Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back to the House Judiciary Committee this Tuesday afternoon, March tenth, and we're continuing to get testimony on miscellaneous bills, specifically right now, section 25. And we have Elizabeth Smith. I'm sorry if we put Liz down here or is I go, can we have Liz on?

[Liz Smith (Title Insurance Underwriter/State Manager)]: I go by Liz.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. Okay. Well, Liz Smith, welcome. Identify yourself for the record and where you're from and proceed.

[Liz Smith (Title Insurance Underwriter/State Manager)]: Thank you. My name's Liz Smith. I'm a VP and the state manager of CADIC, which is a title insurance company. Thank you, Chair LaLonde, and to the committee members for the opportunity to be here and talk about this important legislative draft. So backing up a little bit to what I do. So we're a title insurance company. So we work with a network of attorneys throughout the state of Vermont who perform title examinations. And should they find an issue, they come to us with that issue. And we evaluate the risk of that title issue and determine the insurability of the particular property that that attorney has searched. That's a title search, marketable title determination. And so the only thing that crosses my desk on a daily basis are title defects. So we see those in numbers. Haddock insures approximately probably around 60% of all of the transactions in the state of Vermont, residential and commercial. So we get our fair share. And just to kind of remark on mine and my colleagues at Catech's experience level in terms of title defects and title risk, I've been a licensed attorney in real estate for fifteen years. I've been with Catech as an underwriter for ten years. So thank you to Jim Knapp for his remarks. I'll try and talk about some different things, but also summarize what I think as well relative to the Kershon decision. Starting, I guess, is that in terms of my case research that I've done, the Kershon decision would be what we refer to as the minority in The United States. This is not a question of first impression in the Kershon case. This question has come in different jurisdictions. And the majority decisions throughout The United States are looking at these two phrases within a deed, joint tenants with rights of survivorship, comma, and their heirs and assigns are not inconsistent, and that their heirs and assigns is specific to the type of estate that's being conveyed. And the terminology that we've used and that Jim used is the simple title, meaning that it can be conveyed to you and that you can resell it, put simply. So the legislative testimony document that I provided last week is available, and it does cite through a majority case using an example and other treatises and legal journals. So these are documents to support the historical nature of this language, their errors and assigns, in order to reflect that it is an express designation of the estate of the simple title. So those legal resources are here. I mean, I can summarize them. The majority decision, a case being cited, this is from a different jurisdiction. No ambiguity exists by reason of the particular placement of the words heirs and assigns in a deed. The words are merely a description for the estate conveyed to be a fee simple title. So the Kershaw decision, it cites to another Vermont decision that Jim referenced, which is called Kip v. Chip's estate, and that is from 1999. In that case, and this would be a type of deed that would cross my desk, there was a section in the granting clause that said tenants in common and a section in the habendum clause that said joint tenants with rights of survivorship. That is an ambiguity. Here you have a situation where you don't know the intent of the grantor and how the grantees were intended to hold title because it lists two different things. Within that case, the court had a lot to say about that ambiguity and then went a step further and talked about the there heirs and assigns as a support of their decision. The Kershon case then took that, what we would call dicta in the legal world, of another portion of a decision but not as strong as the precedent of the holding. And they used that and relied on it very strongly in that Khershon decision. But going back to what we understand from journals such as American Jurisprudence, other whatever corpus juris, sectedum. All of these really ancient legal texts that law students study and pontificate on and learn about in real property law, these all support the legislation that's been presented. And others more practical concepts of what the Kershon case had was not what the Kipp case had. It didn't have a direct contradiction in terms of the tenancy. What Kershon had was silence in one clause and joint tenants with rights of survivorship in the other clause. There is nothing under United States law, property law, or common law that necessitates that the language be placed in both locations. We're looking for clear intent of the tenancy. So the concept of silent somehow usurping the plain language of joint tenancy with rights of survivorship is not a way that a real estate practitioner would review a deed. So the legislation that says basically that it's Okay if a section in the granting or the habendum clause is silent, it just needs to be placed in one, is again a common law and practical approach because we're just trying to determine the intent of the deed. And if the intent says joint tenants with rights or the language says joint tenants with rights of survivorship and nowhere else lists a different tenancy, it should be relied upon that that was the intent for joint tenants with rights of survivorship. So the practicality of all of this is that even if I hold, for example, title with my spouse as tenants by the entirety, But even though that feels like a safe designation, and we may not have to worry about this Kershaw decision, the reality is every title search is based on a chain of title, a series of deeds for the past forty years. That's the marketable title requirement. So anytime now in my chain of title or your chain of title, if there is silence in one of the either granting and habendum clauses, there becomes a question as to how the tenancy was supposed to be held. And all of a sudden, now we're worried about estates that weren't opened because the concept of survivorship in the past was readily relied upon, or that there are unknown heirs that may stake a claim to the title of the property, which is similar to what happened in this Kershaw decision. So I think that is somewhat summarizes everything. I do think this is really important. So Jim mentioned that 69 real estate attorneys that had responded. We have hundreds of agents that we work with. And so I sent out a message to the attorneys that we work with throughout the state and heard from about 150 attorneys supporting this legislation. Before I even saw the Kershaw decision hit from the Supreme Court records, I had dozens of attorneys calling me, asking me, had I seen this decision? What are we going to do about this decision? So I definitely think we have significant support. And I also think there is a sense of urgency to the extent that there are transactions happening right now. Title searches taking place right now in the city of Montpelier and all over the state of Vermont that are aware of this case and have concerns now that every deed in their chain of title needs to be analyzed with this in mind, even though all of the research and common law understanding, majority case law in the country, and legal treatises and journals say otherwise. So not sure I have great respect for the Supreme Court of Vermont, and in no way do I want my testimony to reflect otherwise. In this instance, we do feel that this is necessary, notwithstanding the Kershaw decision. In addition to my role with my employer, Caddock, I'm also chair of the Title Standards Committee. The Title Standards Committee meets quarterly to review case law, to review legislation, to review different practice areas specifically for title searchers and real estate practitioners. And we also have the full support of that committee as well, including other smaller bar associations. For example, the Franklin Grand Isle Bar Association has also specifically provided support for this legislation. And certainly am available to answer any questions. And hopefully, the documents that I provided as well can be helpful in understanding that historical reference to errors and assigns as denoting fee simple title.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: My question is not going to be about any specific things here because it can show how little I understand it. My question is actually just two things. One, out of everyone that you spoke to, did you hear from anybody who was opposed to this proposed? And then my question is

