Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Great. Good morning, everybody. It is roughly 10:15AM on Thursday, March 19. We heard S230 and Act relating to fair employment practices yesterday, but we have representative Durfee in to talk about an idea that came to him through conversations in his committee, and we have Sophie to discuss that. So if you wanna come and sit and walk us through it, that'd be

[Speaker 1]: great. Morning. Representative David Durfee, chair of the House Agriculture, Food, Religion, and Forestry Committee. Thank you for having me back. I was testifying, seems like just yesterday, but it must have been sometime last week, or maybe even before our break, on some legislation that we were looking at in our committee regarding the minimum wage for agriculture workers. And ultimately, that didn't move, that wasn't successful. And part of the reason was a question about the ability of employers, of farmers, to deduct from the wages of an employee an allowance for housing when there was housing provided. So many of our farmers, our dairy farmers particularly, and some of the farmers who grow seasonal crops that require migrant workers, provide housing as benefit for their employees. And as you may remember, there is a, in state law, a fixed amount that is basically a cap on how much the employer can deduct. And when we were looking at the question of minimum wage, there was some confusion about what the law, what current law actually said. And then once we clarified, I think, and were able to understand what the law actually said, then we started focusing more on how much is it that the employer can deduct, and it's not very much. I don't have the dollar figure in front of me, but for a week, it's something less than $40 for an employee who is provided housing. Now, we understand that it's not a hotel room that they're getting, it's not necessarily luxury housing, but it's a roof over people's heads. And the question came up, where does that $40 come from? And is that the right number? So with lunch counsel's assistance, we took a closer look at the statute and understand now, think, and so if you can speak more to this, the law says that, yes, farmers can farmers, first of all, they can deduct an amount from from the wage. So let's let's say there were a minimum wage for farmers, and, again, there isn't. But let's say there were a minimum wage and the farmer paid that wage, it can then deduct this dollar amount, which again is something in the order of $40 a week or less from that wage, from that minimum wage. So they could do that. But but the $40 is currently in state law. It's a combination of statute and and then rules that the Department of Labor was asked to put together long time ago, many years ago. And there's an adjustment, an annual adjustment for inflation, but it's capped. And in any case, here we are today at this point where that number just may not really make any sense. So my suggestion was that if this committee had an opportunity to do so, it might look at asking the Department of Labor to spend some time looking at the formula and then reporting back to the legislature sometime in December and January with any recommendations it might have for updating that. Working with the Agency of Agriculture, which understands that particular sector a little bit, so that we can really just be sure that when we're giving farmers this number, we're giving them a reasonable number, that it makes sense whether or not there's a minimum wage, that the number makes sense. So that's the proposal or sort of the general idea. And as I say, Sophie can probably go into a little more detail on technical questions, but I'm happy to try and answer any.

[Speaker 2]: Go ahead, Jackie.

[Speaker 0]: Do you have a specific number in mind?

[Speaker 1]: No, I don't have the specific number in mind, and rather than toss one out, it seemed like it might be better to have the Department of Labor spend some time thinking about what that number should be. And that would involve perhaps going back and looking, again, this is probably twenty years ago or more, that the original number was set, and I don't know where that number came from. It's been adjusted by inflation, but I don't know. And the department might have a better, more insight into that.

[Speaker 2]: So is the idea to adjust it at a higher rate?

[Speaker 1]: Well, that would certainly be a possibility, but I think the idea is to say, why are we adjusting this number? What is it about this number that makes sense? And then that maybe the number just itself needs to be reexamined and thoroughly positively changed. I think that investing by inflation makes sense. That idea makes sense that whatever the number is, but I would say that the number itself just is problematic. Go ahead, Emilie.

[Speaker 3]: I was just gonna say, and Chair Durfee, correct me if I'm wrong, but the proposal that we have here is not implementing anything. It's just getting more information to make a decision another time. Is that correct?

[Speaker 1]: That's right. Yes. No no no no

[Speaker 3]: No implementation. You have your own personal feelings, I'm sure, about this, but the what's in front of us is just a directive to get more information. Is that right?

[Speaker 1]: That's right. And to be clear, state law is not only applied to housing that's provided to farm workers. It's any kind of housing that an employer is providing, any employer that is providing housing is able to deduct this amount.

