Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. Good morning, everyone. We got Wednesday, January 21. It is just after 9AM, and we are continuing our work on h five six seven, an act relating to unclaimed property, state retirement systems, and last but not least, capital debt. So we're just hearing from some folks in and around the pension system and the treasurer's office. So I'd like to open with Eric Henry and just, have a conversation with him about the relevant sections of the bills. Here's Lance. Good morning, sir. How are you?

[Eric Henry]: Good morning, everybody. Happy New Year. For the record, my name is Eric Henry. I'm the chief investment officer for the Vermont Pension Investment Commission. I did submit written testimony yesterday. The Vermont Pension Investment Commission supports the enactment of the provisions of H567 that pertain to oversight of the post retirement health care investments. We see a number of efficiencies a number of opportunities for cost savings if VPIC is made the fiduciary and trustee of these assets. More importantly than the cost savings, though, we believe is the power of the comprehensive, thorough and ongoing risk management and underwriting process in place at BPIC, we think those assets would benefit from a number of processes which we've already begun. We're in the midst of conducting an asset liability study on these assets to strategically align them with the life related liabilities in the in health care plans. Following that, we will be developing strategic asset allocation targets to guide the way for how these assets are actually invested. Elements of that include liquidity studies, pacing studies, and a number of other comprehensive analyses that are laid out in the memo that we submitted yesterday. We do respectfully request one additional position of financial director three to aid us in the analysis and implementation of these assets should they come over. Importantly, there's no general fund impact of adding such a position as these are funded by the pension plans directly, and in this case would be funded by the three pension plans, the supplemental teacher COLA plan, and the two OPEB sleeves, the teachers and employee health care plans. I won't go through the memo in detail, but I'm happy to take any questions you all have this morning.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. No. Thank you. So I just for clarity, that one position you just referred to as indeed so you you just need us to give you the authority to hire that through via statute, but the cost itself is provided by the pension fund in the system?

[Eric Henry]: Correct. We would need the cost of that fund position to be included in our budget, which is funded by the pension system. So there's no general fund impact, but we do have we do do go through the state's legislative budget process.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. Do you have a ballpark estimate on what that budget request would be for the position?

[Eric Henry]: Total cost, including benefits, would be around $125,000.85

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: k. Okay. How's hiring been for you folks?

[Eric Henry]: So, we've been fortunate and we haven't had to hire a position for a few years. We did add an accounting position about two and a half years ago. It took us almost a year to fill that position. So at the time, hiring has been at the time, hiring was challenging. We've been very fortunate that we've not had any turnover in all positions. There are three investment professionals and accounting professional team, so just four of us. All of this comes at a time when VPIC has grown to almost 8,000,000,000 in assets. We have visibility on, you know, potentially north of 10,000,000,000 with the OPEPs coming on and continued growth in the program. So we feel like it's time to right size VPIC and also getting this position will help us handle the additional analysis of these assets. These assets will likely be invested somewhat differently than the pension plan assets because the the plans have different significantly different cash flow We would commingle them with VPIC assets, but, in different proportions than likely in different proportions than the pension plans.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So, so this position would get you up to five employees, if I was tracking that correctly? Correct. Yes. And so you're saying you're at 8,000,000,000 in cash managed assets? Correct. And you're you're creeping up on 10? So that is one employee for every $2,000,000,000 managed? Correct. That seems very efficient.

[Eric Henry]: It's very lean versus our peers, but we understand how difficult it is to get positions in state, and we're we're we're very cautious of these requests, and we we try to manage them judiciously. We do lean heavily on our consulting partners, RBK. They serve as an extension of staff as we underwrite new and ongoing investment strategies. We're squeezing as many efficiencies as we can out of them, of the custodian, and out of our investment management partners.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Questions from the table right now? I don't see anyone answered my

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: questions. Good. We got that government efficiency.

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: I have a

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: question. Yes, Rep. Pinsonault. I'm always

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: hearing how the retirement fund is in a deficit or running low or whatever. Is it, has it remained, has it recouped what it has lost in the past?

