Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Mark Higley (Member)]: And

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: here we are in ways and means, and it's Friday, the twenty second. And we're doing something. The optometrist, but I don't remember what the phone number is anymore.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: 64. Great. Floor is yours, Jen.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great. Good afternoon. Jen Harvey from the Office of Legislative Council. We are looking at S 64, an acclimating, tremendous struggle for optometrists. Do you want me to put the language up on the screen? How much detail would be like?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I'd like us to do fairly nominal detail until we get the parting process. It's a hard to pronounce procedure. Don't need any of that business. Thank you. Same with the eyes and the pins that's like in those ads. Don't want to talk about those.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I wasn't going to talk about that. You. Think I'm qualified. Okay, so this starts out in section one by amending the definitions in the optometry chapter in title 26. So we're in the kind of professional regulation realm here. And under current law, the practice of optometry has a certain list of practices that are included in the definition of the practice of optometry. This bill would slightly expand that as it relates to prescribing, to add administering and to clarify therapeutic pharmaceutical agents, which is also defined. But the main difference here is that it starts introducing the idea of an optometrist holding an advanced therapeutic procedures specialty, which is what most of the rest of the bill is about. And that includes performing certain additional advanced therapeutic procedures that it lists various forms of surgery, laser procedures and injections. And then it specifies that the practice of optometry does not include performing anything on the list of prohibited practices that is in Section 17 that gets added as well. Also, add some other definitions: adverse event, basically anything that goes badly in a medical context, and therapeutic pharmaceutical agent. Then we get to Section two. It says license renewal under existing law licenses are renewed every two years and there's at least forty hours of continuing education required for that two year period. This would add for someone with an advanced therapeutic procedures specialty. They would also need to complete an additional five hours of continuing education approved by the Board. In this case, we're talking the Board of Optometry in the advanced procedures. Section three and some prohibited practices that an optometrist shall not perform under any circumstances other than those that are set forth specifically in the list in the first section that we looked at. And it gives a list of procedures an optometrist is prohibited from performing. So, anything that's on that list. There's 23 things on that list. Also, generally prohibited from prescribing or administering a drug or other substance that is a Schedule one or two controlled substance with a limited exception for prescribing or administering hydrocodone in combination with analgesics for a short period. Section four is the Advanced Therapeutic Procedures Specialty. So this is really laying out what that looks like, has the qualifications. Somebody has to get an Advanced Therapeutic procedure specialty in order to perform the advanced therapeutic procedures defined in Section one. And it allows the board to grant that to somebody who is a licensed optometrist, meets specific education and demonstrated competency requirements that are listed in the bill, and they've completed the examination requirements also listed in the bill. And it goes into education requirements that are a little different for somebody who graduated before 2019 and 2019 or after from optometric school, because the training in the classroom has changed. So somebody who graduated earlier would have to do some additional thirty two hours of additional postgraduate education, including certain topics in the didactic classroom instruction. And that's just for folks who graduated before 2019. Someone who graduated in 2019 or later does not have to do the additional coursework. But everyone has to complete a pre secureship and that is working with an optometrist with this similar expanded scope of practice or ophthalmologist who is a medical doctor or osteopathic physician who works on eyes as well, specializes in eyes. They have to demonstrate clinical proficiency with hands on experience performing certain procedures on live human patients, at least two of each of six different procedures.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: And not an or.

[Bernadette (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Each, it's an and or. Yes, it's

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: an it. And then a preceptor is either an optometrist with a similar scope of practice or an ophthalmologist. Must be directed in person. Some other requirements around that. Requirements, there are a couple of additional exams that the applicant must successfully pass, both written and critical in injections and lasers and surgical procedures. Then it creates the potential for advanced therapeutic procedure specialty by endorsement for somebody who holds, has the same or a similar scope of practice or broader in another state and has been in good standing there for at least three years. Reporting requirements requires an optometrist to report any adverse event. That was that defined term of things happening in a medical context related to an advanced procedure within thirty days following the event. This is just a technical redesignation within the chapter. Act will take effect on 07/01/2028, allowing OPR time to prepare. And that is the bill.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Maybe it's to whom or to which body do the optometry, so

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this would all fall within the BILG.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: And Is there a database that's

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: available to the public? I don't believe there's no requirement for that here. The concept of the adverse event, or at least the definition I took from hospital safety and surveillance reporting system, which is all confidential to encourage reporting. Yes, to encourage actual reporting. Any action, disciplinary action taken against a licensee, though, is publicly available on OPR's website.