[Speaker 0]: That same amount. Yep, yes. And just for some context, two summers ago when we had the Ag Labor Study Committee, we never really even talked about this number. It was very quickly, yes, a farmer can deduct, but I don't think we even specifically honed in on the number. Was just, this is what it is.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, my recollection is we had some testimony and we heard what the number was, but that was as far as that conversation. It was,

[Speaker 2]: This is all very foreign to me. So do farm workers get less than a minimum wage as it is and then from that you're deducting for housing, the housing isn't rolled into the fact that they're getting less than a minimum wage to begin with?

[Speaker 4]: So the

[Speaker 1]: law minimum wage does not apply, currently does not apply to agricultural workers. Farmers are able to pay wages, anything above their federal minimum wage, is $7.25 I think. So the employer can start out with any wage below that number, and then they can deduct from that a housing amount, and the housing amount is one that we're talking about. We took some testimony. Most farmers, just because there is a shortage of workers in farming as well as everything else, order to get people to do the work. Most farmers are paying more than minimum wage, more than our state minimum wage, but not all.

[Speaker 0]: And to go off of that, individuals who are here on a work visa, they have to be making 17 something, which is above Vermont.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, so there's federal visa programs where people come for anything less than twelve months, might be a season, or it might be ten months, might be a growing season, or it might be several, but it's something less than a year. There's a federal law that sets the minimum that they can be paid, and it's something in that range. So they get paid more than homegrown Vermont, they could, yep. Not necessarily.

[Speaker 5]: I mean, could, yes.

[Speaker 6]: They could,

[Speaker 1]: but could be, yeah.

[Speaker 5]: In reality, most likely not,

[Speaker 0]: And I would also say most farmers don't deduct for housing, and there's also other, most farmers also offer a lot of other benefits, like vehicles and such like that.

[Speaker 2]: I think that's great because they're doing the work that the Americans won't do. So I know someone who has ward, and I don't know if they provide housing, but I do know that if one of the workers has to go to the doctors, they take her to the doctors, treat them well, I know another person who asks same people every year and every year he asks, What do you need? And they said they needed generators to keep off of each generator that accepted their country.

[Speaker 1]: So I'll just wrap up, unless there are other questions, by saying that this conversation came out of the discussion that we were having in our committee that I presented on earlier dealing with the minimum wage and changing of the state law to include agricultural workers. And in the course of having that discussion, this became a prominent issue just because the housing amount didn't seem to be based on anything that we could point to that made sense. So in order to move that conversation forward, it seemed like it would be helpful to have the Department of Labor and others look at that amount. The legislature can change it. We could change it today without having that information, but it felt like we shouldn't just do that without having the Department of Labor provide some input.

[Speaker 0]: And as we hear more and more about employers who are looking to house their employees, it might be good information for our committee to have going forward. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 1]: All right, thank you.

[Speaker 0]: We'll let you go back to your committee or hang around here. I'm gonna go back to my committee. I figured you were busy.

[Speaker 1]: I don't wanna be holding things up there.

[Speaker 5]: Thank you for the follow through on it. You. Oh, yes, you're welcome.

[Speaker 0]: Thanks so much. Thank you.

[Speaker 7]: Sophie Sedaten for the Office of Legislative Counsel. Just to be clear, so you really just focused on the language that you were just discussing with Rep. Duffy. I just want to make sure I'm going where you want

[Speaker 0]: me to go. I think so. I don't think we're missing too many people to Alright, have

[Speaker 7]: so I go ahead and shoot. This is the language I just cut and pasted. This is the language that was in H403 that was under discussion by representative Duffy's committee. So this provides that on or before 12/01/2026 the Commissioner of Labour in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets shall submit a written report to the House Committee, Davis Committee, this committee, perhaps on general and housing, and then the Senate Committees on Agriculture and the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs on the lodging allowance that employers are entitled to deduct from an employee's wages. And then they had a list of things for the report to address. So the background on how the rates are set, whether the current methodology should be updated, whether there should be a separate lodging rate for farm worker housing, and then any recommendations for legislative action. So that was what was included in H403. Could you please go up to who is going to be consulted? It's the Commissioner of Labor and then also the Secretary of Agriculture, because the Commissioner of Labor has jurisdiction over wage and hour laws, but as Representative Duffy noted, this comes up a lot in the agriculture sector, so in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture.

[Speaker 0]: I just wanted to make sure that we're not missing anybody, and so I just wanted to Are we? I'm double checking in my head who I think, but I think Commissioner of Labor oversees them, so we might be okay. Would there be oversight regarding the type of housing, or the condition of the housing?

