Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right, we're live. All right, everyone. Thank you for your patience on that longer than expected break. Let's see, we are back at work on H588, which is our Office of Professional Regulation, bill. And first, I wanna ask, Michael Warren, the chief inspector, the office of, professional regulation, the secretary of state's office to come up, and he is gonna speak to us about the components relevant to his work in the bill, section we've been taking a lot of testimony and conversation on. So really appreciate your time and your perspective. How are doing today, sir?

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: I'm good. For the record, my name is Michael Warren. I'm actually the chief investigator at the Office of Professional Regulation. And everybody's all set. I'll go ahead and Yeah.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: The table is yours, sir.

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Yeah. I'm I'm mostly gonna read from my testimony just as I think that would be the most accurate, but feel free to stop me at any time if you have questions, and I'm happy to, elaborate. For background, I'm currently the chief investigator at the Office of Professional Regulation. I've been employed by OPR since January 2019, so just over seven years now. Prior to my time at OPR, I was employed by the Burlington Police Department for just shy of twenty one years. During that time, I served as a patrol officer, a patrol supervisor, as the rank of sergeant. I was a detective, investigated major crimes. I also investigated Internet crimes against children cases. I worked on the DEA drug task force for four years and eventually became a lieutenant at the Burlington Police Department overseeing the detective bureau in which all major crimes were investigated for the city of Burlington. I also oversaw the drug unit at that time. During my time at Burlington Police, I served as the director for the Chittenden unit for special investigations, also known as CUSI. It's a countywide sex crimes unit that's supervised by the Burlington Police Department in that role. I was a member of the Vermont Human Trafficking Task Force that was organized and ran by the US attorney's office in Burlington. I received related human and sex trafficking training. I conducted and supervised investigations of human and sex trafficking, and I also assisted other state agencies with those investigations. I'm here to talk today about massage establishment registrations. And I wanna talk a little bit about the difference between the types of credentials that we have in our office. We often refer to the credentials as licenses, but they're actually, there are three different types of credentials. There's registration, there's certification, and licensure itself. So I'm gonna break these down and talk just a little bit to make sure that everybody understands the difference. Registration is when folks practicing a profession are required to register with OPR. As part of the registration, consumers can search our website to verify if someone is properly registered. They can see if there's any discipline against that registrant, and they can review the rules and regulations of the of the profession to verify if they are following the rules. Registration allows OPR to prosecute registered professionals for misconduct, and if necessary, remove them from the marketplace by revoking their registration. There are no qualification based requirements for registration, for folks that are required to register. Certification is a voluntary credential that OPR has, and that is when individuals can receive, the certification. It's generally based on meeting certain training or educational requirements to call yourself certified. Currently, we have certified dietitians, as an example of a profession where some folks can become certified, but it's not a requirement. It's a requirement to use the term certification. So if somebody says I'm a certified dietitian, they must actually have that credential. But as long as they're not using the term certification, there are some professions that you don't actually need to be certified by OPR. And the most strict form of credential that we have is licensure. It's the highest level at OPR and is qualification based. So there are usually educational requirements as well as continuing education, each licensing cycle. There are sometimes minimum practice hour requirements. There's exams, there's supervised practice, and other requirements as part of licensure. So those are really the three types of credentials that OPR has. To recap some of our earlier testimony, regarding OPR's current recommendations, Vermont regulates individual massage therapists, body workers, and touch professionals through registration. This means that everyone practicing the profession must register with a state, but no qualifications are required. This allows OPR to remove bad actors from the marketplace while leaving others free to work. We explained in the 2021 and 2024 reports that we issued that registration rather than qualifications based licensure is the right size approach to regulate this