[Unidentified Member]: Yeah, thank you. Maybe similar to Rebecca Burkhardt's question about adverse effects, confidential, da da da, is there an inventory somewhere that someone compiles about? I mean, there's people concerned about adverse effects from vaccinations, and I don't think there is any industry for that now, but there are adverse effects from time to time, and I wonder if when they're reported, if they're somehow recorded in the big master book of adverse effects or something like that.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That I'm aware of. Adverse events are, we'll look more as any, this is again, the definition from existing statute just reused here, but any untoward incident therapeutic misadventure, iatrogenic injury or other undesirable outcome directly associated with care or services provided by a healthcare provider or a healthcare facility. I'm not aware of any sort of master bad event list.

[Unidentified Member]: I'm just curious for here we are. Thank you.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. And I'm also not aware that there are requirements quite like this in other professions, although OPR or the Board of Medical Practice may have a different take or may have separate requirements in rule for reporting a adverse event. Another

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: question for Jen. Oh, yeah. Yeah, thank you. And we had a slight sidebar conversation before we went on camera. And I understand that we're expanding the scope of practice and this has been under review and deliberation for years. And I understand this probably came out of OPR in that conversation. Has there been any conversation with the administration about the state plan? The issue is that Medicaid won't cover these procedures provided by an optometrist, and that seems problematic, particularly if the goal is to expose or increase access. Is there a way

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: can shape that to ensure that if these procedures are truly provided by optometrists,

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they are also able to use Medicaid? Yeah, so this came up originally in the House Health Care Committee. And I had assumed if an optometrist was a participating provider in Medicaid and they provided the service, things would be covered. We heard testimony from the agency of human services, the Medicaid division, that that is not the case, that we would need to have a state plan. We would need to amend our Medicaid state plan, which is kind of the master list of all covered services for Medicaid. And so these services are currently covered, it's my understanding, when provided by an ophthalmologist, but not by an optometrist, and would not be covered when provided by an optometrist unless they amended our Medicaid state plan, which means asking permission from the federal government, which we are also currently doing for doulas and Medicaid coverage for doulas and Medicaid coverage at least for freestanding birth clinics. Although I don't know that either of those has actually, there's considerations around when to ask for a Medicaid state plan amendment that the administration is working through. But it is my understanding, and I testified to this in House healthcare, which considered an amendment and House government operations just yesterday, that the administration would require or would request, I believe, legislation directing them to seek the state plan amendment. That because there would be a financial implication associated with Medicaid coverage, so they would want to include it in a future budget request to the legislature to have the coverage. And they also need to do a fiscal analysis as part of their application to the federal government for the State Plan amendment. So is there a process that you could start? Yes. And I have the language drafted, but my understanding will not happen absent legislative request.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: I'm just way over my skis here. This is not my area,

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: but it seems to me that there would

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: be an efficiency if we have to make a state plan request anyway because of doulas.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is there an efficiency in starting this so that they're doing it all? I don't know how they, from a practical standpoint, I don't know if you bundle your asks or you do them one at a time. But this has been proposed and considered. It's been proposed to

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: be considered in two different ways you've thinking What about

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the Senate Power? Seems to be a sign here. The timing, The information came after healthcare from what I'm hearing. I thought you said that your understanding changed post that. No, that was during that. I reached out to them during the process. I think there have been some concerns about the timing of the bill and the session that has affected interest in proceeding with the Medicaid aspect.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: I don't know, and I don't know how to evaluate that. It just seems very problematic to me that we aren't considering accessibility for Vermonters who have more limited needs, especially given what we know about cuts in healthcare just generally. It's a huge problem.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You may want to talk to your colleagues. I

[Mark Higley (Member)]: only found one place in the bill where it says fee. Right, so it doesn't say it's a new fee, it's the existing fee. For a company.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You are gonna be hearing from Ted in a moment. I don't wanna I stole my little spender last time I was up here. So I'm gonna let Ted talk to you about the revenue implications.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Pretty neat. I think it's time for that. I know. Okay. Thanks. Yes. We understand, was it a procedural issue when that, and I know Gavap's considered an amendment. Was it a concern about timing, process? Do you have any understanding of why that amendment?

