Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Hello, everyone. Know Tom is here, we are live. Welcome everyone to the Committee on General and Housing. It is today, Thursday, all days, 04/02/2026. What we're going to do today for the morning, and some of the afternoon, we're going to be discussing a Senate bill which came over to us, S89, which relates to survivor benefits, and expanding survivor benefits. So we'll have witnesses all day, and of course, our first witness is the distinguished author of the bill. Sponsor, author. Guess we'll hear from the author himself in a minute. Senator Mihaly, welcome. I think you know everybody here, or should we introduce ourselves? I think we should. Go ahead. Debbie. I'm Debbie Dolgin, I represent St. John's Creek, Concord and Kernby.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Joe Parsons.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Leonora Dodge, I represent your district. Ashley Bartley, Fairfax, Georgia.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Hello, I'm Marc Mihaly. I represent Callas, Plainfield, and Marshfield, just north of here. Tom Charlton, at Manchester Drafton in Bloomfield.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Emilie Krasnow, South Burlington.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Hi, I'm Elizabeth Burrows, and I represent Windsor One, which is Heartland, West Windsor, Windsor. I'm Mary E.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: Howard, and I represent Rutland City District 6. I'm seventh and fourteenth of school. I represent the Chittenden Central District, and I did sponsor, though not author, I am not an attorney, S89. So currently we have survivor benefits available to firefighters, volunteer and professional, they die on the job or due to an illness caused by their job. This is an important benefit for some of the members of our community that are keeping us safe. What S89 proposes to do is to expand that benefit to other members of our communities that are keeping us safe, including law enforcement, Department of Corrections, correctional officers, the clinical staff at the Vermont Psychiatric Hospital, and child protection workers at the Department of Children and Families. The total number of people that would be being brought into the survivor benefit is I think about 2,100, primarily that it's composed of law enforcement and DOC. Psychiatric hospital accounts for a little under 200 as does, if I recall, the Department of Children and Families. This is really just recognizing that there are lots of public servants that have difficult and dangerous jobs that unfortunately could end their lives and that they too should have access to a survivor benefit. In order to get the benefit, you do have to die. And so we don't expect that to happen often. And we hope that it doesn't happen at all. It is fairly difficult to predict how expensive this could be because we can't really predict how and when people will die on the job. However, if this benefit were in place for the past ten years, it is estimated that it would have been paid out three times with the expansion that we're proposing. The benefit is, I believe it's an $80,000 benefit, and it's a one time payment. There is a provision in the bill that allows the treasurer up to a year to pay the benefit, which gives them the time to determine if the death was due to the job, as well as request the funds to pay off the benefit. Currently, there is enough money in that fund to pay one benefit. And the way that the fund has historically worked is that when it runs low, they come to the general assembly and ask to have it replenished. But there is also a provision in the bill that if the general assembly is out of session, the E Board could

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: put

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: that fund out. And the treasurer does everything in their power to pay the benefit out as quickly as possible, but they did ask to have that buffer time to be able to pay it out. And that really is what the bill does. It is also important to note that law enforcement, firefighters, and correctional officers also have access to a federal benefit. So a federal death benefit that is just a little under $500,000 So they have access to a federal benefit and we're giving them access to the state benefit. Law enforcement and? Law enforcement, firefighters are all environmental officers.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And the access to the federal government?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: Yes, they do. And when this law was originally put forward for firefighters, it was recognizing that a vast majority of our fire fighters were volunteer firefighters and thus had no access to workers' And does, like I said, it does apply to both the volunteer and the professional firefighters. But that was why in its original formation, it was a firefighter benefit.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Can you remind me whether volunteer firefighters get the federal benefit?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: I believe so, but I'm not positive.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: Which our council will know. Yes. I just have a question. So if that's your job, if you qualify under this,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: do you ahead of time say who's gonna receive that benefit?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: Generally speaking, that is how death benefits work. But I don't know in this particular case, if you would allocate it for it and just go to next of kin. But I also imagine counsel will be able to tell us the sort of details of how the current benefit works. And most of the payouts under the current benefit have been due to illness caused by the job. As people can imagine, firefighters are exposed to all kinds of horrible burning chemicals that can cause cancers and illness that can kill you. It is unlikely that the group that we're bringing in would have the exposure to the same level of toxins, but it does apply to death caused by the job, whether in the line of duty or an illness that was caused in the line of duty. The example that I can think of for an illness might be a nurse at the psychiatric care home gets a needle stick, ends up with a disease that ultimately ends their life. But again, I think it is far less likely that those types of things would happen in the groups that we're bringing in.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Ashley. Thank you so much. I'm sure you know that this bill has a history in our community as well, so I'm glad we're talking about it today. Does your version of the bill discuss mental health, so somebody who dies by suicide, it was- It does not, and

