a question of the committee or slash author of the bill? One,

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: they have already sent us the slides that

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: we have asked for. Would

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: it make sense in the bill to change the language to, or to include ableism, but also just to make sure that we have, like, would the right term be disability coordinator? I just want to make sure

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: we're Coordinator of individuals with disabilities.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: It is totally the way it's in the bill is the correct

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: I figured it. I just want

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: to get it passed. That's why the certification is in there. Okay. So Perfect.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: So a 61 is on the way back. It will come back to us in the form of a revision to the bill so that we can discuss it and vote it up or down. Okay? 459, we just let go. Okay. To be continued. To be continued. Right. Yeah. To be continued. 887 is the crime victim status bill, which we just heard. Okay. And it's coming back to us tomorrow. So, are just a few. I went through all of those bills on the wall. And I read them. And it was interesting to do. I don't regret it. And I asked myself, What could we do, what could we possibly do that would be meaningful, that we actually could do within a day or so, you know, that was not crazy to try to undertake? Having learned that everything I think is controversial has at least a little controversy in it. And this committee's appetite for detail is amazing. And also, things that might not necessarily have to go to every other committee under the sun. So, I didn't come up with a lot, actually. That kind of eliminated most of it, but I'll tell you the ones I came up with. Oh, and I eliminated ones that are fundamentally just appropriations, that is, there's nothing but appropriations. I'll give you an example of that. Seven zero four is a bill that takes the legal aid pilots that's existing and extends it. There's nothing in the bill except an appropriation, and my feeling there is the place for that is the Appropriations Committee. 01/1972, I can go over these, but 172 is, you may remember last year we talked about, that's pretty early, it's like going back in the universe to ancient days, that was last year. Oh my god. Okay? 01/1972 said, you know, we have not looked at the law on common interest subdivisions, condominiums forever, and it's not very well spelled out in this state compared to a lot of states and we have to look at it. We never did it, but a certain member of our committee introduced 172, have you forgotten?

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Never.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: 172, which is simply creates a common interest common interest subdivision resource center and parks it at the secretary of state just to develop a website.

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Mhmm.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: And so that's one bill.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: And so that people have the most Remember

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: how we

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: were just talking about, like, the labor stuff, like the most current and up to date, like, changes in HOA knowing because you have a bunch of people who are running these HOAs, often seniors, people, whatever, they don't even know where to go or answer questions.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Okay. So, it was asserted by the author of the bill that it wouldn't take money. It's just too simple to do. I think we could do that if we wanted, and we would probably have the Secretary of State come in and someone else who was an advocate of it.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Yeah, I mean, no one's going to die without it, but if we're looking for things.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Okay, well, I'm just saying, there's an example of a bill. Another an example of a bill that I thought was interesting, but I didn't think we could handle was whether we extend the PFLA to teachers who are excluded at the moment. And the reason is that it's not that I don't think that's an interesting idea. It's just I just know I can see in my head now all the witnesses we'd have to hear from, and we just you know, it's the last week of the session. We don't have time for that. I'm just using that as an example of a bill that I think is an interesting bill, but we're gonna have, like, five, seven witnesses on that. Another is I want to use Did you hear anything from Marc on the overtime bill? I inquired of labor about where the bill is on extreme temperature, to bring up what I know is a favorite bill from some To members of the refresh the memory of the committee, I took the liberty of explaining to various labor advocates that the only way a bill like that could even come off the wall was if we got back a draft from the advocates that had temperatures that made fencing Vermont that were truly extreme in Vermont and that eliminated the paperwork. Because there were just reports. We have small employers in Vermont, we don't have as many large institutional employers. For various reasons, I have not heard anything back that would lead me to believe, to recommend to you to take that off the wall. I have asked for it three or four times, and I haven't heard anything back. If I do in the next day, I've given them one more chance, I will tell you know, and we can do that. But otherwise, I hesitate to take time with that because do you remember what happened is that it was a short form bill. We asked Sophie to draft a long form bill. She did, and it was patterned after the federal law, and it was problematic in in the in the committee, and that's why I spoke with labor and said, I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying here's what it would take. For example, in the bill, as I remember, if temperatures were over 40 under 40 degrees, that was very cold. I've asked whether what if it was only covered employers over 50 employees? And I just haven't gotten any feedback at all on this. I just I've asked. I don't want to name names. I've talked to numerous people about