[Speaker 6]: I think that's agriculture, but I'm not sure.

[Speaker 7]: The housing is covered by the same housing as any rental housing, it's covered by the same requirements and things that.

[Speaker 6]: So then it would be

[Speaker 3]: I believe that Fire

[Speaker 6]: safety, right? Fire safety.

[Speaker 3]: I believe that the bill that folks were working on in agriculture had some provisions around that piece but it didn't make across the line. So perhaps another year that they may take that up.

[Speaker 7]: The original bill h four zero three which you had in here did include, it had an overtime provision and it also had an inspection provision whereby if somebody was on a farm, again from the Department of Agriculture, if they were going to be on a farm and there was farm housing, they would distribute a survey to the farm workers and then if there were issues, potential violations, that would then get reported over to the folks that follow-up on those complaints. But that got taken out and so the bill, the most recent version of the bill, which is the one that's on this committee's webpage, H403, just dealt with the minimum wage and then this provision around obtaining a report on the housing allowance. I can share information on what that is if that's helpful. Does

[Speaker 0]: Commissioner of Labour oversee, no, no, think I would like to see Commissioner of Economic Development on that list. ACCD? Yeah.

[Speaker 6]: Could you put the language back up? Yes, And

[Speaker 0]: also have it sent to House Economic Development as well. And while I understand, or the language that says, you know, it needs to be presented to these committees, the reason I'm saying that is while I understand that this is, in this conversation directed towards agriculture, we are hearing more and more about employers interested and looking into housing for their employees. And my understanding of that is that tends to be the jurisdiction of commerce, and I just think it might be really beneficial for a more holistic conversation if we're gonna be looking at a recommendation. I'm not married to that, but just those were my thoughts when I first saw that list.

[Speaker 7]: I'm just passing my business to the actual language too, so you have it directly in front of me.

[Speaker 6]: I think getting ACC in law is a good idea.

[Speaker 3]: Yeah, I agree. That's a good idea.

[Speaker 7]: So that would just be on a consultation basis, so the Commission of Labour would be producing a written report, but would that work in consultation?

[Speaker 0]: Madam Vice Chair, I have a question. Yes, Mr. Chair.

[Speaker 6]: I don't know, How important is it to people on asking the committee to have a real to bring this to a point where they have a recommendation for legislative language?

[Speaker 5]: Not important at all.

[Speaker 6]: Anybody else?

[Speaker 4]: You mean quickly or Well,

[Speaker 6]: I just it says any recommendation as opposed to a recommendation. Do we wanna compel a recommendation? Now I know where Joe is on that. Anybody else?

[Speaker 0]: I think I'd prefer, if anything, a report back rather than a recommendation, like, here's our findings, which that's saying, because I think, again, when we get these types of reports, it's our job to craft language and legislation and move forward. Well, technically it's Sophie's job, but I don't necessarily feel like I need a recommendation personally.

[Speaker 5]: I think it'd be good if it said the report shall address something to the effect of a more realistic number than what it is now

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Like,

[Speaker 5]: more however that's worded. But I don't think you can say that number to anyone without them chuckling. Yeah. It's clearly not what a housing allowance would look like if you were actually comparing what it's worth.

[Speaker 3]: And I assume that in the next session, after we get a report, whoever's still here will then have the Department of Labor dive deeper and they may have an opinion during that testimony.

[Speaker 5]: Yeah.

[Speaker 6]: Madam Yep. Vice Chair? Yes. Are we directing what are we doing? Are we directing further redraft? On report. Of this language?

[Speaker 0]: If the committee is okay with that, Sophie, if you could add a CCD and the Committee on Commerce and then a report rather than a recommendation addressing that number, that would be great.

[Speaker 7]: So take out number four, did you want some language around the, I'm just trying to think of representative Parsons question, shall address?

[Speaker 0]: Did you

[Speaker 4]: Is that already in lines eighteen and nineteen?

[Speaker 6]: I'm looking at the

[Speaker 7]: language that they just sent around.

[Speaker 6]: Well, and what Joe is implying, I would think, is that we ought to have you know, two says whether the current methodology should be updated. I think we were talking about some current methodology and the price. Yeah. Like, so

[Speaker 0]: what is the actual number? Okay.

[Speaker 5]: Yeah. What is it? A allowance. A lodging allowance.

[Speaker 6]: Yeah. Lodging allowance.