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So, Eric, let me know if I get out of my skis here. So the arc of getting the pension fund to be, I guess, fully funded, the term of art, is on a timeline to achieve that goal in roughly 2038, if I recall. Yep. He's nodding. I'm remembering correctly. Yeah. So this was a big political and legislative lift a couple of, bienniums ago. And, currently, the fund has been year over year exceeding expectations on its returns, shall we say? Folks are doing a fabulous job. I think we we dog eared what Eric, like a 7%, 7.25, something like that. And then we've been exceeding that year over year.

[Eric Henry]: Right, so our target is 7%. Don't, it's important to know that we're not designing a portfolio to hit seven, we're designing a portfolio to maximize returns within prudent levels of risk and liquidity. But seven is the discount rate that we use to calculate the pension liabilities. Our returns have exceeded the 7%. We did submit our annual report early January. You all should have that. And in there, the executive summary, we lay out some of our strong performance. The last two years have been particularly good with double digit returns. In addition, for the second year in a row, our private equity program ranks number one in the country among large public pension funds. So we have been very successful in implementing the program. That doesn't mean that we could enter an economic downturn where we don't see 7% returns, but recent past performance has been strong, both absolutely and versus our peers.

[Becky Wasserman]: I got

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: a digital Simpson's hand from representative Hooper of Burlington.

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: Good day. Hi, Eric. How are doing?

[Eric Henry]: Good, Bob. How are you?

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: Good to see you again. Beth always had the position that one position per billion dollars. So we're still well under the threshold for her estimation and need. But could you go over what the what each of the four positions are doing, and how that will change with the addition of a new one?

[Eric Henry]: Sure. So let's start with the accounting position, the newest position. That person handles all of our relationships with our master trust custodian, handles processing of wire transfers, handles all of the accounting for almost $8,000,000,000 in investments. We have, I have two deputy CIOs, Katie Green and Andy Cook. Katie Green oversees debt investments, real estate investments, and all of our engagement efforts with the boards of the companies in which we invest. Andy Cook oversees all equity investments and farmland investments. What we envision with this new position is an analyst reporting jointly to both of the deputy CIOs so that that person can assist in underwriting investment strategies on both the debt and the asset side. That also provides us with some level of succession planning and a training ground to begin to develop new talent as the organization grows.

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: Thank you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right, anything else for Eric right now? All right. Well, we made a note of that request and, we'll, discuss it as a committee, but I think on its face right now, it seems absolutely reasonable. Thank you. You are welcome, sir. Okay. And that's on the punch list. We got Rebecca Watson.

[David Chearer]: Oh, actually Or do you wanna jump in? On behalf of the office. Please.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Tomorrow, I'll be there. I'm just going line

[David Chearer]: by line. I'm just here. In no particular order. I'm doing, sir. How? I am doing well. Thank you for having me. David Chearer, deputy treasurer for the record, and I am here with Becky Wasserman, who's our director of economic empowerment. So we wanted depending on what the questions were, we wanted to have everybody available. And we also have our legislative assistant, Iris. Sean, over there too. Alright. So we were here to answer questions. I know you've heard from both the legislative council and from the treasurer about the substance of the bill, and I didn't wanna take up your time, giving more information that you've already heard. So understood there were some questions and happy to be available to answer.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So I think what I had was, yeah, there was a

[David Chearer]: request that came in

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: from the auditors, a little bit of a a deeper update and, conversation for on, the BT saves program. I wanted to rehash some of that conversation from when the treasurer was here, because there is the language in the bill, and I'm sorry, I gotta find the section here, that was looking for, appropriation for continued administrative support, if I recall.

[David Chearer]: Yeah. So in, section, two and three, essentially it would be a transfer from unclaimed property to our office, a transfer that normally goes to the Higher Education Trust Fund. But it's a little bit more involved than that, if you want me to take a minute to walk through that. No, I'd

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: love to. I want to get luxury dense on this one.