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We can make the change when you ask them. Okay.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Okay.

[Bernadette (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, Bernadette, from the fiscal office. Given the relative shortness of this fiscal note, I'm not even going to share my screen. Representative Kimbell is correct. There is not really a very explicit reference to the fee that would be paid, but there is by requiring optometrists to receive an advanced therapeutic procedures specialty that kind of picks up the underlying OPR has kind of a general, they have specialties for a whole range of professions, then the fee for a specialty, unless designated otherwise in statute is a $100. OPR indicates that about 50 professionals would potentially get this specialty. That was raised when the bill is effective in 07/01/2028, so about $5,000 the specialty doesn't renew. So it's just a one time, you get the specialty and that is covered. I mean, there's additional education requirements when they're licensed for news as an optometrist, but as far as the specialty is concerned, that's a one time designation. There would be periodically as new optometrists take up their specialty, you'd see $100 here and there.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Any other questions for Ted? Thanks, Ted.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Teddy, when

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: we're done with this book, can you two go downstairs to

[Mark Higley (Member)]: DevOps for the amendment? For 09:50.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: What if it's so? I'm going force

[Unidentified Member]: you. Okay.

[Bernadette (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Didn't sign up for this.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: You actually did. Anyone

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: need anything else? Yes.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: I feel like I need to know why passing procedure that we're not allowing certain people of more minimal financial needs to answer.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: That's a very good question. I think that's been asked in both committees, and I honestly have not stayed included to those conversations. We can take a break after this next bill and then come back and vote on this after you get that answered for yourself.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Does that sound good? What I'm struggling is there seem to be very strong opinions that are completely contradictory. So I'm just very unclear how we're supposed

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: to interpret that. So you need to act at this point? You could talk to our colleagues on healthcare and DevOps. I have not been following the conversation myself. Okay.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: And I'm more confused now than I've asked before.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Is there something you could do if we took a break to find more clarity? Would you like us to do that? To take a break so you can try to get some clarity? Yes. Okay, we're going to do one more bill before that. Anyone need anything else? Yes.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: We passed this bill. If we pass

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: this bill Okay,

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: thank you.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I missed that first question. And

[Mark Higley (Member)]: we apply for a Medicaid state plan or put it into effect, would an optometrist be able to practice even though they had all the requirements and yet we don't have the plan submitted.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I'd certainly not the person to ask that question to you.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, the Medicaid cover would not affect whether the optometrist could perform the advanced therapeutic procedures if they received the advanced therapeutic procedure specialty. They just would not be able to be paid by Medicaid for providing them to the Medicaid Advantage.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: And this wouldn't take away from an ophthalmologist performing the duties until

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, then nothing about the bill changes ophthalmologist's scope of

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: practice or Medicaid coverage. But

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: just to be clear, can I ask

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a question? I think what I heard you also say is that the administration will not pursue a change in the state plan unless directed to by the legislature. That is my understanding from them, but they have not, to my knowledge, testified since they testified in House Health Care to say that they would need a statement. That's an upline back and forth with them trying to understand more. And that was the, my comment. That's not really the email that I can summarize the email. They

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: said

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it would require them to, it would require an appropriation to have the coverage. Medicaid will not cover it without an appropriation with the legislation, be it to prompt them to request funding in the FY 2019. Yes, Medicaid will not cover without appropriation. Our fiscal analysis and then fiscal twenty nineteen budget request, both of which would be promised by legislation directing them to obtain. We'll just seek the state plan amendment.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: You still have any

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: questions about how much they would do it without being directed to? Yes. Will they, I don't know. That they won't, they want to, so Medicaid will not cover- To do anything with. Sure.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: I'm so sorry. No, I think this

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is a I have an idea, which is we make our approval contingent on the administration. The other thing,

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: the unions have taken a tremendous amount of time on this bill and we have spent seven minutes on it. And so I really don't want us to be the ones to offer an amendment. This is though. I don't think this is news to the people who have already spent an enormous amount of time on this bill. So I absolutely understand if folks want to take time to go talk to them, if they want to offer floor amendments. But we have spent seven minutes, and we're probably not going spend much more than seven minutes on this, given how limited the jurisdiction about the revenue piece is. Jen, sorry, you were in the middle