[Liz Smith (Title Insurance Underwriter/State Manager)]: I'm sorry. I'm going to say no for the record.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Oh, yes.

[Liz Smith (Title Insurance Underwriter/State Manager)]: I just took my head slowly. And

[Unidentified Committee Member]: then my only other question is, haven't read the decision, but did you get a sense that the Vermont Supreme Court had a sense for how monumental this decision was going to be?

[Liz Smith (Title Insurance Underwriter/State Manager)]: No, I think from my perspective so I'm a transactional attorney. The idea of standing in front of a jury or a judge is very foreign to me. Similarly, someone who was a specific trial litigation attorney doing transactional work would also be very foreign to them. I think this is just a misunderstanding. And I also think that the Kipps case from 1999 confused the decision in a way that they specifically said in Kershaw that the facts were factually similar or the same, and that is not accurate. Because back to Kipps, it had an ambiguity. In one section, it said, Here you go, Ian and Zachary as tenants in common. And in another section, said to Ian and Zachary as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. That is truly an ambiguous tenancy of which the default would be tenants in common.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But

[Liz Smith (Title Insurance Underwriter/State Manager)]: the Khershon decision did not have that same set of facts, but the Kipps holding was applied as if the facts were the same, in my humble opinion.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So is it fair to say that the Supreme Court found an ambiguity that the practitioners out there, all the folks we're hearing from, don't think it was an ambiguity? But just to make clear, we're we're clarifying this note. That it's not an ambiguity. There's no way to find an ambiguity with this new language in here.