[David Chearer]: Sure. Yeah, happy to do it. So right now, the office, transfers a, some amount of money each year from the Unclaimed Property Fund to the Higher Education Trust Fund. The most recent transfer was on the order of about $150,000 So really a very small percentage of what's in the higher education trust fund, but there is a bit that goes in there every year. And we that money is taken from all the accounts that are more than ten years old and worth less than $100. And to be clear, anybody who has unclaimed property and comes to claim it will always be able to do that. It, as a matter of reality, is that accounts like that are very rarely claimed. But it is the people's money, it is theirs. I want to just be clear on that legal piece of it because we do sometimes get questions about that. But we have decided the the state of Vermont have decided the legislature that this transfer will happen. So every year when that next year be it goes from, you know, being year nine to being year 10, it sweeps in the accounts that are less than a $100 and more than ten years old. And so that turns off a chunk like, throws off a chunk of money. And as I said, the most recent amount was about a $150,000. The proposal is as follows. To change that so it will be more than ten years old and less than $150. So now you have a larger chunk of money that will be swept in. And there's a little bit of a nuance here because the first time this happens, you're now normally, the amount that gets swept in is just one year's worth. But because we changed the threshold up for everything, other than ten years old, all of a sudden now we have what could potentially be a very large amount of money, being swept in. But in order to not have that sort of disruption, we're proposing half of $300,000 so that you won't get like a million dollars swept in once and then, you know, go going back to the something along the lines of what we already had. The So a question

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: within that. So your the the proposal is to go from a $10 cap to a $150 $150. Yeah. Or was it a 100 or 10? 100 to a 150. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I caught that wrong. Okay. So that's not as extreme as I thought it was. So you're at the maximum of 300. Do you have any idea what the total sum would be raising the cap from a 100 to a 150?

[David Chearer]: So in the first year, if we were to not have a cap, is that what you're No.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No. No. I'm saying, like, what is the total amount of money that is would fall under this conversation moving it from a 100 to a 150?

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: That's first year sweep.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. The first year. Like, how much would it be? You're saying you'll do a maximum of 300, but

[David Chearer]: it would exceed that. Yeah. I think the estimate would be about it could be a potential transfer of about 1,200,000.0. Okay. That was my curiosity was Yeah. What In that first year. Like, bucket with moving the cap up, I guess.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah. Coffee is

[David Chearer]: just hitting. Again, remember that that it's going all the way back. Yeah. Yeah. And then in future years, it'll go back to just being one more year at a time. Yeah.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I was just curious as to that one time adjustment, what it was going to do to the hub.

[David Chearer]: Yeah, it would be a decent Yeah. It would be sweeping in. So the proposal is to use that, what would now throw out $300,000 that would come to our office, would finance the VT Saves Program until the VT Saves Program becomes self sustaining. We believe that'll happen in about f y twenty three, and we can share with you a '33?

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: '30.

[David Chearer]: F y three.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. Cool.

[David Chearer]: We're not yeah. We we got a DeLorean. Thousand. Cheap. Excited that wasn't a good use of our resources. So f y thirty three and or f somewhere around it'll be f y 33, 34, like, right around, on the cusp there. And, we do have a model that, actually the treasurer himself produced that shows that rise in revenue versus expense. And so at, you know, current you know, in just one year, to be clear, we've gone from $0 to 5,000,000 assets on in assets under management, 5,000 people in the program. So we are increasing at a good clip. And even going a little bit more conservatively than that, we believe that once you take the fees that come off of those assets and those accounts at around FY33, thirty four, we will be at a point where we're exceeding the expensive running program. The Higher Ed Trust Fund will get whatever. So basically the point of this is to fund the gap between the revenues that we're bringing in off of the accounts and the expense of running the program. Rutland Waters Evans.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Morning. Morning. Can you remind me, what was the original plan of

[Becky Wasserman]: how to pay for this?