[Speaker 5]: Reality looked like in today's.

[Speaker 2]: The report says shall address the background of how lodging rates are set and whether the methodology for calculating lodging rates should be updated. I

[Speaker 5]: think it's purely a just it's such a small number. It started at such a small number that tying it to a percentage inflation doesn't work. Yeah. That's because we started with four.

[Speaker 4]: It was up by 10%.

[Speaker 6]: What is this that you have up?

[Speaker 7]: This is the current calculation. So and this shows you the formula. This is a mandatory poster that the Department of Labor puts out. So this is the formula that's used. And again starting in January 1, 2009 and again to representative Duffy's point, the committee on agriculture didn't know where the starting number was. I think that goes to the question that representative Parsons is raising, may have a formula, but what's the starting point, right, for the formula? And then these are the deductions that are permitted. And so again, for a week it's $32.56 and that was the number that they were focusing on in the agriculture committee.

[Speaker 5]: It'd be comical to put that next to our legislative expense. Oh,

[Speaker 0]: lunch alone is what? 69? $70

[Speaker 5]: day for me.

[Speaker 0]: Another example of us treating ourselves differently. If

[Speaker 2]: we don't have these farmers, then we don't have any food. I know.

[Speaker 5]: Affects anybody, though. I know we all buy it to farmers, And for I can only speak for Yeah. The ones I know, but they treat their folks that work there like family Mhmm. And provide rather nice housing, actually. But this purely applies to anybody who offers that would prefer to deduct the exam.

[Speaker 6]: Thanks a lot, Ben. We're gonna have a revised version come back to us, we can then have discussion as to whether we add it to $2.30 or what we do with it. I do see I have to say I see a real conundrum, and I don't have a solution to it, which is that it seems to me you had a real price that really reflected the price of housing, then you probably, and you subtract that from minimum wage, they'd be working for free. And I don't know what you do.

[Speaker 4]: This isn't deducted until you hit minimum wage, and then it doesn't

[Speaker 6]: go up. No, we were, it turns out that's not the case, right? Right. It's just plain old deducted.

[Speaker 7]: So there's a list of things you can include when you're determining whether somebody is making minimum wage or not, there's a list of things that can be deducted from that, and then there are some things that can't be, and this is one of the ones that can be deducted.

[Speaker 6]: Yeah, I know, it's just hard.

[Speaker 5]: Something else I thought about it is that employers just don't even do it. Like, I think the fact that the numbers are so comically low that I'm not going to pay you and then take money back when I can just pay you an hourly wage, reflects all of that. So, I mean, if we were to change the numbers up, maybe there's a tax reason why, as a business, you'd prefer to switch to higher wages and then just claw back through that means. That's an interesting Maybe there's a business benefit to doing that, I don't know.

[Speaker 6]: Yeah, I mean, I do feel that there's an advantage to having a real number, or better numbers, Partly just because part of me wants our regulations to reflect reality and not be laughable. Yeah. But also, you know, I'm just not sure how it all works out when it's applied, nor do I know if that will be something we're gonna decide as opposed to next year if ag takes us. Sophie, do you have enough direction to produce in the next draft?

[Speaker 7]: So you want me to I'll go ahead and just put this into 02:30. Was there anything else on s two thirty?

[Speaker 0]: Of course, but we're not there yet. Okay.

[Speaker 7]: So my next motion

[Speaker 2]: is s two thirty. Two 30,

[Speaker 6]: man, you know, I have a bill about Noah's Ark, we can put it in 230. Long as it's close to how they build it.

[Speaker 3]: Forget to

[Speaker 1]: two

[Speaker 3]: Don't forget the Christmas tree.

[Speaker 6]: Yeah. I know. Can I ask

[Speaker 5]: you a question on 02:30

[Speaker 0]: Yes?

[Speaker 5]: That I had yesterday

[Speaker 1]: Please do. Since you're here.

[Speaker 2]: Yes.

[Speaker 5]: My reading of the first section or the employer definition parts

[Speaker 6]: there.

[Speaker 5]: In reading those, I basically came to the conclusion that the first CFR only rely only refers to airlines.

[Speaker 0]: So

[Speaker 5]: Which they do have a reading it. It's a pretty wild process for, like Right. Guaranteed hours, but you only hit 60 that they guaranteed you.

[Speaker 7]: Is there under certain federal rules in terms of how

[Speaker 5]: many hours they

[Speaker 7]: can fly? Right? I'm sure we've all been at the airport where it's like, your crew timed out, you're like, no. Yeah.