[Liz Smith (Title Insurance Underwriter/State Manager)]: Yes, correct. So it does two things. One, it eliminates the concept of ambiguity when one section of a deed is silent as to tenancy, and then also states that their heirs and assigns is not intended to modify the joint tenancy with rights of survivorship. So using another example of deed forms. So under these same treatises and journals, there are form sections. So if you go to the Vermont form deed, while it's not a statutory form, it includes the language there heirs and assigns. One step further, Vermont has the Enhanced Life Estate Deed Act, which is relatively recent. And within that act, a statutory deed was provided. And that deed too has a blank for where you would list the tenancy and then comma, their heirs and assigns. So again, this is common language that you would find in every single one of your deeds, in my deeds, in my chain of title. But again, the effect should not be to modify the tenancy that is fairly stated.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Any other questions? Thank you very much. That's very helpful. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Chris Delia next. Nice to see you back.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Good to see you again. Director Christie, Vermont Bankers Association, Liz just said. God, I'm not I'm not a lawyer. Let me just say, first of all, we support the language in the bill. I wanna thank Liz and Jim for their work on this and their testimony. We are the recipients of their work, if you will, because we're the ones that are working with the customer to do the mortgage. And in in my view, this decision creates a great deal of uncertainty out there with the deeds that are currently recorded in the land records. So to be able to bring that certainty back into focus is incredibly important. While I was not doing this job when the Bianchi decision came around, I've been doing this job with Bianchi in mind, and I've lost count of how many committees I've worked with to insert corrective language to address the Bianchi decision, which was used as an example today. So we would ask you wholeheartedly to adopt this language to bring certainty back into the marketplace for the work that we do with the title community.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Great, great. Appreciate that. Questions for Chris? Short and sweet to the point. Thank you so much. Thank you so do you have Laura Braddock?

[Laura Bradrick True (State Underwriting Counsel/State Manager, First American Title Insurance Company – Vermont)]: Yes. Laura, if

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: you could join us. I'm skipping jumping over Jennifer Pullman because I assume you're here to talk on the same thing.

[Laura Bradrick True (State Underwriting Counsel/State Manager, First American Title Insurance Company – Vermont)]: I am. Thank you. I was gonna say if I waited till the end, we're gonna have to go back a few minutes, everybody. See, I'm paying

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: a little attention to my Thank

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: you for being here.

[Laura Bradrick True (State Underwriting Counsel/State Manager, First American Title Insurance Company – Vermont)]: Yes, of course. Thank you. So good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for having me here. My name is Laura Bradrick True. I am state underwriting counsel and state manager for Vermont, for First American Federal Insurance Company in Vermont. My work is similar to what Liz had described her work in that I work with real estate attorneys who are my agents in Vermont. I assist them with their title analysis and title insurance risk management and any general legal support. What comes across my desk is also problems that we find in the land records. I'm also a Vermont attorney prior to my being at the company, which I've been with the company for about five years. I was in private practice doing real estate for about nine years. I am also here in support of the proposed amendment to 27 VSA subsection two, which is of course responding to Kershaw. So I wanna reiterate everything that Jim and Liz said too, but things that I thought maybe I could highlight regarding the fact that this bill is needed to restore predictability and stability into the Vermont land records. And again, aligning this new statute, if it was adopted, would align with longstanding conveyancing practices. So many Vermont deeds, again, follow that common pattern of having the survivorship language in only one part, either the granting clause or the habendum clause. And then again, that errors in a science terminology, which really is meant to indicate that we're conveying the full fee simple, not a lesser part of the fee. Hirschhorn creates, I believe, broadly three systematic issues: the clouded title and marketability problem, more litigation and higher transaction costs. There could be probate delays. Title actions might be needed to be brought to resolve things that we find in the back chain. Corrective deeds, which are not always easy to obtain because we have to again find people who thought they sold the property and then we have to go back to them and get them to sign a corrective deed, which costs money, takes time. And again, court action, sometimes whether they take months or years, they can be expensive. They can slow down the closing process. This also creates a disruption of longstanding reliance on, again, how deeds have been drafted in Vermont for many generations. So I do believe that this amendment, again, clarifies the joint tenancy language can appear in either the granting or the habendum clause, which is what we see in practice. It confirms the errors in assigned language does not negate the survivorship language. You can have both joint tenets and errors in assigned in one deed. We think that works. And it does restore the predictability without eliminating the tenancy in common presumption. Tenancy in common presumption is still in the statute. And when we do have those inconsistencies or if it's silent throughout, tenancy in common would be the default tenancy in the deed. I also, of course, reached out to my agents when this matter came up and said, Hey, does anybody oppose or not oppose? What are your thoughts? And I gave my agents a three day turnaround and I got about 27 responses in those three days. Everyone was in support of it. I did not have any agents reach out indicating that they were opposed to it. And yeah, so again, First American supports this amendment, title uncertainty, preventing unnecessary costs, and again, protecting Vermont land title as it is.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Great. No, thank you very much. Any questions? No, I think it looks good as far as all the witnesses we have. And I appreciate everybody having reached out to the communities to find out if there is any opposition. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll go to Jennifer Pullman. Thanks for being here, Jennifer.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Thank you for having me.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Lauren here, but maybe just not as complicated as Jane.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Yeah, no, mine I've learned. I'm not going to say anything about what my proposals are. I