[David Chearer]: The original plan was a onetime appropriation of $750,000.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: And it just didn't quite

[David Chearer]: It has not it has not gotten to the point where Okay. Self sustaining.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: Ralph Coffin, just trying to get clarification. So when the funds get swept in

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: Right, after ten years. So say in fifteen years, somebody shows up saying, hey, I had an so that record stays on the book the whole time? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. So where do the funds come from to pay this person if we've already invested their money?

[David Chearer]: So, I mean, they'll come from and I think as a practical matter in the short term, they'll come from, you know, the pool of money to where it is. We there's a lot of funds that come in where it's not clear whose it is. Right? And so there is just this pool of money that's there that's we can't assign to anybody. Right. And so it'll as a practical matter, it'll come out of that pool of money. If in an extreme case, you were to imagine that somehow everybody was known and everybody made a claim, we would be obligated to pay all those, and that would probably require a special appropriation to to cover that because some of this money has been swept into the general fund under the general fund transfer that we have. Some has been swept into the higher education trust fund under that transfer that we have. So, you know, in an extreme case, which we think is essentially impossible to happen, that could require that response. But as a practical matter, it'll come from the pool of money that's unassigned.

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: Okay. I'm curious about that and how it

[David Chearer]: gets guaranteed. Yeah. Yeah. So we yeah. It is it is the the state guarantees it, and it is there for people. I thought it might be helpful at this point to, if you don't mind

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I got a digital hand on representative Hooper and another question from rep Hango. So Let's do that. Rep Hooper.

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: Thank you. Good morning, David.

[David Chearer]: Good morning. So

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: how far back does this fund go? Question one.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: We

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: are not accruing interest for people that have money in there and then come and ask for it. Correct? And three, this money is invested now, Currently? Is that correct?

[David Chearer]: Yeah.

[Becky Wasserman]: Sorry, Becky Wasserman. Can you clarify which? Are you talking about the Vermont Saves Fund or the other

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: No, excuse me. I put my hand up back when the unclaimed property conversation was going on. The unclaimed property, does it accrue interest for the individuals who would later come and get it? Is it invested? When we go from the one hundred to one hundred and fifty, how many years back is that?

[David Chearer]: It's my sorry, Representative Hooper. It is my belief that this money is not invested, is not assets under management. Except in the there's always exceptions. We do held hold securities for people that, are lost or unclaimed also. And so, of course, those stay where they are and could accrue accrue investment returns as a result. But other than that, we are not investing these funds. And, I don't know how far back they go, but, you know, since there was an unclaimed property division and I don't know if this unclaimed property structure existed. And I don't know the answer to that historical question, but I can get you that.

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: That's just thank you.

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: Go ahead, go.

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: I think I have more questions than I originally had. And I'm not sure if they're really relevant, but I'm curious. First of all, why are they not invested? Why are these funds not invested? Because they could grow while people are not claiming their property, right?

[David Chearer]: In theory, yes. And that is a question that I will have to get back to you on. I'm

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: not That's Okay. It's probably a rhetorical question anyway, because probably no one has made the decision either to or not to invest them. So back to the Higher Education Endowment Trust Fund. Remind me where the money is coming from to begin with. Is it a state allocation to that fund?

[David Chearer]: The money comes primarily from the estate tax. Okay. So estates that are taxed, that the proceeds from that go into the higher education trust fund. One of the reasons that we thought that this was a good vehicle is that we know that the Higher Education Trust Fund has had enormous revenues in the last year. And so the beneficiaries of that fund, we believe, will not feel an impact from this. Point number one. And I should add that we have spoken to the beneficiaries of the trust fund, and they all approve of this. No issue with that. And the second issue is that as the from Vermont Saves program increase, the total transfer to the trust fund will very quickly match and then exceed the amounts that we had been transferring previously. So on the whole, we feel that this is a good deal for everybody. You know, we are able to, make sure that VT saves gets up and running as it fully should. And the higher end trust fund is not only held harmless, but will ultimately, in the long run, be receiving more revenues every year than they were before. And we'll actually pretty quickly reach the crossover point where like, the three years out, we'll reach we should reach the where our projections under our projections, we believe we'll reach the crossover point where we will be transferring more than 150,000 a year, which is what the most recent transfer was, and it was less prior to that.