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: we did not take testimony on that, though I would encourage this committee to dive into that and figure out how that works. Being on the judiciary committee in the morning, it's a tricky space when we start to talk about harm and physical harm versus psychological harm.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions about the committee? Two questions.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: The federal benefit, is that something, if they have access to it, does that mean they have to opt into it or it automatically covers?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know. And

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: I think counsel would be able to answer that. And it does, like I said, it's firefighters, law enforcement, and correctional officers have access to that federal benefit.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: And I'm looking at facility employees in the Department of Corrections the Department Corrections employees who provide direct security during the service to defenders under supervision. Is that parole? Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any other questions?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I have one question. Net with fee, was this what was able to pass? Were there more in this? And this is what

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it got whittled down to.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Did the committee feel like we got what we were looking for? Or do you feel like there's few groups of people missing on here, but this is what we're

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: bills come over to us where the final version was missing stuff if the committee passed out, it's, you know, here's our chance. So that's sourcing this question.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: So we had two bills in the committee that sort of dealt with this issue. And this bill kept everyone that was originally introduced in the bill. The piece that it doesn't have was in another bill and that was also allowing for, there were actually two other bills that dealt with it in a different way, a disability benefit, as well as a death benefit. I had a bill that would have allowed people who were permanently disabled on the job to access their full pension, And there was another bill that would have provided the disability benefits. So it would have applied if someone was permanently disabled, not just if they died. That was never in this bill, but there were people in the Senate who felt like that all should have gone into this bill. My committee was uncomfortable with that. I can take every one of the I certainly would have supported that, but there were members of the committee that felt like this was a big step forward, it was a big number, and that this was a reasonable starting point.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Other questions of the Senator?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks a lot. Yes, of course, thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Stoci. Is this the first time that you've brought this forward? No. This

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: is a bill that I brought forward in the previous biennium as well. In the previous biennium, we had one bill that pertained only to law enforcement and this bill. And I do think there is a gender equity aspect in here as well. Oftentimes these types of benefits, the federal benefit is included, tends to apply to people in dangerous jobs that are male dominated, where it's our jobs like our clinical staff at the psychiatric care hospital, our DCF workers tend to be female dominated positions. And as a social worker myself, I very much remember the murder of Laura Sobel on the job. Feel like, I mean, are dangerous jobs that people do to keep our communities safe, to keep our children safe, and they should have access to the same benefits as all the other jobs. So no, it is not the first time I have brought this bill forward.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great. You know, it looks like we do have questions. Yes. Do we gonna have our counsel here in a minute.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well, no, this is about a policy choice. So I'm glad that we're including more types of jobs because of the reason that you explained, And also because when there is an existing federal benefit, it feels less urgent to me that we then within a year also do some kind of state benefit. I'm still troubled by, I think just in general, we're seeing such a fear to impose even a minimum wage or looking at housing requirements for the most dangerous jobs in the country that have the most deaths related, which are agriculture and construction, which is where undocumented workers were the most exposed and the most at risk and have none of the benefits, all of the risks. And so can you tell me how we might extend this to anybody who dies on the job, maybe tying it to the most fatal jobs out there. I mean, I certainly personally would support providing a death benefit to anyone who dies at work.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: That was not really politically feasible at this point. And so if this committee chooses to put more people in the bill, I would not complain. But this was sort of the space that at this point, we were able to move forward with. The other group of people that you might consider adding to the bill would be people working at the veterans home. But these were sort of the jobs within state government and municipal government, the sort of civil servant positions that we've seen the most dangerous conditions.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: That logic makes sense to me. So why where

