Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Live. Live.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Senate appropriations, January 27, going through the first top three favorite agencies. We now have human resources, so I'll let you introduce yourself, Commissioner.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Good afternoon, I'm Beth Pat Stitchy, I'm the Human Resources Commissioner. I've been in this role for about nine years, and we've got the agency administration's great financial team over here to support me today, so happy to have them here. I was going to go through our budget book, which you guys should have in your notes, and we'll walk you through a couple of steps, you know, kind of the important pages that we can zip around, and please feel free to interrupt me and ask questions whenever you like. But starting, I would say starting on page, page four, is the outline of human resources and our core to guidance. So our vision is a professional human resources team by the continuous and superior service to our most important asset, which is people. We partner with agencies and departments to create and retain an engaged, motivated, and inclusive workforce. Our pillars are breaking down silos, building people up, maintaining organizational effectiveness, building an inclusive and engaged workforce. Then we have a list of good guiding principles that our team works from. Page five is the breakdown of our budget and our big kind of, the big things that are happening. But we are mostly funded through internal service funds, so you bill other departments back for the services that we provide to them. And then with 10% general fund, and then 1%, about 6% internal service home transfers. I said 10% is our general fund, and then 1% we have a special fund. We're proposing a 5% budget increase for fiscal year 'twenty seven, and 80% of that is due to the increase of salary and benefits cost, and the rest is a variety of operational expenses. We have 70 exempt staff, and 105 classified positions. We're continuing the focus this year on our classification system modernization project. If you recall last year, you gave us funds to get started on this project. We had already bid that project out, so as soon as the funding became available on July 1, we started engaging with this vendor and we're well into that project. The first phase of that is, we'll be just fully looking at how we're going to change the system that we've had in place for four years. So, that work is well underway with our vendor and our classification compensation team. We've also engaged folks across state government and other branches in the initial conversations with the vendor so they understand what issues are and now we're just working through and starting with the detailed work.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah, so we're giving more than one year of funding?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: It was funding One

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: time funding.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: One time funding. But the project is, it will, it started this fiscal year, but it won't go into next fiscal year unless you have all the money this year.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, you need more money to finish the project?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: We are not asking for any more money at this time. Don't think that, you know, when it comes to the end, it's it's a classification of the end compensation system, the compensation piece, depending on what the vendor recommends, and then what the administration takes from there, and potentially if we're in a place where we wanna negotiate something with our labor partners, At that point, there could be an additional funding request, but that's too soon for that.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: We're in the, we really are in the classification piece of that.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Or will all the cost of reclassification be done, or they'll just give you a recommendation on how to do the work, and then we have to actually

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: It's kind of two separate pieces, so the idea is changing from that Willis point factor system, and actually breaking it down, breaking down to job architecture and job families, and looking across, like vertically within a department and across departments on how jobs compare to each other, as well as vertically. And that's about all you can say about us right now, but we can definitely come in and talk more about that project if you guys are interested, or operations.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And does it put us more in line with other states that

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: could work? Yeah, we are very, very behind other states in what they've been doing. The center system has implemented it in meetings and that point factor type system really aren't being used anymore. We're not considered the modern way of

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right, well, Senator Chittenden was here, she talked about us. Some of that was started when she first started working And for state is it only for classified, or is it for the exempt and the appointees?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: It's for the, classification system is for classified employees. Yep. We have separate pay plans for exempt employees. So, have an exempt attorney plan that won't, I mean, work can spill over into there, but the first phase is really looking at that lowest point factor system and coming up with something new.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah, thank you.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: And then, focusing, continued focus on our enterprise resource planning system program. So, you may have heard that as the Workday Project, but that is changing out the VTHR system, as well as the Vision system, as well as the budgeting system to have one common system across state government. It's a multi year project. I'm gonna say we're first, but we're kinda second because we already did the budgeting or portions of the budgeting system, but our work is like a lot more involved because we have so much, so much, so much to do and so many changes to make. So we're well into that, we've been well into that for a year. Going through our department, I have in the presentation, starting on page six, the different divisions and what they do individually, but if I could just turn you guys to page 13, it's kind of a nice pictogram of the various divisions and just one or two measurements from those systems to kind of illustrate what they do. So, we have our classification division, and they review the job classes. In 2025, three ninety two job classes reviewed, was 70% of all of our job classes, and it impacted thirteen thirty employees. We provide the benefits for state employees. Uh-huh. So, medical plan premium rates, this year they increased 9% at five year average, 11.4% increase. So, this is the first year in a few years that we're below 10%, which is progress, but still way more than we're seeing.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Pre pandemic