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: it, and

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: I'm just saying, so I'm not advocating them. One of the things that I thought is really interesting, I gave you all a copy of a conference that Elizabeth and Ray Garfonen and I went to the Council on Local Government's Annual Housing Conference, which Ashley went to last year and recommended highly. So I actually went, which is why I wasn't there Friday. And I have to say, I really don't like conferences, because the rate of learning in a conference is, shall we say, it's not a particularly dense way of acquiring information. But this conference, there were only about 40 people there.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Oh wow, including presenters.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Presenters. Wow, yeah. They were from all legislators, like us. Many of them were housing committee members or chairs of housing committees, etc. The level of conversation was really high. Anyway, I mean, enough I'm even thinking, and it was just the East Coast, you know, New York and North, kind of, and also the Virgin Islands and Quebec. Anyway Maryland. Oh, and Maryland, yeah.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: It was the housing Maryland, Connecticut. Yeah, great.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: So anyway, it was good. One of the issues, a whole section on it, was the whole issue of private equity and institutional investors in housing. And there are people who are studying this intensely. At the moment it's becoming a quite intense problem in urban areas, in the sense that, like in some urban areas, 25% of the housing has been acquired by private equity. They made the point that institutional investors are different than private equity. Institutional investors like BlackRock. They're publicly traded, everything is public, it's easy to find out what they're doing. Private equity is pretty much a black box, not because they design it that way, it just is that way. It's their secret. And not only that, I as a real estate person know that when you are private equity, every single project that you do has its own corporation. You create a corporation because that's the only way you can get banks to lend to you. They don't wanna be mixed up with some other project you do, they just wanna do it that project. So private equity tends to do each acquisition under a separate corporation, and it's very hard to track

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Sell companies.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Yeah, but that implies blame, and I'm not even blaming them, it's just the way they do business. And so it's very hard to track it down, but we heard testimony from people who are doing that. There's a whole center at Rutgers that's working on it, and it's becoming a big problem. So we have a bill, six zero seven, on this subject, and it is not a it's again by one of the members of our committee, guess who? And it is not a short form bill. It is a bill that has substance to it. So, we do not have time to pass such a bill in this session. It's just too complicated, but we could hold hearings and highlight the issue. We could, we have the time to hold hearings on this subject and have a bunch of people in here to talk about it. And I'm just wondering whether, I'm just wondering out loud, whether that isn't something worthwhile because it will set up the issue for next term and give this committee kind of a knowledge base, all this information is public, signal to everybody that it's a serious thing to think about in Vermont. So, obviously, I wouldn't have been blithering on this long if I didn't think that was an attractive option, which frankly, when I started this perusal of this list of ours, it hadn't occurred to me. But when I went to the conference and read everything, it occurred to me that that's an option. So, those are

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: That's your list.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: That's my list. There is want to just talk about the Marcotte Bill and where it is?

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: The Marcotte Bill is the bill allowing, disallowing? It's the municipal

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Taking municipal employees and municipal legislators out of overtime?

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: We had an introduction. We're getting some more information. Municipal legislators. Yeah, legislators, like town Like municipal employees. Represent. Yeah.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Not elected employees. Elected officials. Yeah. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: And it was for league once, and I and what I said was, I didn't I asked Marcotte if it was important. And Marcotte said, yeah, it is important. The league really wants it. And I asked our vice chair, since I don't know nothing about it, to at least look into Vice

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: chair is getting more information.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: To get more information on this issue. Hot, cold. Oh, yeah, one more. One of your favorite issues, short term rentals. Okay. We have a bill on our wall. It's a vehicle. We could use it. There are two realistic possibilities. This is my spin, okay, That is realistically, like, would have a chance at passage. One. A 1% additional tax. That will go to ways and means. But the second that I was thinking was interesting and turned out to be a dead end was whether we could have a short term rental registry of short term rentals to give us more data and not of everything, term rental registry. Didn't we do

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: we did that last biennium or last last session. We didn't do that last session. We did? Or maybe we gave the No. Combined We gave municipalities the ability Yeah. To