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of something. That's okay. So again, Jen Harvey, legislative council. So my understanding that I confirmed with them is that Medicaid will not cover these services borne by optometrists without an appropriation. That rate would require a fiscal analysis and then a fiscal year twenty twenty nine budget request. And both of those would be prompted by legislation directing the administration to seek the Medicaid state plan amendment.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So this bill is gonna go to appropriations next. It would be appropriate for appropriations to offer an amendment about this kind of thing, since they're the ones who do Medicaid payment things. We wait for our poll. Don't know if straw poll

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: will make sense. We're voting in the

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We actually have possession of the bill. It's not a straw poll. So we can move it to appropriations. Folks can vote no and reserve the right to vote yes when if appropriations offers an amendment. That's fine. We can also take a break if folks want, and then come back and vote in a little bit. But this we have full possession of the bill, so we need to take a vote, and then appropriations needs to go and take a vote.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: To be clear, I just wanna make sure I think what we're talking about here is a cure would be directing the administration to evaluate. Do a physical analysis of what appropriation would need to be made to provide access to healthcare, because what we're talking about is improving healthcare that only some people can access.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yes, I believe that's been discussed in other committees, and that would be an appropriate amendment for appropriations to offer if appropriations wanted to offer. Representative Higley?

[Mark Higley (Member)]: I would just like to say, and hopefully we can move this morning, because I dealt with this years ago when we were on COVID, I just think we're at a point where we should move it all. I'll take that. And just to make sure I understand it, all the procedures that are in the bill are currently provided by ophthalmologists.

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is my understanding, yes.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Ophthalmologists do accept Medicaid for the payment of those services, not necessarily all of them,

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: theoretically? I mean, yes, that is my general understanding. Not Medicaid So is currently covering these, and they are being provided by ophthalmologists.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: So by increasing the pool of people that can provide these services with the right training, you're not decreasing the availability of those services for those that are receiving Medicaid payments for them. You're actually increasing the amount of services available, but not decreasing the amount of Medicaid services. Right, you're

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: not making any changes, so to represent Page's question, you're not making any changes to the availability of ophthalmologist provided services to Medicaid beneficiaries.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Okay, thank you.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: That's a good point. I don't know if that's a good point. I think if it affects recruitment or if it takes pressure off of our lesion to maintain presence of an ophthalmologist, don't know that it does. I just don't know. We can make a decision today. I'll be outside. Thank you, Dan. Okay, so folks, we

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: can, we have two choices. We can take a vote on this now, and folks are free to vote yes or no. We could take Either way, the next thing we're doing is a straw poll on the manufactured housing bill, and then we can take a break and come back and vote on it in forty five minutes. Those are two choices. Are there people who want to take a break?

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Yes, I think we've each.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Excuse me. Yes. Representative Sosie, did you present the scope?

[Unidentified Member (Bill Reporter)]: I am the reporter.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Oh, okay. Is there

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: anything you

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: want to share

[Mark Higley (Member)]: with us?

[Unidentified Member (Bill Reporter)]: Yes. So it doesn't take effect until 2028. So I think that the delay on Medicare payments is going to be minimal because once it gets legislated then it will be approved by the state health plan. So I don't think that the Medicaid impact is minimal, and they can still go to an ophthalmologist if they want to, if they aren't on Medicaid in that six month get out of the Great,

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: thank you. You're welcome. Do you folks still want to take a break before we go home?

[Jen Harvey (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Rebecca, do you need to? I just, we've got

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: conflicting information. One letter. So do you,

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: if you're not, it's really fine either way. Just let us know what you want.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Doesn't matter. I think it's done. A quick break would

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: be good. Okay, great. Okay. Thank you. Heard something for this. Happy to do that.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: It's different. So we're

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: gonna next go to the manufactured housing. Oh, here you are. Hi. Please join

[Bernadette (Joint Fiscal Office)]: us. Yes.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And then we're gonna take a break and then we're gonna come back and vote on the this. Teddy, go downstairs, please. Ted,

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: can you go downstairs? Yes. I'm gonna

[Bernadette (Joint Fiscal Office)]: go downstairs.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: Good afternoon. For the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Council. I take it away and we're gonna deep dive into manufactured housing again. Would it be helpful for me to just give a brief summary of the bill, the underlying bill that you all passed?