[Laura Bradrick True (State Underwriting Counsel/State Manager, First American Title Insurance Company – Vermont)]: am going to

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: say It does. Very good.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: It is very hot in here. It's very hot in here. Please stay awake. For the record, my name is Jennifer Pullman. I'm the director of Vermont Center for Public Health Services. And again, thank you for having me in to testify on what's proposed in the current version of the most miscellaneous judiciary vote. I did listen to attorney Fitzpatrick's walk through and also attorney McManus, and so I'm prepared to comment on all those pieces as well. With respect to the first issue that jumps right off the page, and that's that profits from crime, peace. Locally, it's more the Son of Sam law, where making sure that victims are able to, if somebody were to write a book, for example, about the crimes they committed, that they would not get the profits from that book, that instead the victim would civilly sue. And it occurred to us or occurred to me when I was looking at our comp statutes when I came on, like, why is this with us? Because as you'll see, and as Eric, as Patrick testified to, what's in Section one is not new language. It just got basically stuck in our compensation statute. We don't track civil suits. We don't track profits from crime. That's always been the responsibility of office. And I met with the AG's office and they were like, Yeah, absolutely. That's really odd that it actually is in your comp statute. So they were completely supportive. And so Section one simply takes that language. And as I walk through, you'll see where it's getting basically struck out of our statutes and putting it within the AG's provisions. So that one felt to us like it made more sense structurally. And importantly, our board was also given a statutory mandate, and that's, I believe, in section 14, that we would report annually on what profits that had been reported in terms of offenders in our state and what that looked like. That, again, felt like an obligation that we couldn't possibly report on. So looking at Section one, it really ties into Section fourteen and sixteen and just makes it really clear that, again, the AG's office is very happy to make this change and make it really clear for folks. With respect, I'm going to only speak briefly on Section eight, because I suspect that my colleague, Charlie Fisherman, will speak to this. I do want to say I'm really grateful to see this language in here. I saw that it was included in a bill that's still on the wall, and it caught my eye. And we did Center did do some research to see, are there other states that define Forsyth conduct differently or prohibit it, make sure that it are limiting it to calendar days versus facts. And we couldn't find anything that would restrict that definition. So for us, we know from working with stalking victims, prosecutors tell us it's one of the hardest cases to prosecute. And we couldn't find anything that told us why, any case law, any states that said why we couldn't do this. So we strongly support this change. Turning to Section 11. That's on page 13. This came up this morning, and I'm happy to be able to talk to speak to it. We and I put this on the committee page. As you can see through the context of 13 BSA 5314, law enforcement does have obligations to provide information to victims of crime. That changes in terms of how much information based on whether it's a listed or non listed crime. The Centre for Crime Services has always provided a tool for law enforcement to help them meet their obligations. We've always provided forms in different variations. The current form that you'll see on your committee page, which is here and here, was the most recent iteration of that form. It came out of the victim notification task force group. And what was missing in why we made this change was because we heard so much during testimony, and Chittenden alone will remember this before joint justice, that one of the big gaps in terms of victims notification was when somebody was booked and detained overnight or on the weekend. We realized that law enforcement don't necessarily victims and law enforcement don't even know about sometimes this information. So it simply includes, you'll see on the back on page two, just the reference to the vendor locator system and the vine system. That is all. And again, BSP was involved in this, as well as DOC, survivors, state's attorneys, victim advocates and disability rights Vermont. So this was a consensus recommendation that we would simply update the form that BSP had already been working with us to develop. It was a simple change, and there was no opposition. Everybody agreed that that should be a part of this form. It doesn't increase the obligation on law enforcement. It just changed the form. We provide training on this form at the police academy. State Police provides training to the troops, other troopers. And then we also provide are working with DOC. Look at it. I've got plenty of copies. So it's really just a tool. It's not an additional obligation. And we've tried to make it simple. I certainly don't want to increase the obligations on law enforcement. It was simply to highlight this is something that you can be aware of.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Are they using that form now? Yes. And

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: we've rolled it out to the Criminal Justice Training Council. And so it's a piece that, again, is something that was blood, sweat and tears by all the members. It's not a new form. It's just an updated form. And the previous form, BSP, was right in the weeds with us developing it, making sure that even troopers could populate it from their car, because we understand some troopers have computers in their car. Don't know if that applies to you, Philip Oliver. But it can be populated. So we tried to make it easy. Again, it went up and down the chain at BSP. So really hope that this will be something that's considered.