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Right, but we didn't this would but hear me out. So the idea of a statewide short term rental registry, and I thought, it turned out erroneously, that what attracted me about that idea is that the short term rental alliance, when they testified before us, I thought that they testified that they favored such a registry, and the reason they did is they believed that the right kind of registry would reveal that short term rentals were not the problem that everybody was asserting they were, perhaps. So I spoke over the weekend to the president of the Short Term Rental Alliance, and she said that what she meant was, or what their position was, is that they would support a statewide rental registry for all types of rentals, including short term rentals, because that way over time we could determine whether things were converted. But that she wasn't talking about something that was just short term rentals. I agree, we should do a rental registry. And I feel like it's been absolutely clear that anything that's a short term rental registry across the board would be detailed. So I didn't pursue it further. Now I have said everything. What is the pleasure of the committee? Tom, I

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: just wanted to say something about the private equity thing, which I learned during the off session last year. That was the Urban Institute did a really remarkable study, and we have nothing to do with urban things in our state. But they did a study on the impact of private equity firms on I think I might have told you this. In Cleveland, Ohio, a private equity firm bought up all the housing in one neighborhood with the purpose of closing the school. So they bought up all of the housing and then they devalued the housing so that they could close the school. They then closed the school and then they were able to eject the property. Like, they are doing things like that, which is really sinister, actually. But they're having that kind of an impact, not just on housing, not just on education, but also on, kind of manipulation of a city a a city neighborhood or, you know, think about the impact on the whole city of manipulating who is able to live there and why.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: We the the evidence produced there were, like, three three people. The evidence produced was this is a growing issue at the moment. It tends to be focused in certain areas and that areas where private equity has major ownership, the eviction rate is four times higher.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Oh, dang.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: But I'm not advocating one side or the other of this. I just wanted to mention that that was there. I have heard from somebody in this committee, I don't know who, I have heard somewhere that in fact private equity, that private companies purchasing housing in Vermont, that that is occurring and that the housing is being left vacant. But I don't know if that's happening. And I think we would obviously have to get to the bottom of that.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: And what is happening is that

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: corporations are talking about commercial.

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The truth. Had questions come up about equity at and after town meetings.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Oh, good.

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: People were asking about it. So it's where they're thinking, and I think it would be appropriate to pursue it further instead of up to the next session.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: And I would never want to put words in Joe's mouth, Bet

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: you're gonna.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: But not There's no quite

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: way you can pick from.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: He is he also has interest in the topic. What I was saying to someone outside today is this is a topic for the people. People want to talk about it, they're interested in it, and so when we have the hearing, we're going to see who's going to testify it, but I'm just saying, it's something people wanna talk about.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: I would like to say that if we were to address this issue, that it is my feeling that our state treasury should not be investing in private equity firms that buy up student housing within the state of Vermont. Which it does.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: I have worked on this bill for a few years now. So I have talked to the treasurer's office about the bill and asked them to engage in the conversations they did not. But for folks, if they're here next session, that's certainly, I agree, something that I'd like them to engage on. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: But I did offer.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: So what are I don't wanna monopolize Yeah. Okay. I I just think we I came can up with this, the resource center is this? A minute. And yeah. So what we would be working on is 919 oh, no. Excuse me. 887, 861, possibly 172, and then this, if Marcott's bill turns out to be important. So I get others to see things they want to take up from the wall that they feel like are really important to them.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: I'm just gonna put a quick plug that although I know you don't want discuss seven zero four, I just was pulling it up to see what the appropriation in it was, and there wasn't a number attached. There was not a number attached. I know,

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: but it wasn't.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Yeah, it just says pending. And given the passage of seven seventy two out of this committee, I think it would behoove us to have a similar conversation around expanding the programs that are provided to landlord tenant mediation and the pilot program, which is at which to rectify that situation. So if we're going to expedite the eviction process, I think we should also expand the pilot process. So that's just my little plug. It's just, I feel like that would balance things out in my opinion. As a government, I feel like if you're gonna take something away, you should have resources available. And so, I think that would balance for me, but