profession, in accordance with our public protection mandates under Title 26, chapter 57. And I believe based on my knowledge and experience, I believe that registration continues to be the correct form of regulation for these professionals. H588, the OPR bill, would not change the regulation of individual practitioners. Instead, it would give OPR regulatory power over locations where massage is practiced through a system of registration. Purpose of registration is to strengthen public protection in the fight against human trafficking. You've previously heard testimony of deputy chief Chris Bowdish in our office who provided statistics related to the complaints and discipline that have occurred in these professions since we began regulating them 04/01/2021. More recently, this committee heard testimony from lieutenant Michael Student from the Vermont State Police as well as well as Wyndham County State's attorney Steve Brown regarding their concerns around human and sex trafficking within illicit massage businesses. OPR investigators, including myself, have partnered with both of these professionals on human and sex trafficking cases. I appreciate the experience and dedication that they apply towards helping victims of these cases in Vermont. The purpose of my testimony today is to validate the concerns that were brought to you by lieutenant student and attorney Brown, but also to clarify some confusion around the current law and also read it reiterate OPR's recommendation for registration, not licensure, of massage establishments. You previously heard lieutenant students state that human sex trafficking investigations are extremely difficult to conduct, time consuming, they're challenging with the cultural and language barriers that exist. They require significant resources. And in most case most cases, the folks providing the massage are the victims of sex trafficking and not someone that we wanna charge criminally with prostitution or any other related crimes. Lieutenant students students stated that there needs to be oversight of the businesses so we can stop them from exploiting the women who are being trafficked. And he testified that there needs to be business licensure to achieve this oversight. You also previously heard testimony of attorney Brown who stated the committee should consider establishing licensure because establishment registration is not working. However, currently, there is no system of massage establishment registration in place. There's a business registration through the secretary of state's office as a business entity, but there is no current registration for massage establishments through OPR. H five eighty eight would create that system. It would give OPR exactly the tools that lieutenant Steuben and attorney Brown said are needed for regulating massage businesses. Currently, the only folks we can prosecute connected to illicit massage businesses are the practitioners themselves, but we're not interested in charging these folks as they're crime victims I'm sorry. They're victims of human and sex trafficking. If establishment registration were in place, the businesses themselves could be prosecuted and ultimately closed for engaging in unprofessional conduct. We could also prosecute unregistered massage businesses for unauthorized practice. This is often much simpler to prove than human or sex trafficking even when that is the underlying concern. Establishment registration would be just as effective as licensure in protecting victims of human and sex trafficking. Unlike registration, licensure would unfairly put cost costly and difficult to attain regulations on those that are and have been practicing professionally and competently for many years. It could inadvertently push some legitimate businesses and practice practitioners out of the marketplace. In contrast, establishment registration would empower OPR to prosecute massage establishments operated by human and sex traffickers without harming legitimate small business owners. In closing, I don't want to overstate the power of any form of professional regulation in this area. In my experience as a Vermont law enforcement officer, having investigated sex crimes for many years, solving the issue of human and sex trafficking is not a task that OPR can do alone. Vermont wants to get serious about human and sex trafficking, we need a coordinated approach and involves agencies like the attorney general's office, each individual state's attorney's office, the US attorney's office, and other federal partners, local and state law enforcement leaders. Massage establishment regulation is one small but important piece of this puzzle. OPR is recommending that registration of massage establishments is the proper form of regulation at this time, and I wanna thank everybody on this committee for hearing about this important testimony. Ms. Rutland.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Could you, explain, please, the difference between registering as a business with the Secretary of State's office and registering as establishment with the Office of Professional Regulation, just so we're clear on the difference between Sure. Criteria for those two things? Yeah.