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: in that year. Can you just

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: look at rest of head, mind?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: That's for this year. That's six. '25

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: year after.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Calendar year 2026, we had a 9% increase. Yeah, because VHI was 7.2%. Then So that's a driver of prostating. Yeah, it's a driver across the The co employees pay 20% of the premium, and the employer pays 80% of the premium. So that's reflected in all the department's budgets.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That made it harder for folks that are mostly personnel to stay within the governor's 3%. Yes. And

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: then we do payroll, so we processed 257,286 paychecks last year. We do employment misconduct investigations. We have a target of completing those within eighty days or less, and that's an internal target. And if this wasn't at point five, we did 80% of those in eighty days.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Does your department try to work on things like thinking about the cost of healthcare, or do you just get the number and figure out

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: how Oh, absolutely, we look at the cost of healthcare for our employees, some of the things that drive the healthcare and are driving to increase costs, and what we see in our plan is the same drivers that we're seeing across The US, high rates of increase that we're seeing within the state of Vermont in particular are reflected in our plans. One of the drivers in addition to hospital costs are the GLP1 drugs, which are the weight loss medications, and using those that were previously diabetes medication, those more widespread use of those for weight loss has been a driver, cost driver as well. And we do, you know, in partnership with our labor partners, we have a benefits advisory committee, so we meet quarterly and we discuss cost drivers and metrics also with our And then

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the whole wellness program, is that in there?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Our wellness division, yes, we have our wellness program. One one of the things that you may see at the state house, they come and do biometric screenings, so you may see our wellness team there. They also do, while you're out of session, do flu shot, and COVID shot for next, they have a whole wellness incentive program, and you can get points and potentially get, if you get enough points in the quarter, can get kind of a credit towards your healthcare. You know, it's not enormous, but it's fun. I think it's great to be, you know, you can track all the things that you're doing every day and say, hey, you know, ate my vegetables today, get up to check the box, it just kind of motivates you to stay healthy or get healthier.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I assume that's an effort to lower healthcare, is what Yeah, it may be,

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: that's all part of our, the way we do that program is it's actually a piece of our health insurance. When we bid for our health insurance, we're self insured, Blue Cross Blue Shield is our vendor in the administration. They set aside money for us to use for this wellness program. The point of that is actually to reduce our healthcare costs. Is that the PATH program you're saying about? The benefits that we have is Is it similar? It's probably very similar. I'm not familiar with PATH. Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair have a workforce development division and they run the training center called CAPS, which is up at the Old Belmont College campus. And one of the programs we offer is called Supervisory and State Government, and all first time supervisors are required to take that program. The And statistic here says eighty three percent of those who took the program felt that they were better off and better supported and better prepared to be supervisors as a result of this program. And this goes to the wellness, this is the, 66% of state employees participated in the wellness incentive program. So, had some interaction with our wellness team. We've got, we have a reporting team that pulls a lot of statistics out of our employee data, they did seven eighty one individual parties in the past year. But one of the things we see as a result of the ability for us to report on our employees is the, our annual, some of it, our workforce report, our annual workforce report, which I think you are familiar with, and that has a lot of statistics about state employees. I hope that was me if you

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We've been talking about it in transportation.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Yeah.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: In the town acquisition, that number, eighteen fifty one, has had over the year, or is that a a point in time there was that many openings?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Over fiscal year, there were eighteen fifty one job openings. I actually pulled from our website now, we do have an improvement and vacancy dashboard that you can link to from our website, and currently we have eight eighty six vacancies, and let's see, I'm just seeing how we can join your job listings that's out there. We have requisitions, I have requisitions on this dashboard, which is different than a job posting because that includes like, reposting and post posting.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You could have a vacancy, but you're not trying to sell it. Yeah,

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Or it's just not, the job's not posted because we're getting ready to post, or we're interviewing, and we haven't made this selection yet, but we have