[Speaker 5]: But then the next one, it literally just used teachers as an example of a job that would fit that, whereas we look like we are calling out teachers and full time teachers and full time teachers only. The statute is like, teachers are an example of what we're talking about.

[Speaker 7]: This is what we looked at yesterday. This is the specific language in influence being able to clearly demonstrate, for example, that full time teachers, that's what you're getting to.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. And

[Speaker 7]: again, this is just talking about essentially saying that you need to, when you think about hours worked, if you're an employer that's challenging someone's eligibility and have they worked enough hours, as with teachers, also need to consider hours that they're working outside of the classroom.

[Speaker 5]: Right. So wouldn't we be better off to just not include that parenthesis section of full time teachers and just reference that statute because it uses teachers in it as a reference? But it looks like we are making it only about full time teachers in our what we're doing, as opposed to that statute is a broader array of employees, of which here's an example.

[Speaker 7]: I think if that's the direction the committee wants to go in, you'd probably be better off just simply not making the change that's in here because this came about because there was a request from the teachers to have this specific language included, but it is general language. So if you take out the reference to the, I mean, problem is if you just leave it as 29 CFR 825.11, this is a big regulation here, mean it covers everybody, right? And why are you, and there's a lot of regulations

[Speaker 5]: Well, calls out C3.

[Speaker 7]: Right, but there's a lot of regulations around the FMLA, so then it would just be weird, like why are you calling out this one regulation of the CFR? So that's sort of an explanatory parenthetical that the reason it's being called out is because of the reference to teachers, which is where the request for this language came from.

[Speaker 5]: But it doesn't call out teachers, it calls out anyone who does that type of work?

[Speaker 7]: Yeah, specifically noting that for full time teachers, they often work outside of the classroom or at their homes, so that is my understanding of why the request for this language to be included. I think if there's not comfort with the value of including this, I would just recommend not having this in at all, because I think it's going be more confusing if you just have the reference to that CFR, which applies anyway. What about all the other regulations

[Speaker 5]: So it applies anyway.

[Speaker 7]: Connecting to FMLA. Right?

[Speaker 5]: Not being written down, it still applies

[Speaker 6]: at all? Yeah. Emily.

[Speaker 3]: Hi. I two questions. One or comments. One, I would like to keep it the way it is. Second, I believe and committee, correct me if I'm wrong, and maybe you already have this happening, Sophie, but in the next draft, to have the language that was in August, not what the senate had. Was that

[Speaker 6]: think we're we're I think there's probably at least enough of a consensus.

[Speaker 3]: That's what I thought.

[Speaker 6]: Enough of a consensus, Sophie, that in the next draft, we go with the house version, we take out the penalty of perjury left.

[Speaker 7]: So we just simply be removing this this is the current version. Last this sentence, South gas station shall include the following language. So just deleting that. Yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 3]: That's what I would like, and I believe there was a consensus. And yesterday, eight eighty seven passed unanimously on the house floor. I don't second reading.

[Speaker 6]: Yeah. I don't think I mean, we haven't had our final discussion on it, but I think, Sophie, certainly, the sense of the committee was enough that your next draft could do that. Uh-huh. Thank gonna have to finally reach a vote on it.

[Speaker 7]: But at this point, just keep the first section as is? Yeah.

[Speaker 6]: But I think that that's still to be discussed, but yes.

[Speaker 0]: I like it, though. Mean, we don't have anything else to learn.