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Sure. The secretary of state's office has different divisions. They have the corporation business division. They have the office professional regulation. They have the elections division. All businesses in Vermont, whether it's an LLC or a corporation, sole proprietorship, they all have to register as a business with the secretary of state's business division. That's independent of any license or registration that would occur through OPR. So businesses that are not regulated by OPR there's so many that are regulated by OPR. But if you if you own a business that you are not required to be registered through OPR, you still have to register your business with the state of Vermont. That's done through the the business division within the secretary of state's office. That is a completely separate business registration than what we would be requiring, from a professional regulation standpoint. So, home contractors currently are required to be registered with OPR. But if they own you know, if if I'm a home contractor and I have Mike's, remodeling, I have to register my LLC with the secretary of state business division, and I also have to be registered with OPR as a contractor if I meet the criteria for that. So I would have to have two, registrations. They they offer two different types of protections to the public. So in this case, massage establishments, while they may have a business registration, there is not, oversight by the office of professional regulation to be able to, to remove that registration or the ability for them to continue to practice. That's what the registration that we are recommending would be in place to do.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you. I

[Kate Nugent (Member)]: was hoping that you could talk about if there's anything at the local level that would make it easier for OPR to work with local law enforcement. I think there might be some, sometimes it sounds like from the other testimony, hesitancy around what the authority is and who has it, whether it's health officer or zoning or, the police departments, or if there's anything else that we could do, maybe not now, but in the future to help that coordination happen better.

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Yeah. It's, it's a hard it's a hard question to answer, because there are there are so many, entities that that touch the world in which this human sex trafficking occurs. And so there is local zoning regulations. There are health regulations. There are local police departments. It's the the because of the cultural the challenges culturally, both just in communicating with people and understanding, the way that victims of human sex trafficking are navigating through the world, it's often very challenging to it's very challenging for one entity to be able to interact and have an impact, you know, as a the the zoning person because they they have very specific things that they're, regulating, whether it's sleeping in the establishment. A lot of these businesses, they have the bed set up and people are sleeping there around the clock. But the zoning folks don't really have enforcement for the ability to be out there at 11:00 at night to be able to see, you know, what's happening, and they may have to have law enforcement that is looking at that stuff and reporting it to the local zoning. But it's it's challenging because these businesses fly under the radar. They, for the most part, try not to create any problems. They operate very quietly. And when you try to communicate with them, it's very difficult just language wise to communicate whether or not they legitimately speak English or not. It becomes a challenge. And, honestly, in my experience, what I've seen is most of the different groups of people that would have the ability to, have an interaction, don't have the time or the ability to be able to deal with it, and and they don't, because it's very challenging. So, that's you know, in here, I said that there really needs to be a coordinated approach. When I was on the human trafficking task force run by the US attorney's office. It seemed like there were it it it's such a complex issue, and the victims rarely ever testify in cases. They rarely ever even stick around in cases. And so, it's just extremely difficult to prosecute cases involving human or sex trafficking. And every every system is so overworked that it's easy to to focus on the things that are much easier to deal with. I'm not sure that I have a real easy answer on the best way to try to help all these different entities, come together. Not sure I have an answer, which is why it it is such a problem and why it does exist. Surely. Any other, questions for mister Warren Warren?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So, your position is at the the the current structure in the bill with the registration?

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Yeah. I you know, I think, attorney Brown and lieutenant student I actually talked with lieutenant student after watching their testimony, and and explained that I was gonna be coming back in and that it was OPR's position that we would be recommending registration, not licensure. You know, I've worked with both of them in the past, and I certainly don't want them to think that we're trying to work against them because this is extremely important work. I've I've done it for the last ten to fifteen years myself. I I, have done the investigations. I see the impact it has on the women that are working in these establishments that are providing sex services all day, every day of the week. And so I I wanted to make sure that they understood that we want the same things that they want, and that we felt that registration was the correct thing. Lieutenant student said to me, he, doesn't care whether it's registration or licensure. He wants businesses to be able to be held accountable. And I think just like in our office, we use the term licensure a lot because it's it's how we refer to it. It's really a credential, and the credentials are registration, certification, or licensure. And I think that, you know, I can't speak for attorney Brown because I wasn't able to connect with him. But I know lieutenant student said, it doesn't matter whether it's registration or licensure. There just needs to be some oversight of the businesses, and and that really is what OPR is trying to do. There there was a case in Rattleboro that we worked on very very closely with them, and, it's frustrating and challenging from OPR's perspective to go in and not have the ability to shut down that business, and we don't wanna go after the individual people that are working there. And as soon as law enforcement gets involved, those individual people leave and a new group of individual people come in. But there's always still a single business entity, and that's really what we're, looking to try to have the ability to impact that business. And I think registration is is a good first step for that. Whether it's registration or licensure, we still have the ability to to, prosecute them, to remove their registration. It's just whether or not there are qualifications based, you know, things for them to get there and, whether there are qualifications or not, we we still have the ability to remove them and we think that that's what's appropriate at this time. Governor Horizons?