[Laura Bradrick True (State Underwriting Counsel/State Manager, First American Title Insurance Company – Vermont)]: Yes. So just to make sure

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I understand that form. That the current form, we were just to doubly confirm has everything that is being requested here. Yes, I

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: think we'd like to look at it to Oh, I trust that. No, it tracks. It always has track 500314. But what we learned from this whole process of looking at fricking notification was that law enforcement didn't really know they could let victims know about this information. And so they'll be training to help support that. But victims didn't know. So somebody could be detained on a Friday. The victim didn't know about the offender locator system or about fines. So it's just giving a simple tool in writing so that when somebody's in crisis, they can go back to that form and look at that. We also have it translated into 12 different languages as well, which are all available to law enforcement in the field. Thank you. With respect to I'm going to skip over Section 12 because that just speaks to the repeal of what was in our statute relative to profits from crime. And just jump over to Section 13. That speaks to our Victims Compensation Board. We are recommending that we change one of the definitions that's in statute from a licensed physician to a health care provider. You've heard from Attorney Fitzpatrick what that would look like. This came from our board, and especially from our longtime licensed physician, our doctor. And we all agreed it's really hard to recruit people for this role. It's not doesn't pay a lot of money, and it's hard to find physicians who can give up their time. And he really felt that other folks who are licensed could do this role. And so for him, he didn't see, he's really been the one that's like, I think other licensed folks could do this. You don't need a doctor. So we're hoping that that will expand our pool of potential applicants and recruits. And then going to section 14 on page 16, as I mentioned, we're just striking that obligation to report profits from crime. And again, that ties into how we're restructuring in a way that makes sense, putting things with the attorney general's office. So getting to restitution, I am aware of the questions from earlier today. And I did speak with Attorney Fitzpatrick about those. We do not provide any reimbursement or any advance from the fund pre conviction. To be eligible for an advance from the Fund, three things have to happen. There has to be a conviction and a restitution judgment order that comes from the court. We then, secondarily, have to verify that those losses are crime related. So even if we get the RJO, as we call it, from the court, we don't simply say, Okay, here's your amount of money. We verify that it's crime related. And then finally, in order to receive an advance, you have to be an individual. It's not a business. So we are not giving advances out to Walmart, to Target. It's an individual person. That doesn't mean that we don't collect restitution. The first individual is eligible for up to $5,000 If the loss is more than that, we'll continue to collect. We collect for businesses. We have various tools that we can use, liens, tax offsets, lottery winnings, different ways that we can help collect that. The victim always is paid first, whether it's an individual or a business. Then we will, whatever money is left will go back into the fund. So you give an advancement only after Yes, and if we verify In

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: anticipation of the defendant's paying the rest of the decision.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Yes, and then we do work with We are doing far better than when DOC was engaging in this piece. They had about a 19% collection rate. We have about a 40% collection rate. It takes a little while. I'm not going to say it's pretty all the time, but we don't We work to hold people accountable. But the beauty of this fund is it takes individual victims out of that immediate, like, tug and pull, waiting for the $5, the $20. And so it helps make them whole in a much more expedient manner.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Law is not pre conviction.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: No, our compensation program is pre conviction. That's upon a finding of I should have probably just shut my mouth. That's upon a finding of probable cause. But that's not a capitalized fund in the same way the restitution piece is. But in the restitution case, there has to be a conviction. We have to verify those losses are crime related. So we sometimes get orders that relate Well, we sometimes will get orders from the court, where it's like, oh, okay, dollars 5,000. Or maybe there's a plea agreement, let's say, where it's like, okay, it's $5,000 in restitution. And we're like, No, no. We need to drill down and find out how you got to that number. So it's not a blanket check. Our funds are not healthy enough for us to do that. And we do question every expense and verify it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: So what we were trying to do here was, several years ago, predating me, the initial intent was it would be up to $10,000 that somebody, an individual, could be eligible for. And as we looked at the health of the fund,