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: and how. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great. Any further questions in the Senate? Tanya, thanks for coming.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden Central District) — Bill Sponsor]: Thank you for having me. Thank you for taking the episode from the World.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's our council on labor issues. Sophie, take it away.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sophie Sedatney for the Office of Legislative Council. I thought it might be helpful to just quickly just go through the current statute, because again, think that will help just set the scene. I know this committee put up H57 57 last year and dealt into this statute, but if that's okay with the committee, I think

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it is. Memories are assumed. Of us.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Not me, I'm a sharp hat.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it's a pretty short chapter. So this is the current language. And so again, this is currently defined emergency personnel as firefighters, emergency medical personnel and volunteer personnel, and they're all defined elsewhere in statute. And then it has a definition for line of duty and I'm just flagging these pieces because these are things that are changing in MS89. I'm also flagging occupational relationships.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Can go back just up for a minute? So it's firefighters

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Emergency personnel and volunteer personnel, and it covers professional and volunteer firefighters, that definition. So occupation related illness, so again, as noted by Senator Bobovsky, there's two ways that you can qualify for this death benefit. So one is if you die in the line of duty, like while you're actually on the job, and the other is if you die from an occupation related illness, and that is currently defined as a disease that directly arises out of an in the course of service, including a heart injury or disease symptomatic within seventy two hours from the date of last service in the line of duty, which shall be presumed to be incurred in the line of duty. So under the workers compensation statute, there's a lot of presumptions, particularly for firefighters, police officers, PTSD, I mean mental health issues. So there are presumptions if you're in certain jobs that if you're injured on the job or you have those situations occur, that they're presumed to be covered by workers' compensation and we can get into that more if the committee is interested in that. Then there's a definition of parent and survivor. And then this is the Emergency Personnel Survivors Benefit Review Board, and this is the board that makes the determination as to whether or not to allude monetary benefit. And it lists out who's on the board. So it's a state tribunal designee, attorney general designee, chief fire service training officer designee, and then one member of the public that's appointed by the governor. This bill, S89, does not change the composition of the board. And then it provides that survivors of emergency personnel employed by or who volunteer for the state of Vermont, the county or municipality of the state, or a non profit entity that provides services in the state who die in the line of duty. This is the key language, the eligibility piece. Then the board makes the determination. HLB White determines a vote of the board made within sixty days after receipt of the information. The board can request information so that it has enough information to make the determination. And then the board can conduct an investigation if they need to. And then within ten days after the board makes its decision, it lets the survivors know of that decision by certified mail. If it denies the claim, the named survivor shall have sixty days in which to file an appeal. And then the board, there was a question about how is the determination of who gets the benefit. So the benefit is paid to the surviving spouse. And then if there is no spouse, then to the surviving child or surviving children. And then if no spouse or child, then it's paid to the surviving parents. And if they don't have any of those, then there is no award given. The treasurer's office makes the payment to the beneficiaries. And again, the treasurer's office is the one that sort of oversees the process. So they provide the staff the office space and support to the board and then there's a per diem for the member of the public. So the monetary benefit again is paid if you die in the line of duty or from an occupation related illness. The current payment is $80,000 It was increased in, not last session, the previous one, so two years ago, it was increased in the, I believe in the BAA or, yeah, up to 50, from 50,000 to 80,000. And then the board, this is there, they'll adopt standards and guidelines. And then the board again is established in the office of the state treasurer. The fund is comprised of appropriations made by the general assembly and contributions or donations from any other source, and then all balances in the fund and interest earned remains in the fund. I'm just flagging subsection B because there's a new subsection B from S89. But just to be clear, this S89 doesn't contain an appropriation. Senator Butchowski said the testimony in Senate government operations was that there's enough funds currently in the fund of, I believe it's $94,000 so it's enough to cover one payout. And then historically, again, were years and years and years in which there were no claims whatsoever, and then there recently have been a group of claims. And historically, what would happen is the treasurer's office would come to the general assembly and request funding to support it. So there's no appropriation in here, but obviously if you expand the pool, the potential for there to be more claims is obviously out there. So that's the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Before you go on, Sophie, could you, in terms of, I like that you're telling us what the current situation is. So what is the current situation with respect to the federal benefit, and with respect to insurance.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, I'll get to that, if that's alright. I'm just gonna keep going with this flow right now. So, I'm just gonna quickly go over the bill S89 as it's come out of the Senate. So again, as Senator Biholsky explained, keeps in firefighters, emergency medical personnel and volunteer personnel, but then it adds these three additional categories. So law enforcement officers who are certified by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, that's a pretty broad group of folks. Facility employees of the Department of Corrections and DOC employees who provide direct security and treatment services to offenders under supervision in the community, classified family services employees in the Family Services Division of the Department for Children and Families and classified medical employees of state operated therapeutic community residents or inpatient psychiatric hospital units. So it's adding those three categories. Line of duty, so it cleans up some of the language currently for line of duty for firefighters, emergency medical personnel and volunteer personnel. And then it just goes through what line of duty means for the other categories. So with respect to law enforcement officers, with respect to Department of Corrections, classified family services employees, and the classified medical employees. Does it get rid of the seventy two hour? No, it doesn't change the definition on occupation related illness.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, if I'm a firefighter under current law, and I inhale some chemical and develop cancer, five years later it's not covered. Is seventy two hours a symptom?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, is covered under the existing definition of an occupation related.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Then what is a seventy two hour?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's if you have a heart attack or something, because you could have a pre existing