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: So if it were registration for the business rather than licensure for the people working there, OBR would still have the ability investigate, to inspect without wanting to do all of those things they would need to do. Right?

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: For registration of the business, is don't have the exact how we wrote it into the current bill. You mentioned inspections. I know there's some conditions of inspection.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: But

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Okay. Yeah. If it's a registration or licensure, we would still have the ability to do the investigation. And if we identify that there is unprofessional conduct occurring, which human or sex trafficking would be an element of that, then we could prosecute them for unprofessional conduct. And ultimately, you know, it's, you know, obviously up to an administrative law officer through our regulatory process. But if there was sufficient evidence that ALO could remove their registration, which would allow them to no longer practice as a business. Without the business registration, if they continue to practice, then it would be a criminal charge of unauthorized practice for the person who is running and managing the business. So it would allow the regulatory oversight, if they don't comply, then there is a criminal component that would allow us to then, hold that business owner liable.

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

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Any other hands?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, thank you very much for the time and for the testimony both on the written and off script. So, it's greatly appreciated. Yeah, no problem.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And we're gonna move over to Mr. Devlin now. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: There's a updated draft that's posted on the website we sent out to the committee earlier today with some updated language mostly around the speech pathologists. I wanted to give, mister Devlin an opportunity to review that with this ever evolving document. How are you doing, counsel?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Doing well. Thank you very much for having me, committee members. For the record, my name is Tim Dublin, legislative counsel. And before you, you have let's see. Half 4.1 of the committee's amendment, strike all amendment to h five eight eight, the miscellaneous OPR bill. That's the short handle is. Two main changes in this bill. One is adjusting the speech language pathologist chapter under title 26 to include this the chapter that requires licensure for speech language pathologists and to expand that to also include licensure for speech language pathologist assistance. And it really just kind of, adjusts existing language, to, insert the additional licensure requirement. The other thing it does too is, it rearranges the sections in the bill so that they follow the same order which they appear in title 26. And I plan on updating that overview that the community has been referencing to date, so that everything will align for next time. But, right now, I would direct your attention to title I'm sorry, page 21. The highlighted language is what has been added here. And really, the only other highlights we have are the effective dates, which, again, were changed because I rearranged the sections of the bill. So the first thing we change is the title of chapter 87. Now reads speech language pathologists and speech language pathologists' assistants. And we change one definition. And I left in here for the committees as a reference, the definition of what the practice of speech language pathology includes, in case you're curious. But we have, let's see, at the top of page 23, the additional definition of what it means to be a speech language pathologist assistant, which means a personal person licensed to practice speech language pathology under this chapter in a limited capacity as determined by rule. So first right there basically means exact same thing as a speech language pathology only introduces the term limited capacity. And what is that limited capacity is determined by rule by OPR. So if the committee wants to change that language, just let me know. Happy to do that. Or that mechanism for how that limited capacity is determined. Next, we move on to section 4,452, also on '23, which will amend provisions and penalties. And here we have, description of what a person shall not do, and we add speech language pathologist assistance after pathologists, when it comes to, how the individual, may display insignias or letters indicating that they qualify or credential. Next, we move on to page 24, and we have the directors of duties under section four thousand four fifty six. And first thing we do is just kind of clean up a typo. There was no subsection B, and so there really doesn't need to be a reference to subsection A. And then again, we were to peers that we have, let's see, the directors a duty to prepare and maintain a registry of licensed pathologists. We also add assistance there, Page 25 under subdivision seven. Then we go down to, the more substantive change we have here. I think the committee needs to concentrate on and that's again on page 25, section 4,457, licensure applications and eligibility. And these are the provisions having to do with the prerequisites for applicants and what they need education experience to qualify for this license. And first thing we do is break it out into what the requirements are for pathologists under one and then flipping across the page to page 26. We have two requirements for speech language pathologist assistance. I just want to know off the bat that these requirements for the assistance are just place for us. So I would recommend the committee take testimony to determine how appropriate these are. They in some sense, mimic what we have for pathologists with a lesser educational requirements. That's just a starting place. I'm not grounding that in anything particular just educated filler is what I'd call it. So I suggest the committee think on that. And that's really it at this point. Would the committee like me to go into any other detail about changes in this draft?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, no, mean, we need to evaluate the recommended language that's proposed here and bring in testimony for sure. So just for recollection, this is based off of, testimony from the speech pathologists last week. And it's been to my recollection, an ongoing conversation for a while. So, any questions about the words on the page for council right now? So, I just want to go back to an email that went out to committee earlier. Do you have anything else to