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Yeah, but like so brief.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So if you all recall seven fifty seven, section one made some very, as it passed the house, made some very minor technical changes to when you're transferring ownership of a mobile home. And then there was a few sections in the middle that made some changes to limited equity cooperatives. And you had a section that says that for a manufactured home community that is a limited equity cooperative, it shall be treated as if it were a nonprofit corporation for a public purpose in order to access state funding and grants. And then you all had added in a specific subdivision there to say that that shouldn't affect the tax treatment of those entities. So I have the language here, so I'm gonna pull it up and yeah. This language here on b one, the bottom of this page, mobile home park organizes a limited equity cooperative to treat it for the purposes of state funding and grants as if it were incorporated as as a state nonprofit with a public purpose and public benefit. It doesn't alter the specific funding and grant requirements. And then you added in the sub two on the top of this account about, that doesn't affect the tax treatment of those entities. And then towards the bottom, the very final provisions of the bill, if you remember John Gray was in here and he talked about how you're making changes to when these homes are subject to sales tax, you were making changes to try to make that treatment as equivalent as you could as if it were under the property transfer tax. So that if it's being sold and subject to property transfer tax, or if the mobile home is being sold and subject to sales tax, which is gonna be dependent on how it's being financed, the tax treatment would be as near equal as possible. That's the bill as it came out of the house. What the Senate Economic Development Committee did was they took that language, the b one, treating them as if they're nonprofits, they put a sunset on it. So it's not striking it out, it's keeping it, it's putting a sunset on it in July of next year. They did that because they're requiring this report from the Department of Housing and Community Development in consultation with a lot of other agencies to report back, submit a written report. On lines 11, identifying all state funding and grant loan programs available to mobile home parks for infrastructure improvement with an analysis on the eligibility and regulatory barriers prohibiting access for mobile home park registered as a limited equity cooperative. Senate economic development was a little concerned about putting this blanket statement saying treat it as if it's a nonprofit for all state funding and grants. Let's get a report back from DHCD identifying what those state funding and grant programs are. That way, if we need to go amend the eligibility requirements for those state funding and grant opportunities, you could do that directly. That's what the senate economic development committee report is. They changed the effective dates again to make that repeal effective 07/01/2027. Then it went to senate finance. They voted out. It went to the floor. And then the senate did a floor amendment to extend the effective date of the changes to the sales and use tax exemptions out to 01/01/2028. My understanding, and John Gray would better be able to answer the question because he drafted this, but my understanding was this does have a minimal impact on revenues of the state. They're doing budget negotiations. We don't want to alter budget negotiations now. Let's just push it.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And Chad said the fiscal impact was not Oh, fiscal impacts are a year later than the fiscal impacts. That was his official report before he left the room that you're doing well. Consider that your JFO report.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that is the That's the amendment. Sunset the one section, get a report, extend out the effective date of the sales tax change. So Ken, was that the first part about study instead of just treating the limited equity cooperative home parks as a non profit, it's all about the eligibility for different funding and grant sources. That's the only thing they're sunsetting. It's not about organization taxes or anything else, it's only about eligibility. Yes, So there was a lot of discussion and there's been some kind of confusion as this bill has worked its way through different committees. Nonprofit is just an organization type at the state level. You can organize as a nonprofit entity if you're structured this way. And organizing as a nonprofit at the state level doesn't have a direct impact on your tax exemption status at the federal level. And so there just a lot of discussion about some of these entities are registered as nonprofits with the Secretary of State, some are not. None of them really should be because they're all limited equity cooperative organizations. That's what they are. They're not nonprofit organizations, they're limited equity cooperative organizations. That's the organization type. But because some of them have been listed as nonprofits, apparently when they go to access certain state funds, if they have that piece of paper that says they're nonprofit, the funding entity, the granting entity doesn't do any further analysis there. Whereas some of the other ones that are registered where it doesn't say nonprofit, apparently there are barriers for those entities to be able to access certain funds. So the Senate Economic Development Committee was saying, we're okay with this very broad statement, just treat them as if they are nonprofit. But the better solution may be to let's identify what those funding streams are. Let's identify what the barriers are to some of these corporations being able to access those funds and then potentially address the issue, address the challenge directly. This is Mark. Any other questions? Yes.