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And 800 openings is that compared

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: The 86 is our vacancy rate. Our vacancy number of vacancies. And four sixty nine of those, I would say, were actively recruiting or in some stage of that recruitment process.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do you know how that compares to over a five year trend, or that, that word

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: We we have in do have that in the report. We have our turnover, we had the highest spike, I'm not, I don't know if it was 2022 or 2023, but since then we've been down, I think this is the third year, the second or third year, more in a normal trend, so we're back at around, our turnover issue now is right around 12%, it's in the 12%, and it was up a little bit from 2024. The turnover rate is primarily driven by voluntary turnover, and second, by retirements. Over the past couple of years, have been actually very low, and we're seeing that spike up more of an increase this year. So, we're expecting by the end of fiscal year 'twenty six to be above that, the past several years retirement.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Think Returned up work, and then you do it.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: It have, it could have, and you know, everyone makes their own decision about when they're going to retire, and yeah, I mean, Harold Schwartz, I don't know if you know Harold Schwartz, but he's been coming with me to the budget since I've been in DHR, and he's had, he retired in December, and he had been planning on retiring for a year, so. Yeah. But

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: you haven't seen turnover, an effect from return from, obviously, so what I saw in the news that there wasn't a big impact.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: It's too early to, it's really too early to say, but the numbers are, for turnover, the turnover numbers for fiscal year 2026 are in line with 2025, and retirement's up year to date, long to date.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And I think I saw that applications were actually stronger, not

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: as Applications are very strong, very strong, and we've been having, like, since the beginning of the year in December, we've been kind of, it seems like since the pandemic, it's just record numbers, and I think the job market has definitely, it's it's definitely opened up, and it's felt like we're getting more applicants for job opening, and just many new applicants than we've seen before. Yeah, so we're encouraged by that as well. And there's a lot of speculation as to why, but we don't have any particular data on that, but I think the state of Vermont is a fantastic place to work, and they have great benefits, and they have premium pay, so if anyone's watching this on YouTube, we're open, and we've got a lot of jobs, we're hiring, so go ahead and apply. Where was I? Okay, so talent acquisition, there's some stats there, and then this is, we have a lead management unit that tracks employees requests for family medical cases, so those have to be kind of documented. So that's a tracking recognition so that we can just make sure that we're staying within the states and the federal family medical laws. So that's kind of, that's like us in a nutshell. I guess what I want to say is, well, some of the work, like the recruitment work, the wellness work, the, is highly visible. A lot of the work we do is behind the scenes. We're kind of a lot of the back office of state government. For example, with the payroll, you may be, your mail box yesterday or very soon aren't gonna be getting W-2s. People think that that's magic. It's not magic to make that happen. There's a lot of work that goes in behind the scenes. It was compounded this year by some changes in the federal tax law that happened, and the one big beautiful bill act that happened kind of last minute. Usually we have more time to plan for those, and our system vendor provides system updates, but we'll like wait, what are the quarterly tax updates, but what's gonna be enough tax updates, what can we use, what can we not, so that's all sometimes even a scramble at the end of the year.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So your W2s are going out?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: The W2s were mailed out. I received mine yesterday in the post office, so and I'm in Burlington, so those folks who live maybe in a more rural area, I can expect to see those sometime, I would say, next month's.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, let's go to right, ma'am. Excellent. I should know.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: There are, so we bargain with the Vermont Troopers Association, and we're personal bargaining with them. We have, with the VSEA, we bargain with the non management bargaining unit, the supervisory bargaining unit, and as well as the corrections bargaining unit. We are not currently bargaining for the corrections at this moment. There was an election about

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: How much need Which she

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: to go with, so that's on hiatus, but we have settled with the non management and supervisory.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Which is the main focus.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Which are the biggest. Well, corrections I think corrections is bigger than supervisory, but the non management is the big one. Yep.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And they're voting now, or what?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: They voted.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They did? They ratified. They did ratified.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: From what I understand, both of those have ratified.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I was sad to see Bennington developing. It's still there, but we just don't get enough.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: It is a trade, so the benefit there is so