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Well, actually, I do want to comment on that. I actually agree. I felt I have to go and testify before house appropriations Thursday on seven seventy two. And, of course, what they care about is what's in the money side. What I think what I was planning to say, I know it's out there, is that what's not in the bill is a million dollars for legal aid over two years, and that it didn't make it into the bill. In other words, we didn't what's in the bill is a million dollars for back rental assistance. $200,000 for CVOEO to mount a statewide tenant landlord course on rights, remedies, obligations. Dollars 100,000 for the treasurer to administer the credit reporting pilot program so that people can have positive credit. And then finally, 600,000 for CDOEO, no, for the state that goes to the CAP programs to have people who do landlord tenant assistance, both for landlords and tenants, mediation, etcetera. I was planning to say what's not in there, we just didn't put it in there, but is that there's a pilot program for legal aid, and that we had the bill on our wall, there was no amount put in it, but I have heard from legal aid it's 1,060,000, and that if they wanted to put that in the budget, I personally would strongly support it. That was It's mediation

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: No, it's for tenant representation.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: And for the, the reason why I was interested in this is because it was a pilot for two specific locations. I'm not biased because it's Lamoille, because it was also Windsor. But I would just like to hear results. We don't often hear the results of the things that were happening. And so if we implemented this pilot, I think going forward, it would be helpful to hear testimony on how did that pilot work out as we're looking forward in moving forward in whatever landlord tenant laws are going forward, we should see, okay, we tried this thing.

[Deborah “Debbie” Dolgin, Member]: Did it work?

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Did it work? Let's hear some testimony. Would just, that was my 2¢. I was just like, it was a pilot. And I think it was successful. We've heard some stuff from legal aid, but we didn't hear from the county specifically who implemented it, how that impacted them and their

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: communities. Who do we would hear from?

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Real quick. The agency's plot. So, the 1,250,000.00 is to continue the pilot. Right. But to expand to additional.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: That's a lot.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: That's a lot more. That would be to expand to additional. So it would be continuing the pilot in just those counties again is the 1.25.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Yeah, 1.01.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Well, no. But that's what seven zero four was, to not have it. Be

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Right. But I'm saying the appropriation that we delayed Requested. After we asked them what the appropriation was, the 1.025 is just to continue in those counties. They would need an If they want to expand, they would need a lot more. And so you can imagine if it's that much for two counties, how much I don't can't do the math. So, but you're saying that you'd like to hear, like, how the I'm curious about We the

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: could try to fit that in, just to have testimony in. I think we want to focus it, not just have legal aid in,

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: but have somebody From the two From

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: the two

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: counties. Reporting agencies. I mean

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Okay. Other priorities, because what I'm going do is take everything everybody says and we're going to put out our schedule. Yes. Well,

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: I'm not shy about saying that. I think that I would really like to pass the ADA bill out of committee. I'm realistic about what the appropriations process has been like, what I've read. I get that. But year after year, this has been something that folks have advocated for. Today's testimony was so powerful and important. And what really struck me, though, is this bill is just a starting point to keep up with learning about It's not doing prevention or any of that even. This is like the floor of what we could do and promote. So, like, our values, both as people and a committee, putting that bill out, whether its journey continues, but I think is so overdue to even just get So for me, that would be a top priority. And I think we're there. And then also, I've mentioned, and folks don't have to agree with me on this, I would not want to just rely on, oh, the Senate will do it to the crime victim line. I think when we work on a bill and our committee worked amazing together to do the bill that we did last session, And it's been working. Like, I get emails from people who about the safe leave, thanking us for that. And so there was an issue that was flagged. And I think that I would really like it if our committee would close that loophole so that we can fix it. And so that's my second priority. And then third for me is no secret over the last few years. Again, I'm realistic about our timing, but people in my community want to talk about what institutional investors, private equity, and have that conversation. And I would love to go back to them over against it's not a break because we're well, no, we're still technically elected, too. So we're going back to our communities. And I'm still working, and I would like to talk to my neighbors.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Listen, we're about to have all these Senate bills land in our lives.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Oh, God. Anyway, so those are my three. Realistic about the private equity, I would have loved, but it's a big lift. But I think it's also tripartisan. Like, people want to talk about it. I've had a lot of people from all parties come up to me, they're also having this conversation in the health care committee. So it's just a spicy hot topic, and I think we could have a chat about it with a couple witnesses. Spicy hot topic. Anyway, those are my three. Disability, crime victim, hearing on private equity.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: I'm hearing that plus seven zero four.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Oh yeah, and I'm curious how the pilot's working.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Anything else, guys? Okay, we have what we need to put together.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: What our other