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: was gonna say, how are you gonna 70 child

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: diagonal

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: two ounce. Right. Okay. I'm sorry, can I ask

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: a question What about if you were no longer actively bleeding?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think these are going to be questions that will be helpful to ask at the treasurer's office because they've had experience in learning with this recently. My understanding is what they've been doing is looking at the workers' comp statute. So if that would be considered a work related injury under the workers compensation statute, then they would consider it compensable death under this provision. But if they're not, they can explain a little bit more and that may be an area that the committee wants to take a deeper look, and that was something that was raised in Senate government operations, and it was on the day of crossover. So they were like, oh, we should really ask the House to take a closer look at this. So that is particularly an area where this committee might want to do a deeper dive on that. Yes, workers' comp.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: A lot of employers have life insurance. Hypothetically, somebody could receive life insurance and this payout, correct? Okay. And there's

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: no offset? It's a straight up payment regardless of what other benefits you may have. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: We discussed doing the offset at some point or was there It may

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have come up, but we never had You discussed that as part of the age 57. Right, but we didn't actually write it into It was part of the proposal. It was, if there were other benefits, then you would get a smaller amount like 60,000. There was a floor which you would definitely get, and then there was Yeah.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: That would offset some of Because we the did conversation have a decision

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: outside of this committee as well,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: where people were not necessarily as supportive Right, as right. Think, yeah.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright, so section two, and I do just want to clarify, so Senator Blomovsky said there was language about giving the treasurer's office up to a year to make the payment. That language actually came out on the Senate floor. This language came in, there was a concern from the Senate Appropriations Committee about the length of time to pay out. And so this language was added, which again will be familiar to this committee because this was part of page 57. So this provides that the funds shall comprise transfers made by the General Assembly, amounts transferred by the emergency board when the General Assembly is not in session, and contributions or donations from any other source. And then that repealed subsection B that I showed you that's in current statute, there's now a new B and this provides that in the event that the balance of the fund is insufficient to pay monetary benefits supported by the board when the general assembly is not in session, the e board can transfer their money in. So again, that means that people can receive their money sooner so that you don't run into an issue where there's nothing left in the fund and they've got to wait until the general assembly is next in session to then provide, refill the fund to pay out the claim. So there isn't that one year at the time in which the treasurer's office would pay out the claim.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So the one year, origin of the one year was the concern over the legislature, isn't it?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, right. So by having the E-forty. And