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I did like it because it was a very Vermont y holiday.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: People did like the Benington Battle Day holiday, but we have the, we, in the last bargaining cycle, the troopers, as well as the corrections bargaining unit swapped out Eddington Battle Day for Indigenous Peoples' Day and, and Juneteenth, and so in this cycle the other two bargaining units did also, so everybody will be on the same holiday schedule, which I think is easier operationally across state government, and we do have very generous lead plans, so those employees who do want to celebrate and to battle there, hopefully they will be able to put in for that and be able to take that day off. Especially those run those down in the

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Bed. In quadrant.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right. And they get personal. Do you have questions about that?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Nope. I've just been looking at the ups and downs and thinking about thinking about I've got other questions. Okay.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You could ask them if you want, or you could you could ruminate them on.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: So one of them is and I I think I am still digesting how well, some of this works, but I'm just so I'm seeing it more of the if I'm interpreting this correctly, downs and vacancy savings, or vacancy turnover savings? So vacancy turn, that's always a down. It's kind of like a credit to, our, if you look in, yeah. My question is actually not about that one. Okay. But then the one below that, other personal services, and that's down. And I'm just wondering what that means. I think I'm digesting what other personal services So that's in the if you're looking at page seven are you on page seven? What page are you on? Yes. Page 17. Page 17. So you have the column you were asking about was in the internal service funds, and then over to the right, I think the internal department transfers. Yes. The negative 210,000 So that is a transfer between departments. We get money in. One of those positions is from, it is different from last year. We created a chief communications officer position. So we're trying that, and I might not be explaining it right, so Harmony may have to jump in and help me, but that's money that I can transfer in for that position, as well as we have limited service positions, two limited service positions for the Workday project, and one of the positions is showing in that budget. How did I deal with Harmony? Is that right? Okay. It's just a difference in how we spend it. Okay. One went up, one went down, and they just haven't used different line items of both calls on personal services. Got you. Okay. And so, it's maybe not funded through this particular debt ID at this point, but it might be, it's gonna, like, where else would it show up? AOAs. AOAs. Yep. So, if it's funded by an AOA. Okay. That position sits. Well, the position sits there, but the position counselor actually sits through DHR, so they give them the functions so that they can have the position.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh. Thank you. Is your service fee that you're charging other people growing up? Are we gonna see that and as a people?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Yes, you see in everybody's budget, you see we have two big internal service funds. One is the HR internal service fund, and that's mostly on our operating budget, which you'll see on page 17, most of that is an internal service fund. And then we have the VTHR internal service fund, which is part of the vision fund, so the vision fund, that funds the VTHR, and it funds the vision system, the accounting system, that also align items that show up in other people's budgets.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is that changing since we're getting rid of vision, switching?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Well, yeah, will be

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I assume there's a lot of costs involved.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: So there's a separate cost, there's separate money that was allocated for the project itself. So the funds in the vision fund right now, and Holly, maybe you will want to add in to what I'm saying, but So, the project funds right now are funded separately, but once Is there any other works in our committee, yes? It's I'm gonna just let Holly talk. Holly, instance, financial services division. The Workday appropriation, there's a one time appropriation in AOA, and then there's another appropriation within ADS. And so, we're spending down the AOA appropriation first.

[Holly (Financial Services Division, Vermont DHR)]: So there are two appropriations.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But does it affect HR's insurance service talking about they're going have to charge folks to recruit some of that?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: So the billing module had, the billing for that has not been developed yet, but but we and that that vision fund is meant for an ERP, you know, to to con because that system will handle financial piece as well as all the HR, similar to what the HR is doing. So there will be an ERP billing module similar to what's being done today for VTHR. Okay. Other questions did you wanna walk through or just ask questions coming on about these ups and downs? We

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: don't have to go through all of it, but if there's anything else you wanna bring our attention to or you think something to