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Thank you. Some of that was familiar from your testimony the other day. And last question, which is just totally my curiosity. Up to 5% of the average of the fund's assets are transferred to the colleges, the university, VSAC. Do you know what that dollar amount is typically?

[David Chearer]: I actually don't know off the top of my head. We could do the math on it. Something north of 60,000,000 in the Higher Ed Trust Fund right now. I don't have

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: 5% of 6,000,000, for instance, this year might be

[David Chearer]: transferred to

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: the various institutions that disperse aid to financially needing students.

[David Chearer]: I believe that's right. I have to check the statute to get the exact

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: The statute says 5%.

[David Chearer]: That's the answer.

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Thank you. All right. Great. Thanks. I'm done.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. No. Thank you. So guess

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: And then you may have said it, and I missed it. You said if we approve this and do this first year sweep of about 1,200,000, what is the intention to do with

[David Chearer]: that money? So we're proposing to cap the sweep of 300,000 just to not have this dramatic transition in how the system works for one year. And so it would be 300,000. That in the first year, about let me pull up my little chart here. In the first year, it'd be just under $2.50 that would go to our to the Vermont SEISS program, and a bit over 57,000 would actually still go into the higher ed trust fund even in the very even in FY '27.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: So you're not gonna sweep the whole 1.2. You're gonna cap it at the 300.

[David Chearer]: That's our problem.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: Each year, if it's less than that, you're just gonna keep doing the 300. That's gotcha.

[David Chearer]: That's exactly right. And, you know, the amount going to us will get lower and the amount going to the trust fund will get higher. And in FY '29, we already see the higher trust fund getting about 160,000 and then it'll go up from there up to the full 300. Thank you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So and this is I got a couple of questions on the structural of the VTCs right now. So there's 300,000 for administrative staff capacity, right, blah blah blah. What is the operating cost of the program right now?

[David Chearer]: Can I phone a friend

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: here?

[David Chearer]: Empowerment director.

[Becky Wasserman]: So, so we got a one time probation of 700. I think we are. About think 350,000 that we're in as we hired our second staff member. That has increased the cost. And that was a position that was authorized when the program started, but we didn't fill for the last two

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And so, what's current enrollment or participation in the program?

[David Chearer]: Oh, either one, either one or I'm we have a total of just over 5,000 accounts and just over 5,000,000 in assets under management. Okay.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: 500

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: k cash. Gotcha.

[David Chearer]: And we can actually send you right after this, we can send you our most recent report from the investment entity that gives you the exact numbers. Okay. Cool.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And then there was a rule change with Elkhart recently, or it's proposed and happening this week. I know it was scheduled to be discussed.

[Becky Wasserman]: Not coming on stage this week.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. And so, I know we talked about that one on one, but I want to have a conversation with the committee about that rule change, just so they have an understanding of what's shifting around.

[David Chearer]: So, the rule change to the sorry. What's No. No. No. No. Was just saying I just yep.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: Yep. Yep.

[David Chearer]: So the proposal is to go from all businesses over, five and over to all businesses two people and over will be eligible to participate in the program. The statute gave the authorization to the treasurer's office to, basically choose the threshold, and we started at five and viewed that as a bit actually a bit more conservative than other states in the sense that it was sleeping in fewer businesses than other states have similar programs. The treasurer and the office really view this as a great benefit to Vermonters. They can opt out if they don't wanna participate, but it is something that is free to the employer, and, really has significant economic impact to them. So opening up the door to, more individuals in Vermont to have this opportunity is something that the treasurer wanted to do. And now that we've got the program up and running and are in the rhythm of doing the outreach that we need to do to get more folks participating, we felt like now is a good time to open the door to more opportunity for more people to participate.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Repairs Null. Oh, sorry.