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: it Go ahead. Sorry, that seems to contradict the reason we were just offered, which was to give time for an investigation to just verify Oh, there

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: still can be time, this is just a mechanism whereby once the emergency board, the board that's reviews the claims has made the determination that yes, this is a claim that qualifies and we will pay out, that there's no delay in getting it. After that decision. Right, if there's no money left.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Right, they find that this claim is valid, then you want to be able to disperse the benefit as quickly

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: as Right, even if the general assembly is not in session, so this is just a mechanism to provide for that. And again, there was testimony in front of, I can't remember if it was Senate Appropriations or Senate Gov Ops, but what the treasurer has been able to do when that situation has arisen before, is they've been able to sort of move some money around in order to pay out to the claimant and not make them wait, but this would just provide a mechanism to do it without having to sort of move things around. They could use the 12.5. Alright, and then there were questions. And then there were other questions about other benefits.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And Sophie, there's no max, there's no, God forbid something, a really horrible tragedy were to happen

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: max casualties? Yeah.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right, we talked about that last time.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, and literally, I mean, guess we figured it's not going to happen.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Well, right, like I will just make I propose some scenarios which are grim, but yeah, that'd be bad.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. And the eboard has a good spreadsheet.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I mean, they could decide, well, we're not gonna

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: -Maybe we'll hear about what might happen when David testifies. But, yeah, I mean, sure, that's a possibility. Like, what if there was, like, a corrections, like, violent situation or

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. A horrible fire.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, fire that burned everyone up.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, that could be a note. You'd asked about other benefits. Great chart. So currently, see if I can get a little bit here, so currently again in that first column remarks about the benefit of £80,000 and who's covered, so professional firefighters, volunteer firefighters, EMTs and volunteer EMTs, and then S89 would bring in these other categories. So right now that federal public safety officer benefit, so the current amount is $461,656 That gets reset every October, typically it goes up.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What federal law is that?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What federal law? Yeah, that's the PSOB is Benefit, yeah, I can find that, I don't have that. What does PSOB stand? Public Safety Offices Benefit. Okay.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And that's 500 ks?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's 4 61656. You don't have to opt into it. It covers FEMA, it covers chaplains, it covers a wide variety of But as far as the specific language goes, for our purposes, you have to be I think chaplains in by a white team or whatever. So it does cover law enforcement, it covers Department of Corrections, it wouldn't cover these other state employees, the DCF and the state hospitals. You don't have to opt into it. Also other benefits that go, it is also for permanent disability, the federal benefit, it's not limited to death, but if you're socially disadvantaged, you did not return to work, you would be eligible for that federal benefit. It also comes with, there's an education benefit too, so if you're the child of somebody that's a public safety officer, there's an education benefit that goes with it as well.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: As part of the four sixty one or in addition? It's that separate.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, yeah. And then there's a state accidental death benefit, which is two times the individual's annual salary. So this would apply to state employees who die in the line of duty. And again, that would cover the additional folks here. So the DOC employees, the DCF and the medical employees, and it would cover some of the others if they were state employees. Think this would

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: not cover volunteer firefighters or other volunteers?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Unless they were state employees, so this is specifically for state employees. This came into effect after Laura Sobel's death. Don't have to be taking the state's life insurance policy. If you do take the state's life insurance policy, you would receive the full benefit of that as well as this. So this would be in addition

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: to that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So this is not, you

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: don't have to opt in, it's just a benefit. Right, and it applies to all classified employees as well as exempt and appointed employees within the executive branch of the state, whether or not the employee participates in the state's life insurance plan. It does say the payment of the benefit is subject to the appropriation of necessary funds, so I guess if it was a mass accident that would be an issue. All right and then workers compensation, so this applies everyone would be eligible for this. Under workers' compensation, if you die in the course of injury related, there is burial and funeral expenses that are covered to, not to exceed $10,000 with actual expenses for out of state transportation to the place of burial not to exceed $5,000 And then the Department of Labor, I don't know if you've found that. But that's it