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: The really only add things different this year from last year are the limited service positions, the two that we have for the Workday project that are being funded through that agency, the AOA, the RPE Project Appropriation. So that's, that's, that's the biggest difference, I would say. Other, and that's kind of an upstudent in our head count. But otherwise, it's our regular operating costs, and our big projects are already funded through one time funds that have already been allocated.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I have a question on exempt employees, because since I have a lot of state workers in my district, I get a lot of questions from state workers about the difference between classified pay, goes through the sole classification system, which we're doing, and then what the exempt pay, and then what the don't know if there's, like, pick up of the idea that, and then the appointees. Know in the statute, the appointees are laid out there, I don't know if you even know why we put that in statute. I don't if that matters, but I thought it was kind of weird that we put it in statute.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Employees who are in classified service, whether you're in the classified service or exempt from classified service, are defined in statute. So, the classified service folks have more job protections. They have like a constitutional job protection where they are, they have a property interest in their job, where exempt employees are typically more like at will employees. So, you'll see the people who are exempt from the classified service are appointed authorities like me. Sometimes people like Holly might be, so there are some CFOs maybe that are exempt, but most of them are classified. So even the high level management employees are generally classified, but attorneys are exempt You from classified have the superintendents in the correctional facilities that are exempt from classified service, and many of those folks actually have separate pay plans where all of the folks that are appointees or appointees, they're still exempt or at will. It's more like an at will employee versus those kind of protections of the classified service.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So they're gonna be compensated for not having any job security in a way?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Yep, yeah, so there's not the same type of job security that you would have, that you have in classified service that you might have in an exempt position. Interestingly, troopers follow the classified service for many things, but are actually exempt from the classified service. So they don't have the, part of being the classified service is you have that labor board. You can, like, you get terminated, you can appeal to the labor board. You're only, if you're an exempt employee, need to go to the court, if you were going to sue your employer. But they, classified employees have that right to go and get their case for by the labor board. Whether you're a member of a collective bargaining agreement or not, still you have that ability to go to the labor court.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And it's all done in the pay act, like that's where that discussion happens.

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: The money happens in the pay act and then how much money is allocated for, you know, that's based typically on what we negotiate for the collective bargaining folks, then we usually extend that to the exempt employees as well. And the vast majority of exempt employees, you can see that in the workforce report, but the biggest percentage there are the attorneys that work in the staff attorneys within the agency, the department's, or attorneys that work for our attorney general's office.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's been an issue that's come up as the executive branch, or the exempt, get that same percentage increase as the classified into the negotiation, but since they're at such higher salaries, bigger dollar number, and then over years, the gap between the two. So I don't know, that's why I was asking about if the classification system is going to look at that. Is over time

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: So that's, yeah, and that is more of the compensation system, and interestingly, so the Corrections Bargaining Unit, I think it last time around, negotiated a new pay chart. So their pay chart where the regular classified pay plans, you get steps, which increases your salary. The first six years is a step every year, and then it's a step every two years, and then at the end, a step every three years. So it takes you about twenty five and a half years, or twenty four and a half years, in the range of twenty five years to get to the actual top pay, where the corrections department, the corrections department need to condense that so you get a step every year. But why I brought that up was, when they negotiated that new pay plan, the second year of that plan, the pay increase is not a percentage increase, it was a flat dollar amount increase, where what we negotiated with the other bargaining units over the years, that's more typical, is a percentage increase, does, you know, the higher paid employees, whether get higher pay. So, it can make that spread over time a lot wider, which is funny.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. If that wasn't a budget question for you, but if there was something

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Oh, I wanna say one other thing about exempt and classified employees. A lot of folks that aren't in the public sector talk about exempt, and that's a different thing, because they're talking about exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act. So that's determined how employees get overtime, and are determined to date overtime, just nationally and in Vermont. So, if you're talking about exempt employees, just in general with our regular business, they don't have any idea what we're talking about when you say exempt and classified, because they're talking about exempt from overtime rules in the federal government, which is different.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But we still have the same overtime rules?

[Beth Fastiggi, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Human Resources]: Well, ours we've negotiated, we do have to follow the state and federal overtime rules, but through our collective bargaining agreements we're generally more generous than what is required. So there might be somebody under the Fair Labor Standards Act that, no, there might be somebody that would be exempt from like the overtime, the time and a half, paying for overtime and the Fair Labor Standards Act, yet to reflect a bargaining agreement, they get time and a half for overtime anyway, even though we're not required to as an employer by law, but we are required to because we've negotiated it in our collective bargaining periods, which makes implementing new payroll software very complicated.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Right? Because they sell it to you based on the national loans. Okay. Well, thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you.