[Speaker 6]: Right, okay. A few other items, thank you Sophie, a few other items for the committee. I just want to comment, we have, as you saw, we don't have a lot on our agenda yet. We are going to have a lot on our agenda, but it's not there yet. One item on our agenda is when when the when, as you know, the landlord tenant bill has been on an ex what I would call an extended flyby in judiciary, and that is still flex fluid. I think it will be finalized by the end of the day today, and I expect that tomorrow sometime, we will have a chance to look at it and take a straw poll. I think I'm generally generally positive about it. In some ways, it's better. In some ways, it's a little different, but not a great deal different. But that's just my opinion. You'll all get a chance to see it. We have, you know, this bill, two thirty, is this labor bill. We have two other bills coming to us next week, but we can't take them up yet because they're actually really still in flux in the Senate, so what's the point? One is kind of a large committee bill coming from the economic development and housing committee in the senate, and one, that's the major one. But also, there is a housing kind of related bill coming from Senate Natural Resources, which probably won't be assigned to us because it has Act two fifty pieces to it, but which we have asked for a walkthrough, because I just think you all ought to know what's in it, and because it's so relevant. This is really an example, oh, and I want to tell you one other thing. This is an example of why everything we do has implications for some other committee, and it's clear, like, example, seven seventy five went through two committees. It could have gone yesterday, the chair of natural resource of environment came to me and was very interested in the substance of July as it related to the housing targets, and was wondering whether we should delay it by a day or two so they could take it up and after some discussion decided not to. And so we went ahead. But I'm just using this as an example of how things, everything we do involves somebody else, and so I've taken the liberty of asking for a walkthrough of the natural resources housing bill or bill because it implicates us even though it may not be assigned to us. And I hope that's all right with the committee. I just think you should know that stuff. And it's conceivable that there might be things in there that make sense for us in some way, and if we have a vehicle, that's fine, if we don't, we don't. Tomorrow, at this point, we don't, the floor is at 09:30, and so we're in the afternoon, and we're returning to 06:07 in the afternoon and 02:30 with Festival. Is there anything else that anyone wants to say? I can report that Tom was eloquent in his presentation to the Senate Economic Development Housing Committee, and I was there as well. And we, that Gayle, right, was before that committee yesterday on the manufactured home bill and manufactured home community bill, and that apparently was, they were correctly informed as to what was in the bill. That's, I guess, the full extent of my report. Does anybody else have anything?

[Speaker 3]: Can I say something?

[Speaker 6]: Of course.

[Speaker 3]: Thank you. Not to sound like a cheerleader, but I just wanna say I'm so proud of the committee's work, like, getting those bills out. They are so important, and everyone has just been doing such a great job. And it was so exciting to have those bills reported, and you all did them flawlessly. And I'm just really liking the way our committee is being effective and productive, and I'm just really proud because that hasn't always been the case. Not in our cycle, but in others. And so I'm really, really proud of the work that we've done.

[Speaker 0]: You did sound like a cheerleader, but thank you.

[Speaker 3]: A little bit. But no, thanks everyone who did an amazing job.

[Speaker 2]: Well, you didn't say rock at the end.

[Speaker 6]: But I also, I think that what's happened this year so far is really illustrative of a hard lesson, which is that progress here is incremental. And, when our bills are reviewed by another committee, the question I ask myself is, is the spirit and guts of our bill still alive? And, of course, they make changes. And I think a really good example is July, where ways and means took out of July our provision that allowed the interest, remember, of the interest earned on all those rent loans, to go right back into housing, rather than the general fund. Ways and means said, well, no, if appropriations wants to appropriate that money for how it means they can, but they should have control over that. Okay, that's a perfectly legitimate view, not necessarily mine, but it's legitimate, but I feel, I'll speak for myself, that that did not compromise the fundamental nature of July. And that's kind of what I look for. When another committee is working on it, How do we feel about the basic guts and the basic thrust of the bill and spirit of the bill? Anybody else before we I say the a word?

[Speaker 4]: I'm thinking back to the bill that we were discussing with Sophie earlier. The housing for farm workers and what we do When we get around to taking testimony, I think I would need to hear from somebody who knows the tax law around the housing because I'm trying to figure out in my mind. I know that Horton Housing, I think last I knew were social security taxable. I don't know if there's an and or that the business owner has to make between assigning the value of the housing to payroll and deducting that, paying payroll taxes, or the actual cost of maintaining the building and heating the building. So I there may be tax trade offs. I'm just not aware about, you know.

[Speaker 6]: I do know all I know is that when I was at the law school, and we had a very successful summer program that eventually, you know, was a master's program, and it had summer courses, and it still does, that our teachers, we could always pay them pitifully, they would be practitioners from around the country, great people, experts. They would come because they loved Vermont in the summer and we would provide them a house, a rental house in the South Royalton area, and they would bring their families and stay for two weeks while they taught, and then we would give them the house, And then they would pay taxes on the value of what we gave them. So I don't know if farm workers I don't know. It may be that they're below the threshold where this matters, but it would

[Speaker 4]: be interesting to them. Yes, and how that affects the workers, how it affects the farmers.

[Speaker 6]: Yeah, it's really it's a deduction, a business deduction they can take, etcetera. I think you're right. That's very interesting. Anything else? We heard Mary in Purview. Anything else?