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: for workers' comp. Haven't finished.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I'm sorry. It's blank. Okay. The Department of Labor, it's supposed to be evaluating the average burial and funeral expenses in the state and making recommendations to house commerce and economic development as to whether those numbers should be increased, but I couldn't find where they've done that. So that may be something to check whether the Department of Labor has done that since 2009, because that's as far back as I could see. And then also there's a weekly compensation benefit of 66.6% to the spouse. 71.6% of the employees, what their wages were to the spouse if they have one child, and 76.6 to the spouse if they have two or more children. And that period of compensation continues until the spouse turns 62, remarries or dies. And I can provide the Great chart. The chart too.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just so that I understand, workers' compensation provides the spouse of any worker who dies in the course of their employment, defined. Right. Or I assume from an illness related to the, it gives them two thirds of the salary of the employee until they turn 62 or remarry. Or die. Or die.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And they get more if they have children.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You said something about 70% for the employee?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, so if it's a spouse and one child, it's 71.6%, And if there's a spouse and two or more children, it's 76.6%. And again, I'll provide this. Thank you. One other chart that may be helpful. So under workers compensation there are presumptions that an injury, if someone dies and it's due to occupation related. So again currently under state law, if you're a firefighter your presumption is if you have a disability or death from heart injury or disease that's symptomatic within seventy two hours of being your last service. So that's heart disease. But if you die or are disabled from that within seventy two hours of being on duty, that's presumed to be due to your occupation. And then again, for firefighters, there's a list of cancers that if you have those within at least five years of firefighting, those are presumed to be occupation related. And there are some exceptions of your own tobacco.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I remember this from last time.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then there's another one, any cancer within ten years of last active date of employment, and then for lung disease and infectious diseases after documented occupational exposure, and then PTSD as well. So this chart just shows who gets those presumptions. So emergency medical personnel, just decided not to

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: move. Ashley? I have a question about lung disease. In regards to this, not just a random question about lung disease, sorry, that's Jacob. Go upstairs. Exactly. So we lost my father-in-law in 2015. He was

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: firefighter, EMT, and served several tours. And what ended up happening, we discovered that December 1, he

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: had

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: stage four lung cancer, and by December 23, he died. So it was very aggressive and we didn't really have, no one really had time to figure out what was going on or what had caused it. It turns out that because the house that he lived in is a very old house, Their radon levels were off the chart. Like scary off the chart. They were very, my mother-in-law was able to pinpoint it wasn't because of any of these other issues, it was because of this. Especially because we have older houses in Vermont, could that be an issue with someone trying to figure out what's going on? If someone dies of lung cancer, could that be appealed? I'm just trying

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to So under the workers' comp statute, in the case of firefighters and members of a rescue or an ambulance squad, disability or death resulting from lung disease or an infectious disease, either one of which is caused by aerosolized airborne infectious agents or blood borne pathogens and acquired after documented occupational exposure in the line of duty. Okay, so it needs to be documented. Right, to a person with an illness and then it also says unless it is shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the disease was caused by non service connected risk factors or non service connected exposure. So these are presumptions, they can be rebutted, it's presumptions in favor of the employee receiving compensation unless the employee.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And remember, I forget now we've worked on this type of bill for a couple of years now, which year, but it was like, and if you see someone ripping butts outside the firehouse, you kind

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: of- Translation smoking.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, you would know that that might be not part of the case.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, then specifically in the case of lung disease, the presumption of compensability shall not apply to any firefighter or rescue ambulance worker who has used tobacco products at any time within ten years of the date of diagnosis. And there's also for cancer, it's recommended that the fire departments do screenings etcetera, so when you start, you get screened to see if you already have a cancer from where you would start your work. Peeks for diabetes. Can I ask another thing?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Of course you're saying. I know you have a bunch of questions, I store it