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: people are sharing.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: Tom? Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: That's one I don't

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: ask about while I was No, I didn't. Mary E.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Gail. Oh, I have to look through so far, but Go

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: ahead. I mean, we, you know, it's worth doing. And also, I will, if things change with respect to Marcotte, if they change with respect to extreme temperatures, I've asked for stuff. I will let you know.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: There happens to be while I was sitting here, I got a text there's an article in Digger about extreme temperature bill today.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Timely. Yeah. Anyway, so that

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Okay. Thank you everyone. We will produce Okay, won't go offline. Just on this.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: So, real quick, I did I was scheduled to introduce 09:05 last Friday and I didn't get to do that. Is it tomorrow? Yeah. It's

[Sophie Batney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's been removed. I

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: saw it on me.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: It's on me. Stops for a second, two seconds. You cannot pass the by, so I'm going to whisper. What

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: I was about to say is, what we are going to do is get together with Mary and just fill up the time we've got

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: in draft form, okay? And

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: then give it back to everybody. Yes.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: So, it can happen whenever you want.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Okay, thank you. It's going to happen.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: It will happen.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: I was just, because that was one that I think is a low hanging fruit that we could get in if y'all care to look at it before I do my deduction. Is it? It's a civil rights bill, short form, prohibited acts of public accommodations under housing practices, discrimination, hate crimes and such. So basically what it does is it aligns and integrates the protections that, you know, for titles nine, thirteen and twenty one. So it's just to bring everything in alignment up to date so the language is there. It's sort of what, it's the very Vermont thing we do where we pass legislation that makes a statement more than it has protections, but it's a statement. And I think it's a very relevant and timely statement and a powerful statement nonetheless. And so that was another thing that I wanted to add on and I wanted to offer a suggestion as a way for us to get through. If we want to do the private equity, I mean, we've done the hearings, the public hearings. I mean, if it's a public conversation- Oh, it's not. It's not. Well, okay. Because I was going to say, people, I feel like we get more people to come and testify when we host the public hearings And people come in and they sign up and they do those round robins, as opposed to, I feel like we get so much more testimony, more efficient testimony. And it's just so, I feel like those are so much better than when we have one person come in and do this. You know what I'm talking about? Like when we go to the pavilion and we host a public hearing, post it online, post it in the newspaper and people can sign up to testify. I think if we're gonna talk about like a conversation that's like a public conversation and do it in a meaningful way. Like let's host a public hearing and let people sign up to testify, give them their two minutes, five, whatever, five minutes. And we round robin it right through the five minutes. I I feel like that's so much more efficient. I feel like we get really good chance. We did it with the labor, sorry. It was great in

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: the labor and state.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: It's only not that many, like when we did the constitutional amendment, only like four people came.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: But the thing is that I would think that would be really hard to do during crossover.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Yeah, that's true.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: It has to be done outside of the workday

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: so that people can have a chance to And on which bill did you meet? On the one that you're

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: No, on the public equity.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Oh, sure. I love that. Well, if we're not taking it up anyway.

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: Well, that's what I'm saying. You know what I mean? If it's a heavy lift. If it's a heavy let's get public testimony on the record market.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: I don't

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: know how we do that.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: They're advocating, saying that the private equity housing want to open up to the public.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Yeah, feeling is we should definitely do that, but when we have, after we have a bill. Yeah. I mean, think that now Well, you have

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: a

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: few But I mean, bill that we've

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Oh, done that through we're doing. So next session maybe.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: I see that later, somewhat later in No, the I agree with So that's why all we can do this now, let's not get, I don't want to try to promise more than we can deliver. All we can do this week is have a walkthrough, have some testimony from major players about what it would look like, etcetera. It's an introduction Then if we're interested in pursuing it, we have to tee up to be clear, just so you know, everything on that wall, at the end of this, everything on that wall disappears Friday afternoon.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Well, unless it gets out of the Senate, Why and then

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: would we disappear it?