[David Chearer]: Go ahead. Sorry.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: We had an add on.

[Becky Wasserman]: There were actually two changes that were, which is, right now, the statute authorizes the treasurer to make a rule of requirements around whether it pertains to the police assistance program. Our rule currently said that they can participate if they work $500 And so we have decided to remove that for several reasons. One is that it relates to for part time and different employees being able to participate. Also, we received feedback from employers that it was difficult trying to calculate that at different points of the year and whether it's validation as well that employee, but we just don't want those And that's in line also with other states.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Understood. Alright, I have Pinsonault, Hango, Coffin.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: No, I'm still trying to learn acronyms, and you said LCAR, so I was like, does that mean

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: But that's the legislative rules? Yes. Yep. Sorry. Acronym busting is the Just real

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: trying to learn them all.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay, so we're going to Hango and Coffin.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: So just briefly, the expansion to employers that employ two or more from five or more employees, Do you project that that will bring in more money and accelerate the payback, I guess, to the higher education fund?

[David Chearer]: It would have that impact as opposed to staying at five.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Have you taken that into account in your calculations of when you think that it will be back to the funding level after you take money out?

[David Chearer]: I believe we did. We built this, or really the treasurer built this model after that was well along the road on the rules process. I'd say even with that, he tried to be not wildly, unreasonably optimistic. I think you try to build a relatively conservative model. But yes, it

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: does take that into account. Thanks. And my last question is for Ms. Wasserman. When you said the change to the seasonal part time and temporary employees, did you mean just to remove the hourly requirement or remove them from being eligible for the program?

[Becky Wasserman]: Just to remove our new requirement. So we expect that part time seasonal October employees maybe are not eligible for the facility this past year because maybe four hundred hours a year would now be able to participate because they don't have to show a certain hours. And,

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: Bennington, your second question was the one I wanted to know about with the funding. When it was gonna take, so I

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: got that

[David Chearer]: answer. Alright. Look at that.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I'm just scanning here for my own personal benefit. Any other questions for the deputy treasurer at the moment?

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: Electronic hand.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Oops. Representative Hooper. Sorry. I had my eyes low. Sorry. It's all you, buddy.

[Rep. Robert “Bob” Hooper]: David, refresh my memory. Is this pre or post tax contribution by the participants?

[Becky Wasserman]: It's post tax. It's a Roth IRA's. Okay. Thank

[David Chearer]: you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Now we need to track down some other folks to get testimony on this with some of the other sections, but I think I've asked everything I needed to this morning at this point, unless you have any other I'll give your staff here. Any other parts you would like to discuss broadly within the bill? It's all.

[Becky Wasserman]: I just wanted to make a clarification earlier about the budget. It's actually around $343,000 That request is actually for the Global Economic Income Division. So I just wanted to clarify that. So that includes the other programs in the division, and the HOT saves is approximately 50%. So it's not the full amount is the cost of it's it's more like a $106 per year. Okay. I'm sorry.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: 100 and what? 60.

[Becky Wasserman]: Just just actually I don't know if I did that. More like

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: $1.70.

[David Chearer]: That's why I put a that's why I put a

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: plus minus on it. Yeah. And

[David Chearer]: we did submit in the treasurer's annual report a budget document that is specific to Vermont's A. So you can take a look at that, too. My

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: question is for either of you, the Office of Economic Empowerment. Is that well, maybe it's for the chair, too is that in our jurisdiction, in terms of budget, would you prepare a formal request, budget letter for us? Because is the whole I don't know who it's for. I was trying to figure that out too.

[David Chearer]: I don't know

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: the answer to the question. So is the whole 343,000 request this committee's jurisdiction, or is only the 160,000?

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Jurisdictionally speaking, I would assume it's this office of economic empowerment, it's the treasurer's office that falls under our jurisdiction. Seeing nods?