[Laura Bradrick True (State Underwriting Counsel/State Manager, First American Title Insurance Company – Vermont)]: we

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: thought we needed to recommend a change to $5,000 That didn't happen in all areas of statute. So this is truly, again, a technical change. They have to take care of the fund, and it's really confusing for folks who we serve and support who are looking at different amounts. For the most part, I will say that most of the folks that we do serve as support, their losses are under 5,000, but we do get some really awful ones as well. But this wasn't We looked at whether this was really impacting most of our survivors, and it wasn't to go down to the 5,000.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Can you just remind us of what regulations are in place that It sounds like the dollar amount is up to your discretion, but for money that you get from the beds, or this is fully restitution, so it's totally your rules. Well,

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: as far as the restitution program, that's why the fund is in the most trouble of all three funds, because we don't have any other sources other than state special fund dollars to support it. For victim's compensation, we do get a small reimbursement from the feds. We do not get that for restitution. It's completely capitalized, only funded on that 15% surcharge. So that's why this fund is in the most trouble. So the only one of those funds that comes with sort of strings attached that are not changeable, it's the federal small pot of money that you get. Yes, this fund though, is predicated on case law, so it has to be crime related. And there's a lot of decisions.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Because I know mom talked about some cases where it's like somebody's killed, but it's not deemed a murderer, so they're not eligible, or certain expenses are not reimbursable. I know I'm pulling from disparate things, but I'm just trying to get a handle on how varied is it from fund to fund. Like, so somebody might be raped, and then later on, they're a victim of another crime, and they're thinking, oh, this fund is available, but it's really a different fund.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Prosecution, if it's the direct result of a crime, and it's a loss, then that's eligible. So that would include expenses that victim's compensation might not be able to cover. For example, a lot of property loss, we don't necessarily cover in victim's compensation. So it's a broader it's a broader pool of potential eligible expenses, but it's harder to get there.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So loss of wages might qualify?

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Well, that would also qualify under victim's comp. But again, that's there's a lot of different pieces at play, but restitution can cover more.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But they don't have the money because people have to

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Well, we get them to pay, it just takes a long time.

[Laura Bradrick True (State Underwriting Counsel/State Manager, First American Title Insurance Company – Vermont)]: Right, right, right. Yeah. We do have people

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: that are only paying $10 a month.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I believe that's all the pieces that we have here for you.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: I did want to just flag something. On that one You're not going to let me speak?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, no, I'll let you speak. But I want you to speak to corrections institutions first, because it's related to parole eligibility and victims, and that's their jurisdiction. I'm happy to put it in here because we've done that before where they've had us put stuff in. But you need to talk to Alice first, and then bring it back, Okay? That's fine. And I'm happy to talk to her as well and tell her that we're happy to do it. But it's her jurisdiction, so I don't want to step on her feet.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: I have spoken with Chair Emmons or have emailed her. And I know she's aware of the recommendation. I was hoping since it was a Title 13 change, we could just do it here. That's okay.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, she has some overlap on this. But no, I have no problem in putting it in. Let's run it through her first. We'll prematurely do that. Because we're gonna do these last kind of items on this on Thursday. So I'll give you till Thursday afternoon. Okay. Is that right? That's fine. And I'm happy to talk to her. I will talk to her about it as well.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: You have the, I wouldn't say side by side, but the bottom and top,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: so

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: you know where we're going with that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yes, no, exactly. Mean, I think that, it looks fine to me, but I just don't. I try to respect other people's jurisdictions.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: I try to teach I

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: know you do. Yes, you do. But when it says parole board, even if it's entitled 13, it's not.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Okay.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: All right. So we're gonna take another break, ten minutes, and then we have Senate bill that we will take testimony on, and if it looks fine, we will put it on the miscellaneous bill. And then we have Willa coming in for her parts at four four. And then I was thinking it'll take more than like fifteen minutes, ten minutes. I'm take five, ten minutes.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Well, you very much, Pete. Yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Thank you, Jen. And we'll see you again on Thursday, more likely. Oh, yes. It's about what? Other day, better go on language.