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: do, I think you'll be surprised what this question is going I to care about this bill a lot, so I would not want to do anything that could potentially kill it, And I am happy to introduce language next year if I return. Could we say in this bill that it is germane to allow individuals who are civil servants, like our firefighters, specifically an annual full body checkup, would that be germane, do you think? Probably not.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That would be a question for the

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: I'll ask Betsy in, yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Sophie, are you going to talk about state available insurance policies?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think I just did.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The insurance for, I'm mixed up, I thought there was an insurance policy, but it was opt in.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is an insurance policy that's opt in, but the state accidental death benefit applies whether or not you choose to opt in. Right, but what is the insurance policy if you opt in? Oh, that you would need to ask. I think you have folks listed that can provide more information on that. I don't know if it's the two times annual salary, but that's, it may be that that's what it is, but you would want to check with the department team resources on.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, other questions? Sophie, you have more?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I keep going, but.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well, we want to be able to interrupt

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you again.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Rebecca White is not coming.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: David's here.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: No, I'm here.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, you are? And you are, I'm sorry.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: The Director of Risk Management for the State, actually Rebecca and White.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This bill provides one level with up to 80,000.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a straight up 80,000. And

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: there's the federal benefit, which is the PSOP, it's 4 and 80 some thousand, and then there's workers' comp, covers funeral and burial expenses, provides an ongoing Something ongoing compensation for the spouse. Alright, thank you.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll share the chart to Mary E. M, so it will be posted on the website.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Our next witness is ourselves to Senator Lipozky. Well, don't we introduce ourselves? Go ahead. Thank you. I'm Debbie Dolgin. I represent St. John's Creek, Concord and Kirby. Tom Charlton, Athens, Chester, Bracken, and Wickham.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Joe Parsons, Newberry, Dobson, Groton.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Leonora Dodge, Essex Town, yeah, it's always the most beautiful town. Essex Junction is the town of Essex. Ashley

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Bartley, the facts of your death. Marc

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Mihaly, I represent Caledonia, Plainfield and Marshfield.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Caledonia, Emilie Krasnow, South Burlington.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Mary E. Howard, I represent Rutland City District 6.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Rebecca, introduce yourselves and take it away.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: Sure, my name is Rebecca White. I'm the director of risk management for the State of Vermont Agency of Administration. Sophie did such a wonderful job that I don't know how much I have to say because I was prepared to talk about the state workers' compensation benefit from employees that die on the job, either due to an accident or an occupational illness, as she was just saying. And I believe that human resources will be here fairly soon to talk about the life insurance benefits that State Police have opted to. It

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: might be helpful if maybe I start off with a question. Sure, so I think what we're trying, so as you've heard, we've been working on a bill similar to this for the last, since 2023, my first year here. And one of the things that we've kind of continuously heard as pushback from individuals who might not support this is, are people able to double up? Do they, you know, so how does somebody get, how do they pay for the optional insurance, and is that really available to everybody in the state, or a state employee? So I think we're trying to answer that question of where is the overlap and understanding who has the availability for that type of insurance already. Is this a solution chasing a problem? I personally don't believe that, but I think that's what we're trying to answer today with who we have coming in. I don't know if that helps.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: Those are excellent questions. And I think that chart did help because it does say who would be eligible to get which benefit. I can only talk about the workers' compensation, so I think that you should most definitely ask human resources when they come over here this morning.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Then they'll know about the insurance.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: For life insurance.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They'll know the life insurance.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: Yeah, I just work on the workers' comp, but honestly, you could also ask Department of Labor because this is their statute. I just administer it for these very few employees that unfortunately passed away, for their families. Is there a, one way, Sophie did a great job with workers' comp,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: but let me sort of cut it another way. If you think about who might be included in the 80,000 benefit that would not be included in workers' comp, Does something leap out to you right away?