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: add there? Nothing for me.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: The There was a conversation around nursing also. In the email this morning. And did the committee members have a chance to take a look at that? It

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: was at 09:02 this morning from Nick to the whole committee. Revision regarding APRN.

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: And we have a little

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: bit of time here, so I wanted to touch on that just for like a little like background and context. And the origin of that was through the registered nurses, and it seems to be you have a share screen capacity?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't. I'd have to log into the Zoom.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. So Nick, could you punch that? It's Oh, it is on our page? Okay. So looking at that, I guess it you wouldn't mind, Tim, just to, like, speak to it. It seems pretty Sure.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So, title 26 chapter 28 has to do with nursing. Sub chapter two has to do with advanced practice registered nurses. There is a renewal and sorry. APRN is advanced practice registered nurses for reference. OPRs provide a suggested amendment to 26, sixteen, fourteen having to do with APRN renewal. Right now, the current statute is just three subdivisions that reads an APRN license renewal application shall include one, documentation of completion of the APRN practice requirement, two, possession of a current certification by the National APR and Specialty Certifying Organization. Three, a current collaborative provider agreement if required for transition to practice. And OPR is suggesting striking one, that is documentation of completion of the APR and practice requirements. As far as drafting is concerned, very simple, it would just be during that. It is a matter of policy discretion. So, for any reason why I would, as to justifying it or, policy objectives trying to be met here, I would defer to OPR.

[Michael Warren (Chief Investigator, Office of Professional Regulation, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Okay.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Perhaps some, yeah, I mean, live in and around this world.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: Yeah, it seems very similar to the language around my profession for occupational therapy, because we have to get, I just certified through NBCOT, which is my national, like the National AirPN, I was in the National Board Certification OT. And those practice hours, they take that. I don't have to submit twice, if that makes sense. I'm just like, NBCOT approved me. I don't approve it twice for

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: the state of Vermont. Just are the same. Representative Hango?

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: And my understanding is that physician assistants who are similar in practice to nurse practitioners are under the same guidelines.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So, is the committee comfortable with this including the bill? Well, thank you, Tim. Okay, so there's a couple of updates there, but we're really seem like we're getting close to having this OPR bill in a place where we can do a final discussion. My hope is to be able to do that, like, in of next week from that's the the desired, like, a Wednesday ish wrap wrap this up at least for this stop to get it out the door moving. So does that sound like a reasonable timeline to everyone? Alright. Up next, we got a couple of minutes to a bill introduction. So, we're gonna hold on that timeline. So, Nick, take us off before we come back for an introduction, a walkthrough on something, rep Coffin put in H eight thirty one, which is act relating to requiring the secretary of state to include the year of passage in the number assigned to acts of the general assembly. Now