[Unidentified Member]: I remember in committee when we talked about the sunset, I don't remember why we agreed with that. Is it out of scope? Briefly, can you recount why we agreed to that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You all did not do the sunset. That is the

[Unidentified Member]: talked about it in here, this part of the bill. And I don't recall why we and I didn't even ask out of their it's not gonna affect my vote in my favor, but I'm just curious about that.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Why we did what?

[Unidentified Member]: Non profit. We sunsetted the non profit plan.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We didn't sunset. The Senate sunsetted it. That's what we're struck for.

[Unidentified Member]: Sorry, let me rephrase. Okay. I remember discussions about that, but I don't remember the why. I'm just trying to remember what we discussed, it's not gonna affect my vote, but I'm just trying to catch myself up with previous discussions.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Why we did the nonprofit

[Unidentified Member]: thing? Well, I understand the nonprofit thing, so it enabled this type to avail themselves of certain kind of financing things and various sorts of it all makes sense. I don't recall, and maybe it would be nice to know why that vision is sunsetting, and I don't need to know that to go permanently on the bill. I'm just trying to catch myself up.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, as I was saying, the Senate is proposing to sunset it because their position in committee was, again, as I was saying a second ago, these are not nonprofit entities. They serve a public purpose. If you look at the statutory section that governs limited equity cooperatives and you look at the very top of that section, so this is the section for limited equity cooperatives. It says here that they fulfill the public purpose of providing and preserving housing for persons of low and moderate income. So you've given them a public purpose in statute, and we talked about how in statute, you limit what a limited equity cooperative can do with its assets if it ever dissolves. So if it dissolves, the assets of that LEC have to go to another limited equity cooperative or they have to go to a nonprofit. So you're putting restrictions on them in similar ways that you put restrictions on nonprofit organizations, but they're not a nonprofit organization. And so the Secretary of State's office raised some concerns with this language in B1 because you're putting in statute of saying treat them as if they're a nonprofit and they're not. And so it's painting with a very broad brush. And if the issue is they are struggling to access certain state funding and grant opportunities, well then figure out what those barriers are and then go amend the state funding and grant opportunities to make sure that a limited equity cooperative is eligible for those funds. That is probably the more appropriate way of resolving the problem, as opposed to just putting in this language in B1. And so that's what the Senate is proposing to do, sunset that, get the report back.

[Unidentified Member]: Thank you. I got it close enough.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thanks! Welcome!

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Since you're sitting here, you want to

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: say that thing wise? I just summarized what you said before you left, but do you want to say it officially?

[Bernadette (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure, it's everyone at the trucking school office. The bill increased the sales tax exemption for manufactured homes from 40% of the transaction to 90%. And when I put a percentage of the bill to you all, that would have had a fiscal impact of $200,000 in fiscal year twenty seven and a $500,000 fiscal impact in '28. And by pushing up the fiscal year, the effective dates a year, that means that those fiscal impacts are moved out of here.

[Unidentified Member]: Fiscal impacts are what?

[Bernadette (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Moved out of here.

[Mark Higley (Member)]: So

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: I don't see how this would be harmful to anybody. If they're moving the impact out of the year, that's going to give people time to prepare. The economy will expand in that year, hopefully. And

[Unidentified Member]: this will provide more housing.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I feel very friendly towards their amendment.

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: Does anyone have any

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: concerns? Okay, let us do a straw poll. All those in favor of the Senate's amendment? All those opposed?

[Rebecca Holcombe (Member)]: We have voted the Senate amendment favorable eleven-zero-zero. Thank you.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay, so our next step here is Teddy and Ted are going go back downstairs again. The rest of us are going go to the floor, and then after the floor, we're going to come back here to vote on the optometrist and ophthalmologist. Cool. If the floor goes on for a long time, we will leave the floor to come back here and vote. Is the floor back? I think the floor is back on in like three minutes.

[Unidentified Member]: Okay. I can