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: None in terms of state employees, because all state employees and also state volunteers, If we have a volunteer who works for the state, you know, who is a not works, but is a bona fide state volunteer and they die on the job, they and then a workers' comp claim would be filed. And if it's accepted then they would be eligible for the benefits that Sophie was talking about to the spouse and the children and the burial benefit or parents if there is no spouse or child.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, but other employees who aren't state employees, if they're covered by workers comp, they'd be covered, right? It's just your purview is the state. State, it's only the state. So Department of Labor would be able to talk to you about all employees

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: work in the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: state I of Vermont, think it would help me a little bit while we've got you. What do you do? What do I do? Yeah.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: So, I oversee the workers compensation program for Allstate employees that is administered by CorVel, their third party administrator. I also oversee the liability insurance, and that includes all claims filed against the state of Vermont. I work with the attorney general's office frequently on like mediations, that type of a thing. Examples of liability claims are things like slip and falls, a visitor coming into the state house slipping and falling on the steps to get hurt. I would claim

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: that type of

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: a thing. Auto accidents where, say, one of our employees is driving maybe a fleet car or there's a trooper driving and they get into an accident once they person and they get hurt and they file a claim. For employment matters, discrimination, anything that could be a liability claim. I also handle obtaining the insurance for the state. Flood insurance, that came in quite handy. Property insurance, cyber insurance, liability, excess liability insurance, aviation insurance, crime insurance, aviation insurance, you name it, many insurance policies. I also review many contracts to make sure we are asking the contractors or grantees, for grants, for proper insurance to protect the state's assets,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: basically. Is there something really terrible happens, like Laura's civil staff, is there typically a claim, a liability claim?

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: So, compensation, no, there would just be basically a workers' compensation

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: In fact, because the two are mutually exclusive. Yes. Okay. Yes. Great. Got it. Questions? Yes. Go ahead. So,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: with some worker comped, obviously none that are fatal, it's usually the employer's job to kind of investigate, make sure things are safe for the employee.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: What would happen if

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: something was done and then was to be, the employee was at fault? Like a mistake was made, or what is that process?

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: That's an excellent question. Workers' compensation is no fault.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's no fault.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: Yep, so it was developed in '19, I think '19 or so, long time ago, where the whole point was to make it a quicker process so there wouldn't be a lawsuit to find fault. Whose fault is it? Did the employee, were they negligent? Or was the employer negligent or what? So, the compromise was no fault, like no fault auto and you'll get your benefits paid quicker. It's twenty one days. The insurance company or third party administrator has twenty one days to make a decision, which is pretty quick compared to if you file a lawsuit, it can take years to get any money. The point was to get employees medical treatment, which is paid in no copay, wage replacement like we're talking about is 66 and two thirds of their average weekly wage quickly, and the vocational rehab services if they're out for over ninety days. It's a very good benefit for sure For all employees, employee legislators.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's a solid benefit.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: And it's in almost every state. Some states have the option. It's mandatory in Vermont.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And does it exclude litigation? I'm sorry? Does it exclude litigation? Yeah,

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: it's mutually exclusive. Like, if someone gets injured on the job, they are bound to file workers' comp. They can't sue. Unless I've had some cases where, say I worked at Coca Cola bottling company and an employee got injured in the machinery on the factory floor and they sued the manufacturer of the machine because it was defective. That's why they claimed that they got injured. So, they can have those types of lawsuits. We don't really have that here. I mean, it hasn't come up with us. I'm sure it could.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Got it. Questions of the committee for Rebecca? Thank you, Rebecca. I'm glad you were here, thank you for your patience. I'm sorry to confuse myself.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: Oh, that's fine, I know.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I always make a motion.

[Rebecca White (Director of Risk Management, VT Agency of Administration)]: The Senator White and I usually get each other's emails, or what, you know, confuse us, yeah. But since Sophie did such an excellent job, I did need to describe the statute. Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The committee is not going to take a break, and we will reconvene at 10:15, but before we leave, let's talk about the order of testimony here. We have Clark Collins, Beth SDG, Steve Howard, and David. David is here now, I see Steve is here now,

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is yes. How can you do that?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: He's materialized, is by Zoom? 10:15. Okay, well we'll go for the moment with the order. David, can you stay with us?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yep, that's fine.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, all right, let's go off one