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: Because if get a good Senate bill, we can

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Yeah, we can do that, excuse me. It disappears at the end of the session. Effectively. Yeah, effectively. But there's really no reason why after crossover, we can't continue to work on things.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: In fact, I forgot that we had talked about, Marc, that after crossover and after we see what kind of bills we have and the capacity from the Senate bills, there were some members, including myself, who had wanted to hear an update on the voluntary paid leave conversation and have a couple people come in to talk about how that's working.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: What I'm going to do is I'm going to come back to you. We'll publish a schedule. It's just a schedule. We're kind of booked through noon tomorrow, and then it's about Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: But yeah, have to

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: look at what happens next week after that when we see what comes over to us from the Senate.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: It might not be a lot, but

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Is there anything else, anybody? It is now a quarter of four. Anything else that someone wants to raise? I would love to

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: talk about appeals. Let me

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: just say I'm

[Saudia LaMont, Member]: here with my hotel. Yeah.

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: I

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: can report it Oh, on where to decide

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: okay. Sure.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: So we have drafted an appeals bill. Okay? It is the identical bill that was introduced by Senator Clarkson in the Senate. We took up landlord tenant, they were going to take up appeals. The bill in the Senate went to Senate Environment, and Natural Resources?

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Yeah, Natural Resources.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: I think it's safe to say that that bill, in its form, anything like what we've seen, is not going to pass out of state. Some land use bill is passing out. The question of whether or not that bill has in it, the latest information I have is that it has in it enough reference to appeals, so that we could, if we wanted to, put what we wanted to in it. So, I would say appeals is something that may lie on our horizon.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: But is it coming to us? I don't know. Right, we don't know that.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Yeah, I have to talk to the leadership about that, because the bill in its current form has all kinds of stuff on Act two fifty, which of course goes to environment and housing, which comes to us. So, what's going to happen, I don't know.

[Ashley Bartley, Vice Chair]: Yeah, I'm disappointed.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Yes, Elizabeth and others.

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: If you want me to work on H861 tonight, or if you want me to talk to about weekly. My understanding is that you want both parts, both halves of the panel to be pared down. Was wondering whether it would be a good idea to ask the

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: ADA

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: coordinator to have year one complete this type of analysis of functions, year two expand to these things, if they're knowledgeable, they would get in there and come up with that timeframe on their own.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: I think they'd come up with a, I'm trying to keep it simple. Yeah. That's why. Because I want what's going to happen in appropriations is appropriations will put in the bill, they'll put in all of those. The language that says, x appropriation subject to availability in the budget. Something like that. They have this language they plug in. Okay? Then, they won't the budget. And so they don't have to change the law. Right. Follow what I mean? They can report it out with that one change without endorsing it or not. And I'm trying to make it so that if by some chance we can argue that it should be in the budget, They will I would say the chances of this going into the budget, the base budget are very, very, very, very low. Whereas the chances of it in one time budget are arguable. Think it's an argument that can be made, and I would look forward to making that argument. So I'm trying to keep it simple. In other words, yeah, is it better if it's a full time position that's funded in the base budget and has a plan for what it's going to do all these times? Yeah. If it were to pass, I think we'd want that person in here,

[Elizabeth Burrows, Member]: when appointed, to talk about what their plans are and how they want to phase their work. Or to come and report to the committee or legislature every year.

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: Yeah, well, at the least. But we can have them in. We don't have to be passive. We can be active. Yeah. Anything else? Okay, tomorrow we're going to start at 09:15, okay, and the first thing we're going to have is just a flyby by David Durfee. He has a bill, he moved it over there, that asks the question of whether there should be minimum wage and overtime for agriculture workers. And my understanding is that this committee is considering a version which would just have minimum wage. And he's coming to us as a flyby, which is a chance for us to express any concerns that we have. He's not they're not gonna vote it out tomorrow, but they might vote it out the next day or something, so it's a chance to have input, criticism, whatever, Tom. Okay. And that's when it starts, and then we have some bill introductions,

[Emilie Krasnow, Ranking Member]: we and

[Marc Mihaly, Chair]: move on to eight eighty seven and eight sixty one. Okay. Anything else? We are adjourned.