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Yes. So sometimes where administrative functions only of a department. So that's what I was trying

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: to Yeah.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I think I I need to double check with appropriations when we're doing all this, but

[David Chearer]: Ask legislative

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: counsel. Yes, I'm getting nods from deputy treasurer and the chief financial.

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Thank you. So if you would make that proposal in writing to us, that would be really helpful for our budgetary process.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And thank you for that, Lucy. Yes. So like, we're getting ready for like our budget memo work right So like those pieces just with the requests. So when we organize things for appropriations, We are happy

[David Chearer]: to make it as easy as possible.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes. Digital submissions help us keep our ducks in a row. That sounds good. Yeah. They keep our spreadsheets spread genie. Okay. Well, we'll we'll

[David Chearer]: get you something. Awesome. And

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: then I'm just scanning this bill right now just to see if there's anything I missed while you're sitting here. But these were my biggest questions for today. Alright. Last call on the deputy Chittenden and team from our team. No? Nothing? Alright. Alright. Thank you so much for your time.

[David Chearer]: Thank you. Happy to answer anything else that comes up.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Oh, yes. No. No. No. This is this is not the end of the conversation. Just Yes. No. I appreciate all of you very much. Alright, committee. We are gonna have a little bit of time to take a break. Before 10:00, we have s 23, an act relating to the use of synthetic media in elections. Dustin Hoffman, one of the classics from last session, is coming back here. The senate did make changes. So we have senator Callimore and legislative council joining us to go over those changes. Rep. Waters Evans was present while the discussion was occurring in the Senate, so she is, more up to date than the rest of this. Rep. Boyden.

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: I have this question about where we're at with S 23. Since we made the House made changes to the Senate bill.

[David Chearer]: Mhmm.

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Now they have made changes. If we do not agree with their changes, we would be at a committee conference?

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: We are at concur or conference. Correct. There is no ability to amend without a committee in conference. Rebecca?

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: So if you all remember the discussion last year, I had stated that if we were going to take it up in January, which I really wanted to learn more about it, that I wanted to call in more witnesses. So that is not possible before we go through this process because the Senate made changes.

[David Chearer]: So

[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: if anyone was waiting for me to call more witnesses, you will not have that opportunity.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes. We are at her or her. So, I'm curious to get the, like, granular of what the what the updates were. So Anything on that before we hit the pause button for a few?

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: I can. If

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: you'd like to. Yes.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Well, no, I was just going to say, I think. I was thinking I could tell you what everybody talked about the Senate when I was there last week, but probably Senator Calmore should give his thing first and then I can fill

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: in after. Yes. Yes, so in regards to this page five sixty seven, which we just heard, do we wait for more testimony, or do we act on this? Oh,

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: no, we're going to take more testimony on it. We're prob I want to, give thoughts to the request from VPEC for the position. So that's a potential amendment to the current bill. And then I also was, like, trolling through here. I mean, it's a civil thing. It seems on its service, like, with the raising the threshold probate court, but I wanna talk to somebody from at least, like, Terry or somebody from probate. So we're gonna poke out some more.

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: Rep Coffin. And if anybody's curious of dates from last session, when we last year when we were looking at this, if you wanna go back and review any

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Are you on '23 now? Yeah. On s twenty Yeah. We were just on treasurer.

[David Chearer]: So, like Yeah.

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: No. On s twenty three, if you wanna look back at the dates, was the twenty seventh, twenty eighth, and May 29.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: I'll check that.

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV]: That we actually discussed it. Yeah. Because I just pulled my notes back up, my handwrittens. Yep. Which are easier than the computer tape truck sometimes.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: The irony of that conversation. It's fun

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: to go back. It's fun to go back and watch really brings it all flooding back to watch those many days.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: The range of promotions. So, yeah. No. I mean so, yeah, we'll get an update on this. But, yes, for as far as, like, the process within the institution, we are out of the ability we're out of amendments, amendment capacity, unless we go to a conference.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault]: So that's really The amendment bag is empty.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. It's been exhausting. Alright. Fifteen minutes. We'll circle back. Dick, take us off. Thank you.